The Trials of Caste

by Joel Babbitt

  “Well! A bit confident, are we not? Let’s have at it then; after all you’re the one with enough points to stand in my way for the cup. It’s time to get you out of the way,” Gorgon said matter-of-factly.

  Without hesitation, Gorgon rushed forward, hoping to bowl Durik over with his shield, but Durik was too quick for that. Easily jumping aside, Durik tried to bring his spear around for a strike. Gorgon adjusted to Durik’s move readily enough however and bashed Durik with his shield, knocking him back several paces to the low wall surrounding the three sides of the second floor.

  Durik regained his balance and ran toward the other side of the tower, hoping to buy time to get back in control of the situation. Gorgon followed him, charging around to exploit his shield bash with a solid hammer strike. Gorgon swung his hammer from the side as he charged, but Durik handily deflected the blow and, bringing the butt of his spear up, rapped Gorgon across the back of his head. Gorgon roared as he stumbled into the side railing. Before Durik could strike, Gorgon was turned around with shield at the ready to deflect any blow. Durik stood back, spear also at the ready, waiting for Gorgon to decide on his next move.

  From across the tower, Gorgon eyed Durik. At this point, he’d had very little success fighting Durik, and that frustrated him. Then he got an idea. Coming forward warily, Gorgon swung his hammer in a wide arc toward Durik’s left. Durik brought his spear up to block. Snapping his wrist, Gorgon changed the direction of his hammer and brought it down as hard as he could in a glancing blow along the length of the spear. Durik cried out as the shaft of Gorgon’s hammer rapped across the fingers of both of his hands.

  As Durik’s spear clattered to the ground, Gorgon jumped in for the kill. Despite the pain, Durik sidestepped and ran for the edge of the platform. Turning to look, Durik jumped over the edge and rolled as he landed in the sand below. Getting quickly to his feet, Durik grabbed the sword that Arbelk had dropped nearby and, after looking around briefly, ran quickly for the nearest passageway.

  In the stands, Gorgon’s father yelled his approval while, several benches away, Durik’s family watched anxiously.

  Gorgon watched Durik go, then turned and ascended the stairs to the top of the tower. Once there Gorgon looked at the great chest and found, to his surprise, that the three keys he’d obtained from the crucible were already in the locks and had been turned, making them impossible to extract. Additionally, the black-ribboned key from the Tomb of Kor was already in place. Gorgon stood there thinking for a moment, then placed the key from the Orc Guard Complex Obstacle into its lock and turned it.

  He looked the chest over to see if there was any other way he could get the chalice out without having to get the other keys. The chest itself was huge, about as tall as Gorgon was. Additionally, it was made of thick oak logs that had been burnt to a hardness that would make it nearly impossible to break without the right tools. Gorgon tried pushing the chest and found that it was firmly bolted to the floor of the platform. Looking over the edge of the platform to the ceiling of the level below, Gorgon saw several large iron links someone had taken the pain to run up through the floor and into the bottom of the chest, making the chest virtually impossible to move. Gorgon stood up and sighed.

  “Time to do it the hard way,” he mumbled to himself.

  Patting the remaining key on his belt, which was from the Brimstone Obstacle according to the color, Gorgon waived to the crowd and descended the tower. By his figuring, the only keys left to obtain were Smoke and the Ruined Bridge Obstacle. He hadn’t seen any keys on Durik, in fact he figured Durik must have been the one to drop his belt with the two keys on it that he’d found. Gorgon picked up his javelins as he descended and headed toward the Ruined Bridge Obstacle.

  Trallik had to go through several points to eventually find a bow and quiver with arrows, and even then they weren’t at a point, but rather were dropped near one of the entrances. The knives he favored were easier to find, but he knew that if he was to maintain any sort of edge in this competition, he needed the ability to reach out and touch someone. His previous two losses had brought him face to face with the possibility that he may not win this competition. This was very unsettling to him, as he was certain he was the best at scouting and could outperform any of the others in games of stealth like this. It was the randomness of hand-to-hand encounters that had turned the tables on him. His failure with Durik was a serious sting to his pride.

