When they joined everyone else at the bottom of the stairs, it was to find that Senge had doubled, and was now glaring at the version of herself waiting in the cavern below. The new ‘Senge’ was, of course, just another kobold who looked like her, and if Kaz were to guess, probably a birth-sister, rather than one from a separate litter.

“Berin,” Senge growled, the fur along her spine lifting slightly. “Where is Mother?”

Berin didn’t look concerned at all, in fact, her ears were perked in interest as she looked around at the humans. Her sulfur-yellow eyes brightened as they took in Kaz, though she ignored the rest of the males behind him. She spoke offhandedly, without looking at her sister, though the hulking male beside her did enough staring for both of them, never taking his eyes from Senge and Brez.

“She’s cleaning up your mess, Senge. Where did you think she would be? But what have you found? Are these some new kind of monstrosity, come to destroy and devour their way through our tribe?” Her voice was light, almost teasing, but there was a venom behind it that told Kaz there was no love lost between these two siblings.

Senge snorted. “You remember what humans look like as well as I do,” she said. “We were young when they last came, but not that young.”

Berin waved a hand, dismissing the comment. “Not the humans. Though I’m curious about them, the elders predicted that eventually humans would find their way down through the mountain. No, I mean these things.” She pointed to Kaz and the others, taking in their damaged, bedraggled state, missing limbs, and old scars.

Senge blinked. Other than Kaz, she had barely acknowledged the existence of the males, and obviously hadn’t expected her sister’s first question to be about them. Clearing her throat, she admitted, “I… don’t know. They came with the humans. We’ve had a few like them turn up over the past few days, claiming they had escaped a great city controlled by mosui, when everyone knows the mosui are little better than animals.”

Berin shook her head and glanced over at her warrior. He wore a large claw that matched one on her necklace, marking him as her mate, and his dark yellow fur was a pleasing complement to her brighter shade. “Dat, take charge of the males,” she told him. “I, my sister, and these humans have some things to discuss.”

Before Lianhua could speak, Kaz lifted his chin, looked into Berin's eyes, and said, “No. We stay together.”

Every kobold there froze in shock, though Berin recovered first. She had been exposed to Kaz’s bizarre defiance before, after all. Fortunately, Lianhua spoke before she could, saying, “That’s right. Kaz is our guide, and we’ve promised to take these males to the Deep.”

Berin cocked her head to the side, eyes twinkling. Once again, she waved her hand. “Well, and so you have. Here is the Deep, as promised.”

“The city in the Deep,” Lianhua corrected, eyes narrowing dangerously. “They need to find their lost tribes.”

“Ahh,” the Goldcoat murmured, “now that is different. And what tribes were they so careless as to lose?”

Kaz didn’t like the way this female turned everything into a joke, so he said stiffly, “Right now, they need care more than comedy.”

The humor fell away from Berin’s expression, leaving cold calculation behind, and Kaz found that he liked this even less. Still, she was serious as she asked, “What ‘care’ do they need, then?”

“The care and respect due a warrior who has fought hard and returned to his den after a long battle. Warm food, jejing, and zhiwu webs, to start,” he said, refusing to look away. He felt Ratre’s hands tighten on his shoulders, but the male didn’t try to get Kaz to back down.

Berin stared at Kaz as his heart pounded in his ears, then her grin returned, and she said, “Dat, you heard him. Food - with lots of meat, I think - jejing, and webs.” Her gaze flicked away, lingering on the torn leg of the male who was being carried, then stopped on something that made them widen almost comically. Her mouth opened again, then snapped shut, and Kaz glanced behind him, seeing Dett desperately shaking his head from where he had been trying to hide at the back of the group.

Kaz felt a little stunned himself at this interplay. He had honestly believed that Dett was either lying or delusional when he said he was from an important tribe in the Deep, and that even if he was correct, his tribe would long since have forgotten him. Berin’s reaction strongly implied she’d recognized him, and the fact that she’d obeyed when he motioned her to silence was a powerful argument that Dett was exactly what he’d claimed.

