by Joel Babbitt
“Warriors of the Valley of the Mountain King,” he began, his voice staying mercifully clear and solid. Feeling good about his initial address, he pressed on.
“You have been chosen by your gens’ leaders to march in this levy.” He looked about the formation, proud to see that they were still all facing forward. Marbo’s disciplining had certainly served to help them act like warriors should.
“Today we go to serve in the army of Drakebane, chieftain of the Bloodhand Orc Tribe. It is not a duty that any of us here relishes, but it is our duty nonetheless, and therefore we will do it.” He paused a moment before continuing.
“My chief elite warrior has spent the last several hours hardening you up, getting you ready to face the orcs. Remember this! We’re only half the height of these orcs, so they will naturally think of you as something for them to beat upon. Do not give them that pleasure! Stick together in your teams wherever you go. Don’t kill or wound any of them, it will only anger the rest. We will build a palisade each night when we stop to help maintain the separation between our forces and the orcs. You will not leave the palisade for any reason. Am I clear?”
With one voice, the entire formation yelled out “Yes, sire!”
Jominai was suitably impressed. “Finally, before we move out, I will introduce you to your new chief elite warriors. One will be assigned to each of your gens’ leaders to help carry out the drills and training you will need if you’re going to survive this campaign.”
Turning to his right, where the line of four Kobold Gen elite warriors stood rigidly, Jominai gave the command for them to take their positions. Turning as one to the right, the line of veteran warriors jogged slowly around the front of the four blocks of warriors, one peeling off at each formation to stand just behind and to the left of the leader caste that had been sent by each gen to lead their warriors.
“Chief!” Jominai called. Hearing his title, Marbo ran to the front of the formation.
“Yes, sire!”
“Prepare the contingents to march.”
Salutes were exchanged.
Within a matter of minutes all the equipment and supplies the various gens had brought with them were gathered and Marbo was in the process of getting the four gens’ warriors lined up and ready to go.
Standing ready next to their wolves, the company’s own blessed oracle, a rather youthful one by the name of Demo who wore his armor as comfortably as any other warrior, stood talking with the company’s only covenant mage, a rather staunch looking older kobold with an exceptionally penetrating gaze whose name he hadn’t asked. Just looking at the mage made Jominai nervous.
As the contingents were forming, Jominai took the opportunity to talk with the five warriors who served as his company staff. While Marbo had been instilling discipline in the troops, they had been busily inventorying the equipment brought by the different gens to see if Lord Krulak’s requests of them had been followed and checking rations to assess how many days each gen’s contingent would be able to go without resupply. Their assessment didn’t bring the best of news, but Jominai was pleasantly surprised by how prepared they actually were. His expectations had been low, and the degenerate gens had exceeded them, though not by much.
Krulak looked on with interest at the young leader. Soon, seeing Jominai’s four hundred levies almost ready to march, he gave the command to form up and march. Leading their wolves by the reins, Krulak’s hundred Kobold Gen warriors began marching to the east.
Jominai had been watching the progress of his four contingents, and now as the last of the gens’ contingents began to swing into line, he dismissed his staff to take their places in front of the messengers who were holding the pack dogs.
“Mount up, warriors of the Kobold Gen,” he said, mounting his own mottled gray riding wolf in turn. “Time to look sharp!”
Walking up to his leader, Marbo turned down the offer of his own riding wolf. “No thank you, sire. I’m no leader caste. You ride your wolf. I’ll walk with the rest of the troops.”
“Well, then,” Jominai looked confused for half a moment before his face hardened with resolve. “Then we shall all walk together,” he said as he dismounted, his staff following suit.
“Well, so be it then, sire,” Marbo said. “The contingents are formed and ready to march,” he said, snapping off a sharp salute.
“Very well.”
Turning, Jominai called out in his loudest command voice. “Forward March!” Much to his chagrin, his voice cracked halfway through the word ‘march’. Only a couple of the kobolds in his staff laughed, however, and even then they were discreet about it. The command was echoed by the degenerate gens’ leaders, but without the embarrassing squeak that hinted at a somewhat recent bout with puberty.
Like a massive centipede, Jominai’s Company began to march east toward the small mountain in the distance that rose out of the floor of the valley in the shape of a massive bird’s head.
Chapter 3 – Journey to the Home of the Kales
Despite being robbed of a fur blanket and a bag of dried meat, the orcs didn’t pursue the two young lifemates Trallik and Trikki and their guide Kale, giving Trikki time to rest and attempt to recover. Trallik thought they might not have seen them running, or perhaps they had lost them. Whatever it was, Trallik was glad to keep the blanket and meat, and to be rid of the orcs.
Kale explained to them that all the entrances up to the surface other than the area they were in, called the Doorstep by the outcasts, were only accessible from the underdark, so they accepted his offer to lead them down into the massive complex of caves and passageways that lay underneath the kobold-inhabited valleys.
