Eeyagoo’s Stand
The bandits saw him as easy prey. A lone kobold, barely over three feet tall, wrapped in mismatched leathers, clutching crude weapons. They laughed—one even spit in the dirt.
“Oi, lizard rat!” barked the lead man, heavyset and armored in stitched hide. “Drop the blades and maybe we don’t nail your tail to a tree!”
Eeyagoo said nothing. He just tilted his head, sniffed the air. Four of them. Maybe five. No bows. No traps laid. Heavy on noise, light on caution.
He let them close. Let them think they had the edge.
Then he moved.
No war cry, no warning—just blur and blood.
He dropped to all fours and surged forward like a whipcrack, ducking under the first man’s swing. His spike knife came up—low—slamming into the soft meat behind the knee, severing tendons. As the brute dropped, screaming, Eeyagoo twisted around behind him and drove his bone cutter upward, straight between the ribs, into liver and lung.
The second bandit turned, too slow. Eeyagoo launched off the dying man’s back, spinning through the air like a thrown blade, his cutter flashing. He hit the ground sliding, ducking under a club swing, and jabbed a curved spike into the attacker’s armpit—a weak spot in all that layered leather. Blood sprayed.
They started yelling now. Fear edging their voices.
“He’s too fast—gods—”
One tried to flank him. Eeyagoo dove under a horizontal swing and rolled into the man’s shins. As the bandit stumbled, Eeyagoo came up with both blades, a storm of precise, brutal stabs—ankle, inner thigh, groin, ribs—every strike meant to bleed or break.
They tried to retaliate, but Eeyagoo never blocked. He was too small. Too quick. He slipped through the gaps in their formation, ducking and twisting, blades darting like serpent’s fangs. One man lashed out with a dagger—caught only air. Eeyagoo was already behind him, his spike crunching into the base of the skull.
“WHAT IS HE?!” one shouted, backing away, weapon shaking. The kobold was a blur—dirty, bloody, snarling—and entirely without mercy.
But Eeyagoo wasn’t here to win. He was here to live.
As the last one stumbled back, bloodied and unsure if he was the only survivor, Eeyagoo didn’t even wait. He didn’t loot. Didn’t taunt. Just turned and vanished into the underbrush like smoke in wind. No time to gloat.
He ran. Fast and hard. Through tangled ferns and gnarled roots, breath heaving in his chest, heart pounding like war drums. His lungs burned. His arms ached. Blood dripped from his claws.
Finally, he collapsed inside a hollow stump, legs trembling, chest heaving. The world narrowed to breath and heartbeat. Safe. For now.
Until—
CRUNCH.
Heavy steps. Too heavy. Something bigger.
He turned, eyes wide. Saw a giant of a woman step into view—three times his size, hair a mad tangle of red and white, and at her side a weapon that shimmered with unnatural light. A transparent axe with a glowing red heart. Power radiated from her like heat from a forge.
Shardra crept forward, her boots now silent on the mossy earth, one hand resting lightly on the haft of her war axe. A faint shimmer of motion had caught her eye—just a flicker in the underbrush, easily missed by someone with less experience, or less reason to be cautious. She narrowed her one good eye, scanning the tangled brush.
There—half-hidden in thorns and shadow crouched a kobold, no taller than her hip but radiating danger like heat from a coal. His scales were a dull orange streaked with flecks of dried blood, and his eyes, golden and wide, locked onto hers like a cornered animal’s. One hand held a curved bone spike, jagged and wicked. The other clenched a short blade, still wet with blood—whether his or another’s, she couldn’t yet tell.
“BACK!” he barked in ragged Common, the accent thick and hissing, but the message clear. “I cut! I not go easy!”
Shardra halted, raising both hands slowly in peace. She tilted her head and studied him—this ragged little survivor. He was lean, fast, and worn from battle. But there was something else in his posture—defiance, desperation… and pain.
