Three more arrows came at the human in quick succession.

  One clipped his forehead, and he cried out with annoyance, “Argh! Fuckin’ mobs!” He hunched under his buckler and wiped blood away on his arm, backing up faster. He put his foot down behind him — and the heel dipped down without warning. He’d reached the edge of the hallway pit trap. The adventurer caught himself just in time, his arms pinwheeling to keep himself from falling. The position left him completely open to attack.

  Spear drove himself forward, ignoring the flailing dirk so that it chopped down on Spear’s shoulder with a crunch, probably shattering bone. But it didn’t stop the fierce warrior. With a screech of hate, he thrust the spear into the human’s stomach.

  The adventurer’s eyes went wide. Arms reaching for nothing but air, he fell backward into the pit with a despairing cry.

  A ragged, triumphant cheer went up from the kobolds. They raised their weapons into the air and shook them, hissing and dancing. The evil adventurers had been defeated! They were safe! Much hugging, back-slapping, smiling, and relieved breathing followed. Spear sagged against the wall and painfully slid to the floor. His eyes closed. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one badly injured or bloody and unmoving on the floor. Victory had come with a brutal cost.

  With someone in the pit trap, the door in the floor stayed open, so there was no using that hallway for the moment. After moving the second-floor secret door to the room with the kobolds, Kai went down the secret Admin stairs to the second floor to join them. Sliding the door open, he surveyed the scene. His emotions were mixed. He was very glad — relieved — that so many of the creatures had lived, especially the kids. But he was sad to see blood on the floor. Three bodies lay still. Many of the kobolds knelt by their sides, weeping, while others tended to the children who were safe at last.

  Kai walked over to where a green and a dark pink kobold each knelt over the body of the old one who fell first taking Spear’s place in defence of the tribe. The body lay seemingly unnaturally still with a sense of wrongness. Kai had seen the person moving only minutes ago, alive and heroic. He wasn’t sure why he was so affected by the death of someone he didn’t know, who wasn’t human, wasn’t a friend. But seeing the tears flowing and the way the living two held the dead one’s hands, cradling them as they moaned and mumbled heartfelt things, Kai wished he had that kind of relationship with others, where people cared that much about each other.

  He stood close but respectfully, not too close, and offered his condolences, “I’m sorry for your loss. He seemed very brave.”

  The dark pink one didn’t look away from the face of the dead, but the green one glanced up, yellow eyes filled with pain, and gave him a wincing smile, bobbing their head twice before turning back to the departure of their loved one.

  Multiple kobolds came up to Kai and shook his hand and said something in their language that he guessed was effusive thanks. He felt pleased and proud of himself, yet guilty that he hadn’t saved everyone. Three had died; should they really be grateful? Shouldn’t he have done more somehow?

  Kai awkwardly made his way through the crowd to where Spear sat against the wall. He gave an upward nod to the fierce defender. “Hey. You ok?”

  Spear opened his eyes, looking spent. But before he could reply, an old kobold bustled over. Their scales must once have been crimson but were now mostly grey. The old one hovered over Spear, talking in their native language, all clicks and hisses, fussing over him and checking his injuries. Spear said things back. The old one made appreciative sounds and gestures as they fingered the armour Spear now wore, even patting it and giving Kai a wide smile that was missing a few teeth. Unfortunately, the patting was on Spear’s crippled shoulder, and he hissed in pain. The old one lightly batted him on the head like he should suck it up. They went back to trying to get the armour off him so they could tend to him properly. Spear looked like he was barely tolerating the attention and growled back.

  Kai watched the back and forth; it felt familiar. He asked Spear, “Family?”

  Spear practically rolled his eyes. “Mother’s mother.” He said something in his language and got himself slapped on the nose, though his grandmother didn’t even look up or reply, still busy.

  A tap on the back got Kai to turn around.

  A deep purple kobold with a white chest and belly stood there, looking nervous and happy both. She held a baby on her hip and gestured at Spear like she wanted to get past.

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  Kai quickly stepped aside. “Oh. Sorry.” He watched the kobold, guessing it was female, as she knelt by Spear and fussed over him just as much as the other while also trying to shush the baby.

  Spear’s gruff impatience grew. He growled at both of the ones tending him and got two slaps on the snout for his unappreciative rudeness.

  Kai laughed. “More family?”

  Spear nodded. “Mother.”

  “Ah. Right. I see the resemblance.” That was technically true, as he could barely tell the kobolds apart, and gender differences were beyond him. Thank goodness they came in a variety of colours so he could at least begin to identify them.

  Spear tried to push the women away. “They act like I’m youngling. Not youngling! Am fine!”

