The Trials of Caste Read online

  The Trials of Caste

  A novel by Joel D. Babbitt

  Book One of the Immersive New Trilogy

  Paladin of a Hidden God

  A Game of Destiny, a Throne, a Paladin,

  a Prophecy... and Kobolds

  THANKS!

  Thanks first of all to my wife and children for sparing me the time over the past 12 years to write this series. Thanks to all the many friends that have shared this journey, reading manuscripts, playing the campaigns, and helping with editing. Most of all, thanks to you, the reader, for a book without readers is like an empty house; all echoing walls and no laughter. Enjoy, and may you find a portion of yourself inside these pages.

  Copyright © 2014 by the author

  ISBN: 978-1-940880-00-6 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-940880-05-1 (paperback)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  Art credits:

  Cover Art by Randall Mackey

  Interior Art by Anna Catherine Babbitt, Darya Tarawneh,

  Kip Ayers, and Randall Mackey

  Contact info for all available at www.authorjoel.com

  Available from Amazon.com and other retail outlets in print. Available electronically on Kindle and other devices.

  Follow the author at:

  www.authorjoel.com

  www.facebook.com/authorjoel

  @AuthorJoel on Twitter

  Books by Joel Babbitt

  Paladin of a Hidden God Trilogy:

  The Trials of Caste

  Into the Heart of Evil

  The Game of Fates

  Life Sticks of Razz Serial:

  Clan Lord

  Hunt Master

  More Novels and Stories:

  Trouble on Camallay (coming 2015)

  Ella Sister-Daughter (coming 2015)

  Get a FREE Short Story at AuthorJoel.com:

  http://www.authorjoel.com/free-short-story-.html

  Kobolds of the Kale Gen

  Lord Karthan, Lord of the Kale Gen. As leader of one of the five original kobold gens, he feels the call of ancient covenants. He is now positioning his gen to reclaim the ancient powers that are their right—that is if he can hold onto power.

  Khazak Mail Fist, Lord Karthan’s Chamberlain and Honor Guard Warrior Group Leader. He is the strongest kobold in the gen, and arguably the best warrior the gen has ever known.

  Khee-lar Shadow Hand, Leader of the Deep Guard Warrior Group, he and his chief elite warrior Trelkar are both descendents of a nephew of the last Lord Kale, lost on a quest some three generations ago now. Their lineage gives them some claim to the throne of the Kale Gen.

  Mynar the Sorcerer. He is an outsider to the Kale Gen, and has claim on the throne of the neighboring Krall Gen. Through the power of a stolen artifact, and his own ties to the magic that flows from their world Dharma Kor, he hopes to seize both gens for his own.

  Krobo and Jezmya. Lord Karthan’s servant and the lifemate Krobo found late in life. Forces beyond him try to twist him to do evil, and Jezmya’s son Spider provides the tools.

  Kormach Manebrow, the Kale Gen’s master trainer. Devoted husband and father, veteran warrior, reluctant adventurer. He provides the best training possible, to help the yearlings survive their quest.

  Durik, yearling and spearman. Life has dealt him several harsh blows, through which he has learned compassion and determination. Strange visions and the call of destiny follow him, though he concerns himself mostly with his companions’ welfare.

  Gorgon, yearling and hammer wielder. Son of a blacksmith, strongest and most aggressive of the yearlings; he has no doubt that he will win the Trials of Caste. Most of the rest of the yearlings agree.

  Trallik, yearling and scout. Trallik is as determined as he is unscrupulous. Son of a fungus farmer, arguably the bottom of the kobold social structure, he will not stop until he has reached the top. He will use all his scouting and stealth skills to achieve his goals.

  Jerrig, yearling and javelin thrower. Upon reaching puberty, strange magical powers began to manifest themselves through him. Finally having gained some control over these powers, Jerrig hopes to use them to his advantage in the Trials of Caste.

  Arbelk, yearling and climber. Oldest son in a large family, Arbelk’s greatest aspiration is to be a bridge master for his warrior group. The antics of heroes have no place in him.

  Keryak, yearling and spearman. Best friend of Durik, in part because he’s courting Durik’s younger sister. He hopes to gain a high standing in the gen to provide better for his future mate.

  Troka, yearling and two-handed broadswordsman. Son of an elite warrior who won the Trials of Caste before Troka was born. He knows his father’s expectations are high.

