elizabeth_oswald

Chapter Sixty-four

Under Lianhua’s gentle hands, Kaz found his eyes drooping closed, and his attention wandering ever further from the topic at hand. By the time he was as clean as he could get, and Lianhua draped the thick, warm ‘towel’ around his shoulders, he gave in and simply curled up on the ground by t...

Chapter Sixty-three

Their hosts were the Sharpjaws, the tribe the dying kobold, Scov, had been trying to reach. When Lianhua told Zyle about Scov and Davik, the old male had seemed saddened, but unsurprised.

“The Sharpjaws used to have two dens, one on the level above, and this one,” Lianhua said, handing ...

TBK Chapter Sixty-two

The next time the door opened, Raff peered in. The tall human had to bend nearly double, and there was no way he could fit through the door, which was small even for a kobold. If the door and Zyle were any indication, the members of this tribe must tend toward the petite, though neither the old k...

Discord?

I used to be big into IRC (which is dating myself, but 🤫) so Discord has some familiarity. I'm honestly just not sure what I would do with a Discord server. I mean, I could lurk on it and chat with people, which would be lovely, but I doubt if anyone would really be that interested in...

Chapter Sixty-One

Kaz didn’t know how long he lay, trapped in the slimy, dark hole he and Chi Yincang had dug through the monster, but he was just trying to decide whether his lungs or the pain in his paws would make him pass out first when something grasped his ear. The thing yanked, slipped, then tried again, ...

TBK Chapter Sixty

Kaz landed on the back of the abomination, his claws already digging deep into the flesh, which felt more like that of a mushroom than a beast. All seven heads whipped around, jaws snapping, but Kaz was already moving, hands ripping as his paws dug deep into the quivering mass. Only the reptilian...

TBK Chapter Fifty-nine

Fortunately, the others hadn’t gone far this time, with Lianhua standing pale but steadfast against Gaoda’s urging. She was ignoring him, glaring instead at Chi Yincang, who seemed not to have noticed. When Raff dropped Kaz at her feet, that glare shifted to the tall warrior, but she quickly ...

TBK Chapter Fifty-eight

Chi Yincang hadn’t waited for Kaz, but that was all right, because the tunnel was clear of anything living except for the fulan. Corpses littered the tunnel, in varying stages of decay, and it was all Kaz could do not to step on them as he ran through.

He followed his own directi...

TBK Chapter Fifty-seven

The rest of their journey through that level held little other than more of the same. Fulan was everywhere; hanging in the air, covering the floor, thickly layered over what used to be the plant-life native to the mountain. They didn’t find any more groups of dead kobolds, but there we...

TBK Chapter Fifty-six

Walking through the fog of spores, picking his way among the softly-covered mounds of corpses, was one of the eeriest experiences Kaz had ever had. Even Raff was silent, and there were no distant scratches of fuergar claws on stone, or faint, echoing sounds of a screech or squeal from so...

TBK Chapter Fifty-five

They found the first of the fallen females after only a few minutes of walking. If Kaz remembered correctly, she had had a broken arm and a deep cut on her leg. She must not have had a male to defend her once her shield failed, or else her male wasn’t very strong.

She was face down in a p...

Decisions, Decisions.

I quietly started releasing Zoey's story from Biodiversity on RoyalRoad yesterday, and I'm going to start posting Broken Knife on Friday. I think I'm going to do four chapters on the 24th, then three on the 25th, two on the 26th, then go on with two until they're twenty behind y...

TBK Chapter Fifty-Four

The exiled Copperstrikers had been sent this way less than a day before, and Kaz had half feared they might come across one or more bodies, fallen on the stairs. It wouldn’t be the first time, or the last. The stairs were a place of relative safety, since anyone using them was considered to be ...

TBK Chapter Fifty-three

Kaz reached deep into the crevice partially hidden by a spindly group of dark brown mushrooms with bright green gills, trying not to break any as he did so. The Copperstriker gatherers had done a good job cutting out the largest ones and leaving just enough so the fungus could recover quickly, an...

An oops and a day 'off'

First, I just realized that I've been mixing up the Stoneborn and the Bronzearms for the last several chapters. The Stoneborn are the tribe Kaz was with when the woshi grabbed him. The Bronzearms are the tribe that came up from the Deep and drove out the Stoneborn. There are too many kob...

