EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (385 page)

“So you want to play with spells, do you?” Pewdt said, stabbing at Khavi, the blade missing by an inch. “Want to see a magic trick?”

Pewdt tossed his daggers into the air. He began juggling them, tossing each weapon from hand to hand. I knew better than to attack, though. A warrior so skilled wouldn’t do such a thing without reason. I could only hope Khavi had the same feeling.

I shifted so that I faced his flank. Pewdt reached for the belt pouch containing the eggs, snatching the two ovals within and adding them to the circle.

Khavi roared and thrust his spear forward, but Pewdt caught one of his daggers just in time and deflected it.

“Careful,” said Pewdt, “next time it might not be a blade.”

Dagger, egg, dagger, egg. The circle spun too fast for me to follow it. Khavi and I stalked around him, trying to find a way through.

A standoff. Pewdt juggled, and we waited for an opportunity.

“Attack me,” he said, smiling. “I want to see you attack me.”

“No.” I lowered my rapier. I wasn’t going to play his game.

“As you wish.” He caught one of the eggs, the lighter-shelled one I knew to be Jedra’s, and squeezed it in his hand. I closed my eyes at the sound of breaking eggshell, but I couldn’t close my ears. Fluid and eggshells splattered onto the ground.

“Is that five? Does it count if it doesn’t touch the dagger?”

I had failed the unborn child, but I had to use my eyes to see. I forced them open, watching the egg fluid drip onto the floor as Pewdt stole the future of our bloodline away.

“You monster!” I snarled and stabbed between the flying daggers, but Pewdt ducked out of the way.

“Oh come now, I’m not the monster, you are. You and your dragon loving kind.” Khavi’s spear dug into Pewdt’s hip, finding flesh; the gnome grimaced in pain and skipped back.

“One,” said Khavi, dangling the tip of his weapon before Pewdt, slick with red blood.

“Quaint, but I’ve had scars before. You think you’re the first runty little bastard to wound me?”

 
I hissed, baring my teeth at him, dragonfire rumbling within me. “Sounds like you’re getting angry.”

“I don’t get angry, gold one, I’m above such base emotions.” He sneered at me, tossing the remaining egg with bloodstained hands. “Above you.”

I lunged forward, but not at him. He was too quick, too skilled. Instead I thrust my rapier into the flying dagger, slapping it away to clink off the stone.

“Clever little dog,” he said.

“I’m full of tricks,” I said, hissing the last syllable, raising my claw again. Instead of flame, I summoned my magical darts; flying needles of force slammed into the gnome’s chest. “Suffer, monster!”

I could smell his blood. I knew I’d hurt him.

“Thank you for playing,” Pewdt said, “but I tire of this game.”

He stopped juggling, catching his remaining dagger and egg in his left hand, gesturing intricately with his right. I knew the signs of a spellcaster when I saw one, but I also knew how to defeat them. We both did. Khavi jabbed his spear forward, and I stabbed with my rapier, both of us striking home; Khavi and I thought identically, both aiming for his unarmoured forearms, both striking wicked hits.

But the gnome’s spell completed, and he vanished before our eyes.

I stabbed in the vacant space but ringing, mocking laughter, and retreating footsteps were all I found.

“Oh kobold?” came Pewdt’s disembodied voice. “This egg will make a fine gift for my master.”

“I’ll kill you for this!”

“No,” said the retreating voice of the gnome, “you won’t.”

Then he was gone.

“Shit of the dead Gods.” I sheathed my rapier and moved over to Jedra, crouching before her and reaching out for her neck.

She was dead, her eyes glassy and empty. I followed where she had been looking. Right at where the gnome was standing before he had disappeared.

The last thing Jedra had seen was the gnome crush her freshly laid egg.

We were two kobolds again, and the killer of my kin, killer of unhatched eggs, was free. I howled to the ceiling, balling my hand into fists, screaming at the roof of my world. Why had this happened? Khavi, Jedra, and Faala had done their duty, Faala, in particular, had suffered through a difficult birth, and now her egg was lost.

It was in the clutches of the gnome monster. Pewdt. He would pay with his life.

I stood and straightened my back, wiping the tears from my face.

“Khavi?”

He stared at the corpses of the two females. “Yes?”

“I want to kill this one.”

