The Trials of Caste (2 page)

A
slight wind blew up from the depths below as Durik slowly pulled himself up to
the lip of the narrow ledge.  He braced his snout on its floor with a look of
determination etched on his bronze-scaled face.  Scrabbling with his feet to
find the foothold he’d only recently used as a handhold, he felt the rope
around his waist suddenly tighten then slacken just as quickly.  His eyes grew
wide as he quickly realized what was about to happen.  Reaching out in
desperation, Durik wrapped first one then another arm lightning quick around
the stalagmite on the edge of the ledge.  Before he could steel himself Jerrig,
his slighter cousin and fellow yearling and more importantly the one he was
tethered to by the rope around his waist, fell screaming through the air past
him, barely missing Durik’s flattened length as he hurtled by.  As Jerrig’s
flailing form reached the length of the short tether rope it jerked taut with a
bounce, throwing him about like a ragdoll. 

The force was more than Durik’s hasty grip could
take and the sudden jerk ripped his right arm free of the stalagmite.  Time
slowed to a crawl as he watched the fingers on his left hand slowly, but
inescapably lose their grip.  Casting around with his right hand desperately
for anything that might save them both from falling to a certain death Durik
found nothing. 

Just as his last finger gave way, a pair of strong
hands grabbed his left arm.  Durik looked up into the eyes of his savior.  Gorgon
shifted to brace himself against the stalagmite, his rippling muscles straining
over powerful, broad shoulders.  He had Durik by the hand and with Herculean
effort began to pull him up over the edge.  In short order Gorgon had Durik up
on the ledge, and the two of them together pulled in the rope until the
dangling Jerrig reached the ledge and was able to scrabble up the rock to
safety.

Panting like they’d sprinted here, the three young
kobolds sat shoulder to shoulder, tails still twitching with the adrenaline of
the moment, their backs against the cool stone of the almost sheer cliff wall
they had been attempting to scale. 

Gorgon’s aching muscles bulged beneath rust red
scales as he stood and stretched with the easy grace of a natural athlete.  As
their was no ambient light, the young kobolds’ heat vision revealed tendrils of
steam graying the air above all three of their bodies, the air about them
licking white hot tendrils from the edges of the scales that covered them;
three lattice-work beacons of exertion in the inky black depths of the underdark.

“Th… tha… thanks,” Jerrig finally got out between
breaths.

Durik, still breathing too hard to talk, looked at
the much slighter Jerrig.  “Uh-huh,” he managed to eek out.

“I don’t think this is… working terribly well,”
Jerrig huffed, his tongue lolling out the side of his dog-like snout as Durik
just looked at him.  “This is supposed… to be the easy part… of the climb.”

Durik stared at the patterns the rope had dug into
his fingers as he flexed them and blinked.  Rubbing them against each other he saw
a few scales fall into the void below them.

Jerrig sat up somewhat.  “Thanks for saving me,
both of you,” he said as he looked from Durik to Gorgon.  “I thought I was dead!”

Gorgon grunted acknowledgement as he rubbed his scaly
head just behind the horns, then looking as though he’d only begun to warm up, he
stuck his snout into the wind and looked up and down the cliff face at the
other four yearlings and their master trainer, all of whom were in some stage
of climbing this ultimate obstacle; the cliff known throughout their gen as
Sheerface.  Above him, Gorgon could see that Arbelk had climbed much quicker
and much further than the rest of them, his lithe form a bright contrast in
Gorgon’s heat vision to the pitch black of the cool rock wall he was climbing. 
On a ledge several paces above them, but still some distance behind Arbelk, Gorgon
could see Trallik’s snouted face poking over the edge, intent to see what was
happening yet devoid of any particular emotion, other than the intolerance that
he typically exuded.  Not far below his ledge Gorgon saw the tall, lanky Troka
being pulled up by Manebrow, the Kale Gen’s Master Trainer, and by Keryak, who
was probably the most normal looking of them all. 

Gorgon watched the Master Trainer finish hauling
Troka up to his ledge then looked up at the rest of them.  This past year of
training had made him intimately familiar with every mannerism the Master
Trainer portrayed.  Now, by the look on Manebrow’s face, Gorgon could tell that
they were going to be changing tactics.

“Everyone stay where they are!” Manebrow called
loud enough for even Arbelk up the cliff face from them to hear him over the
wind gushing up from below.  After a moment, when he could see that all seven of
the warrior trainees were looking at him, the muscular veteran warrior
continued.  “We’re not going to make it up Sheerface this way!  I think it best
that we send a pair ahead to get help and ropes to pull the rest of us up!”  The
seven yearlings muttered their approval, defeat evident in the eyes of some. 

Truly, the Fates wound about them in the wind, and
all of them could feel it.  They were fickle things, the Fates, and not to be lightly
tempted.  But the small group of yearlings had already swung Fates’ pendulum
far in their favor.  None of them wanted the pendulum to swing away from them
on their climb; despite their acts of bravado none wanted to join the ancestors
quite yet.

Arbelk, already several tens of paces ahead of the
rest of them in this climb, cupped his hands on either side of his snout and yelled
down to the group.  No one could hear him over the wind the first time, so he
breathed in deeply and shouted again.  “I’ll climb on ahead and bring back
help!”

Manebrow looked in the eyes of the other six
yearlings as he pondered what decision he should make.  He cursed himself again
for not ensuring their equipment had been hidden better when they had made the
long climb down Sheerface some two moons now in the past.  After all, if the
outcasts down in the underdark hadn’t gotten to their gear, they’d still have
had the equipment they needed to make this climb safely and together in one
group.  As it was, they had recovered barely enough equipment from the outcasts
to help get Jerrig, Troka, and Keryak, their three weakest climbers, this far up
the cliff. 