  Though he had been taught to be disciplined throughout the year of training, Trallik had always felt himself slightly above the role of a common warrior. Perhaps it was because he thought himself so much smarter than the rest. While the others struggled with lessons of academics, Trallik excelled. He was far superior to the rest of the yearlings with locks and devices. No other yearling was better than him at getting into and out of tight situations.

  It seemed only right to him that he should be the one to be chosen to lead the group. The fact that no one ever chose him to lead had nothing to do with it. That, to him, was because the others just failed to see how leadership ought to be. He knew that if he could win this competition, he could make the others see how leadership really should be. It was his right, after all. No one was better prepared to lead.

  With a renewed zeal, Trallik made his way back toward the center of the obstacles.

  Reality is a cold, harsh, impartial thing. Quite frequently it sneaks up and catches one by surprise. The ability to see reality before it hits one in the face is a rare quality. Optimism and pessimism are both tainted views of reality. Perhaps the best way Durik could describe them was to call them tools, just like windows through which one looks.

  While Durik did his best to maintain a pretty even view of things, he found that he worked better if he maintained a sense of optimism. Similarly, he had seen Manebrow use a pessimistic view on things from time to time in the past in order to bring someone back to the ground when they were obviously thinking about things that would work solely in their minds, and not in reality.

  Durik had caught onto this technique early and had begun to use it himself. He did this not to crush anyone’s spirits, but rather to help them understand that even though one hopes for the best, you still have to be prepared for the worst. He understood Manebrow’s reasoning for using this technique once he discovered that if he and others were optimistic, but faced reality before going into a situation, they performed much better than if they were off in their own imagination. This was just one of the things that he’d learned, and continued to learn, from the master trainer.

  Over the past year, he and Keryak had worked well together. In most everything they seemed to complement one another. When one of them was overly optimistic, the other seemed to be more grounded. When one of them was discouraged, the other was always able to cheer them up. When one had a good idea, but didn’t know how to make it happen, the other always seemed to come through with the details. This last year had taught Durik much.

  Between all the combat training, the physical training, and learning to deal with the problems of others and to help them overcome obstacles, Durik felt he’d learned much. But perhaps the greatest thing he’d learned was how to accomplish more with someone else than both of them could do separately. Keryak had been a true friend that entire time. Perhaps it was because of that that his kill on Keryak, which took Keryak out of the competition, hurt him so much. In his heart, however, Durik knew that his friend would forgive him. As he squatted against the wall in the passageway rubbing the feeling back into his knuckles, Durik felt peace in his heart and felt that it would all work out for the best in the end.

  Knowing which keys Gorgon had, as they’d been his not long before, and knowing which keys were already in the chest in the Tower of the Chalice, Durik grabbed his sword and came out of the side passageway where he’d been recovering. After listening for a moment, he began to head toward the Smoke Obstacle with Arbelk’s one key wrapped in the ties of his loincloth.

  If luck could take sides, a strong
case could be made that it had sided against Troka. After acquiring a long sword, he headed back toward the center, but shortly after passing the first obstacle, he and Gorgon met in the passageway that lead from the Tower of the Chalice and connected to the perimeter and the Smoke Obstacle. Gorgon saw that Troka was not at his best, but knowing he didn’t have time to delay and let Troka recover, he came at him anyway. Troka did his best to defend. Being taller than almost all other kobolds in the gen, and stronger than all the other yearlings in the group other than Gorgon, he was nothing to be trifled with. Gorgon made short work of him, however, and within a few heartbeats, Troka’s name was announced and he was out of the competition.

