Tam knelt before the idol of Kathonia, chanting in his mind a prayer. He prayed every day, sometimes for strength, sometimes for guidance, mostly just praying for a sign she was listening to him.
He never heard a response. Nobody did.
Shortly after Tam’s birth their goddess of burrows and children vanished into silence. Clerics could no longer heal the injured, farmers couldn’t purify their blighted crops, and soldiers couldn’t fight a fraction of the invaders they once could. They lost what little land they had on the surface, sealing themselves into their burrows and hiding away.
Finishing his prayer, Tam pulled his hood back over his head. His pale white scales were a liability, when they stood out among the reds and greys of his surroundings. It helped to keep himself hidden even among the rest of his kin, let alone at a time like this.
The entire village was frantic. Kobolds rushed to gather their things, flee from the burrow with whatever they could carry on their backs. Adventurers were coming, so the scouts warned. Somehow their hiding place was found, and even if they managed to fight off these adventurers, there was sure to be more in no time.
They had lasted a good few months in this cave, which had both an aquifer and plenty of mushrooms. With both food and water sorted, there was no need to risk venturing out onto the surface, where the humans and elves that killed monsters were, or delving into deeper crypts and catacombs, where bigger monsters that enslaved kobolds lived. The choice of where to run next was clear.
Tam had everything he owned slung in a leather bag across his back. His book of prayers, his elven dagger, a handful of dried mushrooms, and a string of holy gems. He ran, bag bouncing against his back, and with each step the space around him became more crowded, as bodies crushed in from all sides. The tunnel narrowed here, and a kobold could only squeeze through the narrowest part one at a time.
Tam could feel a deep shaking of the earth, and heard something rumbling in the distance. The crowd continued to pile up, shoving people towards the narrow gap, clogging the space. People screamed and shouted in panic, the scrabbling fear spreading throughout the crowd.
He tried to yell above the noise. The shoving and scratching wasn’t helping anyone, they needed to step back, a line needed to hold off the adventurers while people left in an orderly manner. Nobody even heard him. He couldn’t hear himself, over the panic and fear of nearly a hundred kobolds, pushed into a corner.
Tam pushed against the crush of bodies around him, walking away from the escape path. Maybe he could sneak by the adventurers, or maybe he could convince people at the back of the crowd that it was their duty as children of Kathonia to stand and fight for their burrow. He hadn’t made up his mind yet.
The rumbling of the earth quaked again, and many kobolds lost their footing. For a second, there was silence in the aftermath of the tremendous shake. Tam took his chance to speak up.
“Brothers, sisters! The burrow will not survive like this! Kathonia said: ‘Should invaders come to your land, you are obligated to outmuscle the weak, outwit the foolish, and outlast the feeble!’ I will stand to defend our people. Who will stand with me?”
Kobolds turned to face Tam. Few still held the piety necessary to be swayed by his words. Most of those older than him felt betrayed by their goddess’ absence, and most younger than him were never taught in the old ways. Still, four stepped to stand beside him.
Yik, once a great clerical healer, still devoutly believed in the goddess. He was losing teeth and scales in his age, and Tam wondered if the old man only stood by him so he could die in battle. With a dwarven mace held in both hands, he at least still had the strength to stand tall.
Sef was a good friend of Tam’s. They had been close from a young age, and though their paths had separated when Sef became a scout, their bond was still unbreakable. He had a halfling bow in one hand, and three arrows ready to loose in the other.
Wes was not a face Tam had expected to see join him. She had dated him once, but he could never devote himself to her the way he did to the Goddess. She had a human javelin, ready like a spear.
Lop was the closest living family Tam had left. Born in the first clutch on his maternal grandmother’s side, she was the one who raised Tam after the death of his mother. She retrieved from her pocket a gnomish wand which sparked with electricity.
The five kobolds hugged the walls of the cavern, clinging to the shadows as they turned each corner. The shaking and rumbling earth was getting even stronger as they crept in silence towards the front entrance of the cave.
“I don’t think the shaking earth was the adventurers,” Tam said.
“Maybe they were digging tunnels, and causing a bunch of collapses?” Sef suggested.
Old man Yik spoke up next, “Adventurers don’t tunnel around. That was the sound of battle, I’m sure of it.”
