The Trials of Caste

by Joel Babbitt

  Durik nodded. “Yes, sire. But I have some information about some poison that someone gave to you.”

  Khazak looked at Durik as if for the first time. Looking around, he lowered his voice. “Well, then, out with it.”

  “I overheard two kobolds in the passageway near the market,” he began.

  “Do you know who they were?” Khazak interrupted.

  Durik thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, sire,” he uncharacteristically lied, trying to protect Trallik yet again from himself, if only because of the year of training they had gone through together. “These two kobolds were talking. One said to the other that he had taken the poison from Spider and given it to you. But he said he had another bag of poison.”

  Khazak’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Hm. That doesn’t make sense. I…”

  Suddenly, behind him the chief elite warrior spoke up. “Sire! I know it now! Spider wasn’t limping last time we saw him! It must be that magic-using imposter from the Krall Gen!”

  “What do you mean, chief? Spider gave me the bag of poison,” Khazak replied.

  “Yes,” the chief elite warrior answered, “but do you remember the report about the one who could change the look of his face; the one who tried to kill Lord Krall from our sister gen?”

  “Aye,” Khazak answered.

  “It makes sense now. It may not have been the lame servant caste Spider who gave you the poison, then walked away as if there was nothing wrong with him. It may have been that imposter. Remember, we got a report that he was last seen fleeing this way?”

  “Sire,” Durik interrupted. “I think you should know that Troll from my warrior group is involved as well.”

  Khazak Mail Fist and Lord Karthan’s chief elite warrior both looked at Durik. “Durik, that is quite a charge to make,” Khazak said. “What makes you think so?”

  “Sire, he wants me to kill someone for whoever he’s serving. He mentioned that he’s changing his loyalty to serve a sorcerer, perhaps this sorcerer you’re talking about.”

  The pair of leaders looked at each other. “Do you have any proof other than what he said? And who was he loyal to before?”

  Durik shook his head. “I have no proof, but Troll said that Trelkar of the Deep Guard was preparing to take over the gen.”

  Khazak nodded his head and gave a knowing look to Lord Karthan’s Chief Elite Warrior. “Durik, what else did you overhear in the hall?”

  “Sire, one of the kobolds left to chase after Spider. It was the kobold who said he had the poison.”

  Khazak turned to the chief elite warrior. “We just saw Spider. We found him with the traitor Krobo.”

  “Krobo said that Spider wasn’t actually Spider, but was an imposter,” the chief elite warrior said as he shook his head in sudden realization.

  Khazak got the same realization at almost the exact same moment. “And we sent Spider back to here, to the Lord’s House to gather his mother’s things…”

  “Spider and Lord Karthan’s chief bodyguard passed through these gates not long ago,” one of the guards offered.

  “Yearling,” the chief elite warrior said, slapping Durik on the back. “You’ve been very helpful. Go, get your rest, if you can, but watch your back. Troll may be counting you as a threat, if you told him you refused to do his dirty work. I’d sleep with one eye open if I were you.” With that Khazak Mail Fist and the chief elite warrior hurried past the guards and threw open the doors of the Lord’s House.

  Mynar fumbled with the keys on the ring for several moments, cursing Trallik the entire time. It had been a simple enough plan; get into the store room and pour the poison into the barrel of Sweet Bark Cider that Lord Karthan would be breaking out for the celebrations tomorrow. But once again his supposed allies had let him down. Why hadn’t the yearling been there?

  “No matter,” he mumbled to himself as he forced the next key on Bogat’s key ring into the lock. Rattling it about a bit, he cursed his luck and went to the next key.

  “Bogat,” a voice startled him from behind. “What are you doing getting into the cold storage?”

  Mynar turned around, willing his voice to mimic that of the guard Bogat, even as his face and form renewed the illusion. Lord Karthan’s chief elite warrior stood at the entrance to the small cave that served as an antechamber to the deeper, cool vaults where Lord Karthan’s house stored its litany of supplies.

  “Chief, I was told to… um… to get the Sweet Bark Cider in preparation for the festivities,” Mynar said.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Um… it was Khazak Iron Fist,” Mynar replied, not even noticing his mistake.

