by Joel Babbitt
An audible gasp was shared by all. No one other than Khazak and Lord Karthan had heard that the poison attempt had actually happened nor about Trelkar’s would-be assassin. From the door of the council chamber the leader of the contingent of Honor Guard warriors appeared with drawn sword in hand, the remainder of his warriors appearing several paces behind him. Suddenly, there were several council members, functional leaders mostly, whose faces went pale as their consciences convicted them, the thought that they might be next silencing them immediately.
Lord Karthan shook his head and stood up. “Please, please.” He held a hand up to calm the reaction of the group as he waved off the Honor Guard warriors. “Yes, there was an attempt on my life tonight; two in fact! But one of the would-be assassins will be caught shortly and the other is in our prison even now.” The more loyal members of the council seemed relieved, while those who were part of the covenant began to worry that they might somehow be implicated; the shine of steel in the torchlight reminding them too clearly of their vulnerability.
“There has been fiery rhetoric tonight, that is certain,” Lord Karthan continued, “but I do not think that fiery rhetoric will be calmed with more fiery rhetoric,” he said, putting his hand on Khazak Mail Fist’s shoulder as the brawny warrior stood fiercely staring at any who could not meet his gaze with clear conscience. Then, looking straight at Khee-lar Shadow Hand, Lord Karthan held out his hand. “Can we not have peace? Are we not all brothers and members of this great family of Kale? Can we not treat each other as brothers, rather than fighting and quarrelling among ourselves?”
The hate in Khee-lar’s heart smoldered, but did not show like the fear in the eyes of many of the other council members; he was too adept for that. He’d known that Krobo had been found out, but he was surprised to learn that Mynar the Sorcerer had actually attempted to assassinate Lord Karthan as well. How careless of him! If he were to be caught, they would surely torture the rest of the names of the Covenant out of him! The thought of Mynar’s carelessness compromising what he had spent so much time and treasure building infuriated him, as did the fear he saw in the eyes of the few functional leaders on the other side of the tables that were part of his covenant, yet who now looked anything but ready to overthrow Karthan.
Lord Karthan took Khee-lar’s pensive demeanor as concurrence and was falsely placated. “Khee-lar, I am sorry for the loss of Trelkar your second, but I am sure you will be able to find a more moderate elite warrior to serve as chief for the Deep Guard elite warriors. Now, where were we, Khazak?” he asked as he sat down again.
Khazak was under no such delusions, and his eyes didn’t leave Khee-lar until his lord called him by name. “Lord, it was in reference to the need for an adventurer class in the yearling group. There are thirteen in the yearling group with the inclusion of Manebrow and five others from the warrior caste. Including seasoned warriors, not just yearlings, means that a leader caste must lead them, yet there is no vacancy in the gen’s council, as the number is now twenty-four as dictated by The Sorcerer himself in the Scrolls of Heritage. Help us understand your reasoning.”
“I would remind all that in the Chronicles of the Sorcerer,” Lord Karthan began, “there is mention made of one Gilborn, a lord among the elves. As the Chronicles state, he was a mighty warrior, and a loyal servant of The Sorcerer. He was not a member of the council, but he was given charge during a dire time of famine to find what had staunched the flow of a mighty river. Upon his victorious return, he maintained the calling, but did not join the council until the Lord Sheb-Rand withdrew.”
“If you’re not going to choose a current leader caste for this, then who, Lord, would you choose for such a task?” Khee-lar Shadow Hand asked in an exasperated tone, “the Trainer?” Manebrow’s head was already swimming. This was almost too much for him.
“No, Khee-lar. To him that takes the cup tomorrow I will give the title of Adventurer Class and give him the Leader Caste Marking.” There was much loud murmuring among the members of the council. “And to him whom he defeats in the trials I will give an Elite Warrior Marking, that he may lead the remaining yearlings.”
There were shouts of disbelief and dismay.
