Chương 29: Chapter 24: The First Test (Part 1)

The cage door opened without the usual insults the next morning. A guard gestured toward Gideon, and he stepped out with the four others behind him. No one spat in their direction. No one laughed or insulted them. Throk was already waiting near the central fire.

"Go to the alcove," he said.

"Check them. Make sure no one slips. Dravak's orders." Gideon nodded and moved through the alcove with the four other slaves beside him, following the steady rhythm they'd built over the past week. They did most of the work now, checking breathing and heat, changing bindings, and pressing careful fingers around swollen flesh while Gideon watched and corrected them when needed. The Frostvein and Mistbloom from the day before had helped. Fevers had eased and coughs came less often and with noticeably less force.

Eyes followed him openly now. Not the half-hidden glances of suspicion he'd grown used to, nor the dismissive looks usually reserved for slaves. These were longer looks. Measuring ones. Word had spread through the tribe after the previous night. Tonight would be their first test, to see if they belonged with the Ironfang. When they finished checking the last goblin and Gideon reached for a bucket out of habit, a Warrior stepped in front of him.

"That's enough." Gideon inclined his head slightly.

"Alright, but I need a moment."

"For what?"

"The berries." The Warrior blinked.

"The what?"

"The berries. I need to check them." The goblin studied him for a breath, then huffed.

"Be quick about it." Gideon moved toward the rear of the cavern, aware of several goblins watching with open curiosity. All four bowls were exactly where he had left them. That was encouraging. The smell reached him before he touched anything. Sour, mostly, but different from the raw berries he had crushed three days earlier. Gideon crouched and carefully loosened the cloth over the first bowl. A few tiny bubbles clung to the stone around the edge of the juice, but otherwise the surface remained mostly still.

He leaned closer.

"Something's happening." Just not much. He covered it again and moved to the second bowl. The difference was immediately clear. Tiny bubbles rose steadily through the dark liquid, collecting in patches of pale foam between the crushed berries. Pieces of skin and pulp floated near the surface, shifting slightly whenever another cluster of bubbles worked its way free beneath them. The smell had changed too.

The familiar sourness of the Blackthorn Berries remained, but something new had joined it, faintly yeasty and almost breadlike beneath the fruit. Gideon stared.

"Oh, shit." A grin began pulling at his mouth. He moved to the third bowl. This one was changing too. Not as vigorously as the second, but moreso than the first. Bubbles still rose through the thinner juice, and a narrow layer of foam had gathered along one edge. Gideon looked between the bowls.

"So the water didn't stop it." That mattered. How much it mattered, he had no idea yet. Then he uncovered the fourth. Nothing. No foam, no bubbles clinging to the sides, no slow shifting of pulp beneath the surface. The crushed berries simply sat in their dark juice, looking almost exactly as they had when he'd put them there. Gideon waited. Still nothing. His eyes moved back to the second bowl, where another string of bubbles broke quietly against the surface.

"Well." He looked down at the fourth again.

"That's interesting." The batch without skins was changing, but slowly. The batch with skins was changing much faster. Adding boiled water hadn't stopped the process. Heating the berries themselves apparently had. It wasn't proof. Not yet. The bowls weren't identical. He couldn't measure temperature, couldn't guarantee he'd crushed every batch exactly the same way, and had no idea what else might be growing in any of them. But the pattern was there.

"The skins matter." Probably. And whatever was living on them hadn't appreciated being heated. A nearby Warrior wrinkled his nose.

"What did you do to them?" Gideon checked each surface again, searching for anything fuzzy, discolored, or otherwise suspicious.

"Experimenting." Stolen story; please report.

"They're rotting."

"Maybe." The Warrior stared at him. Gideon shrugged.

"That's why I'm checking." He replaced each cloth and tied it down again, careful not to disturb the bowls more than necessary. Gideon tucked the bowls securely back into the crevice and considered what he'd seen. Bowl Two was clearly ahead. Bowl Three was doing enough that he wasn't ready to dismiss it. Bowl One had barely started. And Bowl Four looked increasingly like a lesson in what not to do. He stood and brushed his hands against his tunic. He grinned again.

Now he had something better than vague information from Herbal Insight and half-remembered knowledge from Earth telling him the idea might work. He had results. Messy, primitive, frustratingly imprecise results. But results. Gideon glanced back once more at the four covered bowls, then turned toward the Warrior.

"I'm done." The five were escorted back to the cage without ceremony.

"You rest now," the goblin said once the door shut.

"Chief wants you standing straight tonight." The difference in the cavern was subtle, but it threaded through everything. Warriors hadn't jeered, insulted them, or made jokes when the slaves passed. A few nodded once, curt and unreadable. Conversations didn't stop when Gideon's new name was spoken, but they shifted tone. He heard it more than once now, no longer always paired with "slave". The others didn't know what to do with that.

At first they paced the cage, restless energy bleeding out in tight circles across the floor. One stood near the bars, staring into the cavern as if he might see the answer written in the firelight. Another flexed his hands over and over, as if preparing for something he could not yet define.

"This could still be a trick," the tallest muttered.

"Make us think we're rising, then push us back down. Teach us our place."

"Tribes don't give chances to slaves," another said quietly.

"Not real ones."

"Maybe they want to see who begins to hope," a third added.

"Hope makes you weak." The words sounded right, but none of them quite believed what they were saying. Eventually their eyes drifted over to Gideon. He'd told them, in the early days when they still moved like beaten things and resisted every order out of stubborn pride, that this wouldn't be permanent. That he didn't intend to remain a slave in this cavern. That if they followed him and did the work, something would change.

They'd chosen to follow him because they had nothing else to lose, and now something was changing.

"Is this real?" one of them asked him at last. Gideon leaned back against the bars and studied them.

"It's real," he said.

