The Trials of Caste (8 page)

Gorgon stood up, “Again, we much appreciate you
coming to talk to us.”

“But of course,” the elite warrior remarked, then
leaned forward, his gentle eyes burning bright.  “Now, I know you are all
nervous about the competition,” he started.  “But don’t let it rob you of any
sleep between now and then.  After all, only one of you can win it, and chances
are you already have a pretty good idea of who that probably will be,” he
observed, gesturing with his scarred snout toward Gorgon.  “The rest of you just
have to score in one of the three trials, or get at least one kill in the
scouting trial.  Do that and you’re assured warrior caste status.  That’s
assuming you complete the trials, that is.”

A couple of the other elite warriors nodded their
heads in agreement and Billik spoke.  “Yes, and don’t get down on yourselves if
you don’t place in the first, or even the second competition.  After all, it’s
the scouting competition that counts for the most points.  If you’ve got to
measure your effort, then make sure you give everything you have left in the
scouting trial.”  Not sure his words had the desired effect, Billik continued. 
“Just don’t make a fool of yourself in the melee weapons trial or the ranged
weapons trial, then give it everything you’ve got in the scouting trial and
make sure you get at least one kill.  That plus a little bit of talent and a
cool head are the formula for winning the Trials of Caste.”

With that, the elite warriors all stood.  Gorgon
thanked them again for coming, and grasped hands with them as they filed out of
the chamber and through his father’s shop.  Following them were Arbelk and
Troka.

“Until the morrow,” Troka said as he grasped hands
with Gorgon.  His lips quivered; the consensus of the elite warriors that
Gorgon would win tomorrow had shaken his unfounded confidence.

“I’m surprised your father wasn’t here tonight,
Troka,” Gorgon remarked, not seeming to notice the other was troubled.  “After
all, it may be long ago now, but he won the trials in his day.”

Troka shook his head.  “They wouldn’t let him near
the arena, not with a son undergoing the trials.”

“Ah, yes, well until tomorrow then,” Gorgon forced
a smile as Troka left.

“Yeah, that.” Arbelk nodded to the rest as he left
just behind Troka.

Gorgon turned and saw that Durik and Keryak were
still seated.  “Oh, yes, the Wallaya root!”  He grabbed the now cool bowl from
the counter and walked out to the forge, where his father kept their hot water
pot simmering off to the side.  Carefully refilling the bowl, he slowly walked
back into the inner chamber and set the bowl down.  The three young kobolds
began to converse as Gorgon took his seat around the nearly vacant table.

The placid aroma of Wallaya root began to fill the
room, and the three friends immediately set to the task of examining and
re-examining the few clues scrawled on the roll of soft leather.  After some
time, and much thinking about descriptions of obstacles they’d gotten by
talking to warriors from previous years, the three of them agreed that the
‘three obstacles that were one’ must be what was called The Crucible; a huge
mess of platforms, ladders, and walkways that spanned three clearings in the
tangle of netting and passageways that was the scouting trial area.  Neither
Durik nor Keryak were particularly good with locks, and during the trials this
past year they’d seen that the keys were inside locked chests somewhere down inside
the crucible.  Locks didn’t worry Gorgon, however.  “I can deal with locked
chests,” he stated matter-of-factly.

The obstacle with a tower and rope they were
pretty certain was the Orc Guard Tower obstacle, which was straight forward
enough.  One simply had to open a locked door, avoid a couple of traps, climb
to the top of a tower and retrieve a key.  The lock there was simple enough to
bypass, as the hinges of the door had been on the outside in years past.

The home of a being long dead they decided could
be none other than the Tomb of Kor obstacle, built to celebrate the exploits of
a young kobold who had gotten past a myriad of traps to pilfer a sarcophagus. 
The walls had always been too high to see much from where the crowd sat,
however, and the honor guard had changed aspects of this obstacle every year,
so the three yearlings could only speculate what they would have to face there.

The ‘two obstacles that came from the depths of
the earth’ the yearlings were not certain about.  There was a huge climbing
wall that the honor guard had used in trials past that mimicked the climb up
the toughest portion of Sheerface, the cliff they had climbed up to get out of
the underdark.  That couldn’t be it alone, they thought.  Durik then brought up
the Smoke and Brimstone obstacles.  Both of them consisted of tents with
smelly, tear producing smokes that made it particularly hard to find their
keys.  They all hoped it was something less distasteful.

“Well, that only leaves the pole and jump
obstacle, whatever that may be,” Keryak observed.  “That would be the new one,
then.”

Simultaneous with the efforts to prepare for the
Trials of Caste were the preparations being made for the Proofing of the
Trials, which is what the quest that was given to each year-group to complete
at the end of the Trials of Caste was formally called.  Though several aspects
of the preparation and timeline for the quest were specified in the Scrolls of
Heritage, the final selection of the quest to serve as the Proofing of the
Trials was always the Lord of the Gen’s alone to decide.

The quest, announced the night before the Trials
of Caste to the gen’s council, was held in utmost secrecy until announced by
Lord Karthan to the gen’s populace at the conclusion of the trials.  However,
there were several factors that the more alert of the gen had found were common
in every quest Lord Karthan had chosen in the past.  First, every quest took
the year-group far from the gen through unfamiliar and at least somewhat
dangerous territory.  Second, every quest was in line with the council’s
long-term goals for the future of the gen, and so was seen as a statement of
the direction the gen was taking.  Third, every quest had a way of validating
that it had been successful.  After all, the Scrolls of Heritage stated clearly
that the new warriors were not to return until they had either accomplished
their quest, proved that it could not be accomplished, or gained release from
the quest from the lord of the gen or his chamberlain, which had not happened
in more than a generation.