A couple of caverns later the three kobolds saw a weak light shining in a small hollow that Kale approached without caution. Following their guide, the pair of young kobolds saw a rather sturdy-looking white goat lying next to a wooden frame fitted with several bags. The goat stood as Kale approached it, bleating out a greeting and nuzzling Kale’s hand as he stretched it out, full of grass he’d collected on his recent trip to the surface.
“There, there, Sable. I’m back,” he whispered to the animal as he rubbed the base of its skull, just behind its curved horns. Taking the frame from the ground, he fitted it to the goat’s back and fastened the straps.
While Trikki was watching the goat, Trallik was fascinated by the source of light. There, sitting on a shelf of rock, was an absolutely brilliant rock that glowed with an intense, white light. Reaching out to take it in hand, he was surprised to find it cool to the touch, the same as the rest of the rocks around it.
“I’ll take that,” Kale said as he palmed the glowing rock out of Trallik’s hand. “A little heirloom from my grandfather’s lore master, back when we still had magic.”
Trallik’s curiosity was piqued. “What is it for, and how was it made?”
Kale raised a brow at the question. “Simple enough, really. It’s so that Sable here can see, since she doesn’t have the gift of seeing heat like us. As for how it was made, I think that explanation will have to wait. Come, we must be going,” he said as he placed the last of the bags on the goat’s packsaddle and turned to go, the goat following him without so much as a rope to persuade her to move.
They hadn’t travelled far before Trikki started stumbling along. Seeing her suffering, Kale had stopped the small party to let her rest for a while. Several hours had passed since then, and eventually Trallik and Kale had both taken the opportunity to get some sleep as well, though Kale seemed to be always only half-asleep, the slightest disturbance causing him to come to a state of full alertness. Eventually, as Trikki’s cheeks began to get their color back and she began to feel up to traveling, the time came to move on.
As they travelled, Kale explained to them the history of the area. According to his ancestors, the Doorstep was a cavern complex that the Kale Gen had once held, which had served as a critical junction between the northern valley, the southern valley, and the underdark. Before the Kobold Gen had s
plintered, trade caravans had traveled through the Doorstep on an almost daily basis, but that was a hundred years or more in the past. The entrances from the Doorstep into the two valleys had only very recently been reopened, the landslides hiding their entrances being removed by the orcs who had converged on the area.
Trallik listened with interest to their guide, though he wondered how any of it might matter to him. He was much more curious about the outcasts and the Deep Gen, and the power that had created the strange, glowing stone that Kale used to light their way. Holding onto Trikki, who was still weak from having almost drown in the water chute that had deposited them on the Doorstep, Trallik helped her slide down a tall boulder to Kale’s outstretched arms below.
“Well,” Kale replied in response to Trallik’s questions, “the Outcasts, like I said, are a loose affiliation of ‘families,’ with each family being a handful, or perhaps even a large group of kobolds from any gen who have banded together for mutual protection and to trade with one another. Each family has someone at least nominally in charge of it. Our family’s elder is my grandfather, Kale. Leadership of a family is provided by whoever is most suited to it. There are many families, and the way each one is ruled and the personality of each one is as varied as the personalities of those who lead them.”
“It sounds rather chaotic,” Trallik observed as he dodged a series of goat pellets recently laid in the path.
“That’s probably a good word for it. However, there is an equilibrium among the outcast families. It seems whenever one gets too powerful and begins to threaten the others, the rest of the families unite for long enough to put down the threat. Though we’re without a central leader, we’re not without a society, nor are we without means to defend ourselves.
“My father, who is with the ancestors,” Kale explained, meaning that he was dead, “was one who tried to organize the outcasts, to build them into a gen, wishing to rebuild what was taken from our family generations ago by the chamberlain of my great-grandfather’s father. I myself have led various groups of families from time to time, but they’re a bit of a chaotic lot. It takes a drastic emergency to serve as a hammer to forge them into anything but what they are.”
Trallik looked at him strangely. “Are you telling me that you and your line are direct descendants of the last Lord Kale?”
Kale simply nodded.
“I thought the last Lord Kale had no children?” Trallik pressed.
Kale smiled gently as he urged Sable to jump down to the ledge he was on. “He had no children from his lifemate… but the last Lord Kale was… how shall I say it? He was less responsible in his youth than perhaps he should have been.”
Trallik wasn’t sure how to take that.
“Perhaps to state it more clearly, my great-grandfather was the first son of the last Lord Kale by a young female whom he loved and had a child with, but their affair was kept secret and eventually swept under the rug by the young Kale’s parents. As it turns out, this was not made known among the Kale Gen, perhaps for obvious reasons, until after that Kale had become Lord of the Kale Gen and had failed to return from his quest. The chamberlain disavowed the truth of my ancestor’s claims, stating that there were no heirs to take Lord Kale’s place, and therefore took the throne for himself.”
Trikki, who had been silent until now, spoke up. “Well, I don’t know if you care or not, but the Lord of the Kale Gen was just overthrown. There’s someone new on the throne now. Trallik here thinks that the new lord won’t treat him as an exile. Since I’m his lifemate, I should be fine too. Perhaps you and the other Kale Gen outcasts can talk to this new lord. Perhaps he’ll let you rejoin the gen.”