  The grizzled, veteran warrior’s eyes narrowed. Looking the kobold Bogat over head to toe, he noticed a rather large, circular bulge in his belt pouch.

  “What do you have there, Bogat?” he asked.

  Mynar’s hand reflexively covered the Krall Stone, which he had stolen from his own gen. “Nothing, chief, just some dinner for later in the shift.”

  “Drop your weapons,” the chief elite warrior commanded as he drew his sword. “I have reason to suspect that you are not Bogat, but instead an imposter.”

  With a growl, Mynar pulled the translucent ball of crystal from his belt pouch and took it in both hands. Focusing his power through the artifact, he lashed out at the older warrior, invading his mind with raw power and leaving him dazed and staggering. It was just enough for Mynar to sprint past his victim before the old warrior could strike at him.

  “Come back here,” the chief elite warrior called out as he struggled to get to his feet. By that time Mynar was already out in the vaulted entrance to the servants’ quarters.

  “Greetings, Bogat, how’s the evening?” the pair of Honor Guard Warriors called out as Mynar approached the front gate.

  “Greetings,” he answered. How strange that they should be facing inward. Weren’t they supposed to guard the Lord’s House from outside threats?

  The pair of Honor Guard warriors looked at each other. “Um, eh, stop there Bogat,” one of them said. “I said, ‘How’s the evening’.”

  Mynar stopped and looked at the pair as they looked anxiously back at him. What was wrong here?

  “What?” Mynar asked.

  “Remember?” one of the two hinted. “You know… ‘How’s the evening’.”

  “Ah, right!” Mynar feigned recognition. “Ah, I’ve forgotten the right response. Here, wait a bit. I’ll go ask Chief.”

  The two guards sighed in relief as Mynar hurried back down the hall.

  “Phew, almost thought that might be the imposter we’re looking for,” one of them remarked as they watched Mynar walk away.

  “Alright, now,” the chief bodyguard called out to the small huddle of Honor Guard warriors assembled in front of him. “I think that’s a simple enough explanation of the imposter we’re looking for. So, we’ll search in pairs. No one leaves until we find him. Remember, use the new password in a sentence when challenged, and challenge everyone you see, as he can look like any of us.”

  The warrior known as Bait, as everyone called him since the day he’d nearly been eaten by a bear, raised his hand. “What’s the password again?” he asked.

  The chief bodyguard shook his head. “You idiot, remember, it has to do with the Trials of Caste tomorrow. Can you remember it now?”

  Bait nodded his head innocently. The knock on his head he’d taken a while back had left him without all his faculties, but not without a job.

  “Alright, then,” the chief bodyguard said. “Now, I need a volunteer to pass the shift schedule to the guards at the front entrance, and the guards posted around the perimeter.”

  Bait’s hand shot up.

  The chief bodyguard chewed his lip for a second. “Alright, Bait. You can do it. But don’t linger! Be quick about it!”

  Not long after, Bait approached his two fellow Honor Guard warriors at the entrance to the Lord’s House. The pair just looked at each other and rolled their eyes.r />
  “Good evening, Bait,” one of them said. “Look, I’ll make this simple. What’s the password?”

  Bait stopped and looked at the pair for a second. “Um…” he said for a long moment as he got a ‘thinking’ look on his otherwise uninteresting features. “Is it Trials of Caste?”

  The pair of Honor Guard Warriors just shook their heads. “Close, Bait, but not close enough.”

  Bait thought for a few more moments more then looked up in remembrance. “Is it Arena?” he asked, remembering that the Trials of Caste took place in the gen’s arena.

  “No, Bait,” one of them said, getting a frustrated look on his face. “Look, why don’t you just go back and help in the search.”

  Bait got a frustrated look on his face. “Hey, just because I’m slow doesn’t mean I’m not a warrior, too!” he said.

  “Alright, alright,” the other guard said. “Didn’t mean to upset you. But without the password, we can’t let you pass. Khazak’s orders.”

