Chapter 21

  Through Ragged Breaths

  Screams filled the cold air. All throughout the kobold encampment flames danced from red to yellow and back, but the darkness of that night fought to eat away at the torch-flame’s light. “Stay here, stay quiet, and stay hidden,” he’d said.

  It’s so strange how some memories burn themselves into the front of your mind and yet others seem to be able to be kept even from yourself, tucked into the deep corners. But here he was in their tent, his uncle watching over him.

  This memory shouldn’t be here anymore, Nik thought.

  Kobolds had been nomads almost as far back as the world had existed, at least according to what the oral stories had always told. His family was the latest in a long, long line of wanderers. They were at one with the world around them, but there were more beings in this world now than there had been before the last sunfall.

  The mattress above his prone position would keep him from sight, but he curled himself towards the back just in case and covered his ears to block the sounds flooding in from outside the tent’s open flaps. The scent of smoke and ash crept into the tent, filling his lungs with a choking heat. Waiting for his parents to come back home, trying his best not to cough—not to make any noise at all, and hoping the big people would just go away, he cried in silence.

  Roaring winds tore at the tent until it was ripped away. Vanishing into the night.

  There in the middle of this memory, sitting upon his throne as the kobolds were being struck down all around him, was a king in an ebon crown.

  His uncle couldn’t see the king. No one could. His uncle was brave and kind, but his uncle was already dead. This was only a memory.

  The king looked straight into my eyes. Tower, he could see me. I had stayed hidden that night, I know I had. The king wasn’t there then, but he’s here now regardless.

  “What do we have here? A little nothing-kobold, hiding while his people die. How completely expected. Is this what happened during my slumber, your kin were wiped out by a band of multispecies thugs? If this is the stock you come from, well…. I had hoped all that bravado had meant something, but it looks like maybe your people were the weakest this world had to offer. Soon enough this world will be just like the other.”

  Uncle Jask fell back towards Nik. The rug bunched up under his back as he landed. The memory of his childhood thoughts repeated for him now. Why can’t we ever get the rug to lie flat? Dad and Mom had always complained about that.

  Nik knew what happened to his uncle, but he knew what had gone through his own mind then. That rug is always being a pain, Mom will ask why it has a large wrinkle and Dad will work to fix it.

  The king watched with a toothy smile as an elf appeared, hovering over Uncle Jask. She leaned down and pulled a bag of coins he’d never once seen from Uncle’s pocket.

  Nik yelped as a hand came from behind him to cover his mouth, and he was yanked out from under his bed. “Shhh, shhh, It’s okay, my little starlight. We’re here.” It was Mom, and Dad was just outside the slashed opening in the back of the tent that had reappeared around them.

  He was pulled through the opening and they each took one of his hands as they ran. The king’s laughter followed after them, but Nik knew that only he could hear it.

  * * *

  The mana-torches flickered and failed as the shaking cavern was plunged into inky blackness. As voices cried out in fear and surprise, Nik gasped in waking. The rumble slowed to a series of vibrations increasingly far between and more gentle with each of its echoes.

  His head still felt like it contained its own rumble and his arms were wrapped around something heavy; the child was still in his arms. They were crying, but they were still alive. He did it. Pearl was at his side, her voice calling out his name.

  He could feel the panic setting upon him as it dawned on him that the world was still blackness around him. Nik’s eyes searched the darkness in vain for his friend. “Pearl, I… I can’t see you! Tower, why can’t I see you?”

  “It is the mana-torches; they all have gone dark somehow. We could use a little light, Nik.” Even in the dark, he could almost hear her smirk at him as she spoke.

  The sigh of relief he let out that he hadn’t been struck blind was quickly followed by the realization of their situation. The rumble left us in darkness and there could be injuries among our people. The tunnel collapsed behind me, so we are separated from the rest of Brekk.

  He simply said, “Oh…”

  Lifting one arm from its grip on the child he’d rescued, he summoned the flame of Candlelight. The immediate area around him lit with a soft blue glow.

  “Someone, take the child please,” he asked and the kid was swarmed by multiple nearby goblins who helped to get them to their feet. Nik stood shakily and one of the nearby teenagers stepped forward to help support his weight.

  He offered the young goblin a thank you, and then as one of his first commands to his clan, he called out, “If anyone is injured or near someone else who is, then shout out and raise a hand if you are able.”

  Voices lifted in a clustered chorus from two areas along the wall. Pearl looked into Nik’s eyes and they understood each other without the need for words. One nod of understanding from Nik and Pearl was flying towards the more distant calls.

  Nik turned to the goblin at his side and asked, “What’s your name, young one?”

  “I haven’t gotten one yet, but my friends call me Strigilrinikrin, sir,” he replied.

  Nik tried not to let his eyes squint at the strangeness of the kids name, thinking, Strigi-what? It might just be my head injury, but that’s not gonna work for my brain right now. I’m not even sure I can make the right noises for that.

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  “Okay, I’m gonna need you to help me get to the ones who called out, but as a way of saying thank you, do you mind if I give you a nickname?”

  The kid’s eyes went wide enough to almost be able to reflect the Candlelight around half of the cavern. “That would be amazing!”

  Stics, Worik, and Kath will just have to be jealous about not getting the cool nickname. Shifting his weight and testing how much movement would make his head spin, he said, “Great, I’ll try not to lean on you too much, Bonesy. Let’s head to the nearest of the injured.”

  Leaning lightly on the newly dubbed Bonesy, Nik took one step after another.

  It was taking longer than he would have liked, but he could only move so quickly without collapsing in a heap of dizziness and nausea.

