elizabeth_oswald

Chapter Ninety

A squeaky, high-pitched voice spoke impatiently from somewhere above, saying, “Get it. Collar it. Go!”

With a deep sigh, the male who had spoken first tossed a rope down into the pit. It was made of some material Kaz had never seen before, far smoother than the braided leather kobolds usually used. The other kobold swung a leg over the side and slid down, dropping to his paws to crouch beside Kaz.

Kaz laid there, watching everything. He really had two options: fight, or go alo...

Chapter Eighty-nine

Ehlan was still gasping softly, but Kaz was fairly certain that she was stable now. Her core probably wasn’t producing as much ki as it used to, but it was clean, and seemed to be settling into something that was only slightly off balance. He didn’t think he needed to do anything to attract attention to her, since Hod was clearly checking on her regularly. In fact, it might be best if she had a little while to recover on her own before anyone else saw her.

That meant Kaz was free to...

Chapter Eighty-eight

Time stretched. Had it been ten minutes, or twenty? Turning his eyes toward the shimmering cord that linked his ki cycle to Li’s, he watched, trying to determine how far away she was, and if she was moving further from him, or returning. He was actually relieved to see that while he could tell which direction she had gone, the link really didn’t seem to grow any weaker as she moved away. He could even still feel her emotions, though not as clearly as usual. She was focused on her task, so...

Chapter Eighty-seven

Lianhua froze, and a tiny squeak emerged from between her lips before she clamped them shut. She shifted as if she would stand, then settled back into place. “I… You… Can you… explain?”

He could tell she was desperately trying to remain calm, but her gaze was avid as she stared at him. Among kobolds, such prolonged eye contact could be seen as a challenge, but he knew she didn’t mean it that way, so he raised the book and, barely able to force out the words, asked, “May I ...

Chapter Eighty-six

Sneaking back through the den was as easy as sneaking out had been. The few females were still distracted, and the guards mostly trailed the females, so as long as Kaz avoided the first, the second quite literally followed. Kaz, on the other hand, felt like his guilt must be painted on him as brightly as the Redmanes dyed red manes. Surely, if anyone did see him, they would know exactly what he’d been up to, and he and the humans would be attacked or expelled from the den.

No one saw ...

TBK Chapter Eighty-five

When Kaz had last seen one of these carvings, he had truly been a puppy, still too young to realize that no one cared about his opinions or ideas. He had told Katri that he thought the rectangles and little figures looked like the city in the Deep they had been forced to leave so recently. She, too, had been young enough to listen, and the two of them had had a brief moment where they let their imaginations run wild together, before Oda overheard and grasped both of them by the scruff of thei...

The best I could do

Remember that map I was trying to make? Well, I didn't ever end up with anything I was really happy with. Here's the best I came up with.

What I described in the chapter I wrote today is closer to what I imagined, so the question is, do I run with this image and change the description, or forget about the image entirely and stick with the description? I do think this image is cool, but I just c...

Chapter Eighty-four

There was no joy to be found in hardtack, but Raff was right about one thing: it was filling. Kaz managed to eat most of his portion, but Li absolutely refused after trying one bite. Raff thought it was hilarious that the ‘rat’ was picky, but he didn’t seem to have any other options, so soon enough Kaz bid him farewell and left to find something for the dragon to eat.

His nose told him that food was available somewhere outside the circle of quarantined huts, but when he got close ...

Chapter Eighty-three

They both whipped around to look at the bound female. Kaz’s ears flattened, and he pulled ki from them instinctively, dulling the sound to something bearable. Lianhua apparently couldn’t do the same, because she flinched back, but the flow of her ki didn’t change.

The Redmane chief’s eyes were open, and locked on Kaz. Her throat vibrated with the howl that filled the small hut, and drool darkened her matted fur. Red burned deep in her eyes, turning them a bloody brown, and the m...

Chapter Eighty-two

Kaz said, “I am not a-” at the same moment Lianhua shook her head, denying her own words as a crease formed between her brows.

“But you can’t be. No matter what Gaoda says, kobolds are demihumans, not animals. The fact that you have cores muddies the classification a bit, but even when Tan Fong first described you in his ‘Scrolls of the Far Mountains’, he called you demihumans because you meet all the other criteria: opposable thumbs, intelligent from birth, and upr...

