The Broken Knife

By the time Kaz looked up from his exhausted dragon, Chi Yincang had already leaped to the highest point nearby. This was a decorative pillar that had so far resisted breaking, no doubt due to the sturdiness of the wall it was a part of. Chi Yincang pulled the rope taut, tied it off, then tied it to the next pillar as well, just in case the first gave way. This used another twenty or thirty feet of the dwindling length of the rope, but made it less likely the rope would be lost in the pit if it did come free.

As soon as this was done, the dark male lifted his sister beneath one arm, his lady beneath the other, and bounded away, toes barely touching the rope, which vibrated beneath their combined weight, but didn’t fail. Kaz had never seen Chi Yincang use so much ki at once, but it was clear that he had no intention of leaving either of the females behind, whether they liked it or not. Indeed, Lianhua was obviously incensed, since she screamed the entire way across.

This left Li, Kaz, Kyla, Mei, Jinn, and Reina to fend for themselves. Kaz wasn’t too worried, however, until he noticed that some of the humans around them had seen Chi Yincang’s escape. One by one, gazes were turning toward the rope, then their little group, and Kaz had a feeling that desperation might soon lead some of them to make choices that he would regret.

It was hard to summon even the bare hint of ki necessary to open his storage pouch. It had been so long since he had to think about it that he fumbled in the empty bag for a moment he couldn’t afford to waste. Then Li lifted her head and pushed the small amount of ki she’d managed to recover into him, and a spark leaped from his fingers to the pouch.

Kaz pulled his fuulong silk loincloth from the bag. It was too bulky to wear beneath his pants, so he’d stored it away, but there was nothing else that he could be sure would survive what he was about to do.

Reluctantly, he took one more cycle worth of ki from Li, who hissed softly in his arms. He had no choice, though. Not if he wanted to save all of their lives. Clambering up on the wall, he tossed one end of the long piece of cloth over the rope, then tied that end to the other, forming a circle with the unbreakable rope in the middle.

Reaching down, he held out his hand. Kyla ignored it, using her claws to climb up beside him, then grasp the loincloth herself. Jinn lifted Reina, and Kaz grasped the female’s too-fragile hand. There was no space left on the wall, so he settled her into the sling he’d created, then helped Jinn up as well.

By now, several of the nearby humans were running toward them, yelling something Kaz couldn’t understand, but Kaz just made sure that his females were settled as firmly as he could get them. This wouldn’t be comfortable for any of them, but no one would be left behind. He truly wished he could help some of the other humans, but before he could even think about that, he had to get the ones he was already responsible for to safety.

Kaz couldn’t hold Li while getting them across, so he placed her on his shoulder, winding her tail around his throat and arm. Its grip wasn’t as tight as usual, and he sent her concern, along with an image of a brilliant little dragon falling into a black abyss. She opened one eye, though he felt her focus more than saw it, since her head and neck were draped across his shoulders.

she told him, and closed her eye again. He could feel her determination, as well as hear her muttering, over and over to herself.

She would. She had to. And if she didn’t, Kaz would plunge into those depths after her, and they would face whatever was there together.

Two humans were attempting to climb the wall now. They both seemed to have injured their legs, probably tripping over the uneven ground, which was hindering their efforts. One of them was fumbling for a mana-stick, however, and though it was puny in comparison to the ones used by the mages below, Kaz had no energy left for even a simple shield.

“Go!” Kyla barked, grabbing at the two human females. A shield flickered into place around them. It was worryingly weak and patchy, but it was there, and Kaz swung their loop of cloth away from the pillar to which they had clung. A few pebbles fell away beneath the sudden shift, but Kaz pushed off with his feet, and they were free.

Jinn and Reina shrieked, Kyla yipped once, and then all three fell silent as they flew through the air over a chasm filled with boiling red ki and shadows blacker than any others Kaz had ever seen. The rope angled down, leading toward its anchor at the bottom of the stairs created by Raff’s friend. It wasn’t much of an angle, but it was enough, and the fuulong silk glided down the rope as its unexpected passengers twisted in the wind created by their passing.