“Many years do most work for such an honor. Yet you give it away so freely!” “An adventurer class chosen from the ranks of a yearling group? There is no precedence!” “You have too much faith in this group of yearlings, my lord!” All these objections and more came from the assembled council members. As the shouts began to die down, Lord Karthan raised his hand for silence.
“There is a method to this seeming madness, my council members,” stated Lord Karthan. “This quest is really two-fold. For, if the interpretations of the writings collected by the last Lord Kale are correct and the stone is at Palacid, in order to enter that great stronghold and thereby retrieve the Kale Stone, one must have the key to the entrance.” He paused, surveying the council members. “From what I’ve read, as well as from what was passed down to me from our fathers, the key that opens the mighty door to the lower levels of Palacid must have been lost in the Hall of the Mountain King in the valley to the north of here, perhaps when the dread wyrms came from the Great Divide. Therefore, in order to gain entrance to Palacid, they must first find the key.”
“Assuming that the Kale Stone is at Palacid as you have said, and assuming Palacid is not in ruins, and that the ancient powers still keep and preserve it, then this truly is a mighty task you place upon such inexperienced shoulders, my lord,” spoke Khazak Mail Fist, expressing a rare doubt in his leader’s choices. “Would it not be right to choose a more experienced leader to take this quest?”
“No, I think not. Though I doubt not the sincerity and devotion of any of you, yet I think it wiser in this choice to choose one from among those that have the most to prove, and the most to gain by completing this quest. In this choice, I trust to heart rather than to experience, and to desire rather than competence.” Lord Karthan paused. “Tomorrow we shall see whose quest this is. May he hold to it with all his might.”
Chapter 13 – After the Council
“Trelkar seems to have eluded us,” Lord Karthan’s chief elite warrior reported as Lord Karthan and Khazak Mail Fist retreated from a subdued council chamber. “He and some of his warriors disappeared through some chute to the surface, or maybe through the underdark. We have conflicting reports.”
“Walk with me, Chief,” Lord Karthan said. Once they were clearly out of earshot of the council chamber, he continued. “Then I’m not worried about Trelkar. If he wants to exile himself, he poses no further threat to us,” Lord Karthan said, yet even as he said it somehow it just didn’t feel true. He brushed aside his feelings and continued. “Now, what of the rest? What of the infiltrator… what of Mynar?”
“Sire, we’ve not found him yet, and I don’t think we will anytime soon either.”
Lord Karthan stopped and looked at him. The grizzled veteran warrior’s features told what had happened without another word being said. “How did he escape us?” Lord Karthan asked.
“Sire, we have a report that Bait left your house about the time the council started. However, not long ago we found him out cold in a side closet with quite a lump on his head. He was hit from behind, and doesn’t know who did it.”
Lord Karthan shook his head. “So it had to be Mynar the Sorcerer, then? I would love to get my hands on that murderer.” The leadership of the gen was very aware that Mynar the Sorcerer had been involved in the Bloodhand Orc raid six years ago now; the raid that had killed Lord Karthan’s lifemate. Lord Karthan was surprised by the pain that began to resurge within his heart. “Are the door guards sure that the kobold who left looked just like Bait?” Lord Karthan probed.
Standing behind Lord Karthan, Khazak Mail Fist was not receiving the news well. It was his warrior group that provided the guards for the Lord’s House, and therefore it was his fault that Mynar had escaped.
“Chief,” Khazak said, his face a mask of frustration, “how di
d he know the password? Please tell me the guards didn’t just let the imposter out without challenging him!”
“No, sire. They both report that they did their duty. He said ‘yearling’ in a sentence, just as if he knew the password. He must have heard someone else saying it before he got to the front gate and guessed what was happening.”
“Where do we think the imposter went, Chief?” Lord Karthan asked.
“We don’t know, sire, but there has been a good amount of traffic in and out of the main entrance. Though I wouldn’t count on it, he could have easily left the gen.”
Lord Karthan shook his head. After a moment of silence he looked Khazak in the eyes. “Make sure that the house is searched top to bottom, and especially check the supplies. I know Chief stopped him as he was going into the cold storage, but what’s to say he hadn’t already poisoned some spice jar in the kitchens or stirred it into a cask in the ready supplies?”