  “I’m no yearling. You let me pass!” Bait insisted.

  The two guards looked at each other for a moment. “Did he just say what I think he said?” one said.

  “I think it was on accident,” said the other.

  “I say we let him pass,” the first one said.

  The other one nodded. “Very well. Bait, you can pass.”

  Looking rather proud of himself, Bait walked past the two guards. Now that he knew the password, or at least a pass-phrase, it would be a simple matter to pass the guards placed between himself and the caverns of the Wolf Riders Warrior Group. As he walked away from the guards, the façade dropped, and Mynar’s features replaced those of the simpleton Bait.

  Chapter 11 – Prophecies of Destiny

  With all the intrigue and the many preparations for the Day of Beginnings and its main event, the Trials of Caste, few rested well during the last handful of nights before the largest celebration of the year in the Kale Gen. For the yearlings, their fate hung in the balance. For most of the gen, the preparations had been lavish; for the trials, the quest, and for the celebration to follow the trials as well. Through it all Khazak Mail Fist and the Honor Guard had done all they could to protect their lord and master from the worst of it. Despite their best efforts, however, it was in the most opulent of quarters that the greatest disquiet had occurred.

  For several weeks Lord Karthan, Lord of the Kale Gen, had not slept well. A sense of unease and anticipation had grown in his heart for some time. At first he’d tried to put it out of his mind. Then after a while, when it had grown instead of subsiding, he began to ponder on it. He’d had somewhat similar feelings before, especially during times of upheaval in the gen.

  Often over the years feelings of unease had served to warn him of impending danger. He was not the most popular of leaders after all. He’d been named lord of the gen upon his father’s death, and had immediately set about reforming the gen. On multiple occasions turbulent feelings had been pre-cursors to assassination attempts. After the first attempt, he had not only listened well to his heart, but had also established the Honor Guard Warrior Group to help ensure his own and his family’s safety.

  Lord Karthan longed for the days of his forebears, when the last Lord Kale had held the Kale Stone, their gen’s traditional token of right to rulership, said to have been given to Kale, their gen’s founder, by The Sorcerer himself. Decades, even generations had passed without insurrection. But since Lord Karthan’s ancestor, the chamberlain of the last Lord Kale, had taken over rule of the gen when his lord and the Kale Stone were lost on a quest leaving no progeny to rule in his stead nor token of right to rulership, it seems as though their history had been one of insurrection, disloyalty, and rebellion.

  For weeks now, Lord Karthan’s loyal supporters had been building the case against Trelkar of the Deep Guard, and trying to build a case against his leader caste, Khee-lar Shadow Hand, who was none other than the younger brother of Karthan’s lifemate Kiri, killed six years ago now in the orc raid. If Khazak’s information was right, then Trelkar and likely Khee-lar were using their heritage as most direct descendants of the last Lord Kale’s closest relative, a nephew, to gather support from the members of Lord Karthan’s own gen council for what had to be an attempt to overthrow Lord Karthan’s rule.

  Lord Karthan could sense that whatever was going to happen would likely happen soon, but he was unsure of how to approach the problem. After all, there was obviously a larger organization at work here; too much was going on for his reach to be limited to a handful of conspirators. He was growing bolder, which though Lord Karthan didn’t want to think his lifemate’s brother Khee-lar Shadow Hand was involved, it likely could only mean one thing.

  It was not these feelings that had bothered him for the last few weeks, however. Other feelings seemed to have come from deep within the recesses of his mind, as if some long forgotten memory was struggling to resurge. As he had pondered on the pending Trials of Caste, and the quest that he should assign the yearling group to complete afterwards, the feeling only gained intensity. A sense of having forgotten something grew on him day by day, and an indecisiveness about the quest for the yearling group grew along with it, until finally he had called for the Lore Master.

  “Sire,” the bent and feeble old kobold had said as he struggled to stay erect, “I would look to the exiles your grandsire sent into the underdark.”

  Lord Karthan had watched uncomfortably as the ancient kobold, his bronzing scales flaking about as he swayed before his lord, kept himself from falling only by a stout cane. A handful of students piled rolls of writing skins, codices of parchment, and bindings of metal plates on the table between them.

