“Get away!” the female growled, but Kaz could see her ki was already low. Two more gray-furred males lay nearby, and the stillness of their bodies indicated that they - unlike the orange male, who still breathed raggedly - were likely dead. Soon the female would have to choose between using a shield and attempting to flee, or continuing to defend her fallen mate.
Even if Kaz hadn’t been inclined to help the female, who was probably one of the few remaining Magmablades, he would have aided her simply based on the fact that she had stayed with her injured mate. Males were supposed to protect females, even to the extent of remaining behind to die so that the female could survive, and seeing a female so determined to keep a male safe instantly told Kaz whose side he was on.
Li had been concealing them since they left Dongwu’s door behind, but now she lifted into the air before diving down to latch her claws into the shoulder of the closest gray-furred attacker. He howled at this apparent attack from empty air, but there was no one to help him. Another of his companions had fallen to the red-furred female’s final power bolt, while Kaz had taken two more down with ki-bolts of his own.
Then the battle was over, and the female crouched beside her mate, turning him so she could see the oozing cut on his back. It was a surprisingly shallow wound, sitting just about where shoulders and neck came together. That particular location and the relatively trivial injury caused a horrifying idea to flash through Kaz’s mind, and he lurched forward, coming to a stop just outside the female’s wavering shield.
Crouching, he said, “I know a little healing. Please, let me look at him.”
At first the female’s lip lifted as she growled at him, but then a now-visible Li came to rest on Kaz’s shoulder, and the female jerked back in surprise. Her wide yellow eyes slid over Kaz, taking in his blue fur, finally settling on the golden dragon.
“Kaz?” she whispered, blinking. Placing a hand on her chest, she said, “I’m Gida. I was a gatherer when you were a pup. I heard… Can you truly help him?”
Kaz felt his stomach lurch as he realized this female had known him - the original Kaz - during the time his family lived with the Magmablades. Somehow, even though he knew he had family beyond the ones he’d met, it hadn’t occurred to him that there would be even more kobolds who recognized or knew of him from that time. It was disconcerting, so he set it aside to think about later.
Gida had dropped her shield when she recognized him, and now Kaz leaned forward, gently pulling her mate from her hands. Using a piece of jejing taken from his pouch, he wiped away a trickle of blood as his fingers probed the wound. “Did they use arrows?” he asked.
The female shook her head, and for a moment Kaz hoped he might be wrong, but then she held her hands about six inches apart and said, “They threw something. Like a knife, but also like a short arrow. At first I thought it was just a scratch, but then he collapsed.” She stroked her mate’s fur. “Please. We…we’ve been mates for just over a year, but Ija has been encouraging us all to spend more time speaking together, and-” Her fingers spasmed, and her voice broke.
Beneath Kaz’s fingers, a round nodule rolled beneath the male’s skin, and Kaz growled. “He’ll be fine, but you must hold him very still for a moment. Can you do that?”
Gida nodded, and her hands firmed, bracing her mate so he couldn’t move his head or neck. Kaz felt the edges of the orb, then crafted a sphere of ki around it. With a sharp tug, he pulled his ki back out through the cut, causing fresh blood to gush out. He sent the excised stone flying down the street before releasing it. There was a sharp explosion, and chunks of stone flew in all directions, though fortunately none struck any of the kobolds or Li.
Li huffed, but the male beneath Kaz’s hands was already stirring. Eyes almost the same color as his fur opened, then locked onto Kaz. He snarled, trying to lunge up, only to find that his mate’s hands still restrained him.
“Hold, Cherc,” Gida barked, and the male stilled instantly, ears and then eyes turning toward her. “Kaz helped you. The Irondiggers have gone mad, and are attacking everyone in the city.”
Cherc reached up and clasped Gida’s hand for a brief moment before attempting to stand. Kaz moved back to give him room, and they all stood, ears turning to take in the sounds of howls and yelps of pain coming from all around them. Cherc started to say something, then just shook his head and settled in between his mate and the strange kobold and dragon pair.
Kaz could have misheard, but he thought Gida sighed in resignation before saying, “We should get back to the den. Grat and Verk will be frightened, and the den-mother will need help.” Grat and Verk must be their puppies, and Gida was right. Without any direct howls from Ija, everyone should retreat to the main den, not only for their own safety, but to protect the puppies.
Kaz stepped to the side. “You should hurry,” he told them, “and keep up a shield until you’re out of the city. If you’re struck by one of those weapons, or see someone else hit by one, you should-” What? If they tried to remove the stone, it would explode, but if they left it in, it would do whatever it was meant to do, which couldn’t be good.