Broad, toothy muzzle set in an expressionless mask that rivaled Chi Yincang’s, Berin’s mate stepped to the side, motioning to another of the Goldcoat warriors. “Run ahead,” he told the smaller male. “Get Jul, and tell him we have injured. We’ll need guest huts, too.”

The male pressed a fist to his chest, bowing, then ran off through an archway that gave Kaz a small shiver when he saw it. It looked much like the one above had before Kaz accidentally gave it enough power to repair itself, and he dreaded having to pass through it, even though he had probably gone through a hundred like it without any trouble.

Lianhua glanced between the two sisters, then sighed, looking at Berin. “May we step down?” she asked, gesturing at the floor beyond the bottom step, on which Raff stood.

Berin’s tongue lolled in amusement. “You may, but my sister has been forbidden from re-entering the Deep so long as monsters still roam the mid-levels.”

Senge growled. “We’re burning out the fulan, and we haven’t seen anything worse than a janjio with a single lopo tentacle in three days. Besides,” her muzzle lifted pridefully, “I brought these humans here, and they say the threat has ended.”

“And of course you believe them,” Berin’s voice was flat. “Go back to your den, sister, and wait for Mother to send for you. As always, you think too much of yourself, and too little of others.”

Senge began to howl in fury, and would have lunged from her step if Brez hadn’t caught her around the waist in a breach of every rule Kaz had ever been taught. Males, even warrior protectors, didn’t touch the females they guarded without permission. Kaz distinctly remembered his father standing behind Oda as she got them into conflict after conflict, and never once had Ghazt stretched out a hand to stop her. He had simply fought, as ordered, until the battle where he fell, his death as pointless as all the others.

Bending to Senge’s ear, Brez murmured something too low for even Kaz to understand, and the female stilled, though anger hummed in every muscle and tendon. She glared at Berin. “You’ll regret taunting me when our mother chooses me as her successor. She only pushes me harder because she knows I can take it, unlike you,” she spat.

This was in direct contradiction to her earlier comment about being disposable, and something in both sister’s gazes acknowledged the disparity as Berin said neutrally, “As you say, sister.” Her glance slid to Brez, and there was something sad in it as she said, “Fair howls, brother.”

He bowed his head but didn’t reply as Senge turned and pushed her way back through the kobolds behind her, nearly stepping on one of Kaz’s males in the process. She stomped up the steps with as much dignity as she could muster, and by the time she was out of sight, they could all hear newcomers approaching from the darkness of the hall beyond the arch.

When a short, harried, orange-furred male appeared through the opening, he was greeted by more than a dozen pairs of eyes, all focused on him. He paused, sharp gaze passing over each of them impatiently, before stopping on the two males who were being carried.

“Come on then,” he said, voice a deep, authoritative growl that was entirely unexpected, given his small stature. “No one is bleeding on the floor, so I don’t know why I had to come all the way here.” When he rolled his eyes at Berin, she grinned back, seeming not to notice that he was treating her more like another male than a female, and a powerful one at that.

“There’s no one bleeding anywhere else, either,” Berin said cheerfully, motioning for the group still standing on the stairs to follow as she crossed the cavern. “You’re getting old, and you need to get out of the den sometimes, uncle.”

His ears twitched in amusement, but the male didn’t bother answering, just looked over the kobolds more closely as they limped and shuffled closer. He sniffed deeply, and his nose wrinkled. “I smell infection,” he said. “That’ll be first. Who is it?”

Everyone turned to look at the male with the injured leg. He seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness, now that he didn’t have to walk on his own, so he didn’t even react when the new male walked up and prodded the red, inflamed wound, causing more pus to come out. This was yellowish, rather than the clearer white of the earlier stuff, but at least it wasn’t green yet, so there was hope.

“All right,” the healer, because that was who Kaz assumed the strange male was, “bring him. Not you,” he added, pointing to the warrior carrying the injured male. “You’re about to fall over yourself. Guni, you take him. Loge, you take the one the puppy is carrying.”

