Into the Heart of Evil (2 page)

K
obolds
are a naturally hopeful, some would even say a wisely optimistic, race.  
Perhaps it is simply because their race is so young and not weighed down with
the history of so many eons.  But then again, perhaps it is the strength of
mind their first ancestors received from the hands of The Sorcerer almost a
thousand years prior trickling down through the generations to the present. 
Whatever it was, it could be argued that there was no greater manifestation of
that hope than the preparations and celebrations that followed the event called
the Trials of Caste. 

For weeks, the warriors of the Kale Gen had been
working on making weapons, training packdogs, and gathering supplies, all in
their spare time and with the volunteered wealth of the entire gen, as a means
of giving back some of what they had received from those who had come before
them.  These would be the gifts they bestowed on the seven young male kobolds
who had recently competed in the Trials of Caste to attain warrior status.

These seven had been called yearlings, for during
this, their fifteenth year of life, they had passed through a year of the most
difficult training the gen’s leaders could provide; a year of weapons training,
climbing, patrolling, tactics, and learning to endure the rigors of a warrior’s
life.  All of this had been under the tutelage of the gen’s master trainer; a
kobold called Manebrow—so named for his distinctive bristling black unibrow—whose
standards were unwavering.

Finally, this day also being the Day of
Beginnings, the females of the gen came together to prepare what was ostensibly
the biggest feast of the year, and from their homes came the scents of every
dish known to this gen.  All throughout the massive natural cave complex that
housed the Kale Gen, the servant caste of each warrior group cleared their vast
common chambers of all commerce and crafts and set out long tables, benches,
chairs, and kegs full of sweet bark cider to prepare the celebration for those
who had grown up among their warrior group. This year was particularly special,
for the two dozen or so who came of age this day were children of hope,
conceived during a time of drought and famine, when the fate of the gen was
uncertain. 

As was the case with all the warrior groups, a
celebration was being readied by the Trade Warrior Group in their great common
chamber, the same chamber that was used so often to see a caravan off, or to
welcome one back from a trade mission with the other gens in the area.  The
large dogs the caravan masters kept had been brushed, exercised, fed, and put
into their kennels.  Now, the caravan staging area served as their feast hall
to celebrate the achievements of one of the seven former yearlings; Jerrig, who
was now a warrior in the gen, as well as the coming of age of a male who had
failed the training and would now be servant caste, and three females, two of
which were already promised and would soon be joined to lifemates in the days
ahead.  Soon, new houses would be established in the common chambers of this
warrior group, and before long these young kobolds, so full of energy, would take
their places as mothers and fathers in the gen. 

Such was the circle of life here in the Kale Gen. 
And so it was in all the various warrior groups.  Life, joy, and prosperity had
been theirs for as long as most could remember, interspersed with trials and
tragedy that served to strengthen the fabric of the gen and purify it of its
more dross elements. 

Lord Karthan walked quickly down the passage
toward the great common chamber and the feast being prepared by his Honor Guard
Warrior Group for their children and the children of the leader caste who had
come of age, one of them being his own daughter Kiria.  He did not want to be
late for the biggest day of his daughter’s life to this point.

That was not the only thing in his heart, however,
as he and his contingent of guards made their way from the arena, past the
great common chamber of the Trade Warrior Group, all lit up and buzzing with
noise, toward the festivities that certainly were underway in the chambers of
the Honor Guard Warrior Group.  Doubt was in his heart also, and with good
reason.

He had changed many things in the decade and a
half that marked his reign, and not all of those changes had been well
received.  Laws of wealth, where the elite warriors of the gen had lived off
the efforts of the warriors who served them, had been replaced, causing elite
warriors to have to work for their own support.  This and other similar changes
meant to put his people on a more equal footing with each other had caused no
end of insurrections… the last of which had just been put down that very day at
the end of the Trials of Caste!

This latest insurrection had been sparked over
what he considered to be the most trivial of decisions; he had made Durik, the
winner of the Trials of Caste, a leader caste, exalting him above the common
castes of the gen.  Durik was keen of mind, clear-eyed with a knack for knowing
what to do in any given situation.  These qualities plus his agility and
undeniable skill with weapons had won him the trials.

These same traits had also put Durik in the right
place at the right time; his leadership among his fellow yearlings during the
insurrection at the Trials of Caste had turned the tide and saved Lord
Karthan’s life.  And so Lord Karthan was reluctant to send Durik and his new warrior
companions away.  But such was tradition…

Each year, at the conclusion of the Trials of
Caste, the lord of the gen gave the new warriors a quest, called the Proofing
of the Trials.  They were not to return until they achieved the objectives
given them.  But this year’s quest was unlike any given to a yearling group
before, for this year the quest was to find a relic, a stone of power, a
heritage of their gen lost two generations before, likely in an ancient ruin
called Palacid.  This relic was a gift from The Sorcerer Himself; a seer stone
called the Kale Stone.  He who held that stone held the rightful rule of the
children of Kale in his hands.