Chapter Eighty-one

They sat together in silence for a while, each watching the sleeping kobold, until Lianhua looked over at Kaz and said simply, “I’m sorry.”

He tilted his head, genuinely confused. “For what?”

Her skin was just settling back into its usual pale perfection, but a flush rose to her cheeks again. “For… everything. For melting down over nothing.”

Kaz frowned. “But it wasn’t nothing. You were sad.”

She laughed awkwardly. “I was, but- I’m still sorry...

Chapter Eighty

The kobold female’s once-golden fur was brittle and matted. She lay on a bed of jejing, as if she was already dead and her body was being prepared for burning. Perhaps the kobolds hoped that the cleansing moss would clean out the contagion or contamination within her, or perhaps it was simply that this was the only moss they could find that wasn’t infected by fulan. Besides its soothing scent and ability to reduce inflammation in infected wounds, jejing was resi...

Chapter Seventy-nine

It didn’t take long for Hod to arrange for new huts to be fabricated for the humans. It seemed that some of the walls were mobile, while others were fixed in place with some powerful sealant, possibly yanchong slime. A few of the mobile walls were shifted, and four huts became two, giving each male his own place to sleep, though Kaz wasn’t sure Chi Yincang would actually use one.

Kaz actually got his own hut as well, in spite of his status as a mere male pup. If the kobolds...

Chapter Seventy-eight

A group of four males emerged, shoved the fallen beasts out of the way, and then looked around before sending up a short howl. Another set of four followed them, and the two groups moved to each side of the open gate, guarding it as a particularly large and powerful-looking male stepped out into the hallway. His fur was a pale gray, and the fur around his neck was dyed a vivid red.

He stared around at the carnage before turning to the humans. Raff was still chopping at the fallen monste...

Chapter Seventy-seven

The only reason the gate to the den hadn’t yet fallen was because the monsters assaulting the den were at least as busy attacking each other as they were the Redmanes. Bodies were mounded everywhere, some of them even resting up against the gate itself, providing some protection from incidental damage.

There were fifteen tainted creatures remaining, at least as far as Kaz could tell. Some of those on the ground might still be alive, but given the gaping wounds in the abdomens of all h...

Chapter Seventy-six

Predictably, Gaoda dismissed this concern instantly. With a wave of his hand, he said, “Then we’ll kill them. The question is, if we’re dropped in an unknown area, can you get us back to the regular stairs?”

Civ spared Kaz from answering this when he said, “The Redmanes have mapped out a path to the next set of stairs. Etle says no one has seen any mosui yet, so they think there are no dens nearby.”

Gaoda held out his arms so Chi Yincang could finish drying th...

Chapter Seventy-five

They were going the wrong way. Kaz’s sense of ‘mountain’ told him that, as clearly as if he could see with his eyes. There was nothing he could do about it, at least not without explaining how he knew, and he didn’t think he could, at least not without revealing to everyone that there was something strange about him.

What he could, and did, do was memorize each and every turn. He hung to the right as they traveled through the murky darkness, his eyes on Raff and Lianhua’s bare...

Chapter Seventy-four

This infestation of fulan seemed fresher, or had perhaps simply been contained for longer, because there were still small stretches where the plants seemed untainted, and creatures like the fuergar chittered and squeaked in the distant shadows.

Spores hadn’t yet collected in drifts over everything, so the bodies were clearly visible. There were a lot of them, and the type and placement of the wounds told a story of females attacking one another with power, then tooth...

Chapter Seventy-three

Gaoda scowled. “There are too many of your cursed tribes. Which one is this?”

Civ bowed his head at the tone, though Kaz could see the fur on his neck lift slightly. “The Bronzearms have recently risen from the Deep. They’re extremely aggressive.”

“Good!” Gaoda said, his ki orb brightening until all the kobolds flinched away from it. “I’m tired of tiptoeing around you furry savages. If we’re attacked in the mid-levels, we’re allowed to just kill them all, rig...

Character images

It took a while to solidify my idea of what these guys looked like, at least beyond the general. Often, these images will change, at least a little, depending on how the character develops. I've been working on these over the last few days, though, so I thought you might like to see what I ended up with! Chi Yincang was definitely the trickiest, since I had to build his spear from six separate pieces 😱

TBK Chapter Seventy-two

Kaz looked away as soon as he realized what he’d done, but found his eyes dropping to Zyle’s gnarled hands instead, looking for the injury he knew had to be there. He didn’t see anything, but he was distracted enough that it took Ilto nudging him to remind him that he should greet the elder male. Pressing his hand against his chest, Kaz tilted his chin down. It was far less than he should have done, but he just couldn’t force himself to pretend respect when he was so angry.