“I’m not after you,” she said, voice calm but firm. “Come out of there. Let’s not waste blood today.”
She knelt and set down her weapon with deliberate care. The great axe, crafted of nearly transparent crystal, hummed as its core pulsed red. The twin blades shimmered with faint blue light, casting ghostly reflections on the grass. It was a weapon of legend—clear proof that she wasn’t some wandering fool.
“See?” she said, nodding at the axe. “It’s resting. So am I. You look like someone with a story worth hearing.”
The kobold didn’t answer, but his grip eased, ever so slightly.
Shardra reached into her satchel and pulled out a worn cloth bundle. She unwrapped it with slow, practiced fingers to reveal a chunk of rough bread and a strip of dried jerky. She set them on a flat stone between them.
“Eat, if you’re hungry,” she said gently. “Talk, if you want to be heard. Or stay silent. But I’m listening either way.”
The kobold’s eyes darted from the food, to her face, then to the axe—and back again. Slowly, with a low, rattling hiss of breath, he inched forward…
The little kobold inched forward, knees bent and eyes still wary, but hunger winning over suspicion. He took the offered food with clawed fingers, quick but not greedy. A small chunk of jerky disappeared between sharp teeth, chewed with surprising delicacy for someone with blood still wet on his blade. Shardra watched, arms resting on her knees, her towering form still as a mountain.
“So,” she began, voice low and rough, like gravel under boots. “I’m Shardra. What’s a little fella like you doing out here all alone? And how in the gods’ long tongues did you cut through bandits without a scratch on you?”
She arched one scarred brow, watching him with quiet curiosity, not mockery. Her gaze flicked over his limbs—not even a limp. No bite marks, no open wounds. Just a twitchy, sharp-edged little thing that had clearly been through hell and managed to bite it back.
The kobold kept chewing, licking the spices from his claws between bites. His muzzle lifted slightly in a grin that was more teeth than warmth.
“GOOD,” he said, nodding to the jerky. “Keeps long. Good for cold times. Hot too. Mmm. Spices good, tongue-stingy. Not like swamp worms.”
Shardra huffed a laugh through her nose, tilting her head as he spoke.
“Big enemies not like you,” he went on between chews. “Too loud. No skill. Think little Eeyagoo weak. Think wrong.” He gestured with his bone spike, then with the bloodied blade, vaguely in the direction he’d come from. “Try to scare me, big stompy talk—got too close. Dumb. Not hard to stop them. Not even trap-sets. Just bad at living.”
He tried the bread next, tore a corner off with those needle-like teeth, then rummaged in a patchwork sling bag slung tight across his chest. He pulled out a squat gourd bottle sealed with wax and twine, gave it a sniff, then a sip. The liquid inside was thick, yellowish, and reeked of fermented roots and something vaguely like rotting figs.
Without hesitation, he held it up to Shardra like a noble offering his best wine.
“You brave, big-lady. Try? Is tub-grub liquor. Good sting. Make teeth dance.”
Shardra reached out, took the gourd, gave it one whiff—and snorted so hard she nearly fell backward. Her laughter echoed through the clearing like a small landslide, loud and bright and deep in her chest.
“Gods below! That’s a whole kind of courage, that is!” she said, still wheezing. “You’re braver than I thought, mouseknife. And that’s sayin’ something.”
She wiped her nose with the back of her arm, shaking her tangled mane of deep red hair, the movement revealing three thin white braids woven tight along her temple—battle scars and family threads, if the stories were true.
Eeyagoo grinned wider, proud. “Mouseknife… is good name.” He puffed up slightly. “Sharp. Small. Fast.”
Shardra gave a slow nod, sobering slightly. Her tone gentled.
“You best come with me, Eeyagoo. You’re mighty, that’s clear. But no one lasts long alone out here—not even mad little knife-kobolds with fire in their bellies and liquor that could strip paint.”
Eeyagoo tilted his head, eyes narrowing.
