TBK Chapter Fifty-six (Patreon)

Walking through the fog of spores, picking his way among the softly-covered mounds of corpses, was one of the eeriest experiences Kaz had ever had. Even Raff was silent, and there were no distant scratches of fuergar claws on stone, or faint, echoing sounds of a screech or squeal from some far-flung tunnel. In fact, the only thing Kaz could hear other than their own muffled footsteps and breathing was an occasional drip of water from somewhere out of sight.

Kaz stayed as far from the bodies as he could, but now and then some part of one would enter their bubble, and he flinched away from it as best he could. He could see that Lianhua was doing the same, and even Gaoda had his robe tucked into his belt so the hem wouldn’t touch anything.

The fuulong silk seemed to resist the spores as well as it did dirt, so Lianhua, Chi Yincang, and Gaoda were all relatively free of them, but there was a thick coating on Raff’s lower legs, and the fur on Kaz’s legs was tangled with the stuff. He had to resist the urge to try and wipe it off every time he noticed it. His skin crawled at the knowledge that it was touching him, but he knew it would be worse to brush at it and get it on his hands and arms, which were inside the shield.

The whole group breathed a sigh of relief when they were through, and Kaz glanced back behind them. There was no chance that anyone foolish enough to come here could miss the wide path of disturbed spores they’d left behind, and Kaz was torn between a hope that no one remained here, and a darker expectation that if someone did, they would be too incapacitated to be much of a danger.

They followed the pawprints through dusty tunnels, each one as clouded and silent as the last. More mounds marked the bodies of kobold and beast alike, but they were almost always buried beneath such a thick blanket of spores that no details were visible. Kaz was grateful for this at first, but over time he began to notice clues that indicated he might need to investigate further.

At last, when they found yet another group of fallen kobolds, this one larger than most of the ones before, Kaz held up a hand to halt them. He refused to whisper, but he spoke softly when he said, “There’s something I need to check. Can we move closer?”

The humans looked from Kaz to the six mounds ahead, obviously confused.

Gaoda scowled. “They’re dead. What more do you need to know? Normally, I’d be all for checking to see if they’re carrying anything valuable, but they’re just kobolds, so what could they possibly have?”

Kaz shook his head. “I think I may have figured out a little bit of what’s going on. If I’m right, it may be dangerous to approach any of the tribes until we’re completely out of the fulan.”

Everyone agreed, and Kaz moved closer, then found himself at an impasse when he realized that he would have to touch them in order to see if he was correct. Something nudged at his shoulder, and when he looked over, Raff grinned at him before pulling his sword from his sheath and extending it beyond the bubble.

“Guess I can help out a little, Blue. What d’you want to see?”

Kaz’s tail waved gently in appreciation. It was still barely within the bubble, so it didn’t disturb the spores, but when he realized what he was doing, he stopped and tugged at his ear in embarrassment.

“Can you… roll them over? I need to see them without all the fulan in the way.”

Raff shrugged and nodded, then leaned forward until his face was just within the clear space inside the shield, and carefully rolled over one, then another of the bodies, until they were all face up and relatively clear of spores.

Kaz swallowed hard, and Lianhua looked at him sharply. “What’s wrong?”

Kaz pointed at three of the bodies, then glanced at the humans to see if they understood. Their expressions said they didn’t, so he explained.

“These three are females. They have no packs, and their necklaces are different. They’re also-” he hesitated, not sure whether he should mention what were, to him, obvious anatomical differences, and decided to let it rest at that, simply finishing with, “They’re definitely females.”

Gaoda and Raff exchanged glances, and the big man shrugged while Gaoda’s usual expression of impatience simply deepened.

Kaz sighed. “Females don’t die like this. Males do. I would have expected a group like this to be all males, or possibly one female. At most, if two tribes declared vara and had patrols wandering around in this mess, it would be one female from each group, so two females and four males. I would really expect more males in that case, though, because that female would be expected to survive even if every male had to die to protect her. Males are replaceable, but the females are the strength of a tribe. Plus, a female’s body would never be left like this.”

He gestured to one of the females, who had a particularly large silver fuergar tooth at the center of her necklace, and then the male beside her, who had a matching tooth on his warrior necklace. “When kobolds mate, they exchange part of the necklaces they made after their spirit hunts. Sometimes the items aren’t particularly unique, but it’s unusual to find silver fuergar. I’m sure these two are mates. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, since a female is more likely to travel protected by her mate, but I suspect these other four are also mated pairs.”

Gaoda made a ‘hurry up’ motion’ with his hand, and the others didn’t look enlightened yet.

Kaz shook his head. “There’s no way three mated pairs would be out here alone, in a dangerous area. They should have other males with them, at the very least. The only reason these six would be here is if the females were exiled from their tribes, and their mates went with them.”

Lianhua looked puzzled. “Maybe they were fleeing their den when they died?”

Kaz crouched slightly, pointing to the wounds on the bodies. Two of the females and two of the males had burn marks on their fur, while the female with the silver tooth had the tip of a rough iron knife protruding from beneath her ribs. It had gone in her back, and been left there. The third male, also the one with a silver tooth, had wounds from a weapon, and still clutched a stone knife in one hand.