"Like I told you last night, the words came from the Chief's mouth."

"Even if we pass their tests," one said carefully, "they can still take it back."

"Sure," Gideon said, and shrugged. The honesty settled them more than comfort would have.

"But they won't. Not without reason," he added.

"The Chief doesn't seem like one to waste time. If he tests us, it's because he's deciding whether we're worth keeping."

"What do we do?" asked the smallest one.

"We stay," Gideon said quietly.

"We stand where they tell us. We don't run. We don't hesitate." He let his gaze move from one to the next.

"That's all this is." They seemed to accept that, and slowly settled in to wait for evening. As the light outside dimmed and the shadows inside deepened, conversation in the cavern thinned naturally. Goblins adjusted positions around the fires. A few stood. Others leaned forward, elbows on knees, waiting impatiently for something to happen. Gideon sat with his back against the bars, hands resting loosely over his knees. He felt the weight of their eyes on his back, and tried his best to ignore it.

Evening eventually came. And with it, Dravak rose slowly, the cavern falling quiet as though a hand had closed around its throat. The Chief swept his gaze over the tribe, then fixed it on the cage.

"Grub," he said.

"The four with him. Step forward." The nearest goblin moved immediately, lifting the bar and swinging the cage door wide. Grub stepped out first, his body still sore from the days of hard work and too much thinking. The four others filed out behind him, each looking tense but determined. Dozens of eyes followed them as they crossed the cavern. There was no sound, only a measuring silence. Dravak nodded once, then turned his head slightly. Throk and Kesh were there, standing beside his stone seat.

Throk stood with his arms crossed, expression carved into something hard and blunt. Kesh leaned against a stone outcrop a few steps back, a dagger at her belt, her eyes as sharp as her blade. Dravak spoke without raising his voice, yet it carried across the cavern.

"Bring the packs." Three Warriors emerged from beside the supply piles, each carrying rough hide bags that they set before Dravak's seat. Even from several paces away, Gideon caught the smell of dried meat. Then two more Warriors stepped forward, and the cavern stirred at what they carried. Spears. Not the usual Ironfang weapons, with shafts cut from the forest and heads of sharpened bone or chipped stone bound in rawhide.

These bore forged metal points, dark with age and rusted around the seams, but still sharp enough to gleam in the firelight. Armor followed. A battered studded vest. Thick hides stitched into overlapping layers. A dented iron cap. A sleeve of chain that looked as though it had once been cut from a dead human. The Ironfang had no forge. Anything made of metal had to be stolen, traded for, or stripped from a corpse. These were among the best things the tribe possessed.

Throk's jaw tightened as the Warriors laid them out.

"Chief," he said.

"That is too much." Dravak kept his eyes on the five slaves.

"Spears are one thing," Throk continued.

"But metal heads? Armor? Food enough to disappear into the forest?" His lip curled.

"You give them the best we have, then turn your back and hope they don't bury you with it." A murmur moved through the cavern. Several Warriors watched the gear with poorly concealed hunger. Kesh said nothing. Her attention moved instead from face to face, noting who objected, who agreed, and who merely wanted what had been placed on the stone.

"That is the point," Dravak said. Throk frowned.

"If I send them outside with nothing, then I offer no choice at all. They stay because leaving means death." Dravak gestured toward the packs and weapons.

"This gives them another path." His gaze returned to Gideon.

"They will have food, armor, and spears strong enough to keep the forest from taking them before dawn. If they wish to run, they will have a real chance."

"And if they take it?" Throk asked.

"Then I learn what I needed to know. I would rather lose five slaves and a few weapons tonight than bring cowards to my fire tomorrow." Kesh nodded.

"And if they run, no one can say you were fooled," she said.

"If they return after being given every reason not to, no one can deny what they chose." Dravak nodded, then addressed the five.

"Tonight, you will keep watch outside. No Warrior will stand beside you. No Hunter will watch from the trees. You will hold the hill above this cave until sunrise." His gaze passed over each of them before settling on Gideon.

"You have food enough to leave, and no one will follow if you do." He paused.

"Return at dawn, and it will be because you chose the Ironfang." At his gesture, the Warriors stepped forward and began distributing the gear. The packs came first. Gideon accepted his and felt the weight settle against his back. It wasn't enough to make the forest safe, but it was enough to make escape possible. Then came the armor, passed out according to what could be made to fit, followed by the spears. Wooden shafts settled into waiting hands.

Metal points caught the firelight and returned it in thin, cold glints. Gideon received his last. The moment the shaft settled into his grip, his mind jolted. For a heartbeat, he was twelve again, standing in damp grass beneath a gray Wisconsin sky. Canvas tents lined the clearing like something from a Renaissance fair. Lanterns swayed between the trees. Woodsmoke mingled with the smell of stew while instructors barked commands at children pretending to be soldiers.

Max had been there beside him, grinning as he swung a practice sword hard enough to nearly clip an instructor on his first day. He'd laughed until the man cracked him across the helmet with a wooden baton. Then Gideon remembered the spear in his own hands. The steady weight of it. The way it felt like it was made for his hands. Max calling something smug from across the field while Gideon settled into the stance they'd drilled a hundred times.

He blinked and found himself back in the cavern, firelight glinting along a real metal point. This spear was better than anything he had ever held there. Even with the crude Ironfang repairs and the rawhide wrappings, it was real. Metal point. Solid shaft. It felt right. The four other slaves shifted with their own spears, packs slung awkwardly over shoulders. Dravak gestured toward the cave mouth.

"Go," he said. The command was simple and absolute. Gideon tightened his grip on the spear and led the way toward the exit. The four followed close behind, their footsteps echoing softly on stone. They passed the Warriors at the entrance. They didn't speak. They only stepped aside, making room. The five of them stepped together out into the cold night air.