The Broken Knife

Kaz landed on the back of the abomination, his claws already gouging into flesh which felt more like that of a mushroom than a beast. All seven heads whipped around, jaws snapping, but Kaz was already moving, claws ripping as his paws dug deep into the quivering mass. Only the reptilian head on the long neck could turn enough to reach him, and he twisted and dodged as he attempted to avoid it.

A shout came from behind him, and he managed to glance away long enough to see that the rest of the party was dropping out of the crevice behind him, while the group of kobolds just stared in shocked surprise. Kaz had, at least, managed to distract the monster enough that the kobold it had grabbed was just hanging in the air at the end of the tentacle, rather than already on the way down the janjio-head’s gullet.

Lianhua jumped down, stumbling a bit as she stared at Kaz atop the hulking monstrosity, which continued to howl and screech its fury at the little thing that tormented it. Kaz had to turn his attention back to what he was doing as his claws finally reached beneath the thick layers of skin and oddly squishy tissue. The reptile-head bit at him with renewed fury, and he was forced to roll and slide down its side.

“Kaz!” A shout reached his ears above the cacophony of the beast, and he glanced over in time to see Lianhua launch an arrow from her bow. It was a normal arrow, rather than one made of ki, but it flew straight and true, burying itself in one of the blazing eyes that glared at Kaz with insane ire.

The remaining eye instantly locked on Lianhua instead, and it dropped the kobold in favor of launching its tentacles toward her instead. Chi Yincang’s weapon sliced through the air, severing the writhing limbs and leaving their tips flailing on the floor.

The monster roared its anger again, but no blood came from the wounds. Kaz suddenly realized that while he was covered in the fluid that had leaked from the injuries he had dealt, it was as thin as water, and nearly as clear. Even Lianhua’s arrow hadn’t caused blood to flow, but instead more of the same strange liquid.

The beast shook, and Kaz’s claws slipped free. He found himself on the ground beside the monster, staring at scrabbling feet larger than his chest. He rolled, then twisted and rolled again, avoiding a great, flat foot covered in gray, wrinkled skin. When his back slammed up against a wall, he thought his brave assault might end with him being inadvertently squashed beneath one of the mismatched feet as the monster tried to reach Lianhua through Chi Yincang’s swirling defense.

Then Li bit Kaz’s ear, and he jerked out of his dazed confusion as the feet pounded the ground all around him. He looked around, seeing the dragonling hovering in the air beside him, glaring with eyes that were almost entirely black. The cloth bag that was supposed to be protecting her lay on the floor, and Kaz snatched it up, lunging for her as she darted back out of his reach. A clawed foot scraped the wall where he’d sat a moment before, but he was too busy chasing down the little dragon to notice.

She needed the cloth. Needed to be protected. Safe. He knew she didn’t like it, but-

A blunted tentacle wrapped around his left paw, yanking him up to dangle in the air. He had just enough time to see the looming maw of one of the heads opening to take him in before Raff’s sword cut through the tentacle, and part of the head’s lower jaw as well. Kaz tumbled to the floor again, dropping the bag and losing sight of Li in the process.

“Kaz!” Lianhua’s shriek once again pulled him from a moment of disorientation, and he rolled out of the way of a whipping blow from the remaining tentacle before shaking his head, which thudded painfully. At some point, he’d struck his head, and now his mind refused to focus on the battle that raged all around him.

Another arrow struck the monster’s body, quivering beside four others, none of which seemed to do much besides annoy the beast when it tried to move the legs attached just below. Two dim balls of ki darted around the heads, and though they seemed unable to inflict any real damage to the thing, they did at least distract it.

Raff was in the thick of it, along with two of the kobolds. Three of the others darted in and out of the battle, trying unsuccessfully to do more than cut through the surface layer of the monstrosity. While Raff’s blade sliced into the creature with relative ease, carving away chunks that fell to the ground and sluggishly oozed viscous fluid, the kobold’s weapons did little to nothing in comparison. Still, they fought on, and Kaz was certain they would die before they would give up, knowing that their tribe could be the next victims of the thing.

A flash of black ki caught Kaz’s attention, and he saw Chi Yincang land on the monster’s back, in the same place Kaz himself had been digging into it. Dark ki glowed around his long weapon as he spun it, then slammed it deep inside the beast.

It was this attack that finally seemed to tip the creature over into utter madness. At some point, either Raff or Chi Yincang had managed to cut off the lizard head, and one of the tentacles was only a stump. It still had all its other limbs, however, and now it began to spin, snapping wildly at everything and nothing. Its remaining tentacle stretched out, whipping down at anything that moved, then pulling back before any of them could strike at it.

Lianhua was knocked off her feet, and Raff instantly retreated to stand in front of her and Gaoda, who had barely managed to dodge the blow that had felled the female. The monster stepped on one of the kobolds before knocking another flying. He thudded against the wall, sliding bonelessly down again, and Kaz realized that unless someone did something, the kobolds he had been so desperate to save were all going to die, even if the humans managed to escape.

Unless he did something. This thing barely seemed to feel pain, and it didn’t seem to matter how much fluid or flesh it lost. He supposed that Chi Yincang might eventually manage to carve it down to harmless pieces, but even he was at far from his best, and would eventually wear down.

But Kaz knew the weakness of every creature with a core, and he knew exactly where the core was. He could see it, burning with murky ki, deep in the body of the beast.

Turning, Kaz pushed ki into his legs, running straight toward the crack in the wall right behind Gaoda, Lianhua, and Raff. Gaoda’s face twisted into anger as Kaz ran past, no doubt thinking that Kaz was trying to run away. The male put his hand out, grasping at Kaz, but Kaz’s empowered legs bore him onward with a speed no mortal had ever possessed, and he ran straight up the wall, placing his paw in the crack just long enough to get enough leverage to leap up and back toward the monster, twisting in midair so he could land claws first.