“It looks like the females did battle, with this one defeating the other two and two of the males.” He shook his head again, not sure how to explain. “But that’s not how any of this works. The males should have wounds left by knives or clubs, but they don’t. One or more females killed them, and the males weren’t attacking each other to defend their females. Females focus on each other while their mates protect them from the unattached males, who fight each other and try to get to the opposing females. And-”

He pointed to the knife in the female’s back, and the one in her mate’s hand. “This male is the only one unmarked by power burns. She didn’t attack him. But I think he killed her, then killed himself. And the only time a male would kill his mate is if she was injured beyond saving, and he was releasing her to the ancestors before she suffered further. But this female looks uninjured except for the fatal blow, which was delivered from behind.”

Raff looked dubious. “How can y’ be sure that’s what happened?”

Kaz straightened and rubbed at his nose tiredly. “I can’t. I’m guessing based on what I see and what I know of my own people. What I can be sure of is that if females are attacking each other in the tunnels, and their bodies are being abandoned, something is very, very wrong not just here, but in the dens they came from. Something is making females leave with only their mates to protect them, and then they’re fighting each other when they meet. This isn’t tribe against tribe, especially since I think these are all from the same tribe. This is personal.”

“An attempted coup, like in the Copperstrikers? Maybe some of these support one female for chief, and the others want someone else?” Lianhua suggested.

“You saw how that worked,” Kaz reminded her. “Sides were decided, and then everyone fought at once. When one of the leaders was defeated, everyone else immediately stopped fighting. Sometimes, when the tribe isn’t divided like that, the only ones who fight are the females competing for chief, and their mates, if they have one.”

“So they wouldn’t be out here fighting each other in small groups, unless maybe one of these was the chief, and one or more of the others was a challenger,” she said.

He nodded. “But the battle wouldn’t happen here. It has to be witnessed. Plus, none of these is a chief. Only the one with the silver fuergar fang was even particularly powerful.”

Gaoda ran a hand through his fur irritably. “I’m not even going to ask how you know that, since it’s probably more kobold nonsense I don’t care about. In fact, I’m not sure why it matters at all. It’s not like we intended to stop at any of the tribes up here anyway. We know how to get down from here, and in fact, it’s very convenient for us that we don’t have to stop and play nice every time we reach a staircase.”

Kaz gritted his teeth before saying, “It matters because the beasts we’ve seen have been larger than usual, and though I didn’t look closely when we passed through the cavern at the bottom of the stairs, I think if I had, I would have found that at least half of them were females as well. Plus, Litz has been killing her female companions, in spite of the fact that they should be sticking together at least until they can find another tribe to take them in.”

The humans still looked puzzled.

He sighed, looking around at them. “What do unusually large beasts and female kobolds have in common?”

It was Lianhua who got it. “Cores!”

He nodded. “I can’t prove it, but I think the fulan is affecting creatures with cores somehow. It would explain-”

Kaz hesitated, then reluctantly said, “When Aunt Rega destroyed that big patch of fulan, a cough wasn’t the only thing wrong with her afterwards. She would just stop talking sometimes, and when she started again, she was always… different. Angry. Rega didn’t get angry easily, and we pups were worried about what would happen if we reported it to Oda. Besides, Rega didn’t even remember it afterwards, even if she hurt someone. We just learned to leave her alone when she grew quiet, and come back once she started speaking again. Eventually, she got better.”

“Well, that would have been good to know sooner,” Gaoda muttered.

Kaz’s eyes slid away. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. We still have to pass through here to reach the Deep. I told you enough so you would know the spores might not be safe to breathe, and the rest… Rega hurt a pup. Badly. She didn’t remember, but she was ashamed of it. She even thought about leaving the tribe over it. We convinced her not to, and promised not to tell anyone. Once she got better, it didn’t matter, and I still don’t know that what happened to her was tied to the fulan. I’m just saying that from what I’ve seen, it’s possible.”

Lianhua reached out as if to set her hand on his shoulder, and Kaz dodged. Lianhua’s face fell, but she said, “The only thing that’s changed is that now we know we need to be extra careful of any female kobolds we see. We can’t assume that they’ll be rational, right?”

Kaz nodded. “Especially a female alone or only with a single male.”

“All right then,” Raff said thoughtfully. “But does that mean that we’re all safe from the spores? If it only affects creatures with cores, and we don’t have any, then we should be fine.”

Lianhua’s gaze flicked to Kaz and then Li, who was still clinging unhappily to his neck.

“Maybe. But all of us have power, and even though none of us have started forming a core yet, that’s the next stage of cultivation after Foundation. If this isn’t about cores, but about the ability to manipulate ki or,” she smiled at Raff, “mana, then we’re all in more danger than regular creatures or male kobolds.”

Raff grunted. “Makes sense. Blue here should be safe enough, though. Next time we run into something strange, he can go ahead and scout it out for us, since Chi Yincang is stuck in here with us.”

Kaz’s heart fell, but Lianhua shook her head firmly.

“No,” she told the male. “This is all a hypothesis. What we’re doing now is working. I say we just keep on as we have been, but if we meet other kobolds, we don’t approach them.”

Gaoda rolled his eyes. “Then nothing has changed, and this whole discussion was pointless. Wonderful. Let’s go.”