We waited for a week for our turn. Some merchants approached the tribes but the centaurs hated humans for one single reason. Horses. Humans rode horses, humans used horses to pull wagons. The average centaur found that so demeaning that... how should I put it... yes. Think if Neanderthals still existed back on modern Earth. Now think of people using said neanderthals as pack beasts.
Just like the beast-kin hated to be compared to the base animal they were mixed with, the centaur believed the horses should be free. That these magnificent animals had no place as slaves to humans. The wild plains tribes also didn't raise horses for two reasons. One, they would draw even more animosity from every centaur tribe, and two, horses made good eating. A centaur would never eat a horse, though.
They had other choices for pack beast, like mules, donkeys, or oxen, but none had the perfect combination of cost, maintenance, power, and speed as the horse. Some monsters could probably be used but they were not domesticated enough and were also a target because of their cores. After all, if horses grew gold nuggets in their hearts, people would kill more horses. And if horses ate people, they wouldn't be so welcome in civilized places. So, horse it was.
Back to the reason we were in that valley. A week later, the tribe climbed the hill to the monastery complex where the Abode of War and its proving grounds awaited our youth. I knew this wasn't my turn. I would have to wait a few years until we came back to this place after roaming the plains for my chance to win a Blessing. Some of the older but still-too-young foals were inconsolable. They would have to wait for the most and only come back here way after they've activated their System.
The monastery was made entirely out of stone. It must've taken very long to build, as good stone was almost impossible to find this south in the plains. As I said, the only building, although some more permanent merchant outposts had some wagons and stakes set up with roof and floor and could be mistaken by some kind of house.
The stone buildings looked archaic. At first look, it reminded me of Greece with the columns and triangular roofs but it lacked the workmanship of Grecian architecture. The columns were rectangular, to begin with, and the sandstone bricks were more at home in Egypt or even Mesopotamia.
There was a rigid level limit for the proving grounds. Nobody over level ten could go through them. Nobody with more than thirty points of Proficiency, adding up all of them, could do it too.
Yes, Proficiency. For some reason, nobody talked about Skills and I was too young to talk, much less ask about something as archaic as Skills if they were taken down. I was already bracing myself for yet another System patch with a ton of changes and maybe a nerf or two.
"Listen up!" Our chieftain shouted. "The foals that are too young to join the proving grounds cannot watch the tribe take the trials. Stay on that area until we are finished!" he pointed at a side courtyard with training dummies and weapon racks with wooden training weapons. "The rest of you, with me."
As the whining crowd, the caretakers, and I walked to the side courtyard the rest of the tribe climbed a set of stairs to the bleachers, leaving the trial takers before the gates to the proving grounds.
My eyes caught one human priest of Queltphion staring at me. I winked and poked my tongue at him. Surprised, he glared back with a confused and somewhat angry look.
The kids were free to play with the training dummies and weapons. I just leaned on a pillar and watched. On the other side of the front courtyard, I could hear the centaurs cheering and jeering for the trial takers.
We spent the whole night there. As the sun rose, some priests brought us food. Some pots of stew and stale bread.
That led me to wonder why people don't cultivate the plains. The soil was good enough, there was plenty of water and rain, and seeds weren't too hard to find. But then I realized. Growing a crop was hard work and forced one to settle down. With as many roaming bands of barbarians going around, it was a matter of time before some chieftain thought that his tribe was stronger than whoever guarded the farm and raided it.
The very nature of the plains people prevented the plains from developing. Only in Queltphion's sacred ground was safe to stay and even so, nobody could claim land or the alleged neutrality would be gone. That was also the reason nobody erected any building in the valley. A permanent habitation implied a claim.
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We slept in the training grounds as a single day wasn't enough to put everyone through. The proving grounds had to be reset and cleaned up to give everyone an even chance. But once they were done, the priests collected the training weapons, make note of what the kids broke, and ushered us out.
As we passed in front of the main temple again, that priest was there, staring at me with another one, an elderly centaur woman. He blatantly pointed at me and said something to her that I couldn't hear over the cheers the tribe gave to the "winners" of the trials.
She wore only a stola with Queltphion's symbols that did a piss-poor job of covering her flaccid tits. At least the stola was cinched with a rope at her torso's waist. I would hate to have a gust of wind raise the flaps on that and show the other flaps beneath. The old centaur lady clopped her way toward Callatea and me.
