Ru’k wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his forearm before grabbing the last goblin corpse by its legs and dragging it across the uneven ground. His arms had begun trembling from exhaustion long before he reached the growing pile, but he refused to complain.
With a final grunt, he released the corpse beside the others and straightened his back, immediately wincing as his sore muscles protested the movement. Behind him, kobolds of different sizes, ages and genders continued working around more than a hundred goblin corpses that had been recovered from the tunnels.
Some dragged bodies in pairs while others used makeshift wooden poles to carry the heavier ones, and even the younger kobolds who were not strong enough to lift much were helping collect discarded weapons and pieces of armor scattered around the battlefield.
Dragging so many bodies was truly exhausting, especially when only fifteen kobolds had been assigned to the task because of the colony’s sudden shortage of manpower. Some of the adults had been wounded during the battle or too old, while others were busy tending to the injured, repairing damaged sections of the tunnels or preparing food for the exhausted warriors who had been given permission to rest.
Those who remained had no choice but to work until every corpse was removed. The smell of blood still clung to the cave despite the battle being over, and everyone understood that leaving so many bodies underground for too long would eventually create an entirely different problem for the colony.
Huff!
Ru’k exhaled loudly and tilted his head toward the sky, allowing the warm air to brush against his face. "I can’t believe they killed this many."
Only now that he was helping clear the caves did he truly understand the scale of the battle that had taken place. During the fighting, everything had happened too quickly. There had been screaming, magic, collapsing earth, charging goblins and the constant fear that another enemy would suddenly emerge from the darkness.
But now that the fighting was over, the evidence remained. More than a hundred corpses had been pulled from the tunnels, and when Ru’k remembered that the Vaal’kor colony had only a fraction of that number, it finally made sense why everyone had treated Grash’s invasion as the greatest threat their generation had ever experienced.
"Big brother Ru’k..." A small voice called out, causing him to look toward the side.
Standing several steps away was a young kobold who could not have been more than a year old. He was smaller than Ru’k by at least one or two feet, and his scales still carried the softer appearance common among children who had not yet fully developed.
Despite the grim work happening around them, his eyes sparkled with excitement. Ru’k immediately recognized that expression. It was the same look he and his friends used to have whenever Lady Zira allowed them to help with something important, even if that important task was nothing more than digging drainage channels through the colony.
Ru’k chuckled and crouched in front of him before gently patting his head. "I’m just about to turn three years old and I already feel old around you little brats. What is it?"
The young kobold hesitated for a moment, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to another. It looked like he had spent several minutes gathering the courage to approach Ru’k, and now that he was finally standing in front of him, the words came rushing out all at once.
"Can you introduce me and my friends to Big brother Ka’z? Aunty Zizzy said you are his friend!"
Ru’k blinked in surprise. He slowly looked beyond the young kobold and immediately noticed four other children standing several steps away. There were both boys and girls among them, all roughly the same age, and every one of them was staring at Ru’k with the same hopeful expression.
Hahahahaha!
Ru’k burst into laughter so suddenly that the children blinked in confusion. He placed both hands on his waist and puffed out his chest as if the question had reminded him of something incredibly amusing.
"Don’t worry. I personally trained Ka’z. If I tell him to become your friend, he will happily listen to his teacher!"
The children’s eyes immediately widened, and the other four rushed toward him without hesitation.
"You trained Big brother Ka’z?" One of the young female kobolds asked with disbelief written across her face.
"Mmhm!" Ru’k nodded confidently, maintaining a completely straight face.
Waaaaaaaa!
The children were easily impressed, and their expressions immediately transformed as they stared at him with newfound admiration. For a few seconds, Ru’k felt like he had genuinely become the most important person in the colony.
"But why didn’t you fight with them if you are so strong?" another child asked innocently.
Ru’k’s smile broke for the briefest moment. His eyes flickered toward the pile of goblin corpses before he quickly recovered, raising his chin with even greater confidence.
"Because I am the last line of defense!"
"Last line of defense..." The children repeated together, staring at him as though he had just spoken the name of some legendary person.
Clearly, they didn’t even know what the word meant.
Ru’k nodded firmly and repeatedly, realizing that the lie had worked even better than expected.
"Of course. If Grash somehow got past the others, I was going to put him down myself!" He dramatically clenched his fist and raised it into the air.
At that point, every one of the children’s eyes was sparkling.
"Are you sure you can beat Grash?" One of them asked, still looking slightly unconvinced.
Ru’k immediately pointed toward O’nil, who was seated underneath the thick shade of a nearby tree while overseeing the workers.
"Of course! You can ask the chief. I’m the one who saved Ka’z from Grash the other day!"
The children immediately turned toward O’nil.
"Is that true?" one of them shouted.
O’nil looked away from the workers and stared at Ru’k. The younger kobold’s eyes immediately widened as he silently begged him not to expose the lie. O’nil’s lips twitched as he struggled to suppress a laugh before finally nodding with a completely serious expression.
"I saw it myself. If he wasn’t saving Big brother Ka’z, he would have beaten Grash up himself!"
Waaaaaaaa!
The children erupted into excited cheers and immediately stopped paying attention to O’nil. Their attention returned entirely to their new hero, and Ru’k could practically see Ka’z being pushed out of their minds.
Why would they need to follow Ka’z when they could apparently follow the kobold who trained him?
"Big brother Ru’k must be very strong," one of the children said.
