Chapter One hundred eighteen (Patreon)

Thabil shifted, looking almost nervous as everyone turned to look at her. “There is a way to speak to all of the collared at once,” she said. “If you let me, I can tell my people what has happened.”

Lianhua hesitated, then nodded. “What do you need to do?”

The husede gestured toward the door. “There’s a room nearby with a device that allows far speaking. We use- used it when Zhangwo needed a larger group of us for some task. My people have been waiting for this day for a very long time, however, and now it will serve us instead.”

Lianhua nodded again, gesturing for Thabil to lead on, and all of them followed after the husede as she wound her way back down the hall, opening a different door and entering a small room. There, Kaz saw several metal rings, not unlike massively oversized collars, set into the ground. They ranged from simple ones, like the ones the kobolds wore, to ones with elaborate designs carved into them, like the one Lianhua had worn.

Crossing to one that looked exactly like the one Kaz had removed from her own throat, Thabil stepped into the middle of it and looked at Kaz. “I need my control wand,” she told him. “I can’t activate the ring without it.”

Kaz had forgotten the glittering rod, but now he pulled it out from where he had tucked it beneath his belt and handed it to her. As he stepped back, her mana rose within her, and she pointed the wand toward the metal circle in which she stood. A wave of ki flowed out, and a column of red light surrounded her.

“Ziyou,” she said, and the word flowed out of her, rippling on waves of mana that were absorbed into crimson ki. After a moment, the ki seemed to burst, washing through the floor, the ceiling, and the walls, and Kaz almost thought he caught an eerie echo of the word chiming in his own ears as the wave passed through him. On his shoulder, Li clicked unhappily, huddling against him, and Kaz silently agreed that it was a thoroughly unpleasant sensation.

When Thabil stepped out of the circle, her teeth were bared in triumph. “It is done,” she said simply, as the shrill scream of a mosui reached Kaz’s ki-empowered ears.

=+=+=+=

Once the husede began to turn on their masters, the end came quickly. Thabil and Erith led Kaz, Li, and the humans out to the city, where they found that chaos had fallen. The mosui had been using the husede to turn away the attacking kobolds, and when the husede turned on them instead, the line of defense broke. Husede and kobold alike tore into the mosui, who were quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers, in spite of their attempts to use the collars to stop the assault.

Bodies lay everywhere, some crushed beneath rubble, and others sliced or ripped apart by teeth and claws. Kaz winced each time he saw a fallen kobold, and Thabil and Erith did the same when they stumbled over another still, gray-skinned form. At least Kaz didn’t know any of the Redmanes well, and he didn’t see any of the Sharpjaws among the dead, but he could tell that the two husede recognized some of those they passed.

There were only scattered pockets of fighting still going on, and they hurried toward the sound of clashing metal and howls. In the shadows of broken walls, the injured huddled, husede and kobold alike, eyeing each other warily but making no move to attack. No mosui remained alive.

Not surprisingly, they found Gaoda in the center of the battle. The human’s robes were still clean and brilliantly blue, glaringly bright amidst a palette of crimson and gray. His golden hair was mussed, and he had been reduced to using a sword, rather than firing off balls of fiery ki, but otherwise he looked uninjured. He spun and stabbed a husede, expression almost bored as he let the body slide off his blade a moment later.

Opening their mouths, Lianhua and Thabil spoke at once, the husede’s deeper voice overwhelming the human’s.

“Ziyou!” Thabil called, repeating the word she had spoken earlier. “The humans are not our enemies!”

One of the husede turned to look at her, nearly receiving Gaoda’s sword in his back as he did so. Another husede turned the blow aside at the last moment, and Thabil stepped forward, new fear lighting her eyes.

Glancing at Thabil, Lianhua spoke again, this time shouting Gaoda’s name in the loudest voice Kaz had ever heard her use. “Gaoda Xiang, STOP!”