Wes clenched her spear tighter, “How could we possibly fight something powerful enough to make the earth shake like that?”
“Like I said, we outwit them or outlast them.” Tam said.
“Or we die, but we make them spend their time and energy on five focused fighters instead of a hundred panicked lizards.” Yik added.
“Kathy’s tits.” Wes cursed, under her breath.
Lop put her hand on Wes’ shoulder.
“If it seems truly hopeless, I will stand my ground with Yik, so you three can run.”
“Thank you.”
Another shake in the earth rumbled, this one felt like it was coming from all around the kobolds. Stones and earth fell from the cavern ceiling, filling the air with dust.
Nobody said anything about the noise, but the five kobolds now walked with hands clasped together in a chain, Sef leading the way.
Kobolds tended to travel the tunnels by scent, since their darkvision pierced only a few meters into the lightless depth. Right now the only thing Tam could smell was fear. He tightly gripped Wes and Sef’s hands, moving forward more by the momentum pushing him onward than by any volition in his legs.
He froze mid-stride when he heard a faint whisper from ahead. His iron grip stopped Sef in place too, and the other three came to a stop behind them.
“Voices. That way.” Tam whispered.
Everyone nodded, and they fell a few paces back to lay out an ambush. The tunnel was at least twice as wide as any kobold was tall, and twice as tall as it was wide. They could just squeeze one kobold behind each support beam that stretched from floor to ceiling, if they pressed their backs flat against the wall. It spread them out, but catching the adventurers off guard was the difference of life or death. When the adventurers were at their closest, they would initiate kobold battle tactics.
Tam had the smallest weapon, and so he volunteered to stand furthest forward, and attack the weakest ones from behind, while Yik and Wes would face them head-on, and Sef and Lop would ready their ranged attacks from the end of the hall. Everyone had faith that Tam would not be spotted, and he could sneak up on them.
The whispers were clearer now, and Tam could almost convince himself that he saw a glimmer of light bouncing into the tunnel. He pulled his hood as far over himself as he could. He didn’t need to see them coming, he just needed to stay hidden until the rest began their attack.
The whispers came in a regular pattern. A higher voice would say something in a mumbled, fearful tone, and a much deeper voice would give a very short response. Tam had no idea what the words being said meant. He could only speak in his native tongue, and a few translated hymns at the back of his prayer book, which taught him scraps of Goblin-speech and Jotun.
He stood there, in blind darkness, holding his breath for minutes. Kobolds needed very little air, so long as they weren’t moving. A kobold playing dead could even trick the sensitive ears of an elf, even their hearts could slow to a standstill for a stretch of time. With the slowing of his heart and lungs, came a slowing of Tam’s mind. The agonizing waiting sped up, the voices were louder but less distinguishable, and pinpricks of light were bouncing off walls and through the fabric of Tam’s hood into the massive dilated pupils, appearing and vanishing like stars in the night sky.
If Tam were spotted the adventurers would kill him before he could finish taking his last breath. It took time to exit this state, and return to his full faculties. That was the risk he had to take, holding this flanking position. He was blind, nearly deaf, with a fraction of the blood in his head he’d normally have. He felt a rhythmic rumbling against the wall and beneath his feet, like the crashing footfalls of a lumbering elephant. For the sound to be reaching him when he was so far removed from his senses betrayed the true enormity of what he wasn’t hearing.
Suddenly, there were the screams of battle. With a breath in, Tam could now properly assess his surroundings. The tunnel was painfully bright and noisy, and ahead of him he could make out just the outlines of four glowing figures. The earth was constantly shaking the tunnel on all sides, and dust was thick in the air. The screams of his friends and family were all he could hear over the rumbling sound of collapsing stone.
Tam blinked the clear membrane over his eyes, peering through the dust, and picked out his target. There was one adventurer who stood almost as tall as the tunnel itself, two more who were twice Tam’s size at least, and one small one, the same size as the kobolds. He had just as good a chance getting the drop on the biggest of them, especially in all the dust and rumbling.
He stepped silently forward, knife held in a reverse grip, ready to stab the adventurer like a chisel into stone. All the adventurers were focused on the kobolds ahead of them, holding their defences high as the occasional bolt of lightning cast into the group. As he reached the edge of the glowing light that surrounded the adventurers, Tam changed his stride to a sprint. These ten steps were the most dangerous, as he’d have to pass by the shortest adventurer to get at the tallest one.
