EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (381 page)

Ssarsdale was much closer to the surface than Atikala or even Stonehaven had been. It was less than a day’s walk from the surface and almost straight down, a journey easy to make even at a slow pace. We could make it in half a day if we pushed ourselves.
 

The map made our destination seem so close, although it was probably a week’s walk away, in my mind I was nearly there already.

“Well?” asked Khavi, his tone so acidic if he spat it might have melted stone.

“It’s a map,” I said, “and we can compare it to the gnome one if you wish, but it looks the same. Just more accurate.”

“The same but different, huh?”

I rolled up the map and bit back the desire, to berate him for his unhelpful sarcasm and exhaled. “Are you
still
angry? What’s pulling your tail?”

“Everything. This whole mess. And you. We should have killed that gnome the moment we saw her. We should never have gone to meet the dragon.”

One part of me wanted to argue with him, but it was pointless. What had been done was done and could not be changed. I unrolled the scroll and studied it once again. “We’re done with those things. It’s in the past. Can we just move on?”

“Fine,” said Khavi, looking away and down the tunnel.

I went to reply, to suggest a path through the tunnels up ahead, but I stopped. I swore I heard voices. Voices in draconic. Faint, but they were there.

I almost dropped the scroll. “Khavi,” I hissed, giving him a prod, one suddenly full of energy. “Khavi!”

I must have shaken the grumpiness from him. “What?” he asked.

“Don’t you hear that?” I scrambled forward, drawing my rapier.

Khavi stopped, his pupils dilating, jaw sliding open. “Impossible!”

The voices faded. We stopped, listening intently, trying to catch them again. I suddenly feared that they were not real and never were, that we had endured a shared hallucination; some part of our minds were trying to convince us that there were others in these tunnels.

Then the sound once again reached us. I grabbed Khavi’s arm and motioned down the way we came. “This way!”

We ran together, claws scratching on the stone as we bolted down the winding tunnel, and as I tore around the corner, I found myself face to face with another kobold.

She had rusty scales like Khavi, a spear in her claw, holding it out before her defensively. Her poor posture and uneven stance said she was no warrior. I ran snout first into her. Had her stance been better practised, I would have impaled myself. Khavi ran into my back, and the three of us fell over, sprawling out on the ground in a mess.

I struggled to untangle myself, squeezing out from between Khavi and the stranger, and a claw grasped mine, pulling me free. Another kobold covered in dark black scales, and she didn’t have a weapon.

“Thank the dead Gods,” said the stranger. “We didn’t think anyone else had survived.” Her eyes widened, her nostrils flaring. “You
are
from Atikala, aren’t you?”

I nodded enthusiastically. “I am,” I said. “I’m Ren of Atikala, third patrol, first quarter. The other is Khavi from the same.”

“Faala of Atikala,” she said, “a caretaker from the third quarter.” Faala spoke over my shoulder. “That’s Jedra, a trapper from the same.”

From the same
. It had been so long since I had heard that or seen a kobold other than Khavi that I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed Faala and drew her close in a tight hug. “We didn’t think anyone else had survived either. What are you doing here?”

“We were going to Ssarsdale,” said Faala. “We didn’t know where else to go.”

“So are we.” I laughed in relief. “It’s extremely good to see you.”

I clutched Faala close to me and felt for the first time since we had left the gnomish settlement that something had gone our way. Now instead of two kobolds, we were four. Four was a much better number. Less than half the size of a standard patrol, yes, but more was always better.

I finally let go of Faala. I sensed that she was more reluctant to break the embrace than I. Khavi and Jedra were likewise disentangling, both had wide smiles on their faces. Khavi’s happiness made me happy.

“What are
you
doing here, though?” said Faala, her black scaled face wrinkling. “This is a long way from Ssarsdale.”

Faala’s words inspired a stab of guilt, the first I had experienced since No-Kill’s death. We were indeed a long way from Ssarsdale. “We became waylaid,” I said, “by a lot of different things.”

Faala just laughed happily. “I know what you mean. We got lost right away,” she admitted. “We’re not warriors. Neither of us have been outside the city before. All we had were Jedra’s traps.”

