The Trials of Caste

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.

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at:

www.authorjoel.com

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@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.

I
t
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.