There was no going back, either.  The small group
of yearlings with their master trainer had been chased here by an armed band of
those same outcasts, who would now be waiting to see if they would come back
down or not.  He felt like a fox, chased into a hole with little hope of escape
by the route they’d come in, but this hole was thirty paces wide and went
straight up.

Manebrow shook his head.  He saw clearly that he
could send only a pair of climbers up the shaft for help, for that was all the
equipment they had.  Looking into their eyes, Manebrow knew that Jerrig, Troka,
and Keryak would be of no help in this circumstance.  Arbelk was by far their
best climber, but for this feat he would need someone to help him make the
climb, not hinder him.  For Trallik’s part, though he was lithe and skilled,
over this past year Manebrow had grown to not trust him to help others, which
was more necessary now than at any point in their year of training together.  That
left only his two best; Durik the most level-headed of his yearlings or the
much stronger Gorgon to belay Arbelk on this climb. 

If he sent Gorgon, he reasoned to himself, and both
Gorgon and Arbelk fell, then he knew he’d never be able to get the weaker
climbers up.  If Durik went, however, leaving Gorgon with the weaker climbers
and himself, they might still have a chance if things went wrong.  It was cold,
practical thinking, but he believed it was the only option he had left.  Besides,
this past year it seemed as if the Fates had smiled more on Durik, and that
certainly wasn’t a bad thing.

“Durik,” Manebrow ordered, “take the remaining
equipment and go up with Arbelk.  Arbelk will lead the climb.  You provide
anchor and belay him in case he falls.”

Both Trallik and Gorgon looked surprised, and
almost slighted by the Master Trainer’s choice, but while Trallik sulked on his
ledge, Gorgon quickly went about the task of gathering the climbing equipment
into one kit for Durik to take with him on the climb.  It didn’t take more than
a moment. 

Steeling himself for the life and death challenge
that lay ahead, Durik began the arduous climb up to meet Arbelk.

Word of the yearlings’ return spread like wildfire
through the gen.  Even more titillating and worrisome was the word that only two
of them had returned, leaving the rest of them trapped down Sheerface in the
underdark and in need of help.  When Lord Karthan’s chief elite warrior ran
into the council chamber and broke the news to the gen’s council all of them,
warrior group leaders and functional leaders alike, got up as one and rushed to
see for themselves. 

Not last among them was the Lord of the Kale Gen, a
kobold named Karthan whose sharp countenance and reserved manner were
complemented well by his above average height and erect bearing.  More
companion than servant, his chamberlain Khazak Mail Fist, an unusually muscular
kobold with broad shoulders and powerful arms, tightened the straps about his
wrists and adjusted his metal gauntlets as they walked.  Walking only a step
behind his lord, and sometimes at his side, Khazak’s eyes were set deep in a chiseled
face that had seen more than its share of duty and danger.  His presence was
deliberately menacing, though to those who knew him well they knew the look was
actually one of sheer determination, worn as a mask to shield an otherwise playful
heart.

Upon reaching the small cavern which sat squarely
at the top of Sheerface, Khazak Mail Fist’s voice boomed out.   “Make way for
the Lord of the Gen!”  At that pronouncement many of the curious onlookers who
had gathered to see the spectacle filed out of the small chamber, spurred along
by Khazak’s constant urging and directing; his presence was intimidating and
instantly commanded obedience from those who were not inured to him.

Once the way had been cleared, Lord Karthan pressed
into the warm wind that billowed up from the bowels of the underdark, ducking
through the doorway and entering the small chamber, now ablaze with torches and
full of activity.  All around the edges at the lip of the shaft were teams of
warriors from the Deep Guard Warrior Group winding winches with long ropes attached
to them, tight with the weight of whatever they were hoisting.  Sitting slumped
next to the doorway were two of the yearlings, one strangely bronze-scaled and
the other with a normal dark hue to his rust-red scales.  Lord Karthan
recognized them by their gear, the same type of gear he had worn during his
time of training almost two decades now past.  They were obviously exhausted from
the climb, with fingers, hands, toes, and feet that were cracked and bleeding. 
Around their waists the belay ropes had worn off some of their scales and by
the way they gingerly sat up he could tell they were bruised in many places.

As Lord Karthan approached the two young kobolds
they both struggled to stand.  He motioned for them to stay seated.  “Please,
yearlings, sit.  Relax.  You’ve been through enough for now.”  He looked at
Durik strangely, as though only now realizing this different-looking kobold was
one of his yearlings.

Durik and Arbelk sat back down, though neither of
them leaned up against the chamber wall.  Lord Karthan took a knee next to the
pair of exhausted yearlings, smiling at the rust-red yearling and looking with
a keen gaze at the other.

“Tell me what has happened?  Is the rest of the
yearling group alright?”

“Sire,” Durik started, speaking as formally as he
could muster. “Though all of our group escaped unscathed, the outcasts in the
underdark found our cache of equipment and took our climbing gear.  The Fates
were kind, though, and we made the climb up Sheerface for help.”

Lord Karthan looked at the pittance of remaining
climbing gear; a rope to connect the pair, one small pick, a recently emptied
bag of chalk, and a hammer, but no more spikes or pitons.  He looked over the
edge into the long, dark shaft then back to the pair of yearlings.  “You
climbed all the way up Sheerface… by hand?!” 

The pair nodded in unison. 

Lord Karthan looked back at Khazak Mail Fist. 
“Chamberlain, have you seen such a feat?  I think these two” he said,
hesitating as he looked at Durik, “will go down in the record of our gen.”

Arbelk’s face flushed beneath his translucent rust
red scales at the complement.  “It was what had to be done, sire, nothing
more,” he muttered.

Durik quickly jumped in.  “Sire, it was Arbelk
here that led the climb.  I merely followed his lead and held the rope for
him.”