“Who is this new lord?” Kale asked with some interest.
“Lord Karthan, grandson of the chamberlain you speak of, was lord when I left the gen not a week ago. Khee-lar Shadow Hand, who claims to be a descendant of a nephew of the last Lord Kale, was attempting an overthrow of the gen. I would imagine that Khee-lar is the new Lord of the Kale Gen.”
Kale was completely calm at the revelation that the line of kobolds who had kept his line from power so long ago had been removed from power. “That’s all well and good, my friends, but the memory of my ancestor’s claim to power likely died with that same chamberlain who exiled him. I would imagine that there are none left now who remember, nor any record other than that kept by my line, which I doubt this Lord Khee-lar would accept as justification for giving up his throne.
“As for returning to the Kale Gen, I can only imagine what this Lord Khee-lar would think about having a direct descendant of the last Lord Kale in his gen. If he’s anything like the other power-hungry lords that rule the rest of the gens of these two valleys, I and my line would be dead within a week of our return. No, lords do not suffer having a challenge to their right to rule within their gen. That’s why my line was exiled in the first place so many years ago.”
Trikki said nothing, and soon the three kobolds and the goat were traveling in silence over boulders, around muddy sinkholes, and in general through the massively uneven terrain of the underdark.
It seemed to Trikki and Trallik that they must have been traveling for about half a day and the pair were tired. Though they wished that their guide would stop for a rest, he kept pushing on, his goat following tirelessly behind him, despite its load. Kale wasn’t the youngest of kobolds, being probably in his mid-twenties, but obviously he and his goat had spent quite a number of those years pressing through the terrain of the underdark, for they moved through even the roughest terrain with a practiced ease, one moment climbing ledge to ledge up an almost sheer rock wall, the next moment hopping across a narrow chasm, just to find themselves fording a stream or skirting a mud sinkhole immediately after. Trallik was impressed with Kale’s natural dexterity, as well as with the skills he’d obviously developed over the years.
Finally, as the small group arrived at a rather large, sandy-floored cavern whose walls were lined with the same phosphorescent green colors of the grotto where Trallik and Trikki had been mated, Kale stopped them. Holding his hands to his mouth, he called across the cavern.
“He who stands watch! I’ve returned!”
Trallik looked around at the cavern. Several large passageways led outward on both sides of it, each one with an entranceway carved with some skill.
After several moments, a voice was heard calling out in reply. It was the voice of an old male kobold by its timbre and weakness. “Who’s there with you?”
“They are friends of ours. Trikki from the Shallat Family, recently returned from slavery with the orcs, and Trallik, her new lifemate.”
A rather stooped, older kobold shuffled from behind a pillar of rock on a balcony at the far end of the cavern. “Oh,” his wispy voice echoed, “well now, isn’t this a treat.”
Kale motioned to the others. They followed him across the sandy floor to the far end.
“Grandfather, you know you’re not supposed to be on watch,” Kale said to the old one as they climbed the steps carved into one side of the balcony.
“Well, now, have to set a good example, you know. Can’t let the young ones think they can slack when they get to be my age!”
Kale smiled. “I very much doubt that anyone thinks you’re slacking, grandfather.”
“Still, a leader must do what a leader must do.”
“But a leader only stands watch if he has good eyes, grandfather,” Kale pointed out, his hand on his grandfather’s arm. “And you do not.”
“Details, details! I’m still a good shot with the bow anyway.”
Soon, the four kobolds and the goat were headed through the passageway that was cut into the rear of the balcony, the soft light of the stone creating bouncing shadows as they went. The construction of the place showed a definite quality to it, though it didn’t look dwarven. In Trallik’s mind the place appeared to have been made by the same artisans that carved the council chamber of the Kale Gen out of the rock of their caverns. The simple roundness of t
he top of the passageway, the square jointing of the walls, the small alcoves that appeared to be for the placing of flowers, vases, pots, or other ornaments; it all had the feel of the Kale Gen about it.
“Built by the old lore-master and the stoneworkers of the Deep Gen, back when the leadership of that gen belonged to my great-grandfather,” Kale mentioned as he noticed Trallik’s interest in the stonework. “One could say that the Deep Gen moved away from us, not us away from them. In fact, though they abandoned the leaders’ caverns to my grandfather here, they still hold the majority of the caves the gen originally occupied, though they have grown well beyond those as well, digging ever deeper, even reaching the inner sea.”
“The inner sea?” Trallik asked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Ah, down below the great mass of land that forms the face of this world, far below where the orcs and even the dwarves have delved, lies another world, my friend. It is a place of darkness, where horrible creatures dwell, the fire of their magic being bent to continual destruction and the power of their minds drawing the strength out of one violently, like marrow being slurped from your broken bones. There lies the inner sea, the massive body of water that lies under the surface of this world and which spawns such horrors. It is a place I have visited but once, and I have no wish to go back there.”
“Why would anyone wish to go down there?” Trallik asked, amazed that an entire sea could exist below him.