  Troka stood watching Gorgon as he turned and headed down the passage toward the perimeter on his way to the Ruined Bridge Obstacle, then, holding his head all the higher to counterbalance his sunken heart, he walked back to the trainer’s stand. He would have to be content with what would soon be his lot; that of a common warrior in the gen.

  Manebrow stood on the trainer’s stand with his hands clasped behind his back. In his mind he’d been keeping track of the tally of kills. Like every year since he’d first started training yearlings, there were surprises. He’d not expected Keryak to be out so soon, nor had he expected Jerrig to last this long. And with the energy and physical strength present in this group, perhaps the most surprising thing was that no one had been reported as injured seriously enough to not continue in the trials.

  In his heart Manebrow pondered on the moment. Soon the winner of the competition would be chosen, and thus one of these kobolds would be given the rank of adventurer, which was much like an apprentice rank in the leader caste of the gen. Soon one of these yearlings would be put in a status unattainably above his own station in life. He could only imagine the challenges that kobold would face.

  He did not question whether that kobold, whoever he was, would be up to the challenge. He had broken pride and built discipline. He had broken self-delusion and built self-knowledge. They had started the year as a group of incompetent individuals unable to take care of themselves individually much less be of use to anyone else, and had finished as a team of competent warriors. For several years Manebrow had forged the warriors of this gen with the hammer of his iron discipline. Not in all that time had he seen a group so ready for the trials. However, not in all that time had he heard of a quest where so much was unknown.

  Whether the yearling who attained leader caste this day was ready or not, Manebrow would be there to ensure that the mission succeeded and that as many warriors as he could take care of would make it home safely at the end. To this end he’d pledged his life when taking the position of elite warrior. To this pledge he would hold true. Manebrow felt the strength of his vow and knew that, as long as he lived, his commitment would not waver.

  Chapter 22 – Final Four

  The end of the competition was always a hectic thing. The psychology of it was simple; those without keys would hear the fighting at the tower and begin to feel uncomfortable. At which point they would usually stop looking and instead linger around the tower, waiting to ambush whoever might have the last key before he could open the chest. On the other hand, those with at least one key felt safe to venture out and ensure that all other keys had already been obtained from all the other obstacles, because no one could win without their key. Of course, those with more than one key usually put the rest in the great locks on the chest at the top of Tower of the Chalice, both to hear the applause of the crowd, and because the rules wouldn’t allow them to hide the keys anywhere else.

  It had usually been the case in the past that one or more obstacles had been overlooked in the chaos that was the scouting trial, until at the very end the remaining kobolds somehow figured out that one or more of the keys was not in play.

  This time was no different in that respect. Jerrig and Trallik, both keyless, were trading arrows across the clearing of the Tower of the Chalice while both Gorgon and Durik were out looking for keys. Neither Jerrig nor Trallik were willing to give up the cover of their passageways to get close to one another, so for several minutes they exchanged arrows, interspersed with brief episodes where one of them would run out, grab the arrows the other had fired, then run back behind cover. With the distance and both of them being aware of the other, no hits were scored.

  Gorgon quickly accomplished the objective he set out to achieve. Arriving at the Ruined Bridge Obstacle, he saw the boards and materials in the ditch and, looking across the ditch to the empty pedestal on the other side, surmised that this obstacle’s key must already be in play. After spending a short time more looking around to ensure that the key hadn’t accidentally been dropped, Gorgon took off jogging toward the Smoke Obstacle.

  As Durik approached the door to the large boar hide hut that sat squarely in the middle of the Smoke Obstacle clearing, he noticed the Honor Guard judge wearing a cloth over his snout while pumping a bellows into a smelter full of burning cryweed whose chimney was a hide tube that connected to the tent. Tar closed most of the holes and seems in the tent, but the remaining holes and the flaps in the front of the tent still seeped enough of the acrid smoke out that it was necessary to keep burning the stuff. Durik walked up to the flap door of the obstacle and, standing aside, opened it as far as he could, fastening it at the bottom to one of the stakes near the tent corner. Large amounts of the acrid cryweed smoke billowed out from the dark interior of the tent as Durik decided what to do next.