Depending on the subject of the talk I would be figuratively fucked. Too young for the real deal and not interested at all.
"Greetings, battle-sister!" Callatea quickly bowed to the priestess in a very formal way.
"Greetings. Is this filly your daughter?" The priestess asked.
"This is Snowdrop, battle-sister. She's nine months old as of now, born with Ayla high in the sky," she said mentioning the full moon.
"Snowdrop," the old lady rolled the word in her mouth. "A flower, isn't it?"
Callatea nodded.
The elderly priest lowered herself on her front knees, bringing her head next to me. Then she whispered, "Snowdrop, what do you think of joining our order? To become a battle-sister?"
My mom heard it. A glance at her face told me she had mixed feelings. On one hand, becoming a priest of the War god was an honor. On the other hand, she was still attached to me. On the third hand, I couldn't be a priestess. If anyone gave me a fourth hand, I would say I wasn't interested.
So I stared at her. They expected me to understand language already, at least the basics, and mumble a few words. So I abused that expectation. "No."
The centauress ecclesiastic blinked. "What?"
"Mommy," I replied and grabbed Callatea's shin.
The priestess laughed. "Oh, I see. She's still attached to her mom!" She lied to disguise her shock.
But Callatea was beyond flustered. "Battle-sister, she didn't mean to offend!"
The centaur and human priests exchanged a glance and she addressed my mom. "Sister Callatea, I am not offended. I hope your daughter isn't offended by my offer, though," she stole a glance at me.
I looked at her with a raised eyebrow and hid my hand from Callatea's sight, making a "go away" gesture to the priestess.
Mom nudged me with a hoof. "Why should she be? Becoming a battle-sister is a great honor!" She squealed.
And because when it rains it pours, the chieftain, of all people in the herd, heard her. The pile of muscle clopped his way next to us. The massive chieftain was... How can I put it?
Get a Clydesdale horse, put him on a diet of pure steroids and protein shakes and a training regimen pulling tractors along the mud with the brakes on, then stitch the upper body of Escanor [1] sunbathing on a summer day. Then put all that on steroids again, because why not. I think I could hide inside the fur of his shins. If I had a twin sister, she could stand on my back and the both of us would walk underneath his belly easily. His codpiece was the shining carapace of some beetle monster and covered everything. Seriously, the guy was about three meters tall, from hoof to the crown of his head.
"Sister, this filly is too weak and scrawny. If your esteemed order is looking for another battle-sister, I can find some within my tribe best suited for the task," He bellowed with the confidence of a dragon tasked with squashing cockroaches.
I couldn't help but roll my eyes. The old centauress chortled. "Oh, I am sure you do, Enantinos! But this filly here, I was just teasing her," she winked at me. I scowled and blew a raspberry back at her. "If you want to give one of your herd to our order, bring me the three best scorers of the trials so I can pick one of them."
"But why show interest in her?" He asked, not buying into her shit.
"She has a promising future ahead of her. Lord Queltphion said so. However, by the time she comes back here with your herd, she'll be too old for the trials. I worry her chance has been squandered."
Not being a completely stupid barbarian, just a primitive barbarian, mind the gap, the chieftain clopped one step closer. "Do you believe she can take the trials at her age?"
The priestess stretched her human back as much as she could to face the humongous centaur. "I do believe she can, but she's too strong for it. You know we have strict limits for who can take the trials."
Shit! Shit, shit, shit!
"She's nine months old!" The chieftain shouted back. By now, all side conversations died down and we had the whole temple looking at us. "She doesn't have System access, and there's no way she gained more than thirty points of proficiency yet."
Don't say it, don't say it.
"Oh," the priestess withdrew a step. "You are correct. She hasn't gained thirty points of proficiency since she was born, did she?"
Then she exchanged a glance with the other priest atop the stairs leading to the main temple. The human priest looked at me, I shook my head in the universal "don't do it" sign, and then he nodded at the centaur woman.
"Then it is settled!" she clapped her hands and shouted. "By Queltphion's will, young Snowdrop will take the trials!"
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[1]: From "The Seven Deadly Sins", the anime.