The Admiral and the Assistant

The Kobolds descended deeply, more deeply than anyone in living memory had gone. Ordinarily, they lived in the outermost part of the cave system of Takkar, only a few dozen yards from the surface at most, but far beneath the caves and trees they knew was a massive open cave system. The rock below Takkar was honeycombed with open, meandering caverns.

The Kobolds made a long line, picking their way down in the Deep. Krundle the hunter led the way. He held his torch high, but the flickering light did not penetrate very far into the thick darkness.

The echoes of their passage bounced back from distant walls. Far away they could hear a massive, rushing waterfall, but the darkness was so heavy they could see no evidence of it beyond a thick, swirling mist in the air.

Krundle didn't like this at all. He was comfortable on the surface, hunting food or battling predators. His hand was made for a spear, not for a torch. But the Vek the elder was right. They could not fight an enemy that never touched the ground. He hissed quietly in frustration to himself. Stabbing cat-bears was how he wanted to protect his people. But fleeing into the Deep was the way to protect his people right now.

Progress was slow, tentative. Every surface was permanently damp, and the rock was smooth, making everyone's footing unsure. Krundle edged his foot forward on the uncertain footing. The cave wall soared high on his right, climbing into the impenetrable darkness, and fell off to his left, plummeting to unknown depths. The of light from the Kobold's torches only gave them tiny bubbles of visibility in an uneven line.

There was a commotion from behind, somewhere down the line. Krundle came to a halt, raising his hand. Dozens of yards back, one of the Kobolds had slipped and fallen. She was sliding down toward the edge of the path, digging the claws of her hands into the floor, her rear claws scrabbling uselessly against the slick stone.

Several other Kobolds rushed over to help her.

"Careful!" Krundle hissed. "Don't fling yourself down, too!"

The entire line watched with held breath as two other Kobolds edged over to the fallen female. Others held their hands, forming a chain that reached for the sliding Kobold.

Krundle grimaced. The chain of Kobolds was a good thought, as far as it went, but if a couple of them lost their footing, they'd pull a dozen Kobolds down after them. Instead of losing one clumsy Kobold, they could lose many.

"Careful!" he cried again, knowing his words were fruitless, but compelled to do something.

Krundle noticed that the fallen Kobold was one of the food-carriers, weighted down with a heavy pack of meat for the journey. He grimaced. There was no telling how long they'd be down here. They couldn't afford to lose any food.

Someone finally grabbed her wrist, halting her slide. She blubbered in fear. Another Kobold grabbed her other wrist. Carefully, slowly, the chain of Kobolds pulled back, drawing her slowly up the dew-slick rock; up the steep angled slide and back toward the flat pathway. Like a writhing poison-worm, the line of Kobolds pulsed like a tide, pulling each other to safety.

With a final heave, they pulled each other back onto the path. The Kobolds gasped for breath, and the young lady who'd nearly plummeted into the darkness scrambled to the cave wall and clung to it, sobbing.

"Come," Krundle called gruffly. "We need to move." He turned and began feeling his way forward again.

Vek the elder, close behind him, nodded. "We haven't much time," he said.

Krundle's claws scraped against the stone as he advanced. This was all too intense for him. A battle against a cat-bear would be over in seconds, minutes at the most, but they'd been descending into the Deep for hours now. His nerves were taut as he pushed forward, moving as quickly as he dared.

"How deep do we have to go?" on of the younger Kobolds whined.

"Until we're safe," Krundle growled.

Dame Haffa gathered the child close.

"Not much longer," she said. She hummed a little in the cool, still air. She couldn't fully sing as she scraped and bumped over the slick, uneven floor, but she strained to bring a little comfort to those around her.

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The child hiccuped a couple sobs.

"Are we gonna get eaten by Burrowbite?" he asked.

Dame Haffa "tsked."

"No, of course not," she said. "Burrowbite doesn't eat Kobolds."

The child turned his tear-streaked face up to Dame Haffa.

"Tell me the story of Burrowbite," he said quietly.

Dame Haffa smiled warmly at him in the uncertain light and took his hand.

"Well, if it worries you, then it's time to tell the story again." She began in a classic storytelling cadence. "Long, long ago, before there were Kobolds, there was just Takkar. The cat-bears and rockpaws lived on the surface and did whatever they pleased. Deep underground, further down than any cat-bear could ever dig, slept Burrowbite, the great worm."

"How big is he?" asked the child, his fear diminished in the warmth and familiarity of the old story.

