The Trials of Caste (23 page)

“That’s the room over there?” one of the elite
warriors asked, pointing toward a small door tucked into the base of the raised
stands where all the spectators would soon be sitting.  “How will we see the
Trials, then?”

“See, it’s got a slot in the door,” another
offered.

“Good thing we won’t have to spend all day in it,
though I wish we wouldn’t have to miss the scouting trial.”

“Here,” the new elite warrior caught their
attention.  “Take the bag of clothes over to that closet and keep your mouths
shut.  The rest of you,” he said looking about, “you need to get back to your
families.  All should look as normal.  Remember, no word of this to anyone,” he
said, looking fiercely at Kyro.

Kyro meekly nodded.  He hoped that this whole
charade was all about some surprise for the Trials of Caste, maybe some sort of
show or another.  It didn’t really make sense why the barrel of sticks…  In his
heart Kyro doubted it was anything so innocent, and a sudden thought, a memory
of what he’d overheard between Trelkar of the Deep Guard and his own leader
caste Raoros Fang a week ago, now left him feeling unsettled.

The elite warriors all left quickly, the new elite
warrior leading the way.  Soon, Kyro was struggling to pull the empty wagon
back to the caverns of the Wolf Riders alone.

Durik and Keryak wandered along the halls of the
gen, laughing and joking about things that had happened during the year of
training; Durik inwardly feeling the stress yet outwardly seemingly unconcerned
as they both tried to cope with the immense pressure of the trials through
levity.

“Father?” Keryak said as a hand cart with a servant
caste struggling along at the pushbar approached.  Kyro looked up at the two
yearlings.

“Ah… Keryak… and Durik,” Kyro panted as he raised
his head.

Keryak jumped to the other side of the push bar
while Durik put his shoulder to the left wheel that was dragging a long rut
through the sand.  Suddenly the empty cart was easy to push again, and Keryak’s
father looked up in muted appreciation.

“What’s wrong, father?” Keryak asked, seeing his
father was still wearing the mask of worry he’d had ever since Keryak had
returned from the underdark.  “You look so worried lately.  You should be
happy!  I’ll be a warrior today.”

Kyro nodded and tried to smile, but shook his head
instead.  “Ah, the uppers have been at it again,” he said to try to dismiss
Keryak’s concerns.  His son had enough to worry about without him adding rumors
of insurrection on top of it.

“What do you mean?” Durik asked as he grabbed the
bar next to Kyro.

“Oh nothing, really,” Kyro said, but it was
obvious to both yearlings that it really was something.  After a moment of
Durik staring at him as they both pushed, obviously not accepting his
explanation, Kyro got flustered.  “Alright, alright.  Troll brought in some new
elite warrior.  He and a bunch of the other elite warriors from our warrior
group were acting strange this morning.”

Durik could tell that Kyro wasn’t telling them
everything.  “Raoros Fang has been acting strange as well, wouldn’t you say?”

Keryak saw what Durik was trying to do and jumped
in to help, but said more than he intended to.  “Does this have anything to do with
Trelkar wanting to take over the gen?”

Kyro looked at Keryak in sudden realization.  “How
do you know about that?  What has Raoros told you?”

Keryak shook his head.  “He’s not told me anything,
but Durik and I found out a lot more than he wanted us to know I think.”

Durik nodded, inwardly struggling with how much he
should say.  They’d said a lot already, however, but Kyro was clearly a
friend.  “He asked me to go to the lower caverns where the hot mud is, and to
watch for someone gathering poison from the Fang Cap mushrooms, and to bring the
mushrooms to him as proof.  I’d never been to that cavern, so I asked Keryak to
show me the way.”

“And we found Spider harvesting poisonous spores
from the mushrooms,” Keryak said in a low voice.  “We followed him and saw him
try to give the poison to Trelkar of the Deep Guard.”  A family of kobolds were
coming up the passageway on their way to the arena; the first of many families
that would shortly be traversing this path.

“No!” Kyro said after waiting for the family to
turn the corner.  “Last week Trelkar of the Deep Guard came to talk with Raoros
Fang saying something about overthrowing Lord Karthan.”

“Our Wolf Rider leaders are in league with…
Trelkar?” Keryak asked. 

“I don’t know about that!” Kyro said, a bit taken
aback by the whole revelation.  “Raoros did not promise anything to Trelkar,
other than to keep it a secret.  And I can’t imagine Troll is involved in
anything so nefarious; he’s not that bright!”

“Troll came to me last night and threatened my
family if I don’t help him kill Lord Karthan when the time comes,” Durik
grimaced.

“What!” both Keryak and his father said as they
looked dumbfounded at Durik.

Durik nodded.  “It’s true.  Raoros has been acting
strange, and Troll is definitely involved in trying to overthrow Lord Karthan.”

All three of them stood looking at each other for
a moment, none of them knowing what to say.  Finally, Kyro shook his head and
turned back to the cart.