Khazak nodded. “Yes, sire. We will question the guards thoroughly where there were guards posted, and wherever there might have been any type of compromise or wherever there weren’t any guards, we’ll either throw out the supplies or test them.”
“Who gets that duty?” Lord Karthan asked in surprise, glad for the distraction from his own thoughts.
“No, lord,” Khazak replied. “We’ll test them on a dog. Our warriors won’t be sampling anything… at least not until a dog has tried it first.”
The two leaders laughed over Lord Karthan’s misunderstanding as they walked back toward the Lord’s House. Behind them, however, Chief wasn’t laughing. He’d spent too much time training pack dogs to dismiss the risk to them so lightly.
The dour-faced brute known as Troll looked at the charismatic young sub-chief to the Patrol Guard’s chief elite warrior. Kort had risen quickly through the ranks, too quickly for Troll’s taste. He’d heard his words, high and haughty as they were, but still Troll doubted Kort had the tenacity to follow through with his promises.
For Kort’s part, he read the dull look on Troll’s face as clear evidence that there wasn’t much going on behind those eyes. He wondered if he could trust Troll’s report that he had twenty warriors ready to strike. Certainly he had the handful of elite warriors who were already part of the Covenant, but how did he convince so many others so quickly to join their cause?
Trelkar could see the doubt on both of their faces and would have nothing of it. Looking from one to the other, he shook his head.
“Listen up, both of you,” he said sternly. “I don’t have time for this petty bickering. Tonight I leave with a handful of others to ambush Lord Karthan’s ‘package.’ That means the two of you are going to have to do this together, and I won’t be here to make sure it happens. Now, do you think the two of you can work together and pull this off?”
For his part, Kort resented Trelkar’s condescending tone, but he knew better than to show frustration to the kobold who ran the operations of the Covenant. Death had been the outcome in the past for any who did not follow Trelkar’s commands… long, slow, painful death. Kort nodded and looked down submissively.
Troll, on the other hand, had only recently been brought into the Covenant and didn’t know the leverage Trelkar could bring to bear. “I don’t trust him,” Troll muttered, then turned on Trelkar. “And why are you wanting to strike now all of a sudden? I thought you and Khee-lar wanted to wait?”
Trelkar’s eyes had a fire in them and his voice had a steel edge as he swiftly drew his blade and thrust it under Troll’s chin in one fluid motion, just barely breaking the skin beneath tender scales. From around the corner of the passageway a pair of Trelkar’s companions appeared, swords already drawn. Grabbing Troll by the crossed shoulder belts, Trelkar slammed the brute against the wall, all the while his blade was dangerously close to slitting Troll’s throat.
“Because I said so.” Trelkar punctuated each syllable with his sword point. “Now listen to me. You will work with Kort. You will do as I say, or, if Karthan is still on the throne when I return, Khazak Mail Fist will conveniently find out where you hid the body of your lifemate and all of a sudden a couple of witnesses will appear, ready to testify against you. Is that clear?”
Troll was sweating, which was abundantly clear to everyone in the pitch darkness, their heat vision showing the drama quite clearly. “Yes, Trelkar,” Troll said, trying his best to mimic Kort’s submissive attitude.
Trelkar stared at Troll until the brutish warrior closed his eyes. Slamming him into the wall one more time, Trelkar stepped back and sheathed his blade. Behind him, Mynar the Sorcerer stood and folded his arms over his chest. His recent escape from the home of Lord Karthan had shaken him, but he had regained his composure and was enjoying watching Trelkar inflict a bit of pain on this insolent newcomer to the Covenant.
“Troll, Troll, Troll. Now you know what I meant when I said absolute obedience,” Mynar said then smiled a cruel smile. “I hope you don’t have to learn what the price of disobedience is.”
“Yes, sire,” Troll said. His words were submissive enough, but his tail swished with pent up anger behind him.