Many years ago, the quests had been focused on
building the gen.  Wolf puppies were captured and eventually trained, the
leader of that quest eventually becoming the leader of a new wolf-riding guard
force.  The orc blacksmith Grimgnaw, now living with the Kale Gen as something
of a slave, was captured with his tools and had been persuaded to teach the
craft of forging steel out of iron to several of the gen’s elite warriors; now
the gen had steel weapons and tools.  Trade routes and economic partnerships
had been first strengthened with the Krall Gen to the east of them, then established
with other estranged gens across the mountains to the north of them as well as
far to their west near the coast.  An incursion into the untamed, lower reaches
of their training caves by a race of dark, crouched, primitive humanoid
creatures had been stopped by finding their entrance and bringing down an
avalanche of hundreds of tons of rock to seal it.

In the last few years, however, the quests had
mostly focused on the Bloodhand Orc Tribe; a ferocious group of orcs who, in
league with the evil kobold Mynar the Sorcerer, had raided the outer caves of
the gen some six years back, killing many before being driven out.  Each year a
new year-group was sent to conduct a raid on that tribe’s outposts, to set fire
to their living areas, or to ambush one of their slave caravans, which had been
a source of good will with a couple of the gens in the northern valley.  It was
said that this tribe was now occupied by a war with another orc tribe in the
Great Forest far to the north.  As such, their raiding parties had rarely been
seen this far south over the past year, preferring easier, less organized
targets such as the kobold gens in the northern valley.

In the conversations of the council members, it
could be felt that it was time for a new focus, and all the gen was buzzing
with rumors of what that focus might be.  The fact that the yearling group had
recently returned from the final portion of their training had served to renew
and reemphasize the speculation.

Weaponsmiths had been forging swords, spears, and
other weapons to meet the needs of the soon-to-be-warriors.  Leather workers
had been sewing backpacks and making belts.  Spinners and skinners had been
making warm clothing for weeks now.  Blacksmiths had been making cooking
implements and pots, as well as a myriad of other tools and pieces of
equipment.  And among the parents of the yearlings there had been quite a bit
of effort spent on trying to find out what the quest would be. 

Though none of the yearling’s parents were of any
significant social standing, Keryak’s father, Kyro, was an insider to the
goings on of the councils.  Kyro was a servant caste for the leader caste in
charge of the Wolf Rider’s Warrior Group; Raoros Fang.  From his perspective,
his master was a rather large, muscular, but not too bright kobold who had
risen to his rank mostly by his skill in taming wolves, an idea of Lord
Karthan’s that had added much to the gen.

While his son Keryak and the rest of the yearlings
had been in the underdark these last two moons, Kyro had been paying close
attention to the idle words Raoros had let slip from time to time.  His efforts
were aided by the fact that after particularly stressful council meetings
Raoros liked to wet his tongue with fermented Wallaya root broth.  Raoros
normally kept a very guarded tongue, but he had recently started inviting other
council members over to sample his fermented root broth, and after a while of
drinking it he tended to speak loudly and without restraint.  So Kyro had taken
to lingering late at his master’s house, just out of view, then making the
rounds of the other parents’ houses.

He’d learned of several proposed quests this way. 
One of the council members that had come to visit had very forcefully tried to
gain Raoros’ support to have the yearlings investigate reports of giant hunter
ants building nests in the forest.  Kyro didn’t like that one so much.  When
he’d shared it with the other yearlings’ parents, all of them had shared his
sentiment except for Goryon, Gorgon’s father, who stated ‘That’ll give them a
taste of blood!’  Kyro had heard stories of these hunter ants when he had been
in the service of another council member, and he wasn’t so sure it would be the
ants’ blood that would be spilt.

A day after that visitor, however, another council
member had come wanting Raoros to back his recommendation of having the
yearlings try to establish trade with a mountain gen that lived in the northern
part of the ring of mountains that surrounded the Northern Valley, saying
something about the roots and herbs they had to offer.  Kyro liked this
recommendation much better.  It didn’t sound so dangerous.  He knew it didn’t
make any difference, but all the other parents liked this suggestion, including
Goryon who was a member of the Metalsmithies Warrior Group and was sure to
profit from such an endeavor.

There had even been talk lately of a group of
outcasts forming themselves into a gen deep in the underdark, but all reports
of such things had been sketchy at best.  Raoros didn’t support the idea of
sending a scouting party to confirm the reports, and neither did Kyro.  After
all, the deeper parts of the underdark were rumored to be full of nasty things,
and he was against anything that put his son in much danger.

Keryak’s father had learned about more than he had
expected, however, when not more than a week before the trials Trelkar, Chief
Elite Warrior of the Deep Guard Warrior Group had come to talk with his
master.  Much of what they had talked about at first Kyro had not been able to
hear.  However, he had ensured there was a full skin of fermented broth and,
before long, the two of them were speaking with much less caution.

Though he had hoped to hear details of some of
whatever quest Trelkar was going to propose to Lord Karthan, what he heard
instead troubled him deeply.  Trelkar had mentioned plans to ‘deal with Lord
Karthan’s failed leadership and put one with a closer bloodline to the last
Lord Kale on the throne.’  As Kyro had listened in astonishment, Trelkar had
pressed his master to pledge his axe, and the weapons of his warriors to ‘claim
the throne’ for ‘his master and those loyal to the Kale bloodline’ when the
time came.  Thankfully, Raoros had declined, but had taken an oath of secrecy
instead.  There had also been talk of a ‘token of the right to rule,’ which Trelkar
had said was ‘the Kale Stone.’  Kyro had been so stunned by this talk of
insurrection that he’d dropped the cup he’d been holding.