Chi Yincang hadn’t been idle while Kaz decided what to do, and cloudy ichor flowed out of the hole he had dug in the creature’s body. Things pulsed within the monstrosity’s flesh, but none of them were recognizable as organs or muscle.

Kaz landed beside Chi Yincang, nearly slipping in the slimy fluid and ending his assault by sliding off and winding up as goo beneath those trampling feet, but he managed to dig his claws in at the last moment, hanging on for dear life. For once, an honest expression crossed the human’s face as he saw Kaz pull himself back up beside him: astonishment. Then a hint of a smile turned up one corner of his mouth before he turned his attention back to his task.

Kaz laid a hand on Chi Yincang’s arm as the male spun his weapon in preparation for yet another blow, and the dark eyes jerked back to him. Kaz shook his head, motioning to indicate that he wanted to finish what he’d begun. Chi Yincang’s eyes narrowed, but he gave a short nod and shifted his attack from the body to the heads that were still howling, hissing, barking, screeching, and snapping at the two nuisances that clung to its back.

Kaz dug his claws deep into the dense tissue, and swung his legs into the hole Chi Yincang had made. It nearly reached his waist by now, and should have severed any number of nerves and arteries, as well as damaging several very important organs. Instead, the monster continued to move, fighting with ever-increasing fury as the remaining kobolds and humans continued their ineffectual assault.

Twice before, Kaz had unintentionally managed to create a ki bolt. Months ago, he had killed a janjio, which had led to his discovery of the cave where he found the dragon nest. He hadn’t had much power then, though it had seemed like a great deal at the time, and it had caused him no damage except for a few small blisters on his palm that faded within days.

The second time, he had nearly managed to blow himself up, pushing all of his ki out toward the horde of woshi larvae that had been trying to eat him. He had shattered his core, crippling himself until a strange, aged being aided him when he once again nearly killed himself while trying to repair the damage.

Now, he needed to do it right. Given the difficulty even Chi Yincang had been having in carving his way through, it would take minutes to dig down through the quivering flesh that now surrounded him. Kaz needed to reach the monster’s core and destroy it before anyone else died.

Pushing ki into his lungs, Kaz took in a deep breath and bent, thrusting his hand down into the monster as far as he could. Hot fluid surrounded his chest, then his eyes, and finally covered his upraised muzzle as he strained to reach the bottom of the hole. When he could reach no further, Kaz began to pull every hint of ki that he could spare, shifting it into his hand.

When kobold females learned to use their power to create light, they pushed it into their own hand, making it glow like they held a miniature fire. Eventually, they could transfer that power to an object, so long as that object wasn’t far away from them. The last step was pushing energy out of their bodies as a bolt of power that could injure or even kill an opponent.

Kaz was fairly certain that his mistake with the woshi had been picturing his energy blowing out from inside him. He could see the ki cycling in his own core, and he had simply imagined it expanding until it escaped his own flesh, which had resulted not only in the core breaking, but his channels becoming so stretched and flaccid that they couldn’t contain his ki without leaking.

But when Lianhua made her arrows, and Gaoda made his ki orbs, the energy formed outside of their bodies. Kaz wasn’t sure how, since it seemed as if the power within should have to travel through the flesh in order to escape, but he could see that that was what had happened. Even Chi Yincang and, to a lesser extent, Raff, pushed power into an external object - their weapons - before using it.

So Kaz imagined his core spinning, faster and faster, as he pulled ki from it. Power flowed through him, utterly destabilizing his own cycle, but he’d known that would happen, and if he acted quickly enough, he hoped it wouldn’t cause too much of a problem. His arms and legs lost feeling, as they did when the channels feeding them became too empty, but it didn’t matter, because he was already in position. Should it make a difference if the bolt formed in front of his hand, or could he have used any part of his body as a conduit for the ki? He didn’t know, but this fit the picture in his mind, and somehow, that picture was very, very important.

When he felt his heart stutter, he imagined the power he had gathered forming into an arrow just beyond his fingertips. He could see the glimmering light it would give off, the elongated shape of it, feel the heat of the energy that all but burned his skin.

In his mind, it burst forth, and the flesh beneath his fingers roiled, pushing back and expanding until chunks of flesh and a fountain of ichor nearly blew him back out of the hole. He had retained just enough strength that he was able to dig his claws in and hang on, at least until the slippery fluid seemed to suck his whole body in and down. He felt his paws break through into the cold air of the cave, dropping out of the hole he’d blown completely through the monstrous beast.

And in front of his face was the core. His eyes were closed, covered in fluid that burned his skin, but he could see it, hanging there, and he found himself nearly overwhelmed by the urge to take it into his mouth, bite down, and devour it, just as he had once longed to do to Li’s core. His jaws were already opening when an image broke into his mind, one he had shown Li as she was trapped in the bag meant to protect her, unable to see anything with her own eyes.

He saw the female kobold they had nearly stumbled over in the tunnel on the way here, her eyes crazed as she ripped the core from the flesh of a fuergar and swallowed it whole. Li held the image in front of him, playing it over and over as he fought for control of himself.

At last, at last he pulled up an arm, sliding it through the squishy, slimy flesh-but-not-flesh that surrounded him, and he clasped the core in his hand instead of his salivating mouth. It stung as if he’d put his hand in a clump of xunma, but he squeezed, using the first flush of ki starting to re-enter his channels to increase the strength of his grip. The core crumbled to grit, and the body around Kaz shuddered, tensed, and then fell, crushing his dangling paws beneath its weight, and leaving him trapped in darkness.