“Now get me the warriors I’ve asked for, and have your people ready to strike with Kort’s warriors like we’ve planned. And don’t worry about Khee-lar…” Mynar said.
Trelkar shook his head in disgust. “Aye, Khee-lar wants to wait, but I’ll not be left out in the woods waiting on him. The time for action has come. Khee-lar will see that, especially when we deliver him the throne.”
“Like I said,” Mynar continued, “don’t worry about what Khee-lar Shadow Hand wants. Tonight we covenant. Tomorrow we will end the Karthan line once and for all.”
Manebrow was not young. His ivory horns clearly showed his age. Unlike the yearlings’ short horns that stuck out like thick fingers, his horns had already begun to bend forward in the eventual curve of age. He was in his thirtieth year and was feeling his age, especially in the mornings. That night as he returned to his tent in the cave of his warrior group, Manebrow could not face his lifemate, Ki. He reasoned that she would not understand and that it would be best for Lord Karthan to let her know by his announcement upon the ending of the trials tomorrow. He knew it was not the right thing to do, but he could not bring himself to tell her of the dangerous quest that he’d been called to perform.
Her questions about why most of the other Honor Guard warriors were on alert fell on still-stunned ears as well. Lord Karthan always kept a small contingent of Honor Guard on ready alert whenever he held council, in memory of a past insurrection, but his uncanny knack for alerting the entire Honor Guard right before attempted insurrections in the past only served to increase the worry and tension in the homes of the Honor Guard warriors this night as so many of the warriors were called out to stand guard.
Finally, as she placed a bowl of red mushroom broth before him, he muttered “I have no role to play for this insurrection. My lot lies elsewhere.” To her credit, Ki could see that she should not press her mate. As he ate third meal, Ki saw Manebrow as reserved, lost in thought. In reality, however, he was beginning to make the changes inside himself that would get him through whatever the future held.
The whelps had already been asleep when he arrived; three strong young males. She had brought them great hopes with these young. He loved her for that, but more than that, he loved her for how much she understood him and cared for what he was and what he stood for. It had been twelve years now that they had been together, all of which he’d been a trainer. The endless hours and constant strain of outperforming these yearlings, which seemed to get younger every year, took their toll on his body. The only thing that helped him make it through was her constant support. Now, amidst the rumors of insurrection, he would have to tell her that he was to go on a long quest, one from which he did not know if he would ever return. The only relief for his conscience came from the orders that all the council and himself followed, of not revealing the quest decided upon until after the Trials of Caste.
That night Manebrow could not sleep. After a long time of staring at the warm figure of his mate in the blackness of the room, he finally got up and set about looking over his equipment, checking his kit, packing his rucksack, adjusting his belts to hold more belt pouches and his fighting knife again after so long on the trail as a trainer, and finally sharpening the battle axe that was as familiar to him almost as was his own arm.
As he ran the stone across the long, curved edge of the blade, his mind reflected on his first few years as a warrior, when he had spent weeks and months hunting and being hunted by the warriors of the Bloodhand Orc Tribe. His attitude hardened as the images of the orc-flesh it had sundered and of the dark blood that had often stained its blade in his first few years as a warrior came flooding back to him. His jaw began to set as he steeled his emotions for the battles that would lie ahead. In his heart he began to make the change from loving mate and devoted trainer to cold, hardened killer. His mind was ready, his hands prepared. Though he did not relish the tasks of war, he would execute them.
This was the way of a warrior, and anyone who thought that this was just another journey did not know what the world held for them. Thinking back to the companions of his youth who had died by orc hands, Manebrow knew that, if this group was to escape the same fate, they would come to depend heavily on each other, and on him.
Though there were many unanswered questions about this quest group which would soon be formed, this much he knew; when the time came to use his training as a warrior, he would not hesitate. He knew that their lives would greatly depend on his split second decisions. Though it weighed heavily on his mind, he was not a stranger to this responsibility. In fact, he quite frequently preached the very same words of strength and responsibility to his yearlings.