We chased Pewdt for hours, knowing that his magic could not last forever, but it didn’t have to. He was bleeding and fairly badly; all we had to do was follow the drops of blood, the scent of his body tears, and his own body would betray him. I bandaged my wounds, Khavi bandaged his, and we stalked our prey.

We were hunters playing the long game. I wanted that egg back more than anything, but I knew we couldn’t fight him unless we evened the odds. He was a dangerous opponent, and I didn’t think that the two of us could take him, so we aimed to wear him down, never getting close enough to fight, never getting so far away that he would think himself safe. We wanted him tired, weak, suffering.

As the hours passed, Pewdt’s blood stopped flowing. Clearly he had staunched his wounds. That didn’t matter. I could smell his body tears, and I knew they were tainted with the scent of fear. His confidence was weakening, so he was climbing, making for the surface. I sensed the difference in altitude, the air growing thinner and thinner. Soon we were exhausted and had to rest.

This was fine. Pewdt would be tired too, and from what I had seen of No-Kill and her sleeping habits, we would rest less than he. The longer we waited the worse he would fight when we caught him. Time favoured us.

As we followed our quarry through the underworld tunnels, one thing became clear. Pewdt was making for the surface. Sanctuary would be found there, we knew, so we drew closer. His body tears stopped. He was resting, preparing himself.

We would not give him that opportunity. As one, Khavi and I circled out around in front of his path, preparing an ambush. We laid in wait for him to arrive, to spring our trap, to destroy him utterly and save the egg he’d taken.

Instead we ambushed his outerfeet.

His outerfeet walked on their own, mindlessly strolling down the tunnel. I thought he might be invisible again, so stabbed with my weapon at air, even slicing right above where the ankle should be, but the outerfeet marched on.

Khavi cut them to ribbons. Their magic drained out in a flurry of wild sparks, the items reduced to scraps.

We knew, then, that he had gotten away.

We backtracked, but it was hopeless. We had no trail left, no hint where we could go.

“We should keep hunting,” I said. “He couldn’t have gotten
too
far.” I wanted to. I desperately wanted to, but I knew deep in my heart there was no point.

“It’s been hours,” said Khavi, shrugging off his pack. “He’s probably at the surface by now or down any number of tunnels. We’ll never catch him.”

“You give up too easily.” My body was tired, and I needed rest, but the thought of Faala and Jedra, and their two eggs spurred me on. We needed vengeance.

He shrugged. “I know when I’m beaten.”

I couldn’t believe he was so willing to let the egg go. So willing to let the child he’d sired fall to some terrible fate. “What if we did another pass, we could find where he split himself from his outerfeet?”

“I’m sure he’d like that. He knows the area, clearly, and he’s full of tricks. He’d get endless amusement from watching us chase our own tails.”

I knew it was true. “At least we have the map. It might have a list of other exits.” I snatched it off my belt. “Passages. Places where, places where...w-where...”

Khavi glared at me. “Are you crying?”

I was. Khavi’s frustration at my weakness pained me further, but I didn’t care. I mourned for Faala and Jedra, for their eggs, for my inability to save them all.

“No.”

Khavi sighed and sat down in the corridor. “We should camp here.”

I shrugged off my haversack. We would never catch Pewdt. “Take first watch,” I said. “I’ll try to think of something.”

Khavi put the spear, Jedra’s old spear, in his lap, and I prepared to sleep. I threw all my equipment into a pile, curled up in a ball, and tried to rest, but my mind was too active. Unable to stop myself, unable to keep the pain inside any longer, I continued to cry.

“Are you done?” growled Khavi.

I rubbed my snout with my claw, raising my head. “No.”

Khavi gave a disgusted groan. “You’re six years old. You’re an adult, and more importantly, you’re a kobold. Stop acting like No-Kill, crying and thinking that’ll change anything. They’re dead. So are the eggs, both of them, probably. Mewing like a wyrmling won’t bring back the dead.”

Did he have no empathy at all? To so coldly dismiss the two females he had mated with and the eggs he had produced rankled me. “That doesn’t mean I can’t mourn.”

“Weeping is pointless. Vengeance accomplishes something.” He spoke through teeth pressed together. “We should throw away the map, find another gnome, or something else, and force them to tell us how to get to the surface. Cut off their arms, burn the stumps, weaken them through blood loss. Keep them alive as long as possible until they tell us.”