"He's so big that he fills up the entire world. All the ground-- the trees, the lakes, the catbears and the rocks, all rest on Burrowbite's back. Now, for many long years, Burrowbite slept, until one day he awoke. He coiled and slithered and wriggled. He humped and squirmed. And it shook the ground terribly. All the trees fell down, and the cat-bears ran away in fear."

"Good," the boy said firmly. "Stupid old cat-bears."

Dame Haffa smiled before continuing. "Well, once he'd woken up, what do you think was the first thing he noticed?"

"His belly!" cried the boy.

"That's right! For the first time, Burrowbite was hungry. He was so hungry that he opened his mouth and began eating the rock above him."

"Ew!"

"He had big iron teeth to eat the rock. And he ate and he ate and he ate and he ate, until he at all the way to the surface of the ground. There he found sunlight, but he hated it, because it hurt his skin."

"Oooh, like the sun hurts my skin when I stay outside too long."

"Exactly right. So Burrowbite went back below the ground to keep eating. He ate until he'd made all the caves under the ground."

"Oh, tell me where the Kobolds came from!"

She laughed indulgently and tapped his nose.

"I'm getting there. So Burrowbite ate and ate, but then he bit into something hard. It hurt his teeth, so he spit it out. It was a glowing gemstone. Then he bit another gem that hurt his teeth, so he spit that out, too. Time and again, he would bite into tough pieces and spit them out. Finally, he was so angry with eating that he thrashed his way to his bed below the ground and went back to sleep, promising that he would never again wake up."

Dame Haffa's soothing voice and the old familiar story swept over the creeping Kobolds. Krundle relaxed a little. He moved more smoothly as she continued to spin her tale.

"Well what do you think happened to those gems, those tough bits of rock? They were magical gems from deep, deep below ground. And as they lay there, old Burrowbite's spit seeped into them. The magical gems, with power from Burrowbite, began to think and to grow. Over many years, they grew and grew until they became the first Kobolds. They made their way up through the caves to find the sun, and the trees and all the good plants to eat. They learned to hunt and to fight and to eat and to make babies. And that's how the Kobolds came to be."

The boy smiled nervously, his tear-tracks having dried.

"But won't Burrowbite eat us if we go too deep?"

"He can't, remember? Kobolds were too tough for him to eat. Besides, he's still sleeping, and he will always sleep. But every so often, he twitches in his sleep. That's when the ground shakes and the trees fall."

"Tell me another story, Dame Haffa."

She chuckled softly.

"Very well, I'll tell you the story of Brindletooth the Deceiver, the cleverest and fastest Kobold that ever there was. How Brindletooth Stole the Tail from Blacktail the Cat-bear. Many, many years ago, before there were moons in the sky..."

Dame Haffa kept up her stories as the Kobolds descended deeper and deeper.

Krundle called another halt. The line of Kobolds behind him collapsed, sitting on the stone. The breaks were more frequent, but the Kobold's energy was almost used up. There was no telling how long they'd been traveling, with no sun to tell the time.

They had the scanner, but numbers it showed were meaningless to them. What did "0400" mean? That didn't tell anybody how many fingers above the horizon the sun was.

Krundle was breathing heavily. The air had dried, and was warm now, heated by the rocks they walked over. The footing was more sure here, and the path broader and less steep, but they had to walk farther and farther to find a path down, doubling back and poking around until they could find a safe way.

"How far did we come?" Vek the elder asked.

Krundle furrowed his brow and looked up into the darkness.

"Don't know. At least fifteen lengths. Maybe twenty."

Vek frowned.

"Can you bring us back?" Vek asked. "After the sky-eaters leave?"

Krundle bristled.

"I can. I could lead us back up in the dark."

"I hope you don't have to."

Krundle glared at his flickering torch as it used the last of its fuel. He cast the spent stick to the ground. "How many torches left?"

Vek looked back down the line.

"Krimpet and Thrynn both have a full load of torches."

"Are we deep enough yet?"

"I don't know. The traveler didn't know." Vek waved around the cave's scanner. "Even the Imperials don't know. The sky-eaters can reach down through stone and steel. Who knows how deep they can reach through our caves?"

"Then we keep going until the sky-eaters can't reach. As deep as we can." Krundle stood, resetting his backpack on his shoulders. "Let's start moving again."

Vek grunted and stood. The rest of the line of Kobolds reluctantly got up, grumbling.

"We can survive the cat-bears," Krundle said, his raised tenor carrying through the cave. "We can survive the rockpaws. We can survive the Great Storm. We will survive the sky-eaters."

The Kobolds nodded in determination, shouldered their burdens, and followed him ever further in the the Deep of Takkar.