The ...

Variants and playing around

When I made the cover for Broken Knife, I kind of wanted a cuter Li, but the one I used was really striking, and looks good on Kaz's shoulder. I deliberately made her larger than I actually imagine her so that she would stand out more on the cover. That said, I've been playing with images because I'm trying to make an image of the map Kaz told Lianhua about (Wish me luck. If you never see it, it's because I couldn't put together the twenty pieces of it I now have into anything resemb...

TBK Chapter Seventy-one

It wasn’t easy opening and going through his pack without disturbing Li, but Kaz managed, at least well enough to be certain that nothing was missing. Even the beautiful knife was still there, though Kaz nearly sliced himself when he reached in and found that it wasn’t wrapped as well as it had been before. The scent of blood wafted up from the depths of the bag, and Kaz smiled bitterly. It seemed that whoever had gone through it hadn’t been so lucky.

Pushing power into his nose, ...

TBK Chapter Seventy

Kaz was startled out of his cultivation - or at least what he was choosing to call cultivation - when Ilto returned. The young warrior had obviously forgotten that he had claimed he was going to bring Li more food, because he shook Kaz’s shoulder with an empty hand.

Yawning, Ilto said, “Did you stay up all this time, Kaz? I was going to get some water and I saw you were still here.” He leaned over and picked up Kaz’s bone support and held it out. His rounded, fuzzy ears seemed t...

TBK Chapter Sixty-nine

Kaz spent the rest of that day and all of the next recovering from his injuries. The atmosphere in the Sharpjaw den was strangely relaxed, given the fact that they had to know staying was likely a death sentence. Either because of this, or because there were no females to enforce constant rigid conformity to the rules, the male kobolds were nearly jovial. More than once, a loud laugh broke the quiet of the den.

The males did, however, continue their training and the rotation of the warr...

Chapter Sixty-eight

Kaz explained what had happened, though he left out any mention of Li flying at Litz or the female kobold’s reason for attacking him. He kept a wary eye on Chi Yincang each time he came to a part of the story where the human could have corrected or added to it, but the male never spoke, simply keeping his usual silence. He had apparently used up his allotment of words for the day, and Kaz was glad of it.

“So you just ripped out her core,” Gaoda said flatly when Kaz finished.

Royal Road Ads?

There are two main types of ads I see on Royal Road. The first one is funny, and sometimes seems to have little to nothing to do with the story. Literally clickbait 😂 The second one has part of the cover or an image of an actual character, along with the title and author, and maybe the rating, a review, or the genre.

For the funny one, I have a comic panel I love that was made by Omny87, so I reached out to them on deviantart and they said I could use it as long as I gave them credit...

Chapter Sixty-seven

The night was long, and Kaz was tired and injured. Again. Lianhua’s towel still laid on the stone by the pool, one corner slowly pulling pink water into its fibers. Kaz used it to clean the worst of the mess out of his fur, ruefully noting that Lianhua’s efforts had been wasted, since his fur was dirty and tangled again.

When he was as clean as he could get, he got up and crossed to Litz’s body. The smell of it would draw in predators, and the humans hadn’t even bothered to set ...

Chapter Sixty-six

“What!” Lianhua’s voice rose sharply, and Kaz flinched, ears folding down. The human grimaced apologetically, but her voice was still louder than the low tones they had been using when she said, “How do you know? No, it’s on the map, right? But a city? I know there’s something like a kobold city in the Deep, but how can you-?”

“Lianhua?”

The voice was groggy, but it clearly belonged to Gaoda, and both Lianhua and Kaz turned to look toward the huts. The male was e...

TBK Chapter Sixty-five

Kaz thought fast, trying to figure out how to answer without revealing too much. Of course, the truth was that he didn’t really know why the humans were able to take ki directly from him, but Lianhua was as curious as he was, in her own way. If he told her he didn’t know, she would continue trying to figure it out, bending her not-insignificant intellect to the task, and possibly insisting on experimenting as well. It was clear that she didn’t just accept what others believed was obviou...