The Trials of Caste (39 page)

“Durik!” Troll called as he jumped away from the
combined assault of Khazak Mail Fist and Lord Karthan, and instead of fighting
them ran toward the knot of surrendering conspirators, determined to reverse
his fortunes.  “Durik, you are nothing!  You’ll be back in your place soon
enough.  You are sworn to me, Durik!  Free those warriors or I’ll have your
hide,” he threatened.  Behind him Khazak Mail Fist and Lord Karthan had not
pursued.  Troll didn’t know why, but he didn’t have time to think about such
things at the moment.

Durik was shocked by Troll’s onerous tone.  He was
a leader caste now, and had promised Lord Karthan that he was loyal, yet the
weight of habit and constant disciplining was still there; he’d not yet taken
on the role of a leader caste and thrown off the shackles of obedience to whatever
elite warrior commanded him.  He still felt the pull of loyalty to his chief
elite warrior.

Shaking his head clear, Durik looked at the evil
brute.  He wanted nothing to do with him!  Standing up straight, the look on
Durik’s face showed no weakness.

“I am not yours!” Durik stood firm.

Two of Lord Karthan’s bodyguards approached Troll,
intent on stopping him.

“No you don’t,” Troll growled.  Smashing away one
of their swords, Troll reversed his swing and cut the unsuspecting guard’s head
from his shoulders.  With a surprised look on its face, the head went tumbling
horns over snout until it struck the wooden frame of the trainers stand and
fell into the sand.

The other bodyguard got a look of abject horror on
his face as his companion’s headless body slumped to the ground.  Troll seized
the moment and leapt at him, his blade held high over his head in both hands. 
With a ringing crash he brought it down, shattering the stunned bodyguard’s
blade and sundering his shoulder from his neck.  Blood sheeted out over Troll’s
scales as the lifeless guard dropped to the ground.

The last of the bodyguards stumbled back in fear,
but was caught by surprise by the unarmed conspirators and drug to the ground,
his blade wrenched from his hands and his neck broken in a matter of seconds.

Durik, Gorgon, and the five new warriors all
looked on in horror.

Turning to look back at Lord Karthan, Troll saw
that some of the leader caste had gathered to him, though some had not.  It
appeared as though Karthan was trying to persuade the others to join him. 
Looking to the stands, he could see that Kort and his several warriors were
caught in a desperate fight at the head of the stairs against the many Honor
Guard warriors who had gathered in defense of Lord Karthan.  Kort was
outnumbered, and the longer the fight went on at the head of the stairs, the
more warriors were gathering and the closer Kort’s group came to being
overwhelmed.

Seeing his window of opportunity closing, Troll
growled as he looked at the yearlings and spat.  “We’ve no time for these,” he
said to his fellow conspirators, looking at the still-stunned group of former
yearlings. 

“Take blades!” the leader reappeared among the
conspirators, stepping forward to grab the sword from the lifeless hand of one
of the dead bodyguards.  “It’s do or die!  If you want to keep your heads, we
must win!”

Troll grunted his approval then called “At Lord
Karthan!”  Holding his sword high, he turned and charged.

Khazak Mail Fist was ready to receive Troll and
his conspirators.  Looking left and right, Khazak saw the leaders of the other
warrior groups and Lord Karthan standing with him.

Gripping his sword in one metal-encased hand, he
jumped forward with a yell to meet the onrushing wave of elite warriors.  He
knocked one conspirator’s blade away with a slash.  Following up, he grabbed
the frightened warrior by the neck and threw him to the ground.

Then Troll was upon him.  Lunging at Khazak, he
brought his sword down in a smash.  But Troll’s blade was already notched from
shattering the dead bodyguard’s blade moments before, so with a ring the two
blades met, but Troll’s blade snapped in half and went flying.

Stepping back and throwing the useless hilt with
its short stub of blade off to the side, Troll growled as he sized up his
opponent.  He knew Khazak was stronger, and he was likely more skilled.  Lord
Karthan had done well to keep him close to him, as he was likely the best
warrior in the gen.  But Troll had long ago decided Khazak was blinded by his
own honor…

Grabbing a handful of sand, Troll drew his long knife
from behind his back as he threw the sand in Khazak’s eyes.  The ploy worked
and Khazak growled in surprise as he stepped back… just long enough for Troll
to jump in.

Bringing his knife up in a sudden slash, he caught
Khazak’s arm behind the gauntlet.  The pain of the cut and a sudden grab from
Troll loosed the sword from Khazak’s hand, and suddenly the armed and unarmed
traded places.

Seeing that Troll had his sword, Khazak’s eyes
narrowed as he drew his own long knife.  Behind him Lord Karthan was locked in
a pitched battle with two of the conspirators, while the three leader caste and
two elite warriors seemed to be gaining ground on the other four determined
conspirators.  He had to deal with Khazak quickly.  Karthan was vulnerable, but
that wasn’t likely to last.

“There’s someone behind you,” Khazak called, the
ringing of blades around them making it hard to be heard.

“Likely trick,” Troll grunted as he smiled a wicked
smile, Khazak’s own sword in his right hand.

A footfall behind him made Troll start, but he
failed to pull back in time.  Suddenly a searing, shocking pain ripped through
his right wrist as the bones of his wrist were scraped clean of the hand that
held the sword.

Looking down in shock, his snout agape and his
eyes quickly glassing over, Troll saw his hand with Khazak’s sword lying limp
and oozing in the dirt.  Holding his arm up in disbelief, he saw blood pumping
out of the stump that was his wrist.