Ru’k nodded with a shameless smile. "Of course. But as a master, I need to stay humble. If you brats don’t cause Lady Zira any trouble, I’ll make all of you my students!"
"Really?!" Another female kobold screamed in excitement.
Soon all the children were cheering around him while Ru’k flexed his muscles with exaggerated seriousness, occasionally throwing slow punches into the air as if he were demonstrating techniques too advanced for them to understand.
The older kobolds working nearby could only stare at the ridiculous sight with amused smiles while continuing to arrange pieces of wood into several large pyres that would eventually be used to burn the goblin corpses. For the first time since the battle, the area was filled with laughter instead of screams.
O’nil, meanwhile, remained seated beneath the shade of the tree with Tong’a standing behind him. Both elders wore faint smiles as they watched Ru’k continue digging himself deeper into his own lies.
"He’s full of crap, just like you," Tong’a chuckled, remembering the ridiculous stories O’nil used to tell when they were younger.
He still remembered one particular lie from their youth when O’nil had convinced a younger Tud’or and Lan’ka that Kong’gong had once been his personal student. O’nil had even gone as far as claiming that Kong’gong only left the colony because he had lost a fight to him and could no longer bear the humiliation.
"It’s not lying," O’nil said shamelessly. "We are just not telling the truth."
Tong’a nearly spat blood. Even after all these years, this bastard had not changed.
The two elders continued watching the children for several moments, and the smile on O’nil’s face slowly became softer.
"I don’t know how much time we have left, but I’ll be grateful if I can just spend five more years with these little rascals."
Tong’a’s expression softened as well. He slowly nodded, his eyes moving from Ru’k to the younger children surrounding him. He wanted the same thing. He wanted to see Ka’z and his friends become adults. He wanted to see what kind of leaders they would become and what sort of future they would create for Vaal’kor. It was only unfortunate that Tud’or was no longer here to witness it with them.
"What about Za’r?" O’nil suddenly asked. "Will she make a good priestess?"
Tong’a rolled his eyes. "If she can stop chasing after Ka’z and focus on the people, she will make a good priestess, but we both know that’s not happening."
O’nil chuckled before turning his attention toward Tong’a. "Don’t be like that. You were head over heels for Xia back in the day. If it wasn’t for that tragedy, you could have given us at least ten offspring by now."
Tong’a’s face immediately flushed red with embarrassment, but beneath that embarrassment was a sadness that never completely disappeared. He inhaled deeply before slowly releasing the breath.
"And I would happily give up this position if I could just have her with me for another day."
Mhmmm...
O’nil slowly nodded. There was nothing humorous about Xia’s death. It had broken Tong’a so completely that for a long time, none of them knew whether he would ever return to himself.
After losing her, Tong’a had left the cave and traveled toward the Grave of Roses, searching for humans to kill simply because anger was the only thing powerful enough to temporarily drown out his grief. He had returned eventually, but the cheerful young kobold they had once known had never completely come back.
That period had been one of the most painful times of their lives. They had already lost too many people, and the deaths of their friends had left scars that followed them into old age. That was why Tong’a, O’nil, Kong’gong and the others had become so protective of Lan’ka, Tud’or and Lady Zira’s generation when they were born. They could not bear to experience that kind of loss again.
Unfortunately, life had never cared about what they could bear.
"If Bong was still here, Tud’or would still be alive," Tong’a sighed. "He would have been the one to die to Grash, and we would be mourning him now."
O’nil’s smile disappeared.
Bong had been their generation’s version of Tud’or. He was the type of kobold who would throw himself directly into danger if he believed someone else needed protecting. The difference was that Bong had possessed considerably more talent than Tud’or. By the time he died, he had already been approaching the Gold Core Realm despite being roughly the same age Tud’or had been when Grash took his life.
If only he had succeeded in reaching that level, the humans who came for Vaal’kor all those three decades ago might have been slaughtered before they could destroy the colony. Instead, Bong had died protecting everyone else, just like Tud’or eventually would decades later.
Tong’a watched the children chase Ru’k around the clearing, their laughter echoing across the open ground as though there were no corpses nearby and no memories of war hanging over the colony. His expression gradually softened again.
"I’ve always told myself I can’t wait to be done with all of this and die so I can be with our friends again in paradise," Tong’a admitted quietly. "But now I’m more afraid of leaving these kids alone."
O’nil turned his head toward him and offered a small smile. "You worry too much. I’m pretty sure these kids will do just fine without us."
Tong’a followed his gaze toward Ru’k, who had somehow convinced the children that his muscles were growing larger simply because they were watching him. One of the young kobolds was already trying to imitate his stance while another repeatedly asked him to demonstrate how he would defeat Grash. Ru’k answered every question with increasing confidence, completely unaware that the elders were listening to every ridiculous word coming out of his mouth.
For the first time since Tud’or’s death, Tong’a allowed himself to believe that perhaps O’nil was right. Maybe they did not need to stay forever. Maybe the younger generation would stumble, argue, make mistakes and scare the life out of every elder in the colony, but they would eventually find their own way.
After all, the future of Vaal’kor was no longer resting on the shoulders of one person.
There was Ka’z with his impossible ambitions, Tu’ka with his caution, Za’r with her compassion, Ru’k with his ability to bring laughter even after war, Kurg with his growing potential, and countless younger kobolds now watching them and dreaming of becoming something greater themselves.
Perhaps that was enough.
Perhaps, when the day finally came for the old generation to rest, they would be able to leave knowing that Vaal’kor would continue without them.
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