“You tricking? Catch kobold, sell me for coin? Use me for bait in trap-sets?”
Shardra raised her palm in oath. “By my axe and the ash of my fathers, no tricks. You’ve got a story worth walking a while with, and I reckon this path’s long and dark enough to use two sets of eyes.”
The kobold stared a moment longer, then hissed something low in Draconic—an old word, a weighty one. He nodded once.
“Okay. I follow you, Shardra Big-Ax. But I pick camp spots. And no touching tail when I sleep.”
Shardra smirked. “Deal. Just don’t steal my socks or try to pickle my boots.”
And so began the strange, enduring companionship between Shardra, the axe-maiden with one good eye and a heart of iron, and Eeyagoo, the mouseknife of the marsh—small, sharp, and full of teeth.
Toward Wyerllish, they traveled—Shadra and the kobold called Mouseknife, bone spike ever in hand, his steel cutter gleaming with fresh oil and intention. She strode with thunder in her step, the massive translucent axe slung across her back like a storm waiting to fall. They moved with purpose, weaving through the wildlands where the sky seemed always clouded and the wind carried distant screams from long-dead battles.
It was Shardra who heard them first.
A shift in the wind. A rhythm in the rocks. Her head snapped up, eye narrowing. “Movement. North side. Big. Not animals.”
Eeyagoo hissed low. “Ambush. Hunting. Not ours.”
They crouched behind shattered stone, the coast still days away—but now danger had arrived early.
And from the trees and broken ground came three figures—tall, red-maned, skin like scorched clay and obsidian. Tal-Shie. Elemental-blooded warriors from the war-sick West. One of them let out a shrill whistling shriek as stone whirled unnaturally at his side, orbiting his arm like a shield and a weapon. Another raised a hammer that dripped with burning pitch. The third held a jagged sword that flickered with internal fire.
They didn’t parley.
They attacked.
The first stone hurled by the Tal-Shie shattered the rock beside Shardra’s head. She surged forward, roaring, axe in hand. The red heart of it throbbed as if it, too, knew blood was close.
“NOW, MOUSEKNIFE!”
Eeyagoo didn’t wait—he launched from her shoulder, a blur of orange and rust, claws gripping the air as he sailed straight toward the hammer-wielder.
Shardra met the sword-bearer mid-charge—her axe coming down with such force it split the stone underfoot. The Tal-Shie ducked aside, but only just—her follow-through spun into a reverse cut that carved through his thigh, bone and all. He screamed, staggered, and tried to strike, but her third blow caved in his chest with a crunch that echoed across the ravine.
Another came at her from the side—earth-kin, taller than a man but not by much. A hammer swung like a comet—Shardra took the blow on her left shoulder and roared in pain, blood spraying. But she didn’t stop. Rage took her.
She rammed the haft of her axe into the Tal-Shie’s stomach, then spun and took his head off with a roar and a spray of earthen blood.
Meanwhile, Eeyagoo landed on the shoulder of the fire-hammer wielder and stabbed downward with his bone spike, sinking it into the base of the creature’s neck. He twisted as the Tal-Shie howled and tried to grab him. Eeyagoo kicked off, spun in the air, and landed low, slicing the back of the Tal-Shie’s knee.
“Fall DOWN!” he hissed, voice half-snarled. The Tal-Shie fell.
But it wasn’t over.
The wounded sword-bearer staggered up—and stabbed. Shardra took a glancing slash across her ribs and nearly dropped to a knee. She twisted, teeth clenched, and drove her axe upward through his gut, lifting him off the ground. He convulsed—and died.
The air stank of blood, burnt hair, and poison.
Shardra fell back against a rock, breathing hard. Her arm bled freely. “Shard-curse it. They cut me. Deep.”
Eeyagoo was already moving. “Bad smell on blade,” he said, sniffing the sword’s edge, then his own wound. “Venom. Deep seeping. Slows heart. Clots blood wrong. Makes sleep that doesn’t end.”
