WE WANDERED THE DIMLY LIT tunnels of the underworld without a goal, walking for the sake of walking, the plan to make for Ssarsdale long gone from our minds. We moved from tunnel to tunnel, from cavern to cavern, the regiment of our disciplined upbringing gone. We set no watches, made no schedules, and didn’t determine a pace or direction. We rarely spoke, exchanging less than a dozen words a day, mindlessly walking in the endless dim light of the underground.
We slept, ate rations we salvaged from the gnome battlements, sipped water, and walked. We did not recall our daily lesson; we did not practice or clean our equipment or make a proper camp. We did nothing but simply exist in the timeless, seasonless underworld, letting time slip away from us.
Finally, one day, Khavi simply would not wake up.
He was not asleep. His eyes were open, but he remained curled in a ball, unmoving and silent, his breathing slow and even. His gear lay strewn around in a disorganised pile, his sword half out of its scabbard, thin scabs of rust forming over the blade. It hadn’t been cleaned or oiled in some time, an almost unthinkable lack of diligence for a routine loving kobold.
Almost as unthinkable as my complete lack of caring about it.
“It’s time to get up,” I said, unable to keep the weariness from my voice. “We need to get going.”
Khavi didn’t stir. I reached out and poked him in the side. He still didn’t move.
“Khavi, come. We’ve slept long enough.”
“Have we.”
“Yes.” I couldn’t force energy and life into my flat and lackluster tone.“It’s been a full sleep cycle. It’s time we moved on.”
“To where?”
To where indeed? I searched my mind for the answer. “Ssarsdale of course.” The words seemed foreign to my tongue. “Are you all right?”
“How do you know Ssarsdale still exists, and if it does, how can they help us? Why would they bother?”
I was weary. I had slept more than adequately; too much, in fact, letting the hours pass without care. I was tired of Khavi and his attitude. I was tired of the endless tunnels throughout the underworld. I was tired of wandering without a point, tired of everything, tired of living.
“Ssarsdalians are our cousins. Our kin. They will heed the news of Atikala’s destruction, and they will send help, whatever help they can spare. They, unlike us, are not neighbours to any gnomes; the nearest gnome settlement was No-Kill’s.”
The name of the dead gnome bought some life back into Khavi. He managed a dry smile, just with the corners of his lips. “Was being the important word, isn’t it? Those gnomes are long dead now. So there’s some victory in all of this.”
I rested my hand on his side. “That is something.”
“Not enough for me to consider moving.” Khavi closed his eyes, trying to sleep once more. “And I don’t feel right about that. Don’t misunderstand; I’m glad that the gnomes are gone, and I hope that a colossal ball of a dead god’s shit falls straight through onto their city, but I can’t help but feel that it’s all so…pointless. They’re dead, we’re dead, who wins from that?”
It was true, and it was something I’d been taught well. “Not all battles have victors. Not all battles end with one side standing triumphantly above the rest. Sometimes all sides lose.”
Khavi uncurled his body, and then dragged himself up. “Sometimes both sides lose, yes, but there’s no shame in such an outcome. Yeznen taught us both that.”
“Yeznen taught us many things, some of which I am beginning to doubt the truth of.”
Khavi blinked. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me properly, or perhaps he didn’t care. “Ren, surely you can’t be serious.”
I shrugged, looking away at the stretch of tunnel identical to so many others. “I wish I weren’t.”
Khavi seemed about to reply, but didn’t. Instead he simply slumped over on his side and stared blankly at the wall. “I’d be angry,” he said, “but I just don’t care anymore.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
We stayed there, in that kink in the tunnel, for the entire day. Neither of us could summon the strength to get up. Khavi’s mood was like a festering wound, infectious and spreading to me; whatever was left of my energy was drained straight from my body, my desire to live seeping out my claws and into the stones itself.
We were waiting around to die. It seemed inevitable. Time would meander along until it finally happened, but as I lay there on my back, Khavi beside me, staring up at the ceiling and quietly begging the stones to fall down and crush us, I had an idea.
“Let’s go see the copper dragon.”
Khavi turned his gaze to me. “What.”
His enthusiasm aside, the idea gripped tight around my heart. I bolted upright, scrambling to my feet.
“Listen,” I said, “it’s something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the opportunity. Tyermumtican is known for his wide and broad knowledge, plus he doesn’t eat kobolds on sight. Sometimes he talks to our kind.”
Khavi gave me a vague look of disgust. “He doesn’t eat all kobolds on sight,” he corrected me, “but he often does.”
“We’ll be one of the exceptions.” I said. “He won’t eat us.”
“And you know this because?”
“Because we’ve been through dozens of gnomes, enemy tunnels, a spider’s lair, and through the end of damn world. Our story doesn’t end with chomp, chomp, dragon shit.”
Something in what I said stoked the fires in him. Khavi ever so slowly climbed up to his feet and glared directly at me. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I know,” I said, “but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t end here. It can’t end here.”
“Putting yourself in fate’s claws is pointless. Real kobolds make their own luck.”
I knew those words. Another lesson, repeated straight from Yeznen’s lips. Khavi’s parroting grated on my nerves, and I curled back my upper lip, snarling. “Don’t you have an original thought of your own?”
Khavi’s eyes flared with light. “I know enough to recognise the wisdom in others. To learn from what they have to say. You talk of stories and fate like we can control it, but everyone in Atikala is dead, their corpses swollen and rotting as we speak. Do you think those who were resting when it happened thought their story would end with them being crushed to death in their sleep?”
I gently bit the inside of my cheek. This approach wasn’t going to work. I needed something else. “Well, okay. Maybe not. But let’s say we go anyway, the copper’s in a bad mood, and decides to make us into a couple of snacks, what happens then?”
Khavi narrowed his gaze at me. “We get torn in half, then our digested remains are passed in a smelly pile of shit.”
“Not a bad way to go. Quick, painless, easy. Not like a couple of kobolds could do much more than die when faced with a true dragon anyway, but we have a chance. Coppers aren’t immune to my fire and you’re strong enough to last a while. We’d give him the best fight he’d seen in some time.” I glanced down at my claws idly. “How many kobolds are given the opportunity to fight a copper dragon?”
Khavi’s frown turned into a scowl, but I held his gaze, my determination matched by his. Then he broke into a laugh.
“You pull my tail, goldling. Come. Let’s go give a dragon indigestion.”