  Prologue

  It had been several moons since Lord Kale, lord of one of the five original large kobold families known as gens, had last laid eyes on his beloved home in the southern mountains. The stout kobold warrior sniffed the air through broad nostrils set under keen eyes, as he walked the tunnel that led through the mountains to his homeland. He could almost taste the sweet water of the great river, feel its water running over his dark red scales. At this time of year it would be icy cold with spring runoff and running strong and deep through the valley of his ancestral home.

  Ahead of him, the unique gray and white heat vision of his race revealed the efforts his entourage of warriors and servants were making in carrying their many burdens; a mix of armor, weapons, and other gear, as well as treasures from exotic lands far to the north of here. The gray tendrils of heat that rose from the sweating porters in front of him wrapped lithely around the boxes and bags in their wooden framed packs. Looking back to his handful of personal guards, Lord Kale saw steely-eyed glares under metal helmets scanning every crevice and side passage as calloused hands grasped sword hilts and held shields close. Tails swished this way and that revealing their alert awareness.

  It would not be long now, Lord Kale knew, and was glad that he had decided to push on through the night until they reached the other side of these mountains. His armor chafed him, and his helmet had grown irksome sitting over his horns like it did, but it would only be a few hundred more paces until they reached the hollow in the canyon where they would rest, on the edge of the broad valley their people shared with their neighboring kobold tribe; the Krall Gen.

  Lost in thought, Lord Kale looked up when his lowered snout was splashed with something warm. In front of him a porter fell suddenly to the cold floor, head smashed in by a well-aimed rock from above.

  His pulse began to race. “To arms!” he yelled and everyone seemed to move at once.

  He looked up and saw the warm shape of what had to be a feral orc hefting another rock and preparing to drop it on him from a hidden cavity in the tunnel ceiling. Hefting his spear in one hand, Lord Kale threw with all the enhanced might the Bracers of Kale gave him. With a gurgling cough, the green-skinned orc fell backward clawing desperately at the spear shaft that had torn through his neck.

  To the front of the large party of kobolds he could hear quite a commotion, though the porters’ tall packs blocked any view of it. Looking back over the heads of his personal guard, he could see the hot forms of several tall orcs with blackened mail armor and long, wicked looking scimitars emerging from a side passage to their rear. By the blood marks on their armor they were Broken Fang Orcs; certainly nothing he hadn’t faced before. He’d been in desperate circumstances
before, and this wasn’t the first time he’d been ambushed by orcs. This ungainly rabble would certainly break at his warriors’ hands.

  “Rally, my warriors!” Lord Kale bellowed. “Steady now! Form the shield wall! Move! Move!” he called and his personal guard contingent began to form up in a line facing the stream of orcs that were coming at them from behind. He was certain the warrior contingent to the front was doing the same. They were led well up there. He was not worried. “That’s the way, now. We’ll make them sorry they decided to play with us!”

  The much taller orcs stopped only a few paces in front of the short wall of shields with its outstretched barbs. This is unusual, at least, usually they crash headlong into our spears.

  Lord Kale looked at them with a sudden lack of understanding. Something was different here. Something was… wrong. Their expressions were not ones of fear or rage, but rather ones of glee, as if this whole thing were a wicked joke.

  Sheathing his sword quickly, he pulled a fist-sized translucent rock from his belt pouch and took it in both hands. After staring intently into its depths for a moment the bronze flecks that filled the orb began to swirl and his vision transfixed on something deep in the stone.

  In front of the shield wall, the orcs parted to either side of the passageway, leaving a clear path. There, standing just behind the band of orc warriors was a tall, strange looking humanoid whose leering eyes and cruel smile were visible to the kobolds’ heat vision from the depths of his hooded cloak. By his facial features he was certainly not a native of these valleys.

  Lord Kale looked up from the stone, his face reflecting the danger he knew they were in. Instantly he recognized the mystical draconic runes on the strange one’s cloak.

  “Warriors! To the edge of the passageway!” he called as a ball of fire began to form in front of the cloaked stranger. His guards moved fast enough to avoid the ball of fire that flew down the corridor, blinding all in its path, but not all of his party was so lucky. In sudden, horrible realization, he watched as the fireball impacted in the midst of the confused porters.

  Lord Kale was picked up and thrown by the force of the blast like a child’s toy; the searing pain of fire as it washed over his body, a snapping sound in his right shoulder as he slammed heavily into a fold in the passage wall, a sharp pain punctuating his shortness of breath, and all around him a confused din. And then he was oblivious to it all.

