The Trials of Caste by Joel Babbitt Page B

strengths and weaknesses entirely too well.  He would perform well
and not make a fool of himself.  Of that he had no doubt.
    His concern was about making elite warrior. 
Indeed, just making it to the trials meant he would at least be a warrior.  But
there would be only one from this group that would be chosen to receive the
rank of elite warrior within the warrior caste; just one of seven future
warriors.  If anyone from this group should take that honor, he knew it was
him.  He didn’t feel it was pride that made him think so, just simple
confidence in his own abilities and the attention he paid to the training.  He
easily mastered the weapon skills that the Master Trainer had taught him and
had honed his body to a fine edge.
    He flexed his arms and stretched his fingers,
watching the scales on his forearms ripple as the muscles flexed and stretched
in turn.  Subconsciously, he rubbed at the base of his left horn, which was
short, even for a member of the Kale Gen.  His short tail swished back and
forth reflexively as he thought of the upcoming Trials of Caste.  He was born
to be a warrior and a leader among his fellow warriors, honed in the forges of
the training caves.  Soon he would see his purpose fulfilled.  The trials would
be his finest hour.
    His regimen complete, light as it was in
anticipation of the events of the coming days, Gorgon picked up the bag of
roots he’d collected earlier in the night from a nearby glade in the forest. 
His mind was rested from the rooting, and his body was loosened by the
regimen.  As he strode toward the entrance to the stony cave, he could feel the
warm current of air coming from the fiery crack that heated the large cavern
complex.  This was the ancestral home of the Kale Gen, but more than that, it
was his home.  A feeling of pride in his people welled up in his heart;
pride in the generations of those that had trod the path to warrior before him
and pride in the strength of the Gen, built over these hundreds of years.
    They were not as the wild gens to the north, who
were little better than wild beasts of the forest living in dismal, dirty,
smoke-marred caves, subsisting mostly on the moss and lichen that grew on the
roots of trees and in the deepest of moist caves, smearing their own dung on
the walls to grow hairy fungus for their food. 
    No, the Kale Gen was strong because it was smart. 
Whereas most of the kobold race had long forgotten their beginnings and their
heritage, having no knowledge of letters and writing, his gen maintained the
ancient scripts and traditions of their ancestors.  Their learning had caused
them to keep their language intact, to the point where it was hard to
understand many of the babbling, unlearned gens. 
    This learning did not stop with history and
tradition; it was a standard that was only more amplified with the crafts of
the hand than with the crafts of the mind.  Smiths and weavers were found among
his gen, as were those who worked with wood, trainers of the black-pelted
wolves that their scouts and cavalry rode, makers of crockery, and several more
besides.
    Gorgon’s father had achieved his elite warrior
status through several exploits in his younger days, though now he was one of
the best at one of those crafts.  His shop was a black smithy in a cavern of
commerce, with a chimney above the forge that vented through many feet of stone
to the air above.  It was to his father’s shop that Gorgon’s feet took him
now. 
    As he passed through the various passages and
chambers emerging from deep within the bowels of the complex he focused
intently on his surroundings.  After two moons in the underdark evading the
various dangers to be found there, he found himself padding up to corners and
peering around, trying to notice everyone before they noticed him.
    His preference in dealing with problems had been
to rush in horns first.  But though he could lift a stone the size of a melon
over his head, Gorgon was still a