Gaoda’s blade froze in the act of impaling the husede who had saved the first, leaving the tip hovering just above the shorter male’s heart. Thabil took a step forward, and Lianhua spoke again, using Thabil’s words.

“Gaoda Xiang, these people are not our enemies. Stand down.” Her face was hard, and her fists were clenched. Kaz didn’t think she realized when she settled into a battle stance, but Gaoda certainly did, and for an instant, he looked shocked, then furious, before his face relaxed into a broad smile.

“Cousin!” he exclaimed, bending his knees before leaping straight up, out of the circle of his erstwhile attackers. He landed lightly just a few feet in front of Lianhua, clearly showing that he could easily have escaped at any time, but had chosen to stay and slaughter the husede instead.

Lifting her fist, Lianhua punched him. It was a clean strike, short, sharp, and directly to his nose, which crunched loudly beneath the impact. Blood spurted, and Gaoda gave a credible howl, staggering back as he clapped his hand to his face, shocked blue eyes locked on Lianhua’s face.

Stepping forward, Lianhua stabbed her finger into Gaoda’s chest, and Kaz could tell that she didn’t bother holding back any of her formidable strength. “You,” she said, “are not my cousin. I am Long clan, and you are Xiang. Only tradition binds us. Never, ever, call me that again.”

Gaoda wiped his nose, staring at the bloody streak on his hand in shock. “But cou- Lianhua, you-”

She shook her head. “No. I’m tired of you telling me what to do. I just spent a day wearing a collar, and do you know what I learned, Gaoda Xiang?”

The human stepped back, shaking his head, and she went on, voice lowering to a fierce, determined tone Kaz had never heard before. “I learned that I am not a slave,” she said. “And I will never allow anyone to treat me like one again. I don’t care if Grandfather put you in charge of our party, this is my expedition, and you have been putting it, and us, at risk since the day we left. It’s your fault Yingtao got sick, and your fault Lord Hartton wouldn’t send anyone with us after we arrived in Holiander, and nothing in this world could force me to remain with you for a moment longer than it takes to get home!”

For a moment, Gaoda’s mouth hung open, and then an ugly sneer twisted his lips. “Elder Long put me in charge, and-”

Chi Yincang stepped in between Lianhua and Gaoda, his wrist flicking out toward the young male’s face. He pressed what looked like a single page of Lianhua’s book to Gaoda’s forehead, and Gaoda’s voice choked off as he grew unnaturally still. Two more pages followed the first, and to Kaz’s astonishment, Gaoda began to shrink. Within a few seconds, he had transformed into a statue, no longer than Kaz’s thumb, which Chi Yincang picked up and tucked into the pouch at his waist.

Turning back to Lianhua, Chi Yincang bowed deeply. “Command is yours, lady.”

Lianhua gaped at him, and Chi Yincang stared back, dark eyes inscrutable. In spite of the fact that not a shred of emotion showed in his face or stance, Kaz was somehow certain that he was extremely satisfied by this turn of events.

Finally, Lianhua drew in a long, deliberate breath, and it was as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders. She straightened, looking around at the circle of shocked gazes turned toward her. Only Raff was grinning, looking as if someone had just told the funniest joke he’d heard in a long time.

“All right,” Lianhua muttered. “All right.” She closed her eyes, and when they opened again, Kaz could see that something in them had shifted. She met his gaze and nodded.

“The kobolds are next. Kaz, can you convince them to stop fighting?”

Kaz shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand why they’re here at all. Kobolds don’t just go charging into unknown danger. We defend the den and the tribe, or we challenge for territory or leadership. There’s nothing for them to gain by coming here.”

“I can answer that,” Raff said, scratching at the dried crust of blood in his facial fur. “Their chief woke up. Started howling like a wild thing, and when Hod turned up, ready to tear into us, she told him you two managed to find their super-secret stairway. Then we realized you were missing, and Chi Yincang did his creepy black-eye thing, and told us you were in trouble. Next thing we knew, the whole Pellis-cursed tribe was charging down here, and their chief told them to bring Kaz back or die tryin’.”