“Send someone for me,” he told them reluctantly, and Li gave a deep sigh. “There’s a small ball that breaks off the end of the weapon and remains inside the skin. No one else should try to remove one until I show them how.”
The two Magmablades exchanged looks, then Gida bowed to Kaz, leaving her mate looking startled for only a moment before he copied the gesture. “Thank you,” Gida said, and she took Cherc’s hand, drawing him close to her as her shield rose up around them. They took off down the street, and Kaz turned to follow the fading scents of Kyla and Raff.
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Looking at the remaining Irondiggers, Kaz held up the one he’d freed, who was now dazedly fingering the bloody wound in the back of his neck. “I can free you, too,” he told them. “Just stop fighting long enough for me to help.”
The five males exchanged glances, and then one of them lunged for another, teeth bared and claws out. Kaz had no idea what was happening or who he should help, but in a moment, one lay sprawled on the ground, eyes and throat gaping. The winner turned to Kaz, his teeth stained red. “Free me,” he said in a deep growl, and the remaining three males flinched back, as if ready for him to burst from the words alone.
Less than a minute later, the other three stones had been removed, leaving five Irondiggers with blood-stained fur, staring at one another. None of them had even the simplest of packs, so Kaz gave them all jejing and zhiwu web. “What’s going on?” Kaz demanded as they pressed moss into their wounds.
The one who’d killed the sixth member of their group shook his head. “We were told to turn as many kobolds as we could, and kill or capture the humans.”
Kaz shook his head, ears lowering. “But you’ll all die. There’s no way you can take a city full of females, especially from the great tribes. What’s the point?”
The male bared his teeth. “We don’t know. We do as we’re told or we die.”
And no matter what Kaz or Li asked, that truly seemed to be all these kobolds knew. Finally, he asked them if they would return to Nucai or the Irondiggers, and the one who spoke for them said, “Never,” with such sincerity that Kaz believed him.
“Where is the Irondigger den, then?” Kaz asked as they started to move away from him. Perhaps he could go to one place and stop this madness by removing the stones from the kobolds there.
This time one of the quieter males answered. “Muckdiggers have no den,” he said. “We are everywhere, yet no one sees us.” Then they all bowed toward Kaz and Li and ran off toward the outskirts of the city.
It was true. Irondiggers - or Muckdiggers, as some called them - were the only tribe that never settled anywhere, though for a moment Kaz had hoped that might not be true. They moved through the mountain with relative freedom, however, trading information and goods to pass between levels and through the territory of other tribes. No one wanted them to stay, but when they arrived, there was always a sense of excitement, because they brought things like weiba, mamu, and other rare items. Sometimes they even had finished products from the Deep, like bells, cloth, and medicines.
As the rejects of all the tribes, Irondiggers were universally ignored and ridiculed, while also serving as an excuse for everyone else to believe that their exiled members might still be alive somewhere. Irondiggers were pups like Dugo, males who were cowards or poor hunters, or even the weakest members of tribes who couldn’t hold a territory large enough to feed all of their members. Oda hadn’t liked them, so she usually had them chased from the Broken Knives’ territory, and now Kaz wondered if she had known that they served Nucai.
But just how many Irondiggers were there, really? Was there only one tribe, or were there dozens, their numbers concealed by their very anonymity? After all, no one wanted to look too closely at an Irondigger, only to find someone just like themselves looking back. And were they all controlled by Nucai?
Kaz paused by the body of a fallen Irondigger, parting the fur as he searched for the stone beneath the skin. Sure enough, now that he was looking for it, he could see that the roots of the thick fur were faintly green. So the Irondiggers had been intentionally made to look as interchangeable as possible, probably so that no one would realize just how many of them there were.
Flinging the qiu away, Kaz waited for it to explode, then sent a little blue ki into the other male’s body, which twitched in response. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to explain what he’d done. Would this male know he was now free, or would he continue to attack once he woke up?
Kaz would probably never know, because he couldn’t stay. He’d almost completely lost Kyla’s scent, which wasn’t strong at the best of times, and was now buried beneath a muddle of blood and other smells. Fortunately, Raff’s unique aroma of metal and human was particularly powerful, so Kaz was following it and hoping that the large male knew where he was going. Kaz needed to go to the Tree, but he was still heading in the right general direction, and wanted to make sure his cousin was safe.
Glancing around, Kaz saw that no one living remained within sight, and leaped after his dragon, lightly touching down on the building she was circling. With a roar, Li dove, blasting something on the ground with fire. Howls of pain rose up in response, followed by a fierce howl Kaz recognized.
Li had found Kyla.