  Both women stopped what they were doing and gave him a flat stare.

  Spear proudly defied their love and concern for about two and a half seconds before wilting with a look of shame.

  The grandmother snorted and went back to work, finally pulling the pauldron from his damaged shoulder, making Spear wince.

  Kai bent over and waved at the baby. “And this?”

  Spear grunted, “Sister.”

  Seeing him giving the baby attention, the mother flashed Kai a smile. She held the baby out and bounced her a little. She allowed Kai to very carefully rub the tiny thing’s head very carefully because of his claws. The baby was absurdly adorable. Human babies were kind of cute, but they had nothing on newborn kittens. And newborn kittens had nothing on newborn baby dragon people. The mother pointed to Kai and to the walls around them. “Home? Truth?”

  Kai beamed. “Truth. Home. I—if you want, I mean. You don’t have to stay, but you can.”

  She obviously didn’t understand him completely but seemed happy enough. She turned away from Spear and took Kai’s hand, repeatedly bowing her head and speaking in her own tongue.

  “Uh, I don’t…”

  Spear translated, “Say thank you. To you. Home.”

  “Right.” Kai cleared his throat, feeling very emotional, though he tried not to let it swamp him. “Yeah, so you guys can stay as long as you want. You’re residents now, so the traps won’t react to you. You can walk around safely. Well, be careful still.” He pointed at the still-open pit. The sight of it gave him pause, and he frowned, staring. Why was it still open? It should close itself after someone falls in and dies. Was it stuck?

  An unexpected voice emerged from the pit, “Hello? Is anyone there? I…I’m still alive down here. I landed on one of these spikes. But it’s ok! It missed my spine. But I could really use some help. Anyone?”

  Everyone froze in silence, Kai and all the kobolds. Nobody moved. Even the children and babies quieted. They all turned to look at the pit. The mood became really awkward.

  Kai wondered if he should say or do something but felt weird about it with the adventurer dying so loudly right there.

  An orange kobold came over and stood next to Kai. For a moment, he looked like he was going to walk over to the pit and look down inside. Then his stomach really loudly rumbled. A couple of other kobolds snickered. Then another stomach rumbled. Then a third. Snickers turned into laughs. These creatures must have been on the run for a while. They were starving. Now that the fight and flight were over, their bodies were alerting them to other needs.

  Before Kai could offer up any jerky and bread, the orange kobold waved to Spear’s mother. The mother passed the baby she was holding to Spear, then joined the other kobold in making their way around the edge of the pit trap. There was barely enough rim for half a small foot, so one kobold went on each side of the hallway, then they leaned forward and braced their hands against each other, making a bridge. Together, they shuffled sideways down the hall and over the pit.

  “A-are you coming to help? Thank you! Thank you so mu— Wait. Where are you going?”

  Kai watched, bewildered as to what the two kobolds were after. They vanished around the corner to where the stairs up were. He had his answer a minute later when the pair returned, mightily hauling the corpse of the first adventurer. The former rogue was missing his head. Kai grimaced, guessing what part of the rookie had landed in the bear trap earlier.

  The kobolds dragged the corpse to the edge of the pit and then got into a discussion about how they were going to get it over the hole. A lot of words were exchanged. Ultimately, the remaining adult kobolds, except for Spear, all went over to the far side of the pit trap. They lined up on both sides of the body, then heaved it up into the air. Using the corpse like a keystone in an arch, they made a much bigger bridge this time and shuffled across the pit while holding the body up and leaning on it for support at the same time. It was quite the feat of teamwork and mobile engineering.

  “What are you guys… That’s Kenny! What are you doing with Kenny? You bastards!”

  The kobolds carried the rogue’s corpse into the centre of the room. The dead kobolds were respectfully moved over to one wall. Then they collectively began stripping the human body. The gear was only half gone when the first kobold carved a knife into the corpse, slicing out a bit of shoulder. They popped it into their mouth. Chewing loudly with an open mouth, they bent to cut more strips of flesh out and handed them out to others. Soon, others joined in. It was an impromptu feast.

  Kai watched in silence. He opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it. On the one hand, as someone who still thought of themselves as human, watching one get eaten was super surreal. On the other, if he tried to rationalize it, was this really any different than human adventurers hunting down some monster and eating it? Like, if you’d been attacked by a delicious cow and you turned it into steaks, that was kinda the same. Fair was fair, right?

  The still-not-dead adventurer plaintively called out, “My blood is making the spike slippery. I…I’m starting to slide down. The spike is poking up through my guts. And I can feel the wood against my spine when I move. Ahh! This really hurts. Please, someone!”