Once in the light itself, he could actually see what kind of adventurers these were, by their species, and what they wore and carried. The tallest was a human, with a sword large enough to skewer and roast five kobolds wielded in two hands. The two medium sized ones were either dwarves or gnomes, and both wore white robes. One formed a magical shield in the air, while the other chanted out a song. The smallest adventurer seemed quite timid and afraid, hiding behind the other three with a tiny crossbow in hand, but aimed straight at the ground.
Shoving past the little crossbow wielder, Tam leapt into the air with every ounce of strength he could muster. At the apex of his jump he stabbed forwards, bringing his knife into the back of the human. He tried to pull the knife out and stab again, but the human shook him off before he could get a grip.
From the ground, he saw the sorry state his allies were in. Yik was split in half, a slick pool of blood surrounding the body. Sef held Wes’s spear defensively, his bow left on the ground. All three arrows lay on the ground in front of the human, who had clearly not been hit by one. Wes was nowhere to be seen, maybe she had run away when Yik was killed, leaving her spear with Sef once he ran out of arrows. The only reason the fight had lasted as long as it had was because of Lop’s wand. The adventurers had to approach slowly behind a magic shield, respecting the lethality of such a weapon.
Tam scrambled to his feet, but the human was already cocking back his arms to bring down the sword. Tam made a jumping dodge, rolling into a corner, but the swing was a feint, and now Tam had nowhere to run. All Tam could do was hiss in the face of his killer, but before the human could strike him down, the singing adventurer held up a hand to the human. The human lowered the sword to a defensive posture.
Tam dug his claws into the support beam along the wall. If he could climb out of reach of the adventurers, he’d be safe. He managed to get two feet off the ground when the singer yanked him by his tail, pinning him down with under their foot. He thrashed and flailed, but the fight was over. His knife was still in the human’s back, his allies couldn’t possibly rescue him. He’d done exactly what he said he’d do.
The singer called over the little crossbow adventurer. Standing next to the singer, the resemblance was clear even to Tam. This was a child with their parent. The child had tears in their eyes, and a large pouting lip. The parent lifted their child’s hands, aiming the crossbow for them. Tam thought about shedding his tail as a last-ditch effort, but it seemed pointless. He had nowhere to run.
With a bolt aimed dead at his skull, Tam said a final prayer to Kathonia. He prayed that his life would not be ended in vain. He prayed that Yik would rest in peace, moving gracefully to the afterlife. He prayed that Sef and Wes and Lop would escape, and that the village would find a new home. He prayed that her magic would return, and Kobolds could live on the surface once more. He prayed for peace, for silence, and for a better life.
In the moment his prayer ended, all was silent. Even the constant rumbling of the earth had ceased. The child lowered the crossbow. The parent sighed and went to take the weapon for themself, when a jolt struck from beneath. The crossbow misfired, the adventurers all toppled, and from the ground a foul monster emerged.
The beast dripped with black oozing ichor, and breathed a dusty smoke when it exhaled. It barely fit inside the tunnel, scraping the ceiling and both walls with its thick armour plated skin. Tam knew for sure that this is what they had been hearing rumbling through the tunnels.
The tunnel was now collapsing at a rapid rate, and Tam had three options before him. He could rush back towards the village, hoping that things had cleared at the choke point in the time since he left. He could run further down the tunnel, towards wherever the adventurers had come from. Finally, he could descend. The emerging monster had left a hole in the floor which would lead to wherever this monster had last been.
Jumping down seemed the obvious choice. Tam could scavenge the remains of whatever the monster had last ravaged and killed. That’s what kobolds were born to do, they were scavengers.
With the adventurers distracted by the random encounter, Tam could easily leap into the unknown. The hole that the monster emerged from was at a steep slope, and Tam half-slid half-rolled his way down the round and smooth hole bored into the floor. His claws dug into the stone and soil, slowing his acceleration, but the tunnel just kept going down and down and down.
The sound of air rushing past him was accompanied by another noise, some sort of screaming laughter that chased him down the slide. When the slope finally flattened out, Tam came to a stop, and was immediately struck in the back by a colliding body. Facing them with his darkvision, he saw the face of the child.
It had followed him down here.
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