  “Please, won’t you be seated, Lore Master?”

  “Eh? Yes, I’ve eaten.” The Lore Master reflexively held a goat’s horn up to his oversized, pointed ears, his own horns having curved back and forward again in the last decade or so.

  “Won’t you be seated,” Lord Karthan had asked again.

  “Probably wouldn’t be able to get back up,” the Lore Master had waved dismissively. “Hear me now, young Karthan, look to those that were exiled; the descendents now of the illegitimate whelp of the last Lord Kale and those he led into the underdark. For too long there has been no word of them, but I do not think they should be forgotten any longer.”

  Lord Karthan had pleasantly dismissed the Lore Master’s concerns. Seeing that his students stood patiently waiting, having already emptied the handcart of its load, the old kobold had doddered out of the room, leaving Lord Karthan alone with the writings he had requested.

  Though the Lore Master’s intentions were good, Lord Karthan’s father had sent parties to scout for these lost exiles and had found only degenerate souls who had forgotten the gen they’d come from and had become a dark and filthy people, suitable for driving before the Deep Guard on their expeditions and not much more. No, he had decided, that was not what was troubling his heart.

  For weeks Lord Karthan had scoured all of those writings, as well as every other scrap of records and remnants of ancient books the Lore Master’s library had to offer, mostly pouring over the writings of former lords of the gen, the Scrolls of Heritage, and the Chronicles of The Sorcerer, hoping to find what it was that seemed to be calling to him. But his thirst was not quenched, and so Lord Karthan began to despair.

  Now, late in the evening, before the council where this year-group’s quest must be decided, his daughter Kiria had entered the library where Lord Karthan, known throughout the gen as a kobold of action and decision, sat surrounded like one of the Lore Master’s pupils by stacks of books, with no idea of what quest he was going to send these yearlings to accomplish.

  “Father,” Kiria started hesitantly as Lord Karthan looked up from a roll of sheep skin he was perusing. The look of tired concern on his face seemed to melt away as he looked into Kiria’s eyes and smiled.

  “You look more and more like your mother each day,” he said. “How proud she woul
d be to see you all grown up.”

  Kiria smiled with the attention, “Oh father, you flatter me.” Then, placing a book on the table in front of her father, she leafed through the yellowing pages until she found what she was looking for; a picture of a human warrior dressed in metal armor, with a sword and shield in hand.

  “I found this book among some of mother’s old things and I was wondering if you knew why a human would be wearing the kobold leader caste symbol?” She asked, pointing to the human warrior’s shield.

  After so many hours of looking through books and scrolls, Lord Karthan had to pick the book up and bring it closer to focus on it. As he did so, he saw that the warrior had a tower with a glowing eye above it emblazoned on his shield; this was the same symbol that all male leader caste in his gen had branded on their chests. In his youth, his father had explained that it was an ancient symbol that meant leadership and that he had been told that it served as a reminder to the leaders of the gen that they were to watch out for the well being of the gen. Never having seen a picture of a human wearing that particular symbol in any of the ancient histories of the gen, he tried to make out the smudged writing that appeared below the picture.

  Bertrand, the first Watcher we met. This human led us to the Council of Watchers. These Watchers state that they look after not only the eight stones of power that were gifted to the other races, but apparently the Kobold Stone as well, though I don’t see why the lost stone of our sister gen would be so important. They were surprised to learn of the Kale Stone and of its gift to our gen from The Sorcerer himself, he read out loud. He pondered on this Council of Watchers for a moment. “Hmm… How strange that these watchers should use the ancient symbol of leadership as well. I’ve never heard of this Council of Watchers. Have you?”

  Kiria’s short snout wrinkled slightly as she thought, “I’ve heard the name… perhaps somewhere in the ancient writings.” She thought for a moment then her face brightened. “Yes, I remember now, when The Sorcerer first gave the stones of power to the other eight races, he established a Council of Watchers to ensure the stones were not misused, or maybe to ensure they weren’t lost. Something like that anyway.”