Swinging a wooden hammer with both hands into the
side of Troll’s head, Gorgon smashed Troll’s jaw and sent him sprawling to the
ground where he did not move.  Next to him, Durik stood looking at his former
chief elite warrior, blood dripping down the length of his blade as the rest of
the former yearlings came up to hedge in the conspirators.

All about the conspirators again was a thicket of
swords.  Durik, Gorgon, and the rest of the now former yearlings on one side
stood facing Lord Karthan, Khazak Mail Fist, Manebrow, and the four other warrior
group leaders through the shattered supporters of Troll’s insurrection.  Though
two of the conspirators had died in the attempt on Lord Karthan’s life, the
other four elite warriors with Troll had all given up when the yearlings’ charge
had brought down their leader.

Behind them the last two of Kort’s elite warriors still
standing at the top of the stairs were caught as they tried to escape down the
stairs.  One was brought down by a javelin through the back while the other was
tackled and rolled with his captor down the last few stairs, ribs breaking in
the process.  Kort himself was overwhelmed, fighting to the last before someone
clubbed him into unconsciousness.

While everyone was distracted by that, Raoros Fang
and the chief elite warriors of the Metalsmithies and Trade Warrior Groups
quietly took places near their lord.  They knew they were late for the battle,
and Lord Karthan’s peeved look let them know they were not in his good graces. 

Durik stood with hands clasped behind his back. 
To his left stood Gorgon, then Keryak, Jerrig, Arbelk, Troka, and Trallik in
turn.  All about the former yearlings in a thick circle almost the entire gen
was gathering.  Mothers held their whelps close.  Fathers talked excitedly
about the events of the day, both of the insurrection as well as the trials. 
The noise of the gathering was one of joy, one of triumph, and the hope of a
new beginning on this, the Day of Beginnings.

“Durik…” his best friend Keryak asked in a low
voice.

“That’s ‘sire’ to you,” Manebrow, their former
trainer, corrected him from behind them.

“Durik… sire!” Keryak asked again.

Durik smiled.  This whole leader caste thing was
going to take some getting used to.

“Yes, Keryak?”

“Do you think Lord Karthan will cancel our quest?”
he asked.  “After all, we just saved his life.  Isn’t that enough?”

Durik just laughed and shook his head, keeping his
eyes to the front. 

Khazak Mail Fist and Lord Karthan stood talking
while an elite warrior from Khazak’s Honor Guard Warrior Group wrapped a cloth
around the burly warrior’s bleeding arm.  They were waiting for the
conspirators to be cleared out to finish the ceremony. 

A group of honor guard warriors were tying up the conspirators
from the arena floor before taking them to prison.  From the stands those few
who had drawn daggers against their lord had been subdued and were being formed
into their own small knot of prisoners.  Durik didn’t know what Lord Karthan
intended to do with these assassins, but the look they wore was of those
destined for the chopping block.

Troll, who had started the insurrection at the end
of the Trials of Caste, stood among his fellow conspirators swaying back and
forth uncontrollably.  Gorgon’s hammer blow to his head had caused one eye to
float about aimlessly, and had left him off balance and vomiting.  Troll’s
right wrist was wrapped in thick, reddened cloth, the stump of his wrist where
Durik had cut off his hand obviously pulsing with severe pain by the look on
his dour face. 

Despite what Troll had done and the threats he had
made against him and his family, Durik felt sorry for the brutish warrior.  He
was glad that he’d not had to kill him; it was horrific enough to have cut off
his hand.  Shaking his head, he thought that it must be much easier to spill
the blood of an orc or some non-kobold enemy.

Rope had just been fastened around the neck of the
last of the conspirators on the arena floor when the call was made to get up
and get in line; their hands were already bound and their feet hobbled. 
Warriors from the Honor Guard called for a path to be cleared and the assembled
kobolds of the gen quickly complied.  Still showing some of the discipline that
was ingrained in the warriors of the gen, the line of conspirators stood and
turned as one then began to shuffle through the corridor in the crowd.

Finally, Lord Karthan began to breathe a bit
easier.  He cleared his voice, stepped up on an overturned box, and nodded to
his chamberlain.

“Lord Karthan would speak!” Khazak’s voice boomed
out over the excited buzz of the crowd.  Presently, the noise of the crowd
calmed.

“Children of Kale,” Lord Karthan called out.  He
pitched his voice a bit higher than normal so it would carry over the crowds in
the arena.  “Today has not been uneventful.”

The crowd murmured in agreement.

“Today we saw more than we thought we would see,”
he continued.  “We thought we would see seven yearlings step up and become
warriors.  And we did!”

‘Here, here!’ a voice yelled from among the
crowd.  Several people laughed at the unexpected outburst, the nervous tension
in the great arena lessening somehow by it.

“What we did not expect to see was these very same
warriors drawing swords immediately in defense of their lord,” Lord Karthan’s
voice was suddenly serious.

The voices in the crowd hushed.  All could sense
the emotion of the moment.

“My brothers,” he said, holding out his hands. 
“My sisters.  Indeed, fellow children of Kale.  This day these seven have
proven themselves as defenders of the gen, and have already proven their
worth.”

If it were possible, Durik, Gorgon and the rest of
the former yearlings stood a little taller.  Having passed through the crucible
of the Trials of Caste and the turbulence of an insurrection, they basked in
the praise of their lord and the approval of their entire gen.