“What makes you think whoever we dismember won’t just lie to get vengeance against us?”

Khavi didn’t seem to have an answer to that. “Who cares,” he said. “It won’t matter. We'll find another.”

“And even if we find Pewdt again, what will we do? He’s stronger than you. A better fighter.”

His snout snapped around to me, baring his teeth. “Nobody’s a better fighter than me, especially not some juggling, half witted, sing-song-y fey.”

“He is,” I said. “It’s just a fact. He’s better than me too.”

“That’s glowbug shit.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue. “Fine, if we catch him, prove it.” I curled back up again.

“I still think we shouldn’t trust the map.”

“I don’t care what you think,” I snapped.

“Let me read it then,” said Khavi. “Maybe I can find something for us to kill.”

I fumbled for the pouch with the map, unbuckled it, and threw it across the chamber to Khavi, then clapped my hands over my earholes. “Here! Study it well, don’t tear it, and wake me when it’s my shift.”

I thought the anger would keep me awake, but I fell asleep almost immediately.

I was awakened by the smell of smoke. For a moment I was stuck in the strange limbo between the dreaming world and the real one, once again reliving my fiery rebirth in the furnaces of Atikala, but then my mind settled firmly back in Drathari, and I opened my eyes.

Smoke filled our camp, stinging my eyes. A bright flame, tall and golden, burned nearby. I leapt to my feet, reaching for the rapier at my belt, but my scabbard was empty. It must have fallen out while I slept. I didn’t have time to find it, and instead thrust my hands out in front of me, ready to face whatever threatened us.

Khavi moved out from the shadows, the golden light bathing his scales in a bright, lurid glow. He had my rapier in his claw.

“It’s done.”

My sleep-addled mind was unable to comprehend what I was seeing. “What is? Is it my shift?”

The fire began to die out. He pointed down at it with my rapier, the edge close to the flames. “The map. I burned it. We’re safe now. No more monsters, no more surprises.”

As the flames died out completely, I saw the charred remains of the strip of parchment, the very last edge of it consumed by a red line that wormed its way down to the corner, rendering it all to ash.

The map was our guide to the surface and Ssarsdale beyond. Tyermumtican had given it to me, a gift, and now it was a smouldering pile of worthless nothing. I looked back to Khavi. “I wanted you to keep the map safe. You knew that. I ordered you to keep it safe!”

He gave a mocking sneer. “Technically, you only told me not to tear it.”

“You knew what I meant!” My tail twitched. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I’m done following your orders.” Khavi stepped forward, deliberately stepping on the rectangular pile of ash that was our map, twisting and grinding his foot until it was unrecognisable. “You’re addled in the brain. Weak minded. Whatever power the elders used to hold your true nature in check died with them. You’re reverting to your true nature,
goldling
.”

He spat the word with such hate, such venom and fire that I had never heard from him before. This was more than the playful teasing he’d given me in the past; this was anger—it was the rage that he used in battle turned into words.

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m doing nothing of the sort. I’m following the best course of—”

“It’s always
words, words, words
with you, isn’t it?” Khavi’s grip on my rapier tightened ever so slightly. He shifted his posture as he balanced himself on his toes, falling into a battle stance. “We find some gnomes—our enemies—and it’s
words
. We find a blind gnome alone in some tunnels, and your first instinct is to use
words
. We meet a dragon—a
copper
dragon—and once again, you try to talk to it. You say that it’s strategy, that it’s combat without fighting, but every single time we meet evil you just talk to it. You walked away from the dragon, and you did worse than let evil beat you. You
befriended
it.”

“They’re not evil,” I said the words before I knew what I was doing. I thought of No-Kill, and how kindhearted she seemed. Of Tyermumtican and how he had helped me despite what I was. “It’s us. It’s us that are evil.”

Khavi spat at me, a glob of his saliva splattering onto the jerkin covering my chain shirt. “You slander your own people. You’re not one of us, goldling. You’re one of them. You’re a gnome in kobold’s scales, a traitor to everything we are.”

My claws trembled, and I fought to control myself. “This is because I wouldn’t breed with you, isn’t it? Because I want love?”

“Love?” Khavi practically hissed as he said it. “That dribble Laughless blathered on about?”