“How did you survive?” I asked. They were even more hopelessly ill prepared than we were. Khavi and I at least had our patrol and weapons training.

“Luck, presumably. We took turns sleeping, using the traps to further secure our location and to catch the occasional glowbug.”

“Glowbugs?” There were no glowbugs outside of Atikala. “Were you trapped in the ruins?”

“For three days, yes. Leader Yeznen sent my team to harvest from the southern undertunnels. Jedra was there testing the defences. There were a number of us down there, and part of that section was spared the collapse. Most of our group were further down and killed, but we managed to escape. Fifteen of us in total, from various positions. No warriors or diggers though. We waited for rescue, but none came, and we ran out of glowbugs to catch, so we left.”

“Fifteen of you?” I frowned. “What happened to the others?”

“The rest made their way to Ssarsdale. We were sent to scout for water and became separated. That was days ago. We’d lost hope of seeing another kobold alive out here.”

“It’s very brave of you to come out this far,” I said, “and to come through the mists.”

Jedra laughed, twisting her head to look at me, resting against Khavi. “I was petrified. We both were. Eventually though we clasped hands and walked through together.”

Faala leaned in, her tail twitching behind her as she spoke. “There’s a dead gnome on a crystal there,” she said. “A monstrous beast. So others survived too.”

I thought of the decapitated gnome. “Khavi and I killed that one. We put it on the spike ourselves.”

“
I
put it there,” said Khavi, his maw split in a wide smile, displaying all his teeth.

“He did,” I said, glad to see him take pride in something he’d done. “He even struck the killing blow.”

The two newcomers turned to Khavi. “What’s it like to kill a gnome?” asked Faala.

“Well,” said Khavi, “the thing to remember with gnomes is they struggle and squeal, and they really are terrible monsters, but they bleed, and they die just like anything else.”

 
“We haven’t seen any of them,” said Jedra, “except the dead one. We’ve been keeping a strict watch, but we’ve been fortunate.”

“Very,” said Khavi, his eyes flicking to me for a moment and then back to Jedra. “They are monsters and should not be trusted.”

It would have been easy for me, I think, to say something, to speak up in defence of No-Kill and her kind. To say that she did not appear monstrous, and that perhaps there was more to the gnomes than met the eye, but I did not. Another part of me wanted to tell them of Tyermumtican and his strange feeling toward a gnome, but I did not. I couldn’t forsake six years of kobold upbringing for a few days wandering with one in the underworld and a few words with a dragon. Perhaps that part was stronger than I thought.

“They can’t be trusted,” I said, “but fortunately they can’t hurt us anymore. We saw their settlement, Stonehaven. It’s been destroyed as well. The whole city has fallen into the abyss, part of the debris that plunged down atop Atikala.”

“Some good luck at last,” said Faala.

“Well,” said Jedra, her eyes fixated on Khavi, “aside from us finding you, that is. We didn’t know what we would do if no other males survived. How would the blood of our city continue?”

“I worried about the same thing,” said Khavi, seeming very pleased. “It’s a huge relief that we found you. In the long term, though, we’ll need more females to safely repopulate. To prevent inbreeding.”

“Well, we have three so far. It’s enough to make a start.”

The topic made me uncomfortable. I thought back to the strange moment in the spider’s lair when I had removed my burned armour. Of seeing Khavi’s eyes upon me, eagerly looking over me, and how it made me feel.

I thought of Tyermumtican’s tale of how he was possessed by the demon he called love, and how it made him want to spend all his time with one individual. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but that concept gnawed at me, becoming less and less repugnant the more I thought of it, and the way that our newcomers were discussing reproduction with someone they had just met seemed…efficient, but wrong on some level I couldn’t quite quantify.

Despite our disagreements, we had been through a lot together, Khavi and I. There was a strong kinship between us. He’d seen what I’d seen, walked beside me in my footsteps, been my comrade and a loyal warrior. I shared my early life with him, grown up with him, and he knew everything about me. I was ambivalent, but not disappointed with the breeding council’s decision to pair us together for my first. It was logical, and while I was apprehensive, I had been prepared to do my duty.

But ever since No-Kill’s death, things were different between us. Something subtle changed. Khavi had been assigned to breed with me, but the more time I spent with him, the less I desired such a thing.