  The prevailing wisdom in the gen was that
Palacid was nothing more than an ancient ruin, long deserted and forgotten,
that the Hall of the Mountain King where lore of Palacid was to be found was
but a haunted place full of orcs and possibly nastier creatures, and that the
Kale Stone was long lost to history, never to be found again; a relic of a
different time.

In the back of his mind Lord Karthan had the same
nagging doubts that many of the gen’s council had expressed, some of them
vehemently.  Was the Kale Stone recoverable?  Was he reading the prophecy
right, that the stone was to be found at Palacid, or was that a prophecy of
some event yet further in the future?  Was he misguided in following his
feelings? 

He had certainly been misguided in the past. 

Lord Karthan looked about as he walked through the
smooth stone, sand-floored passages of the more settled parts of their home
caverns.  The Honor Guard warriors who followed him were a clear reminder of
the trust put in him.  But in everyone’s past there are things they think best
left unknown to others, things that might call into question the choices they
make, and Lord Karthan’s past was no different. 

What he had not shared with anyone still living in
this gen were his memories of a quest for the Kale Stone that he had nominally
led many years ago now, just after completing the two years of training his
father had mandated for his son and heir.  The quest had been an absolute
secret, staged from the home of the Krall Gen not far to the east.  It had all
started with talk among the leader caste of finding the body of the last Lord
Kale and his stone of power, lost two generations before a much younger Karthan
had come of age. 

Though the failure of his own quest was mostly
lost in the sudden violence of the orc ambush that had ended it all and claimed
the lives of some of the gen’s finest warriors, the nagging doubts that their
seemingly pointless wandering had brought remained in Lord Karthan’s heart. 
The much younger and very scared Karthan was now in his thirty-fifth year, well
into middle age by anyone’s standard, and twenty years later was now the only
one still alive who had gone on that quest. 

He dearly hoped he was doing the right thing by
sending the yearlings to do what he and several of the gen’s finest warriors
had failed to achieve in the past.  Not long ago he had felt a burning
confirmation, as if from the ancestors, a surety that this was the right
course.  But now there was only confusion in his heart; for him there was no
comfort, no clarity.

In the common chamber of the Wolf Riders, the
celebration had already been going on for some time.  After all, Durik was the
orphaned son of one of their own wolf trainers, and as a whelp he had served as
an apprentice wolf trainer in their kennels.  So when Durik had been made a
leader caste, the Wolf Riders were not about to let it be said that they didn’t
know how to properly celebrate that!  Carrying Durik and his best friend Keryak
on their shoulders, the entire Wolf Riders Warrior Group had marched as one. 
All along the way, hornless whelps, the children of the gen, swarmed about
Durik with wooden play swords fighting their own mock battles inspired by their
champion.  In front of the procession a handful of warriors gently but
expeditiously cleared the way back to their common chamber before setting Durik
on a makeshift throne of great elk hide and antlers, with Keryak, as well as a
female called Carma who had come of age, in places of honor beside him. 

To Durik, this was a time of final acceptance.  In
a gen where everyone had rust-red scales, or often bronze-tipped with advanced
age, the solid bronze scales he had been born with had always been a point of
curiosity… and often of ridicule.  He had often wished that he were just like everyone
else, that he had never inherited such a mark from his father, and from his
father’s father before; may they both rest with the ancestors.  But tonight, in
the afterglow of his victory in the Trials of Caste, Durik knew that this
difference would now be a point of distinction, instead of a mark of ridicule;
victory changes things.

From the time they sat down until the warriors
brought in the centerpiece of the feast, it was all the three young kobolds
could do to keep up with the plates of food and mugs of drink brought to them. 
Soon, the table in front of them was full of crockery, and kobolds were beginning
to stack the dishes one on top of another as the more incorrigible whelps still
ran around hitting each other with their sticks.

On the other side of Durik from Keryak sat Raoros
Fang, leader of the Wolf Riders Warrior Group and now a fellow leader caste,
though that fact had yet to sink in.  Holding a bowl of boar’s tongue stew with
one brawny arm, Raoros Fang talked freely of the council the night before
between noisy slurps, leaving out the details of the contention about the quest.
He greeted each of the females of his warrior group as they brought the plates
of food and mugs of drink to the three newest adult members of the gen. 
“You’ve outdone yourself, this time, Diru!”  “That smells wonderful, Raba!” 
And to Durik’s aunt as she approached, trailed closely by Durik’s younger
sister, “Karial, you must be the proudest of all here today… except for perhaps
this one.” He pinched Darya’s cheek.  She blushed under bronze-tipped scales
from the burly warrior’s attentions and quickly moved to Durik’s side.

“You are most gracious, sire,” Karial said as she
stepped back.

Leaning over, Darya hugged Durik.  “I am so happy
for you. You’ll not forget about us lowly folk down here in the warrior groups
now that you’re a leader caste, will you?”

“Of course not, sister,” Durik answered, grabbing
her by the waist and turning to Keryak “Why, my family… and Keryak, are invited
to come see me in whatever splendid new quarters they give me anytime.”