Kaz craned his neck to look behind them. The humans were already stripping down, using their long black robes to create a much smaller version of what Kaz had done. It wouldn’t be long before they were in the air as well, though Kaz was afraid that the rubbing of fabric over rope would cause any normal material to give way before they could reach safety. Still, he hoped at least some of them made it.

Unfortunately, while the pillar to which the rope was attached might be the most stable thing remaining, that didn’t make it stable enough to support them all. If - when - it broke, the second pillar might hold them or it might not, and Kaz had to be ready to grab the rope and the loincloth if they began to fall. At that point, it would be up to the females to hang on, because he couldn’t catch them all.

The first human tumbled from their makeshift sling, but the second managed to hang on as they began to slide away from the mage college. They didn’t move as quickly as Kaz’s group, but there was already a third human readying themself for departure.

He felt the rope dip, a ripple going through as it developed a little slack. Then the pillar toppled to the ground, several humans fell with it, and the rope snapped taut again as the second pillar took the weight and held. Kaz clutched convulsively at the material to which he clung, as did Jinn and Kyla. Li’s tail remained snug, and Mei’s little nose quivered from within Kyla’s robes.

Reina… slipped. Kaz barely managed to grab onto the human princess as she slid backwards, nearly falling free of the sling. He had to channel ki into fingers that still felt too weak in order to keep hold of her, but he did it, and then wooden boards slammed into them. They fell into a tangle on the small platform hanging over the depths. Depths which were rising up to meet them.

The sounds of destruction were less immediate here. Less threatening. Less terrible. Kaz rolled to his side, leaning up on his elbow so he wouldn’t crush Li, and watched the continuing eradication of the once awe-inspiring mage college.

“Up we go,” said Raff, his cheerful words belied by the strain in his tone. Strong hands slid beneath Kaz’s arms and lifted him up. In a matter of moments, the big man had done the same to the rest, only pausing when he realized that one of the females was his sister. Raff clutched her to him, something that might have been a sob slipping from him, but then returned to helping them all up the stairs and away from the platform.

“There’re more comin’,” Raff said as he led them up the steps. “Someone started organizin’ over there, so they tied the rope off again, and only a few people are crossin’ at a time. It’s a mess, though. They’re not all gonna make it. Not by a long shot. Best we can do now is get out of the way.”

Lianhua’s face was streaked with tears when Kaz saw her. She ran straight to him and hugged him tight, then reached out and gathered Kyla in as well. The pup stiffened against the embrace at first, then relaxed into it, giving a soft yip of joy at being reunited.

Even when Lianhua turned to give Chi Yincang a withering glare, she didn’t release the two kobolds. She didn’t say anything, either, but Kaz had a feeling those words had already been exchanged. Exhausted creases bracketed the dark male’s mouth and a line divided his brows. He held his sister’s hand, and she in her turn looked like she wanted to protest this, but no longer had the energy to do so.

Kaz felt the pressure that had been beneath him now pounding at his back. It was insistent, pushing at his ki in something that was almost the exact opposite of what the humans did when they cultivated. Rather than stealing his ki, it forced his core to produce more, especially red, and after Li nearly drained both of them of all five colors, having such an influx of only one was throwing him more and more off balance. He felt strangely angry, even though he should be feeling only relief.

Turning, he looked out over the Cliff, which was a cliff in truth now. Far from being a smooth, unnatural column, the pillar beneath the mage college - what he could see of it - was a twisted, decayed mess. Chunks fell away, leading to other pieces dropping after them, and whatever organization Raff had seen around the use of the rope had already fallen apart. The drooping rope was littered with dangling bodies and empty loops of cloth, which prevented those who might otherwise have made it from proceeding.