His claws moved fast—bandages, bone needles, bundles of leaves and black moss crushed to pulp in his tiny hands. He stitched her wound with practiced speed, then packed a foul-smelling poultice into it.
“Hold breath. This sting like demon piss.”
Shardra grunted. “Good. Means it works.”
He did the same for himself, sewing a clean line of black thread across his side. Then, they looted the fallen. Their weapons were jagged, strangely warm, and etched with unknown sigils. Their packs carried blackened rations and glassy stones humming with low power—useless, maybe dangerous.
Still, they took what was useful. Eeyagoo scraped the poison into a clay vial. Shardra strapped one of the hammers across her back beside her axe.
Then they moved. Fast.
A mile or more, neither speaking.
Finally, under the leaning shadow of a wind-blasted pine, they made camp—no fire. Eyes watching the dark.
Shardra spoke first, voice low. “They didn’t scout. Just attacked.”
Eeyagoo nodded. “Tal-Shie don’t come in threes. There will be more. We hunt or run.”
She looked at him, her single eye still bright with fire.
“We’ll do both.”
After they camped beneath the warped pine, the wind rustled dry needles like whispers of something long buried trying to speak again. Shardra sat hunched over one of the strange Tal-Shie blades, its jagged edge glowing faintly like embers under ash. She turned it in her calloused hand, watching how the metal seemed to ripple, like heat over stone.
“This isn’t steel,” she muttered, more to herself than to Eeyagoo. “It’s older. Don’t know how I know that, but I do.”
The kobold sniffed it, cautious. Then scraped a thin curl of the metal with a claw—his nose wrinkled. “Metal sings. Magic’s stuck inside it. Old spell. Not good.” He shook his head. “Too tight, like it’s been screaming for too long.”
Shardra laid it down and reached for the warhammer taken from the second Tal-Shie. Its head was carved from some dark glass-like stone, veined with red and gold, and heavy enough to crack a man’s spine through plate. The haft was scorched and etched with tiny script—Kalleetian, she realized with a jolt.
Her brow furrowed.
“These… ain’t just raiders. They’re still at war.”
Eeyagoo tilted his head. “What war? With who?”
Shardra stared into the wind, memory curling behind her eye like smoke. “Kalleet. Kingdom of fire-books and tower-lords. The Tal-Shie came from Tuarnedelose… land of dead magic. Fought a hundred years with Kalleet, over some wound the earth still won’t let heal. Wizards called fire from moons. Tal-Shie cracked mountains to drown them. No one won. Just silence, and bones too cursed to bury.”
She reached out, laying a finger on the warped sword again. It was buzzing faintly now, in time with her pulse.
“Thought they were gone. Broken. Hiding. But this—” she gestured to the weapons and the black sigils. “This says they’re still fighting. Still marching. No kingdom to defend, just a war that never ended.”
Eeyagoo hissed through his teeth and crouched over one of the poisoned daggers they’d found. He sniffed and scraped it with the bone spike.
“Poison’s not made. Grown. Fed to metal like bloodroot to blade. That’s old trick. Not kobold trick. Not human. Not right.”
Shardra nodded. “This metal’s not right either. Feels like the world was softer when it was forged. Like it was meant for a time when death was slower, but magic was meaner.”
They wrapped the weapons in thick cloth, bound them in rope, and buried them a few dozen feet from the camp.
“We’ll mark it,” Shardra said. “If we don’t make it to Wyrllish, someone oughta know where this is.”
Eeyagoo scratched a mark into the bark of the nearest tree—a simple glyph meaning danger, cursed. He added a second beneath it: mouseknife-saw-this.
They ate little that night, wounds still stiff and throbbing. Shardra’s ribs were blackening beneath the bandages. Eeyagoo’s side leaked a little with each breath.
But sleep did not come easy.
Somewhere far off in the trees, a shriek echoed—a Tal-Shie warcry, answered by nothing but silence.
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