Or so I kept telling myself.

“I’m certain that Khavi’s not the only one to have survived,” I said. “Were there any amongst the thirteen others?”

“No,” said Jedra. “All females.”

That was not unexpected. Males were slightly weaker and smaller than us. It was a biological advantage our species had; only females became pregnant, reproducing once every twenty days once they were old enough, but a male could mate with up to three females a day. We just didn’t need as many.

“It’s a problem for another day,” I said, trying to change the topic.

“Actually I’m coming into season,” said Jedra, “I missed my last one. Faala will be having her first any day soon.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Faala. “There are four of us, so we can carry at least one set of eggs, all the way to Ssarsdale if necessary.”

Khavi leaned forward, sniffing at Jedra, testing her for a smell. Curious, I sniffed as well.

Her body emitted a kind of musky odor, like linen cloth soaked and left in a drawer.

“Actually,” said Khavi, “you’re almost ready now.” He nodded to Faala. “And you, probably within the day.”

They both looked pleased. I felt vaguely ill.

“What about her?” Faala looked at me expectantly.

Khavi leaned in to smell me, but I pushed him away. “Not yet,” I warned. “It’s not yet time.”

Jedra and Faala both looked at me, puzzled looks on their faces.

“Males can tell better,” said Jedra. “Their noses are attuned for it.”

“I’m a sorcerer,” I said. “I know these things.”

Both the newcomers eyes went wide. Khavi groaned, softly, looking away.

“You’re a sorcerer?” asked Jedra, a new found awe in her tone.

“I am.”

Jedra dipped her head in reverence. “Well, Khavi should breed with you first to pass that blood along sooner.”

“It’s not yet time,” I insisted again. “Look. We have a lot of other things to worry about first. Let’s pool our supplies. We have a map to Ssarsdale, so we should plan out our route. We can deal with the rest later.”

Jedra, Faala, and Khavi seemed content with this, Khavi less so than the others.

I pushed us hard, setting a brutal pace into the gloom making for the surface by the most direct route—up. At half a day’s march Faala was complaining that she wanted to stop. At three quarters of a day, Jedra and Khavi joined the chorus, and I could feel my body giving out.
 

But I knew what would happen if we stopped. In the end, we went for nearly a full day. By the time I called for a halt, my body was beyond sore and tired. I ached all over, my knees felt weak, and it was a struggle to summon the strength to dig my bedroll out of my pack.

Jedra tiredly set up her traps. They were two metal jaw-like contraptions that folded neatly when not in use. She used a crank to part their mouths, the fine, jagged teeth laying almost flush with the stone. Very difficult to see and disguised as debris. She set one up before us and one after. This would be a great aid to whoever was on watch.

Then Jedra and Faala curled up together to sleep. This action prompted moans of complaint and the occasional hiss of anger from Khavi. The two females were annoyed too; they murmured to each other, too quietly for me to hear, and shot me the occasional dirty look. They too wanted to mate, casting forlorn looks Khavi’s way.

“Go to sleep,” I told Khavi, answering his unspoken question. “I’ll take first watch. You’re on second and Jedra can take the third.”

“And how do you propose I sleep with three unfertilised females sleeping beside me?”

“Discipline is a virtue,” I said. “Yeznen said that.”

 
Khavi snapped his jaw. “You drive us like slaves!”

“Good, perhaps this will solve your inability to rest. We need to get to the surface, to get to Ssarsdale.”

“Yes,” said Khavi. “
So
urgent is our trip to Ssarsdale. So urgent we could aimlessly wander around for days or spend a whole day visiting a foul copper dragon. But give me ten minutes to save our city’s blood? No, no, that’s asking too much.”

“Priorities have changed.”

Khavi affixed a dark look on me as he closed his eyes. “Haven’t they just.”

Time passed, and the three others slumbered. I desperately wanted to sleep, wanted to embrace the dreaming and let my body rest, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t used any of my magic so my reservoir was full to the brim, but even sorcerers still had their physical limits. In many ways we were more vulnerable to exhaustion than regular warriors; fighting and marching sapped the strength from our bodies while spells stole the energy from our minds.