  He began to regain awareness of his surroundings as the shock of the explosion began to wear off. He lifted an aching arm to wipe his eyes, his armored sleeve coming away covered with warm, sticky liquid smeared with ash. Though he wasn’t aware of it yet, the thick, rust-red scales that covered his body had saved him from all but the most severe of burns, but he’d brained himself on impact, breaking off one of his horns against the unforgiving stone of the passageway as well.

  He was confused, and his right arm hurt terribly as he tried and failed to grab his sword hilt. Looking down, dumb-founded, he saw his right arm hanging limp against his side. Already the shoulder was swelling horribly and he could feel that his collar bone was broken.

  Almost whimpering to himself, Lord Kale looked around with wide eyes. All about the dazed leader, kobold and orc bodies lay strewn about like so many cast off clothes, their lifeless eyes and surprised looks a testament to the wanton destructive power of the stranger’s magic.

  “The Kale Stone…” he muttered dazedly.

  In front of Lord Kale a kobold struggled to get out from under the heavy body of an orc warrior. The heavy limbs of the big, green-skinned lout flailed about, not of their own power, until in a moment the kobold was free of the entrapment and looking about in near panic.

  As if it were a mercy from the Fates, fickle as they were, in that moment sense returned to Lord Kale. He was still severely wounded, and he could now feel deep burns in many places on his body, but his mind was painfully clear. His eyes fixed on the translucent stone that his left hand still grasped tightly. Looking down the hall to where the cloaked stranger was walking toward them, and then at the young warrior from his personal guard, Lord Kale fixed the warrior with his eyes.

  “Mintraub,” he spoke softly, yet intensely.

  “Yes, my lord?” it was all the panicked young warrior could do to not bolt.

  “Faithful warrior of the Kale Gen, take our gen’s stone of power,” Lord Kale commanded.

  “But lord, I am not worthy of such a thing. I cannot do this thing! You must live, sire. Come now, use the stone! Protect us!”

  With supreme effort, Lord Kale thrust the stone into Mintraub’s hands then lay back against the wall. “I am spent, young one. Go! Go now and return the stone to our gen! Karthan, the chamberlain… take it to him!”

  “But Lord Kale…” Mintraub began to protest.

  “For the sake of our gen and the Kale Stone, go!” Lord Kale shook with the effort of speaking. A spasm of coughs overtook him.

  Almost hopping up and down with fear, Mintraub jumped up and began to run away from the cloaked stranger and the remaining warriors from the party of orcs, who now walked much more cautiously behind the powerful mystic. Finding the closest side passage, Mintraub sprinted into it and disappeared into the maze of winding passages that permeated this area of the northern mountains.

  With a strange calmness, Lord Kale looked toward the tall stranger as he approached. The large, pig-nosed mage scowled, revealing fangs beneath feral eyes that marked him as a mystic of the Hobgoblin Empire far to the east of these southern valleys.

  It was not a normal thing to find hobgoblins so far away from their lands, he thought. Then Lord Kale’s mind began to drift away from the moment as his blood ran red from burnt cracks in his flesh. The pain and the shock were beginning to take him away.

  He thought of his lifemate and the fact that the Creator had not yet blessed them with offspring, and of the one he had loved before her and their illegitimate son. He thought of his people; his friends, family, and all who depended on him. In the fiery eyes of the approaching mystic was the realization that he would not see them again, until they met in the place where the ancestors go.

  The tragedy of it seared him more than his wounds. He’d spent these past two years traveling among the human kingdoms, and talking to the dwarves, following the trade routes of the gnomes and discovering so much about this world called Dharma Kor that was his race’s home. Always there was talk of war, politics, and intrigue. But after digging long enough, he had found the knowledge he had set out on this quest to find. He had found the Watchers, and found the prophecies of the ancients about his people, and the will of the god-like being they called The Sorcerer for his race.

  Great had been the knowledge he had found, many had been his plans, and deep had been his concern for the events that lay ahead. But now, as he sat watching his doom approach, all of that passed on to future generations. Lord Kale breathed his last breath.

  The fate of the Kale Gen and the Kale Stone was in his hands no longer.

  Section I – Before the Trials of Caste

  Chapter 1 – Return From the Underdark

  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.

  Th
e 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.