Fury. Not at the waste of life, not at whatever was going on that had nearly cost them their own, but an absolute rage. He was trapped. Trapped in this city, by these humans, by greed, by-

The ground of the mage college split. Magma became lava as it it poured forth, fountaining up into a shape like a blazing, outstretched wing. Which was joined by a second, matching wing. Even from a distance it was huge, the spread feathers seeming to reach from one side of the pillar of land to the other. Another arch of lava formed a great head on a long, graceful neck. Flames sprang up in a ruff of burning feathers that surrounded the head as a blazing beak opened and a scream split the air.

This. This was what Kaz had been hearing. Feeling. Power roiled off of it, burning away into clouds of mana like obsidian smoke lit with embers of fiery ki. The red ki in Kaz’s abdomen boiled up in response, and he felt Li stiffen on his shoulder. She raised her own wings, spreading them wide, and roared. A gout of flame erupted from her throat, startling them both into a moment of clarity.

Beside them, Kyla had no such respite. She lifted her muzzle, howling as flames seemed to swell from her body. Rather than burning her, it looked like her fur had regrown into gold and orange glory, making her seem to be a second incarnation of fire.

The blazing bird was the first. It flapped its wings, lifting from the ground, and lava flowed from the gaping hole it left behind. It screamed again and again, struggling against the grip of the earth until only its legs and tail remained hidden.

Anger. Fury. Desperation. Indignation. A savage kind of madness that nearly managed to hide the pain. This thing was hurt. Worse, someone had intentionally hurt it. Hurt it again and again, until it had finally almost given up. Almost given in.

But it. Would. Not.

WOULD NOT.

This time when the bird-creature shrieked its defiance, something else answered. Not a scream but a hiss. Li’s hisses were nothing but the squealing of an overheated pot in comparison. The ground shook. The earth rippled, and water fountained up just as lava had done such a short time before, only this time it wasn’t out on the hovering pillar. No, this time it was in the city. Less than a hundred yards from Kaz and the others.

A black-scaled serpent slid from the hole created by the water. If Heishe had seemed large when Kaz met her in her cave, now she was colossal. To Kaz’s eyes, she looked like she was made of pure black ki, power made flesh, and her coils could crush the city in less time than it took to imagine the destruction it would wreak. Heishe rose up, a hood spreading flat behind her head, blocking the sun. She slithered on a river of water contained by nothing, gliding through liquid ki, across open air in order to reach the mage’s sanctuary.

The snake wrapped around the bird, and for a moment, Kaz thought they would do battle, utterly eradicating anything and anyone nearby. Instead, the coils of the serpent slid down within the lava-filled hole still restraining the feathered creature, and something snapped.

Fire undulated, and the bird rose, free at last. Something dark, metallic but also not, crumbled from its leg as it rose into the air. It screamed again.

Triumph. Pride. Exultation. The ki in Kaz’s body shifted, and unable to resist, he raised his face to the sky and howled. Kyla, Li, and even Mei joined him, their voices soaring up to meet the bird’s screech. Together, they howled the joy of freedom.

a mild voice said, and the bird’s celebratory song ceased as he turned to glare at the snake.

a new voice said, and Kaz knew it was the bird.

Heishe agreed laconically.

Her enormous body twisted, shrank, vanished somewhere in the shattered remains of the mage college. The bird hung in the air, his wings so wide that an eerie red glow fell over the human city, while its residents huddled, desperately hoping not to be seen. Then he, too, shrank, though he flew up and disappeared into the brilliance of the unmasked sun.

Compared to the commotion of the last…however long it had been, the lingering cracking of the earth and the gushing of water from the hole Heishe had left behind were like the gentle howls parents sang to their pups at bedtime. Kaz’s throat was sore from his own howling, but he felt oddly powerful, filled with far more ki than he should have been able to produce in the short time since he’d been drained.

“Well,” Raff finally said, breaking what wasn’t quite silence. “Anyone care to fill me in?"