Chapter One hundred-one (Patreon)

The space beyond was small and dark, and though Kaz froze, finger extended and ears perked, he couldn’t hear anything to indicate that anyone or anything had heard the soft rasping of stone against stone. Like the map in the Redmane’s den, this one swiveled in the middle, so perfectly balanced that it barely made a sound until it thumped against some object that had been left in the way.

Slowly, Kaz straightened from his crouch, pulling his knife from its sheath as he took a single step into the little room. The ceiling was high, but he doubted if he could take more than five steps before running into the wall, and half that space was taken up by a pile of something that smelled strange and sweet. There was a familiarity to it, but he thought it had been a long time since he sniffed anything quite like it, and he couldn’t put a name to the scent.

He stiffened as a strange, deep, rolling sound came from somewhere beyond the room, causing the fur along his spine to lift. Whatever that was, it was large, and he didn’t think it was happy.

Moving forward until he was out of the way of the swinging wall, Kaz gently nudged it, pushing it almost completely shut. Glancing around, he saw a small, cylindrical thing on the ground and picked it up, intending to use it to prop the door open. When he felt the strangely smooth, light weight of the object, he stopped, lifting it to his eyes so he could examine it.

It was slender, brown, and, when he peered down its length, he could tell it was hollow. He hadn’t seen the plant this came from often, since it was highly prized, and strong tribes were perfectly willing to fight over any territory where it grew, but he was almost certain it was a yumi reed. In the Deep, the yumi plant was, if not common, at least not rare, but it needed certain conditions to grow, and those conditions were rarely met in the upper levels.

It was valued because the reeds were the only source of arrow shafts besides the long, hollow bones of janjio wings, which were too brittle to be reused. Besides that, the roots could be eaten, the reeds could also be made into strips and woven into something like stiff cloth, the powder it produced was a sweet and savory thickener for soups and stews, and the fluffy material that developed after the powder was gone was excellent for creating a soft, warm place to sleep.

Surta had said that young kobolds were usually sent to work in the yumi pools, so was that where Kaz had ended up? Was this a storeroom for yumi reeds?

Bending, Kaz tucked the reed into the small gap between the wall and the pivoting door, lightly brushing against the door as he straightened. It promptly crushed the slender reed to splinters and clicked back into place, leaving the wall looking entirely ordinary, so long as you considered ‘elaborately carved’ to be ordinary. Which, in this place, it might well be.

Nothing in the room gave off ki except Kaz himself, so he took a moment to create a ki-orb, giving it only what it needed so he could look at the carved section of wall. Much like the one in the Redmane den, this one showed something like a map of the nine mosui levels, and when he pressed the red stone in the center, the door easily swung open again, much to Kaz’s relief.

Once he was certain he could retreat into the stairwell if he needed a place to hide, Kaz examined the map more closely, trying to see if it had any clues about his location or where he needed to go next. This time, Kaz was on the levels pictured himself, and quickly realized that one of the figures on the eighth level was noticeably larger than the others and stood next to a set of the stacked horizontal lines he believed represented stairs. There was even a symbol that could be a rune above the lines, and he wondered if that would tell him something about the level, if he could only read it.

If Kaz was interpreting the image correctly, that meant that in spite of all the stairs he’d climbed, he really had ascended only one level. He nearly groaned at the thought, but at least that confirmed he had managed to go up, and was no longer trapped in the mines with the rest of the kobold warriors.

He also saw that there was another set of stacked lines not far away, at least as far as the map was concerned. Of course, it also represented a thousand steps as ten stacked lines, so perhaps he shouldn’t trust its accuracy when it came to relative distance.

The next set of stairs, if that was what they were, were closer to the center of the map than the one beside the outsized figure. According to the very first map he’d seen, which showed the mosui city in the middle of the entire mountain, that meant Kaz needed to go….

Spinning, Kaz let his sense of the mountain tell him in which direction the center lay, and found himself looking at a dark rectangle set into a stone wall on the opposite side of the room from the map. At least the door led in the right direction.

With a sigh, Kaz looked at the map once more. He was uncomfortable with the number of assumptions he was making, to say the least, but it was still better than nothing. He would do his best, and if he learned something or found another way up, all the better.

Leaving the false security of the stairs behind, Kaz moved to the door, listening for any further signs of something large and potentially dangerous on the other side. When none came, he gingerly pushed on the door, which didn’t budge. He pushed harder, and the door groaned beneath the pressure, bowing away from him. At last, Kaz identified the problem. This door only opened one way, unlike the leather and bone ones he was used to, which could swing either way with equal ease.

Reaching out, he grasped the rough, braided strap that served as a handle, and pulled, blinking against the clear, bright light outside. It took several seconds and a by-now automatic adjustment of the ki flowing to his eyes before he could see, and when he did, he still found himself doubting his eyes.

