Chapter 125

Speed

(Ogo)

The dust of snow billowed at our ankles. Sheets of snow-dust swept across the land which applied the dizzying impression that we moved through the world on an infinite floe.

The legkeds had absolutely nothing to trade; no scrap of food, no drop to quench thirst. There was also no further destination over the final horizon of the world. What lay beyond, the legkeds shook their heads at. With swaths of their arms, they simply gestured at the land around us when asked.

Were we the first orc to travel so far, so high to the top of the world? Ah, how could I not tap what barrels of beer remained in our carts? My orcs deserved days to relish at the turning point in my conquest to claim the northern sea.

With seemingly nothing to subsist on, no wonder the legkeds devoured goblin spit beer. They were ravished with it! Their long legs surrounded us like a forest. It really seemed then that the land moved with a life of its own. Several times, an orc stumbled from what I assumed was disorientation.

Jix approached between limbs. “They want to challenge us.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. “One on one? A brawl?”

“Not with fists, unfortunately. A foot match.”

She turned, and she led me off with a wave through a dribbling rain of spit beer. Barrels were passed so high overhead that they seemed like shooting stars. When we stepped through the last of birch-thick legs, we were faced with an uninterrupted view of the horizon, save one lone legked striding north. They carried one of Hawkin’s barrels, and they set it down at nearly half a quarter of a mile.

A question struck me just then. Was that the farthest any beer had ever been transported? Its weird colors seemed so suited against the sky that seemed like a low ceiling. The long legked returned, leaving the barrel. Would the barrel be a marker for the footrace?

“We will win,” I said.

“Let's see what we’re up against. They’ll demonstrate.”

After quick chatter, legkeds amassed around us. A line was drawn by dragged foot in the snow, and two legkeds crouched at the line. Together they looked like one split spider. Their knees and elbows hovered high above their heads. A sharp clap shot through me, and the legkeds bolted toward the far barrel.

My jaw hung slack, and at the corners of my eyes I noticed that my orcs lurched forward at the insane speed of the legkeds.

“By Hil!” they said.

“We’ve already lost.”

“Ogo can take them!”

“What happened? I blinked.”

“Sticks for bones are worth something after all.”

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I shouldn't have blinked. When my eyelids lifted, the runners were now facing us, returning. Hot orc breath turned to vapor when nearly all of us gasped.I struggled to comprehend their speed.

An arm descended like a falling tree from on high. It stopped midair and at the end, a finger pointed to my tallest orc.

“Olp,” said Jix. “They choose you.”

Olp’s armor clattered around him as he shed weight. He charged Jix, and they butted heads several times over with sick cracks. After a few slaps on his shoulders, Olp shook out his arms and approached the drawn start line.

A clap shot through me, and Olp’s opponent raced away. Olp slipped, and his face caught his fall.

Laughter bubbled between my tusks. “Just decapitate him.”

Gasps sounded around me as the legked runner touched the barrel, and turned back as if he could swivel his torso without turning his legs before Olp had really picked himself up. One, never to give up, Olp staggered the quarter mile to the barrel. He often slipped. At the barrel, he slipped again and his body hit the snow and ice.

“Shall we send a search party?” said an orc.

“We did tell him it was a race, right?”

“He’s as fast as his brain. Theymust have known who they picked.”

Just before the finish line, Olp slipped once more. I heard his breath leave his lungs with a grunt. Every one of us orcs threw our hands up.

To Jix I said, “Tell them he’s a goblin we picked up, not an orc.”

Appearing from on high like descending hands of small gods, orcs were picked one by one to race the legkeds. We each returned, hacking bitter air.

The races were a joke to the legkeds, but we took the humor in stride. How good it was to pump blood, to feel its heat, to sweat through green! Ah, but what camaraderie!

Throughout the days, we shared beer with the legkeds, until I had to explain with Jix’s help that we belonged at sea, and it was time.

“More beer?” said Dromus, the legked elder.

“I can only spare a few more barrels. The rest we need for the journey back.”

The last few barrels I was willing to part with were tapped. Dromus forwent the beer and instead asked to stroll into the endless white with Jix and I. He wanted conversation, and for that he had to hang upside down at the waist to speak at eye level with me as we walked.

“I’d run the earth from tip to tip for spit beer,” said Dromus as his torso swung. “It’s worth the stride.”

“This trade route has been profitable up until the scarpadae. But it takes so much of the year by land, and our place is at sea.”

“The only way to acquire beer from you is to trade?”

“I keep telling you. Beer isn’t free. We’ve accepted hard coins, soft moss, round pearls, sharp obsidian, slippery monster parts…”

“Will you trade for an item that can’t be touched?”

“Can’t be touched? You mean something like credit? No, I won’t consider credit.”

“Will you trade for speed?”

Dromus spoke at length, and it seemed Jix had questions she needed answered before translating to me.

At last she said, “They’re proposing to man your trade route on land in exchange for beer.”

“Man our trade route? They would take up the trade with the Geffles, the Tzards, the slugs, the cats, and the golems? Just for beer?”

Dromus nodded.

“Would you be willing to meet with us on a schedule?” I said.

“Show me where.”

“Fur!” I blared.

Fur hustled over. At my gesture, he dropped to his knees in the snow and unraveled his maps. We all crouched with him. I dropped a fat finger on the map.

“Here.”

Dromus took his time reading the map. “That’s not too far,” he said. “When I stand I can see it.”

My belly rolled as I laughed. Was this my answer? Could this be something viable? And how would the legkeds fare trading with all these monsters? Would Jix have to be with them to translate? …Prices would need to be firm. The legkeds were not capable of that…Were they? It was all really the job for an orc.

“I’ve got to chew on this,” I said.