NOVEL NEXT Initiate: Written Exam
The stands are crowded like every day of the tenth degree examination. The racket carries down to the arena gravel, accompanied by the smell of sausages and beer. You’d think the higher level exams would be a bigger draw, but no, it’s the tenth degree, the amateurs, that bring the most shouting miners waving colored betting slips, shop workers, guildmasters fretting about how many of their initiates will make it through intact, and nervous families.
I stand with more than fifty other candidates in the semicircular arena. We are in a line along the fenced-off border between gravel and fatal plummet, backs to the crowd, staring out over the city spread before us. There’s the chasm, and our mortal enemies beyond it, we are meant to think. Look them in the eye. Far away, they’re training for war.
Most aren’t thinking this. They’re worried if they’ll pass or not, going over runes in their head, fretting about being knocked in the head in the final duel.
I’m thinking about the dragon. Is it up there in the stalactites, clutched to one like a monstrous gecko, green eyes boring into me from afar? And I also think about my brother. What was the day he became a runeknight like? Do other caverns have exams too, or do they have their own deadly trials?
My speculations vanish when we are called to turn around.
The examiners stand in a line facing us. Each is a runeknight of seventh degree or higher, and each's armor is decorated with their guild emblem, for it is an honor to be selected as examiner, and the guilds are keen to use their members’ presence here as advertising.
And of course, one is in full bronze holding a shield decorated with a falling stalactite impaling three troglodytes. My heart begins to pound very hard, and I regret not forging a new weapon. It might not be Kazhek, of course. The armor looks slightly different, with more flared edges. He has a mace at his side instead of a warhammer. But that isn’t proof of anything.
There is one examiner for each candidate. He is standing opposite me.
They bow to us, and is it just my imagination, or does the Troglodyte Slayer bow a little less? Does his hand creep toward the handle of his mace?
I can’t worry about it now. It is time for the written test. The examiners exit the arena and desks are carried out and placed down by the arena staff. Each of these dwarves is dressed in a blood red robe. Symbolic, I hear.
Once the desks are placed, the head examiner emerges onto a platform jutting out over the main arena gate. He is a runeknight of the first degree, in pure tungsten armor that shines darkly. Even the sharpest blades, rumor goes, cannot pierce their defenses. His face is masked by the same metal, just as Runethane Thanerzak’s is rumored to be, and it’s unclear to me what runes allow him to project his voice through it to fill the arena.
“Initiates,” he says solemnly. “Today some of you are under the impression that because you can take this exam as many times as you like, every month, even, that it is not a problem if you fail. Well, know this. Those who fail the first time rarely pass the second, and then rarely do they attempt a third time. To fail today is to most likely condemn yourself to a life of failure. You fail today, you will likely never join our ranks. You fail today, and it is not because your efforts were lacking, or that you were unlucky. It is because you yourself are unworthy, a failure. I repeat, a failure. And many of you today will fail, and prove yourselves to be failures.”
He pauses. I expect him to continue and give some uplifting comment about hard work and rising above the crowds, but he just turns and walks off.
We take our places at our desks. The crimson-cloaked staff order us to remove our helms, then go around placing heavy wooden contraptions over our heads. These restrict the movement of our necks, and block out our vision so that all we can see is the pen and desk in front of us. And the slates also, now laid down before us with clatters.
“Begin.”
I turn over my slate. Half of it is dense with runes, the other half is blank. I begin to scratch away with my pen. Each rune begins to glow a moment after I draw it, as if a spirit hand is tracing over my work as I write. My runes are being transferred to another slate, where an examiner is marking them.
I hope the examiner is randomly selected.
My writing is also, if I’m extremely unfortunate or fortunate, being sent up to the stands, for the worst and best answers materialize on tall boards of aluminum set at regular intervals there. The examination is a spectacle too, after all. The runeknights on the benches are laughing. It’s great entertainment for them to see initiates make mistakes. The other dwarves are just eating and drinking, impatient for the physical section.
The whole thing lasts an hour, or so I thought—then as soon as my slate is taken away, it is replaced by another. Several runes here I have never seen before, and I begin to worry. I can at least guess what they mean from context, but use them? And I have to compose lines for certain exotic metals I’ve never seen, like brass, gallium, and lithium.
It occurs to me that the Association of Steel’s library is not among the best, and also that I should have saved up the silver to buy some practice slates—but that would have meant not repairing my armor.
The next hour is a struggle, and the one after also, for my slate is replaced a second time. By the time the staff pull the wooden helmet from my head, my vision is blurry, my fingers ache, and my head is spinning.
We stand. The head examiner in his blank tungsten mask is on his platform again.
“Your runes have been reviewed and your scores tallied,” he sighs, voice heavy with disappointment. “Just as always, your knowledge, handwriting, and poetic skill is sorely lacking. Even the best among you has nothing to be proud of. The worst among you would do well to chop your own fingers off and have your parents tie a pickaxe to your wrists. Your efforts are utterly shocking. It will be a miracle if any of you do well enough in the coming trials to pass the examination. I hope this miracle does not occur, because frankly not a single one of you deserves to become a runeknight.”
He leaves the platform. I can hear some of the other initiates sobbing, which I find vaguely irritating. They don’t have a dragon breathing fire down the back of their neck.
The staff bring out our weapons and hand them to us. Next will be the tests of endurance, and these at least I feel prepared for.
“Next will be the inspection of your weapons and armor,” one of the staff says. “You will be called forward one at a time.”
My mind goes white. Whelt had not mentioned this section.
One by one, we are called forward. The inspections are each carried out by a different runeknight, and their criticisms are harsh.
“This rune is malformed. Can’t you hammer properly? And what kind of metal is this? Well?”
“Iron,” answers the initiate being harassed. She’s wearing plate far better than my battered scraps.
“Iron? This is barely iron. If you aren’t going to use stainless steel, coat it with something. Don’t you know what rust is...”
And so on and on, for each of them, until finally it’s my turn. Trembling, I step out of the line and walk forwards slowly, listening to the gravel crunch below each footstep, like the second hand of a clock ticking down toward my demise.
The runeknight who comes to judge me is fortunately not the Troglodyte Slayer. Perhaps each initiate must have a different examiner judge them for each stage, and Kazhek wants his friend to deliver justice in the final. This one is a tall woman in burnished gold, with rubies set about her helm.
She takes one look at my armor, shakes her head, and sends me back to my place.
I wait there, trembling, as the rest of the candidates are judged. Many of them glance my way as they step forward, trying to get another glimpse of the candidate whose equipment was so bad the examiner could not find a single word harsh enough to describe it.
The judgements end.
I wait to be escorted out of the arena and permanently banned from sitting the exam.
But it appears no candidate is to be failed just yet.
“The next section of the examination will begin,” says the head examiner, back on his platform. “We will see your endurance, as well as how well your armor is constructed. And let me just say, I do not hold high hopes many of you will leave without broken bones. Or get to leave at all.”
He trudges back to his seat. If our armor is going to be judged now, why did we have to go through all that abuse?
The reason hits me as the examiners are handed special weapons. Some are given small hammers, blunt looking swords, or axes of light aluminum. Others are given viciously heavy and spiked two-handed flails and diamond-tipped hooks.
Those who were judged to have potential will get the former set.
Disgraces to dwarven smithing, the latter.
And of course, when I am called forward to meet my examiner, it is the bronze-clad Troglodyte Slayer, and he wields a steel flail, its handle as tall as he is, and its barbed warhead a third that length again.