Kaz felt his tail droop as everyone turned to stare at him, and he scratched at his own jaw, sending a puff of gray fur into the air. It was beginning to itch terribly, and he felt like he was outgrowing his skin, just like Li.

Lianhua eyed him, brows lifted, and Kaz saw the question in her eyes. He glanced around at all the other interested gazes, and his chin dipped for a moment before he yanked it back up. “I figured out how to clear the fulan from Ehlan’s core,” he said, looking only at Lianhua. “She may have been more aware than we thought when we were talking earlier, or she may have just figured out that I had something to do with her recovery. Either way, if they’re here to bring me back, then they should stop fighting when they see me.”

He glanced down at his arm, seeing the lingering clumps of gray fur mingling with the fine blue fuzz beneath, gave a short bark of laughter. “If they recognize me, anyway.”

Lianhua smiled, and Raff gave a deep laugh of his own, clapping Kaz on the back, which sent up yet another cloud of fur. “Nah, you’re looking more like yourself than ever, Blue.” The nickname sounded almost affectionate, rather than the derisive term Gaoda had originally intended, and Kaz found that he didn’t mind it when the tall human used it. “Come on, let’s go find some kobolds.”

Kaz grinned up at him, tail beginning to wag. “I have a better idea,” he said. Lifting his muzzle, he drew in a deep breath, and began to howl.

The sound rang out over the broken city, a kobold’s call of, “I am here”, and after a long moment, another voice picked it up. One after another, they called back. “I am here.” “I am here.”

Kaz felt a thrill run down his back at the sound, and he shivered. He had never led a howl in his life, and once he left the mountain, he would probably never do so again. This was a sound of unity, of support, and as he continued to release the long, ululating call, he knew every kobold who had answered was on their way.

The first to appear were two warriors Kaz didn’t recognize. The dye around their necks was streaked with real blood, but they lowered their red-stained bone clubs when they saw Kaz. The confused expressions on their faces when they saw the humans and husede surrounding him made Kaz’s tail wag with amusement.

Ilto came not long after that, limping and leaning on Pils’ shoulder. Civ was close behind, but after that were more and more of the unfamiliar warriors. It seemed that no females had ventured down to the fulan-tainted level, but Kaz hadn’t realized there even were this many males left in the tribe. Then he realized that some of these kobolds had collars around their necks, and their fur ranged from bright green to a deep purple that was the closest Kaz had seen to blue since his father died. They were also glaring balefully at Thabil and the other husede.

Kaz glanced around, seeing that they were now surrounded, and he was extremely grateful that Gaoda wasn’t there to set off what looked like a seething pot of boiling firemoss. Edging over to Thabil, he murmured, “Can you remove their collars?”

It seemed that she had also realized the danger, because she nodded stiffly. “I can, but if they see my control wand, they may attack me before I have a chance to explain.”

Lianhua heard their quiet conversation, and glanced over at them, then around at the mob Kaz had accidentally gathered. As the only female who was not husede, she was in a unique position, so she looked around, meeting the eyes of a few of the angrier-looking newcomers.

Pointing to the largest one, a red-furred male about Civ’s age, she asked, “Do you want to be free?”

He bared his teeth and pulled at the collar around his neck as if he would tear it off. “Yes,” he growled, deep voice rumbling in his chest.

Lianhua held out her hand, indicating Thabil. “The husede have been slaves as long as you, though the mosui set them above you. If this female removes your collar, do you swear to leave her and her people alone, so long as they do no harm to you?”

A long, low snarl rolled out of the male’s throat as he looked at the husede, but he nodded. “Free me,” he said.

Slowly, Thabil slid the control wand from its pouch, and every collared kobold tensed at the sight of it. Reaching out, the husede tapped the red kobold’s collar, and a burst of ki ran through it as it fell to the ground, chiming dully.