“I hope Raoros does the right thing.  He’s a good
leader caste,” Kyro said despondently as the two yearlings pushed at the cart. 
“I don’t care much for Troll.  He’s not nice to anyone.  Him and that new elite
warrior with the barrel; he’s got to be involved as well.  I hope they both get
caught.”

The three kobolds fell silent as a large group of
kobolds, families mostly, came around the corner in front of them.  Old
kobolds, their scales beginning to bronze, were interspersed with younger
mothers and fathers, and all about them little ones ran about in great
excitement.  The Trials of Caste were certainly a family affair, and the past
decade of plenty had produced a prodigious number of shouting, screaming whelps
that would fill the stands this day. 

The three kobolds moved the cart off to one side
and waited for this next large group to go past.  “What new elite warrior is
this you speak of?” Durik asked.

“And what barrel?” Keryak added.

Kyro shook his head.  “Some new elite warrior that
Troll brought into the warrior group last night.  He and a handful of elite
warriors from our warrior group, dressed as servant caste, had me push this
cart with a barrel full of warped old wooden weapons to the arena this
morning.  That’s why I’m out here pushing an empty cart instead of on my way to
the arena.  Here, you two should be on your way to the arena.  You have to be
there early, you know.  Oh, and don’t tell anyone about the barrel.  He made me
swear I wouldn’t say anything.”

Durik was thinking, but Keryak was feeling anxious
for the coming trials.  “Durik, come on.  My father’s right.  We have to go
now.”  Nodding, but still thinking, Durik followed his friend back toward the
arena, while all the while Kyro the old servant caste pushed the cart and
muttered worriedly to himself about how he needed to get better at keeping
secrets.

The traditional arena where the Trials of Caste
were conducted was the widest natural cavern in the Kale Gen’s entire cavern
complex.  Certainly it was much more expansive than the large common areas of
the various warrior groups, most of which hadn’t been able to fit all their
members simultaneously for several generations.

Legend stated that when the first Kale and those
with him arrived at the caves, the first opening they had found was the large
opening at the top of the chimney leading down into the arena.  Legend further
stated that, upon dropping a rock down through the hole and hearing it hit
several moments later, old Kale had nodded his head and declared that this would
be their home.  Until Kale and his posterity had explored the caves further,
this large cavern had been their first home.

Certainly now, many hundreds of years later, Kale
would not have recognized it.  Though the hole itself was close to the same,
the rest of the chamber was drastically changed.  Lining one entire side of the
roughly oval cavern was a massive stone retaining wall.  Built in the center of
the top of this wall were a number of platforms for the leader caste of the
gen.  Behind these platforms the wall of the cavern had been hollowed out,
creating a large, open, steeply sloped area where hundreds of wooden benches
had been placed.  This construction provided the general population of the Kale
Gen with an elevated view of almost the entire arena.

Though the audience could see well into the
central parts of the arena, their height above the arena floor made it next to
impossible to see the trainers’ area just in front of the stands.  As such,
over the centuries various wooden stands had been built for the trainers, the
latest incarnation of which lifted the Master Trainer and his two assistants, a
pair of elite warriors picked to help him with the trials, into the spectators’
view. 

Directly to the front of the trainers’ stand, but
set far enough into the arena so as to be in full view of the crowd, a large
amount of sawdust, woodchips, and sand had been put down to mark off the floor
and limits of the melee weapons trial circle.  Placed around this circle were
several weapons racks, each stocked with the wooden weapons that would be used
this day.

Farther out on the left side of the arena, the
area traditionally set aside for the second of the trials, the ranged weapons
trial, was prepared for the yearlings.  Several orc-sized bags of sand, with
red and blue splotches of dye on one side of them, were placed at various
distances away from a rather large weapons rack holding a number of javelins,
bows, and quivers of arrows.  From the benches most could see the entire event,
though some of the servant caste in the flatter areas of the stands could only
watch the arch of the arrows and javelins as they flew toward the bags, relying
on the announcements the judges made to know whether the yearlings hit the
higher scored red splotches, or the less important blue splotches.

Perhaps the most labor intensive portion of the
preparations for the trials involved the setup for the scouting event.  While
the melee weapons circle and ranged weapons portions took up the left side of
the arena, the entire right side of the arena as well as far more than its fair
share of the center were filled with the constructs and obstacles that made up
the scouting trial.

For the uninitiated, the mass of wood partitions,
netting, towers, and tents was an unintelligible mess.  For the yearlings, it
had been the source of greatest speculation and study, for though the results
of all three trials were important, it was well known that the scouting trial
gave as many points as the other two trials combined.

Keryak stood in the line, straight-backed as a
chair, holding his practice spear firmly planted on the ground, fist in the
small of his back.  As Manebrow approached the far end of the line from him,
Keryak leaned a little toward Durik and whispered, “Will she be here?”