The Broken Knife

“Who. Are. You?” Jinn asked again, and this time, her voice was low and angry. The growl was almost worthy of a kobold. Then confusion tainted the fury, and she asked, “Who sent you?”

Kyla poured more of her dwindling power into her shield, trying to figure out how long she had left before she had to run. If she did run, where could she go? She’d long ago learned to use her small size to get rid of larger pursuers, and there was a narrow, stinking tunnel down not too many turns back…

“Raff,” she said, and Jinn’s eyes flew open. The knife drooped.

“Raff?” Jinn repeated, and now moisture stood in her eyes, making them glitter in the light of Kyla’s power. “Grafton? My brother?” Then she shook her head, lips pressing together, and her blade rose again. “Impossible. Grafton is a great warrior with the Adamant Reach. He kills things like you. He doesn’t send them after his family.”

Kyla didn’t particularly appreciate being called a thing, but she’d heard worse, and what this female thought of her didn’t change who she actually was. She’d learned that long ago. Shrugging, she took a step back. “All right,” she said. “Then would you give me back my water so I can go?”

Reina still held the niu bladder, and her hand tightened around it possessively. “Maybe Lord Grafton really did send her, Jinn. What if he did? What if there’s finally someone we can ask for help? Someone we can trust?”

Jinn’s eyes flicked back toward the injured princess. She bit her lower lip. “How do we know? What if it’s another trap?”

Kyla took two more steps back, out of the way of a lunge, sensing as much as seeing Mei scurry along with her. She dropped her shield to the lowest level possible, which should still be enough to turn any but a killing blow. She’d practiced this in preparation for her spirit hunt, since it was recommended that a female keep up a shield as much as possible while in the mid-levels. It would be better if she wasn’t already drained, but she could maintain it almost indefinitely, so long as nothing actually hit it.

She shrugged, feeling her ears flatten. She didn’t like this, but she was also terribly curious, and she’d never been good at resisting that feeling of wanting to know. “I don’t care what you do,” she lied, “but I’m telling the truth. I met Raff in the mountain where I live, and came here to-” What? Would they understand if she explained about her spirit hunt? “Meet more humans.”

“In the sewers?” Jinn sounded dubious, and Kyla couldn’t blame her. Other than the fact that these tunnels felt safer than the teeming streets above, she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to come here either. Which prompted another question.

“Why are you here?” Kyla asked, forcing her ears back into a relaxed state, rather than pointing attentively toward the two or pressed tight to her head. She was glad for once that her tail was hidden beneath the robe, because it couldn’t decide whether to wag or tuck itself between her legs.

The two females exchanged glances, and Jinn took a step back as well, apparently realizing that her knife was now useless. Unless, of course, she knew how to throw it so it wouldn’t just bounce relatively harmlessly off her target. It didn’t look like it was balanced well for that, though, so Kyla felt fairly safe, especially since Reina didn’t look like she was in any condition to be using her power.

Reminded, Kyla held up the jejing. “Are you sure you don’t want this? I’ll trade it for the water. Just pack it into the wound, and it’ll prevent the dark power from making her sick.”

Jinn blinked. “Dark power? Do you mean it’ll prevent infection?”

Kyla shrugged again. She was no healer. “It won’t get hot as the power invades, and rot won’t settle in.”

Reina looked green beneath the filth now, which was fascinating. Kyla hadn’t known humans could be that color. Jinn looked back at her friend and held out her hand. “Throw it here.”

One of Kyla’s ears twitched. Jejing couldn’t be reused, but a bladder could. “Give me my water, and I’ll give you the jejing.”

Reina clutched convulsively at the water, but she held it up so Jinn could take it. Jinn hesitated. Looking at Kyla, she said, “Tell me about my brother.”

Kyla’s tail tried to wag. “He’s annoying,” she said promptly. “He talks too much, and he’s not respectful at all. But he’s very tall, and he lets me ride him like a niu, so my paws aren’t sore. He keeps sneaking food to Mei, trying to make friends with her, but she only likes me. And Kaz,” she added reluctantly.