  Perhaps it was because of the work that had gone into improving the chimney in the top of this cavern that they used this obstacle almost every year. Perhaps it was because of cryweed smoke’s effect on creatures. Whatever it was, Durik wasn’t happy to be the one to have to go into the tent and get the key. Going around to the side of the tent away from the view of even the highest seats in the stands Durik stripped completely, even leaving his loin cloth on the ground so that he’d have no lingering cryweed smoke on him anywhere. He then carefully hid his equipment as best he could under the netting that covered the partitions that formed the walls of the obstacle’s clearing.

  After lifting the edge of the tent and waiting several moments to let as much smoke billow out as he could, Durik held his breath and crawled under the tent wall. Despite his efforts to clear the smoke, Durik’s eyes began to water almost immediately, and very soon thereafter his nose began to run and he slowly began to feel his ability to breathe being hampered. On the sandy floor of the tent lay several small chests with simple locks of various sizes. Hanging from the tent ceiling by long strings were a large number of keys of all different sizes. Going as quickly as he could from chest to chest on his stomach, Durik shook each of them to see if they contained anything. After several moments, Durik found a chest that rattled as if it contained something metallic. Being quite disoriented and not being able to hold his breath any longer, Durik grabbed the chest, stood up and ran out the door to the tent.

  Durik stopped just outside the tent door and, dropping the chest to the ground, bent over and coughed out massive amounts of phlegm and mucus, wiping his eyes to clear away the streaming tears. After a few moments he caught his breath and stood up. It was then that he noticed Gorgon standing there in front of him, leaning on a javelin.

  *Cough* “You…” *Cough* “been here long?” Durik asked once he got over the surprise of being caught unarmed and naked and on the wrong side of the tent.

  “A few moments,” Gorgon answered. “I was in no hurry to follow you in there.”

  *Cough* “Yeah. So, what do we do now? Are you going to take me as I am?” Durik asked, looking rather uncomfortable.

  Gorgon thought for a moment. If ever a victory were to be handed him on a silver platter this, perhaps, was it. After a moment, however, he shook his head and answered. “It wouldn’t be right, Durik. I’m more honorable than that. How about you go get your gear while I break open this chest. I’ll take the key, but I’ll not take a kill from an unarmed opponent, even if you did acci
dentally beat me in the melee trial.”

  Durik grinned a nervous grin. Not being in the mood to argue at the moment, he turned and ran around behind the tent. Lifting the netting, Durik grabbed his gear and headed off immediately into a side passage where he could escape the view of the crowd and the fully armed and ready Gorgon.

  As he reached the safety of the side passage, he suddenly realized that he had been fully naked in view of the entire gen and, he instantly realized, Kiria also! The stunning embarrassment of it all came slamming down on him all at once and it was more than he could bear.

  It was several moments before Durik, trying hard to shake it off, was able to get up and get his mind back into the fight.

  It had been a simple matter to beat the chest against the stone smelter until it shattered in his hands, then taking the large key with a piece of dark gray cloth tied to it from the remnants of the chest Gorgon headed off at a jog toward the Tower of the Chalice clearing. He was in no hurry. In his mind, it was in his best interest to wait. He had two keys, and he knew that there was one other key out there somewhere. He didn’t remember seeing Durik with it, so he figured that one of the others probably had it in his possession.

  Gorgon assumed that the others would be at the tower by now and if not, then at least he could catch whoever was there and possibly score a couple more kills before the last key arrived. Perhaps he could knock another of his peers out of the contest and clear the area of distractions. By his figuring, only he, Durik, Jerrig, and Trallik were left in the contest. He’d looked up at the clay pots that marked how many kills each had against them, but not all of the flags were well displayed. But with the fast pace of this trial so far, he figured that keys would win this contest before kills ever did anyway.