  He called out once again as he neared the first of the wounded. “Is anyone else here trained or knowledgeable in healing or first aid, besides Pearl? Anyone at all, with anything that could help, even if you are still among the unnamed?”

  No voices called out this time. It will be up to me then until Pearl comes back from helping the other one.

  The goblins moved aside, allowing the Candlelight to pierce through to the goblin that lay on her back. Blood trickled from her mouth, running over a wrinkled face. Nik half collapsed to her side.

  Nik could feel his lungs squeeze in his chest and his breaths trying to fail him. He scanned her body and gently searched for any visible injuries. Tears strained to loose themselves from his eyes as he said, “Pliegs, I’m here. I can’t find any surface wounds; where does it hurt?”

  The elder smiled at him and spoke with rasped words interrupted by several sharp gasps, “My lord… I’m afraid I may have… broken a couple of ribs… pierced a lung… I’m dying, Nik.”

  “No, I can help. I can do something. Tell me what to do and I can do it. I’ll save you.” Nik’s voice was frantic, his breaths nearly as jagged and short as Pliegs’.

  Through ragged breaths, she said, “You can’t always… save… everyone… my lord.”

  “No. No, I need you. You have to teach me how to lead our people,” said Nik.

  Pliegs’ eyes were slipping closed more and more as she visibly struggled to stay awake. She said, “Kindness and strength… nothing more… never… never less.”

  Wrinkled hands held tightly to the children who stood nearby; another two of the elders quietly comforted the young in the last moments of their old friend and fellow counselor. Small hiccuping sobs came from one of the kids, but the others remained mostly silent. Nik could see it in their eyes now. Even the youngest of the clan had already seen too much death.

  He returned his gaze from the children and back to Pliegs. “Kindness and strength,” he said in affirmation, but she would never hear his promise. Her half-closed eyes no longer held any light in them.

  The short breaths of panic gripped his lungs and Nik’s mind began to spiral into the dread of walking the path ahead of him. A path filled with death and loss, and lives he couldn’t save.

  He moved the claws of his left hand side-to-side in a slow downward motion. Think of the leaves. Take a moment to breathe. Watch how the wind pushes them along their path to the ground… Now is not the time to lose yourself. You are needed. Now move.

  Nik, with his mind beginning to clear and the throbbing pain in his head easing from the work being done by his Regeneration ability, removed his red cloak and laid it over Pliegs.

  “Bonesy, help me over to the other injured goblin,” he commanded softly to his young attendant.

  Parting with a gentle squeeze to the shoulder of one of the elders, Nik made his way towards Pearl. He required little help from the young goblin escorting him, but having someone to lean on was still very reassuring. This was especially true as they walked over small bits and pieces of debris.

  The scene they arrived at felt more like that of a training session than it should have due to the manner of Pearl’s scolding. It would seem her patient was a young goblin with a sprained ankle and a broken wrist who refused to stay still.

  Nik asked, “Anything I can do to help here, Teacher?”

  “Only if you know how to make a goblin child who is in pain stay still,” she retorted.

  Thinking for only a few heartbeats before coming up with a way to distract the kid, Nik reached a hand to his side to pluck an item from his pouch. He hesitated for the briefest of moments, as he realized what he was about to do.

  He held a closed hand out to the child, opening his fingers up to reveal one of his prized little marbles.

  “Hello, little one. Do you know what this is?” Nik asked in the most musical tone he could manage, and when they shook their head, he continued. “This is a favor from the burrow lord of the Stormclaws. This shiny little bead is called a ‘marble’, and it means that if you ever need any help, no matter what it is, then you can give this back to me and I have to do my best to help you. Understand?”

  The child nodded and reached out, taking the bead into their unbroken hand as Pearl finished tying a wooden stake across the opposite small green hand and forearm. She cleared her throat to get the young goblin’s attention back, and then delivered her orders, “Now, do not remove this and try not to use this hand at all until it has been healed. Okay, little one?”

  The child nodded once more, clutching the marble to their chest.

  “How is the other wounded?” Pearl asked, standing as one of the older kids lifted the little injured goblin into their arms.

  He shook his head, looking downward. Only once Nik lifted his head, eyes meeting with Pearl’s, could he bring himself to say the words, “Pliegs. I couldn’t do anything; I just sat there watching her fade. We needed a healer, and we’ll need one again, eventually. Another request for Lord Cril.”

  “Nik, I’m sorry. That is going to be a hard loss for this community. For the moment, though, what do we do next?”

  His claws dug into his palm, there was so much that he needed to accomplish for his clan and they hadn’t even left Brekk yet. “We dig our way out and we ready ourselves for what comes next. Then I have a favor to ask of you.”

  * * *

  The camp felt colder than most nights, an eerie feeling had settled over the group around their firepit. The creatures they’d captured were already sold at the market, but not the egg; that still needed time. The baby dragon that hatched would be bound and tamed, and it would one day grow into a guild defining beast pet, a symbol of their power.

  As they sat around their source of warmth, light and presumed safety, they remained unaware. The shadows in the forest were not alone, a crawling and writhing tendril of darkness slid from between them. It halted at the edge of the treeline, curling in on itself as it studied them.

  The darkness dug a claw into the earth and spread out its senses. It could take them all, devour them, but not by their fire. However, they weren’t the only lives that it could sense. There was something primal, but young and brimming with elemental energy.

  It slid along the trees to the other side where the largest of the tents had been staked, under the wall of canvas, and to the place where they’d placed their greatest stolen treasure. The living shadow seeped into the shell forcing its way through the smallest of pores and to the growing power contained within. There was no sound to accompany the fight of the unborn beast with what little it could do to defend itself from the invader.

  And in the silence, blue scales turned to black