Jinn’s mouth twitched. “That sounds about right. Is Mei your, um, rat?”

“She’s a fuergar,” Kyla corrected. “Raff calls her an Ironfang rat.”

The other female’s eyes widened. “One of the ones who eat metal?”

Kyla’s tongue lolled in amusement. “She found lots of coins down here. That’s why we came down at all.” Not entirely true, but close enough.

“So you didn’t come for us?” Reina asked, and Kyla sighed.

“No,” she admitted. “When the noises and the shaking started, we ran away, and now,” the words were bitter in her mouth, “we’re lost.”

“There’s an incursion,” Reina said, her head falling back as she lowered the water bag again. “In the city itself. I should be up there helping, and instead, I was nearly killed by an assassin before I could even try.”

Jinn’s hand dropped too, frustration filling her face as she looked at the other female. “The mage college and the soldiers can handle it,” she said. “You don’t owe them anything.”

Reina shook her head, her pink hair clinging to the stone wall behind her. “It’s the responsibility of the royal family to help when the city is under attack,” she said stubbornly. “How can we ask the citizens to do what we aren’t willing to do ourselves?”

“When was the last time you heard your brother say that?” Jinn said sourly. “I bet he’s hiding in his tiny castle right now.”

“He’s the heir!” Reina returned. “If something happens to Father, Lucas must survive to take over. Once he has an heir of his own, he can take on more risk.”

“Which may explain why he hasn’t gotten married yet,” Jinn muttered. She looked back at Kyla. “So, you met my brother in… What mountain? Scarabus? Which means you don’t just look like a kobold, you actually are one?”

Kyla nodded cheerfully. Her home might not be perfect, but the more she learned about humans, the happier she was that she wasn’t one. “Yes,” she said. “He brought a female named Lianhua to look for something called the Diushi. I guess she found what she was looking for,” after three days of Lianhua interrogating Kaz, Kyla was certain of it, “so Raff, Lianhua, Chi Yincang, Kaz, Li, Mei, and I all came here.”

Jinn looked around as if expecting several more people to suddenly emerge from the walls. “But you followed Mei down here? So where are the rest?” She leaned forward, her knife finally falling to point at the floor. “Where is Raff?”

Kyla twirled a tuft of fur around her finger, tugging it toward her mouth. Ija had mostly broken her of the habit - by shocking her with sparks of power whenever she caught Kyla chewing on her fur - but every now and then she did it without thinking.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She absolutely wasn’t going to tell these two that she’d intentionally separated from them. That would just make her look stupid. Which she wasn’t. At all. “We split up at the gate so we wouldn’t attract attention. Lianhua was supposed to go to the palace and see if she could figure out what happened to you, while Raff tried to actually find you.”

Moisture shone in Jinn’s eyes again. “Then he knows we’re - I’m - missing? Where is he staying?”

Reina opened her eyes again, but she looked terribly pale beneath the layer of dirt. Kyla edged forward, and Jinn didn’t raise her knife this time.

“Are you certain we can trust him?” Reina asked Jinn. “I know… he’s your brother… but he’s also a… mercenary…” She slumped forward, and Jinn shoved her blade into its sheath, turning to catch her friend before she fell onto the filthy stones.

“Oh, Pellis,” Jinn moaned, touching Reina’s forehead. “She’s burning up.” She turned to look at Kyla, holding out one hand while the other hugged Reina’s shoulders. “Give me that kaching stuff.”

“Jejing,” Kyla corrected, but came forward willingly enough. Reina wasn’t going to be using her power now, and Kyla was certain she could get away before Jinn drew her knife again.

She pushed away Jinn’s extended arm. The female’s hand was as grimy as everything else, and wouldn’t help the situation. Kyla might not be a healer, but she knew that keeping a wound clean was imperative.