Overhead, the ceiling of the cavern was speckled with azure and golden crystals, ki flooding the area with soft blue-white light in the same way the red crystals lit the city and the mine. There were far more yellow crystals than blue, but somehow the two shades existed in perfect balance, neither one overwhelming the other.

Beneath this startlingly clear light, the cavern stretched out before Kaz, as large or larger than the one the hoyi queen occupied, and it was entirely filled with water. Pure water, so crystal clear that Kaz could only tell it was there because of the way it rippled around the endless yumi reeds. He could see the roots of the plants beneath the water, spreading and mingling in a mat that covered the stony ground so completely that the gray surface was barely visible.

Wading among these reeds were kobolds, each one wielding a knife and carrying a large niu-fur sling that hung at their sides. Around their throats, plain metal collars were nearly hidden by heavy, damp fur. As they walked, they methodically cut the stalks of the tallest yumi and laid them crosswise in the sling, each movement so practiced that the reeds seemed to stack up almost by themselves. Many of the kobolds were puppies, and the adults also tended to be on the smaller side, and every single one had fur that was some shade of brown or gray.

Kaz realized he had been standing in plain sight for far too long, and was about to duck back into the building behind him when one of the nearby pups, a tan male with soft white spots, looked up and saw him. The pup’s golden-brown eyes widened, and his ears perked up as his tail began to wag. He yipped a greeting, which caught the attention of the other young gatherers nearby, who all looked up as well.

Kaz froze, but it was far too late, and the gazes now being directed at him held curiosity, not fear or suspicion, so he lifted a hand in greeting. It was only after he did so that he realized he had spent too much time with the humans, and dropped it, instead giving the soft bark of one pup to another. Instantly, all eyes fell to his throat, where no warrior’s necklace hung, and while the few adults promptly dismissed him, the puppies only looked more interested.

The pup who had seen him first waded through the water toward Kaz. He was small enough that even as shallow as it was, the water reached to his thighs, but he paid it no attention. The pool became shallower and shallower as he approached, until it faded away entirely about ten feet in front of Kaz, at which point the young kobold stopped, and gave a firm shake, sending water droplets flying.

Kaz stepped back, and the pup yipped a laugh, his tongue lolling playfully. “I’m Nogz,” he said, when he’d regained his composure. “You must be new.”

His eyes took Kaz in, and he looked pleased. “You’re big! You’ll be able to cut lots of reeds. Or maybe take care of the niu. But didn’t you talk to Eld?”

Hesitantly, Kaz shook his head, and Nogz grinned, turning back to the rest of the gatherers.

“I’m going to take the new pup… Ah, what’s your name?”

Kaz gave it, and Nogz nodded, calling, “I’m going to take Kaz to see Eld!”

The other males nodded, and a few of the pups gave little barks of acknowledgement as Nogz trotted off to Kaz’s right, waving for Kaz to follow. He did, still looking around.

There was a whole row of buildings like the one from which Kaz had emerged, and Kaz wished he could check inside them. What if the staircase going up was right next door? There was no way he could, though, not now that he’d been spotted, at least not without either attacking Nogz or slipping away, either of which would doubtless cause the younger male to call for help. Better to wait, and hope this Eld was a kobold, and not a mosui or husede with a kobold name.

They passed ten of the small buildings, each one identical to the last, and then Kaz stopped short as they rounded a corner and saw a beast standing there, its great, humped shoulders nearly as tall as the top of the buildings. It had several yumi reeds dangling from its mouth, chewing them so slowly that Kaz could see each flat yellow tooth as it ground away at the green mass. The four curving horns protruding from its forehead and the three smaller ones on its nose looked vicious, but its brown eyes were calm and placid as Nogz bounded up to it.

The puppy clapped his hand on the beast’s leg, which was as high as he could reach, and then stroked its thick, ropy fur affectionately. “Hey, Jute. You ready to haul that load?” He turned, eyeing the flat, woven mat tied to the niu by ropes woven of what Kaz suspected were strips of yumi. More yumi was piled high on the mat, and Nogz added his own, then knelt beside it, picking up more ropes that had been laid out flat on the ground.

Tossing a rope to Kaz, he said, “Tie that off, would you? Nice and tight. We don’t want to lose any yumi.”

Bemused, Kaz did as he was told, tying the rope through a loop on the far side of the mat. Soon, the two of them had secured the load, with the mat rolling up around the yumi until it formed a tight roll. Once that was done, Nogz gave a sharp bark, hitting the niu hard on its hind leg.

The niu gave the same low, rolling complaint that Kaz had heard earlier, the remains of its meal dropping from its mouth. It began to move, however, pulling the heavy load without apparent effort. Nogz gave Kaz another grin, ears twitching in amusement as he saw Kaz’s amazement at how roughly he handled the enormous beast.

“You have to hit pretty hard, or they don’t even notice. Their hide is hard under all that fur,” he said. “Come on!”