Chapter 5: Xolani.

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  The Sutherlands, near Mount Xatal, Month: 94, Year: 226.

  The man stroked his beard as he stared into the distance, seated beneath the towering canopy of old trees. The light filtered through in fractured shafts, catching in the silver strands woven through his otherwise dark hair.

  The ground rumbled beneath him. He didn’t flinch.

  A massive creature, easily the size of a horse, burst from the earth beside him, its long, serrated obsidian claws tearing through the soil as it emerged in a shower of dirt and steam. Most would have drawn a weapon, but he didn’t even rise.

  He extended an arm and calmly ran a hand through the beast’s shimmering brunette fur, petting the dirt off from its large front leg. Once clean, the beast's fur gleamed like molten bronze in the dim forest light.

  “Having fun, friend?” he asked, his voice low and somewhat amused.

  The beast dropped beside him, folding its massive front claws inward and sprawled beside him, as it seemed to have done so countless times. Its tongue, long and ribbon-thin, uncurled from its mouth and swept across his hand in a damp, warm lick.

  The man breathed out in frustration, his slouched frame betraying how little he wanted this duty. And yet, against his will, a faint smile tugged at his mouth as he accepted the beast’s familiar gesture.

  It wasn’t the task itself that soured him; it was the thought of what he might be doing instead, the duties of real consequence left to languish, duties far beyond the importance of this glorified babysitting gig. Yet, he had put this duty off long enough, and not even the Heir could excuse him this time. So here he was, overseeing yet another generation of hopefuls throw themselves into the trial.

  Still, watching the curious creature dig and claw and sniff at the earth, tail swaying with restless energy, the man found a small measure of comfort. At least Xat-he was enjoying himself.

  A voice behind him broke the moment.

  “Master Xolani, is there anything else you need before we begin?”

  He waved a hand lazily. “Nah, you’re free to go.”

  He closed his eyes, laying on the snowy grass. Just a few minutes passed before a sharp noise echoed in the distance.

  The Trial had begun.

  He let out a breath. Hopefully, he could get through this chore quickly.

  Xolani wandered the forest for hours, eyes drifting from the clouds to the volcano in the distance, where Mount Xatal exhaled slow plumes into the sky. The air here was crisp and untouched. It had been a long time since he and Xat-he had shared a day this peaceful. For Xat-he, it looked like a blast, but him… to him the quiet felt... strange.

  The months behind him had been filled with nothing but urgency: clashes with dangerous creatures, negotiations in noisy chambers, and duties that offered no break. Now, standing in the hush of a snowy wilderness, he found himself disarmed by the quiet. It was beautiful, yes, but it felt like the world was in a pause, lagging behind as his mind walked ahead.

  To his relief, something broke the silence.

  A chorus of raw and panicked screams, echoing off the frozen hills. His gaze swept the glade, finding them at last: two aspirants clinging to the splintered edges of a frozen lake, their fingers bloodless against the ice. The water swallowed them to the chest, cold and merciless, while the ice creaked ominously beneath their futile scrabbling.

  Not even a full day, he thought as he moved. And already someone needs rescuing.

  Snow kicked up behind them as he and Xat-he dashed forward. At the edge of the lake he raised one hand, palm down, then drove it toward the ground. The frozen ground responded welling upward beneath the ice until it broke the surface, carrying the aspirants out. They slumped onto the shore, hacking and trembling.

  “You’re out,” Xolani said flatly.

  “No - cough, cough -we can still do it! We’ve got this!” one of them gasped, teeth chattering.

  “You certainly don’t ‘got this,’” Xolani cut in. “If I hadn’t pulled your sorry asses out, you’d already be two frozen corpses sinking to the bottom. Even if you made it out on your own, those wet clothes and supplies would’ve killed you by morning.”

  Xolani repeated, this time in a slower, more commanding voice “You’re out.”

  From his belt, he drew a small stone, raising it above his head before crushing it to dust. Yellow light flared, scattering in a plume of powder that streaked skyward, the mark of those who had failed and now awaited evacuation.

  “Better luck next time,” he added, his voice almost mocking.

  The two aspirants said nothing. One looked away. The other looked like he might cry.

  Xolani offered them a change of clothes, a blanket, and a warm drink, then sat nearby, waiting for the rescue team to arrive. The two aspirants huddled together beneath thick wool, sipping their resignation from the steaming cups.

  For a moment, Xolani exhaled through his nose and looked up at the sky.

  He felt less like a Vessel of Oltikán and more like a nursemaid for overgrown kids.

  He stretched out his legs and, since there was nothing else to do until the evacuation team arrived, he asked, “Why were you in the lake, anyway?”

  One of the aspirants shifted awkwardly. “We wanted to finish the trial quickly.”

  The other picked up where he left off. “We figured we’d take our chances in the wilderness instead of camping with that horned freak.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The words hung in the cold air, unashamed and unrepentant, until the first aspirant continued, “Thought we could cut across the ice. But we ran out of luck.”