“Open her clothing and wash the wound first,” Kyla told Jinn, and somewhat to her surprise, the other female obeyed. Kyla wasn’t really used to that, and she took a moment to enjoy the feeling as Jinn poured water from the bladder onto the injury, washing away the worst of the dirt and crusted blood.

The wound was a long slash across Reina’s ribs, possibly deep enough to have gouged the bone. The flesh around it was puffy, and Jinn had to pull it apart to get water into it. The cut began to ooze slowly, which might or might not be a good sign. Kyla wished she had some firemoss oil to burn the poisons out, but the jejing would still help.

Gingerly, Kyla used the relatively clean leather the moss had been wrapped in to press the jejing into the wound while Jinn held it open. Reina’s eyes flickered, and she whimpered like a puppy. Kyla felt her heart clench at the sound, and her ears lowered as she whined softly in return.

“She needs a healer,” she murmured, and jumped back at Jinn’s barked, “Don’t you think I know that?”

Kyla’s lip lifted as she stared at Jinn, until the other female sighed and hugged Reina closer. “I do know,” she said softly, almost apologetically. “But even if we could reach any of the healers we know, they’d immediately turn us in, and,” Jinn tilted her head toward the cut on Reina’s ribs, “someone doesn’t want us to get home alive.”

Jinn drew in a deep breath, and her eyes fixed on Mei, who was still lingering in the first edge of the shadows. “Plus, we’re out of money. I had no idea how expensive it would be to live in the city, especially during tournament season, when everything costs more.”

Kyla followed her look, then stepped away and lowered her backpack again. Taking out the coins Mei had brought her, she held them up. “Are these enough to get help?”

Jinn squinted at them. “A few coppers, a silver, and a button?” She laughed bitterly, beginning to rock Reina gently in her arms as if the other female was a newborn pup. “Not a chance. Can your, uh, fuergar find gold, by any chance?”

Kyla shrugged. “Probably. She hasn’t found anything since we came this deep, though.”

Humming thoughtfully, Jinn nodded. “That makes sense. Coins are relatively heavy. They probably sink and collect in cracks and crevices.” She gave a hard, tight smile, sliding one arm beneath Reina’s and hefting her friend to her feet. “Then let’s go back up.”

Reina’s eyes flickered open, and she managed to straighten. “But what about the incursion?”

“It’s over,” Jinn said firmly, and, indeed, the shaking and distant, muffled explosions had stopped.

The princess blinked, and she murmured, “Over. Something…” She shook her head, brows drawing together. In that moment of silence, they all heard a new sound. It wasn’t abrupt, like the booms had been. This was a whooshing, a rushing, a little like the river Kaz had been swept away in, and a little like the powerful streams the Waveblades could pull from stone walls.

“Fire,” Reina said, shaking her head to clear it. “There were salamanders. Once the incursion is defeated… the mages will call the rain. A lot of rain. To put the fires out. It’s… protocol.”

Kyla had experienced rain. A little of it wasn’t too bad, but a lot soaked her fur and was generally miserable to be out in. But what did it have to do with the sound, and why did both females suddenly look so worried?

Jinn must have seen Kyla’s confusion, because she said, “These aren’t just the sewers. The storm drains connect to them, too, and the rainwater flushes the whole system, carrying everything to-”

“The incinerator,” Reina finished, as a slow trickle of water flowed down the tunnel behind them, making two pairs of feet and three sets of paws move out of the way of the debris it pushed before it.

“What is an incinerator?” Kyla asked.

But Jinn and Reina were already moving, the taller female practically dragging her injured friend. They staggered up the tunnel, away from the water, as quickly as they could. “The mage tower runs it,” Reina called back as Kyla and Mei hesitated. “Apprentices use it as a way to dump their mana when they’re trying to increase their strength. The incinerator can produce magic fire hot enough to melt steel.”

Oh. And the water that was currently falling from the sky would push everything in the tunnels toward these great furnaces. If they were anything like the forges the Magmablades maintained, nothing would survive entering them.

Reina glanced back. “Come with us if you want to live.”

Kyla and Mei ran.