TBK Chapter Fifty-two

Kaz woke to the sound of a loud chime, echoing through the den. He sat up and stretched, feeling surprisingly well-rested. Li, who had moved to his side at some point during the night, nearly tumbled off, but managed to catch herself by tooth and claw before clambering up to his shoulder and hiss...

TBK Chapter Fifty-one

A human was leaning over a table. He wore a plain black robe with worn sleeves, and his pure white hair and beard were so long that they trailed down over the chair and table in front of him. A scroll lay stretched out on the table, overflowing the edges, a thickly piled section coming to rest ag...

TBK Chapter Fifty

Kaz decided to focus on the smaller, shorter shards first. They should be the safest ones to pull out, and with Li’s help, he could take his time to recover after each sliver. Once he was ready to try again, he first had Li release her grip on the mana shell, making sure that the damage wasn’...

TBK Chapter Forty-nine

As soon as Kaz entered the dim interior of the hut, his shoulders slumped. The last time he slept was before he entered the Copperstriker den, and since then he’d battled a horde of monsters, watched what amounted to an execution, and had a chief declare her intention to take him as mate. It wa...

Chapter Forty-eight

Washing with warm water was a novelty to Kaz, and he surreptitiously watched the females as they pushed ki into the water to heat it. Some of them were better at it than others, and he noticed that the ones with more orange ki didn’t look as tired afterwards. Was the orange related to heat or f...

Little delay

I will have a chapter today, but my kiddo is home sick, so I won't be releasing TBK on RoyalRoad yet. I'm reading through the earlier chapters, and there are some inconsistencies with the later story (not surprisingly). I totally forgot I gave Lianhua healing magic in the beginning! ...

Collections?

Patreon recently started something called collections, which allows me to put posts in different groups. I haven't gone back and done all the books, but all of TBK is in the Broken Knife collection. I'm hoping this will make it easier for you to find them, since unfortunately Patreon isn't really...

TBK Chapter Forty-seven

Despite the ‘feast’, the mood in the Copperstriker den was far from festive. The bodies of two males lay in caves nearby, already wrapped in jejing as they awaited burning. A single female who had fought on Litz’s side had also succumbed, and she would lie in her hut for the requir...

TBK Chapter Forty-six

Only six of the rebels remained, surrounded by Pilla’s most loyal kobolds. Five were females, including Litz, and the sixth was Golik, who sat, slumped against a wall, unable even to kneel. All six were injured, and Kaz could tell that three of the females probably wouldn’t recover on their o...

TBK Chapter Forty-five

The first order of business was getting Pilla back to the den. She had managed to pull the zhiwu jaws from her leg, but her long fur was matted with blood, and her body shook with tremors every few minutes. Still, she insisted on walking, and Lianhua refused to leave her behind, which me...

Cover for The Broken Knife

A new release requires a new cover, so I spent (as usual) way too long making one. Hopefully, you like it! I plan to start releasing on Friday, hoping to pick up some people over the weekend.

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TBK Chapter Forty-four

Kaz wasn’t really worried about the humans, not even Lianhua. Bites and blows from barbed legs alike skid from the male’s skin, leaving only red marks or shallow scratches. Lianhua was reinforcing her own skin, and her shell was actually more effective in protecting her, for at least as long ...

Chapter Forty-three

When Kaz ducked out of the hut, he had to blink against the blaze of light. Unlike the gentle radiance of Lianhua’s orb, and the orange glow that kobolds used to light their dens, Gaoda’s ki light was a brilliant, burning fire. Either it was brighter than it had been before, or Kaz now saw it...

TBK Chapter Forty-two

Apparently, Gaoda and Raff were bored enough that they decided to go hunting, leaving Chi Yincang to protect Lianhua in the den. They were supposed to return sometime before dinner, but in the meantime, Kaz and Lianhua had some relatively private time during which to speak.

“You were righ...

TBK Chapter Forty-one

Kaz went in howling. He returned to the den, found the main entrance, and waited until a large group of gatherers was going in, then ran after them, baying and barking as loudly as he could. On his shoulder, Li let out tiny, hissing roars that translated to squeaks somewhere between his brain and...