  Xolani gave a single bark of laughter, sharp and lacking in sympathy.

  “You didn’t run out of luck,” he said, setting his mug down on a nearby rock. “You ran out of brains. That’s what happened.”

  Neither of them responded. Both of them staring at the ground, cheeks red with more than just cold.

  The silence stretched awkwardly between them, broken only by the soft clink of tin cups and the distant wind brushing through the trees. Xolani didn’t ask anything further. He knew exactly who they meant by “horned freak.” The Drexari aspirant; tall, antlered, and unmistakably other, a newcomer who had registered for the trial this season, though Xolani hadn’t seen him yet. Still, he felt no pity for the two now shivering beside the fire. Had they followed Oltikán’s teachings and treated him as an equal, they might have had the sense to survive the Trial a little longer.

  Somewhere in the distance, a hawk cried out and Xat-he returned, his fur streaked with mud, nose twitching with excitement from whatever he'd been chasing.

  He curled up beside him, resting his heavy head on his knee.

  He scratched behind his ears absently and muttered, “You're the only one here who knows what he’s doing, buddy.”

  The two aspirants blinked at the creature in quiet admiration, but said nothing.

  Xolani leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes for a brief moment. He could already hear the boots of the rescue squad approaching through the snow.

  He waited until they arrived, he stood and dusted the snow from his cloak. The flare in the sky had done its job. The rescue team would handle the rest.

  He gave one last disapproving glance at the failed aspirants, and then walked away.

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Xolani caught glimpses of a few aspirants in the distance, stumbling through snow, setting up makeshift camps, arguing over whatever dumb thing each thought was important, but none of them seemed to notice him. Just as well.

  By nightfall, the cold deepened and they began searching for shelter. Xat-he sniffed the air, nose twitching as he padded ahead. It didn’t take long. His senses were rarely wrong. He roamed a wide arc across the terrain before suddenly halting, then began to dig with fervor.

  He followed his lead, brushing aside frost-covered moss as steam rose faintly from beneath the earth.

  He had found it, a small underground cave with signs of geothermal activity. Warmth pulsed subtly from the stone. If you ignored the damp, the darkness, the faint scent of rotting eggs and the many small creatures crawling about, this place was as good as any luxury inn in the city.

  “Could be worse,” he muttered as he carved out a few wider ventilations.

  Xolani laid in the driest part he could find and Xat-he lay next to him, his breathing already deep and slow.

  For the first time in a long while, Xolani allowed himself to remember.

  This place.

  These very grounds.

  It had been years ago, but the memories returned with surprising clarity, nights like this one, hiding from snowstorms and threats both natural and human made. He’d been younger then, reckless and stubborn, half-starved and half-frozen. But he wasn’t alone.

  Like the failed aspirants from earlier, one of his teammates had been “other”: a Drakvari. Xolani had been grateful in hindsight that he and his teammates had the sense to treat him as an equal rather than a curse. Unlike the two fools he had pulled from the lake, they had not wasted the chance to succeed together. Their team had endured blizzards and ambushes, hunger and exhaustion, watching each other’s backs when others rested. Not only did all six of them complete the trial, but that Drakvari had become one of Xolani’s closest friends.

  While closing his eyes, Xolani recalled the many missteps his team had made during the Trial. He remembered the night they left their food unguarded and woke to find half of it dragged away by scavengers. He remembered the young woman who pretended to need rescuing, only for her team to sneak behind them and run off with their blankets. Then there was the time he tried to fish through a hole in the ice with his spear, only to drop the weapon into the water while catching nothing at all.

  He smiled faintly at the memories. Maybe he had been just as foolish as the two aspirants he had pulled from the lake earlier.

  Maybe he still was.

  His drowsiness took control over his thoughts as he laid there, listening to the soft crackle of geothermal water beneath the rock. Xat-he shifted beside him.

  Tomorrow would be harder, for the aspirants, anyway. For him… well, he’d try not to get too bored.

  The next day, Xolani stood on a rocky ledge overlooking a snowy ravine. Below, a cluster of aspirants were struggling with their packs, slipping on icy slopes, and arguing about directions.

  He sipped from his cup and sighed.

  “Apparently,” he said, glancing at Xat-he, “it’s part of our job to give them a hard time. Let’s get to it.”

  Xolani stepped down into the lower brush, keeping his footsteps quiet. Xat-he moved beside him with natural grace, his fur bristling with anticipation.

  They circled through the trees until they were close enough to see the whites of the aspirants’ eyes.

  Then, without a word, Xolani raised his hand and flicked a few stones into the air, careful not to actually hit the aspirants, but to be close enough to scare them. With a sharp twist of his fingers, the rocks shot forward like darts, slamming into the snow just next to the aspirants' feet.

  Panic erupted instantly.

  One aspirant screamed. Another swung a branch wildly, while a third hurled a stone that bounced harmlessly off Xat-he’s flank. He didn’t even blink.