Hesitating, he took in Kaz’s size, lack of injuries, and the ‘fuergar’ on his head, and said, “Unless you think you can carry him another half mile or so.”

Kaz adjusted his grip on Ratre, who softly muttered, “I can walk.”

Overriding him, Kaz firmly said, “I’ve got him.” His ki was finally starting to refill, so he really was fine, though all the kobolds nearby gave him dubious looks.

The wounded male was transferred to the back of one of the Goldcoats, and then Berin started off down the hall, with her mate quickly hurrying to catch up. He passed her just as they went through the arch, and Kaz was surprised to catch the hint of a deep growl as he told the female to slow down so everyone could stay close and protect her. Her answer was lost in the sound of claws and paws scraping on stone, but he could tell from her tone that she wasn’t annoyed at her mate’s presumption.

Kaz carefully threaded his way through the arch, making sure not even the tip of his tail brushed against the worn stone. Lianhua fell in beside him as they stepped into a typical ancient hallway, broad and high-ceilinged, with neat corners, though there were scratches and grooves worn into the stone beneath his paws.

Lianhua held up her palm, where Kaz could see the glowing sound obscuration rune, and he nodded to show he understood. He flicked his eyes back at Ratre, whose ears were definitely within the field cast by the rune, and Lianhua nodded back.

“Berin is about as different from her sister as it’s possible to be,” Lianhua said, without looking at the kobold of whom she spoke. “I’m not sure Senge is capable of lying, and she certainly wouldn’t be good at it, if even I can read her ears and tail to get an idea of what she’s thinking. But Berin-”

Shaking her head, Lianhua sighed. “You said the kobolds in the Deep were different, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. This is like being home, but not in a good way.” She gave him a little grin, so he’d know she was joking, but her eyes were dark.

Kaz nodded. “In the rest of the mountain, the strong lead, and the weak die. Here, strength is important, but those who are smart enough can get others to fight for them, so it’s not as clear cut.”

Ratre gave a weak laugh, making them both jump. “The weak still die, though,” he said. “So it’s not that different after all.” He turned his muzzle so he could peer around toward Kaz’s face. “But how do you know so much about it, pup? There weren’t many with fur as blue as yours even when my tribe left, and everyone knew them all by sight.”

Kaz almost missed a step. “You’re from the Deep, too?” He knew it was a ridiculous question as soon as it came out. Ratre was going to the Deep for a reason, after all.

Ratre didn’t seem to mind though, and gave a soft, growling laugh. “I was. My tribe served the Woodblades, but it was one of the ones that lost their place when that fool, Oda, murdered them all.”

Kaz’s throat ached with the questions he wanted to ask, but he managed to hold back all but one. “This Oda… killed a whole tribe?”

The older male’s chin came to rest on Kaz’s shoulder as if his head had suddenly grown too heavy to lift. “One of the great tribes. The best of them. Burned them all in their own den by setting their store of firemoss oil ablaze. Only a few pups escaped, and no females. My tribe was supposed to be guarding them, but somehow she or her people slipped past us. That’s why we left. We were too ashamed to stay and look those puppies in the eye.”

That explained so much and yet also spawned even more questions. Kaz cursed himself for never even trying to speak to the males he was supposed to be protecting. If he had, he would have known that the answers he tried to convince himself he didn’t care about might be right there for the taking.

On his head, Li whistled softly, her feet grasping the rim of his ear far more gently than usual. Her tail wrapped around his head as if she wanted to embrace him, but couldn’t, and an image of a great dragon curled protectively around a little kobold filled his mind.

Kaz’s ear twitched, a little bit because the prickle of her claws made it itch, but more in acknowledgement of her support. He wished he could reach up and touch her, but he had to hold onto Ratre, so instead he just sent her warm gratitude. It would have to be enough for now.

He glanced over at Lianhua, who was looking at him with the most open expression he’d seen from her since they left the mosui city. She was nearly vibrating with blatant curiosity, but to her credit, she didn’t speak.

Kaz cleared his throat. “When we get a chance,” he told Ratre, as calmly as possible, “I’d like to talk to you about that.”