  “Amateurs,” Xolani muttered.

  He stepped forward and raised a single hand. The ground beneath one of them shifted, stone rising and reshaping into a hand that clamped around a young woman’s ankle, pinning her as she prepared to sprint. She yelped in terror and beat at the stone with a stick, accomplishing nothing.

  The remaining aspirants bolted without hesitation. No strategy. No teamwork. Not even sympathy. Just a blur of limbs and shouted warnings disappearing into the trees.

  Xolani tilted his head.

  “Seriously?” he called out after them, his voice echoing through the forest. “Not even gonna try, huh?”

  The girl caught in the stone trap stared up at him, wide-eyed and frozen.

  He crouched beside her, signing in disappointment.

  “Now that's just sad,” he said, his voice calm now, even feeling a little sorry for her. “You fail”.

  Then, with a wave of his hand, the stone hand crumbled into gravel.

  The girl blinked, stunned, but didn’t move or complain as he lit a yellow flare towards the sky.

  The rest of the days passed with relative repetition.

  Scouting. Testing. Taunting.

  Some aspirants fled at the first chance. Others collapsed under pressure. A few fought back. None stood out.

  By now, Xolani had been stationed here for nearly two weeks.

  It was the middle of the night, yet tonight Auron shone so brightly in the sky that the world below seemed caught in a never-ending sunset. He gazed up at the massive ringed giant, its charcoal-gray surface framed by glowing golden rings that arced across the traveling giant.

  “You know, Xat-he,” he said, voice low and thoughtful, “The followers of Kaspea believe Auron is at the center, and we’re the ones moving around him”. He looked at Oltikán, the comparatively tiny blue moon, rising on the distant horizon. “Talk about a different perspective. Huh?.” He glanced down at his companion. “What do you think, buddy?”

  Xat-he simply rolled over and draped a paw across his face, unimpressed by gods or moongazing.

  Xolani chuckled under his breath, then paused. A flicker of motion caught his eye.

  A small group of aspirants had wandered into view. Only three remained. It should’ve been six. The others had either failed or fallen behind. But it wasn’t their dwindled number that held his attention, it was one of the survivors.

  Antlers.

  “The Drexari,” he murmured, squinting from his vantage point in the trees. “Now that’s new.”

  He crouched low, observing the trio with cautious curiosity.

  “The two morons we rescued from the lake the first day, remember?” He muttered to Xat-he as they both watched from a distance. “This must be the team they abandoned”.

  He peeked closer. “What brings a Drexari all to this sort of event? Don't they normally worship Kaspea?” Xolani was curious.

  He hid in the underbrush, his breath slow, his heartbeat steady as they both slowly got closer.

  There were three of them, gathered around the fire. Xolani caught their names from their conversation. The tall, horned Drexari was Damath. The other ones were Ajal and Tzil.

  Xolani crept closer, masking his presence as he prepared his attack. Then, just like before, he launched a sudden barrage. Rocks flung into the air, hitting just close enough to scare. But this group didn’t panic. They shouted to each other, backed into a formation. They weren’t much stronger than the others he’d seen, but at least they didn’t abandon each other.

  The Drexari attacked in the front while the others tossed rocks. His blows were wide and full of power, but predictable. The other two held their ground, using wooden improvised shields to block incoming projectiles with surprising timing and supporting Damath from the rear.

  Not bad, Xolani thought. Not good, either. But not bad.

  Xolani’s instincts moved his body before he had time to think. He rolled through the snow and came up on his feet, only to realize that he had narrowly avoided the crash of a dead tree. But the tree hadn’t fallen on its own.

  He smirked as his eyes settled on the trio standing before him. Telekinesis, he thought, remembering the particular magic for which the Drexari were famous.

  He moved his hand to command the earth to form a hand and grip Tzil's ankle where he stood. Tzil panicked as he felt the grasp of a cold stone hand grabbing him, but before he could act further, a powerful gust of force swept toward Xolani, forcing him to leap aside once more.

  Xolani was satisfied with their performance. He decided he had given them enough of a hard time. And so, he stepped back, brushed the dirt from his shoulder, and called for Xat-he to do the same. Together, they turned away without another word.

  As he walked, his thoughts lingered. These ones won’t make it through the Trial. Not yet, at least. But aren’t they full of surprises?

  To Xolani,

  The Heir hasn’t forgotten your work, neither have I. I’ve spoken with him, and we agree: your mission is too valuable to be stuck examining half-frozen kids in the snow.

  Most aspirants fail within the first month anyway. Once the numbers drop, I’ll push to have you reassigned. Hopefully, you’ll be back to your real work after the long night.

  Until then, try not to terrify too many of them. We still need some of them to pass.

  Pet Xat-he behind the ears on my behalf.

  – Mazik.

  Damath's Pilgrimage.

  Chapter 8: Ajal.

  Thank you very much for taking the time to read my story.