Chapter 30 - Bogged Down

I carefully looped the under-strap and ran it through the cinch beneath the clifford’s muscular belly. I didn’t know much about riding, but I’ve seen westerns. Saddle on top, bridle in front, straps below. Right? How tough could it be?

I backed up as the clifford snapped at me, but Chuck dipped in and popped the red canine on the nose. Properly chagrinned, the beast settled, and Chuck was able to swing up onto the hide saddle. He wiggled around, then gave a nod. “It’ll do, but I still want my glider.”

“It’s coming. Neil should be back with the canvas and sulfur before midnight. In the meantime, I want to get a lay of the land from the land. It’s hard to spot resources from the air, and there are a few we still really need.”

It didn’t hurt to project our power out a bit, too. Once we had the numbers for it, I intended regular patrols by both ground and air so nothing could sneak up on us. It would take a few more reproductive cycles, a lot of work, and a lot more hobgoblins to be able to cover the territory, though.

Chuck held the clifford still while I clambered up onto its back. Then he swung into the saddle with coordination unbecoming a goblin. Someone handed me a slinger and a small sack of stones. The rest of the wranglers mounted up with their goblin gunners in tow. They looked at our saddle with jealous eyes, and I had no doubt that all of them would have their own by morning.

Each of the hobgoblin wranglers had a small hide holster on their backs with two short spears, as well. Between the spears, the slingers, and the cliffords themselves, this was about as well-armed as I’d seen my tribe. But I still only had 6 wranglers and there was a lot of ground around the village to cover.

“Where to, boss?”

“Northwest, I think,” I said. “Rufus said the closest settlement was humans to the northwest. I want to see what’s out that direction.”

Chuck reached back and smacked the flank of his clifford, and we were off before I could squawk with surprise. Cliffords, it seemed, shared one trait with goblins: they only had two speeds: still, and complete mania. The canine dug its claws in and launched into a sprint, barking and bounding through the woods. Despite being a savannah creature, it seemed well equipped to traverse the dense forest, as well. It changed directions quickly by jumping up and kicking off tree trunks, and surmounted foliage by simply barreling through it while Chuck ducked low and I held on for dear life. I got the impression he was more suggesting directions than steering it, but the way the wranglers and their gunners hooted and hollered while the cliffords barked their heads off made it seem like everyone got max enjoyment out of the experience.

I suppose it was a bit closer to a motorcycle club in rowdiness than any kind of horse-riding club. At times, the hobbies were leaned so far forward I’m not sure how the cliffords didn’t topple ass over teakettle. Unlike the peaceful soaring of the glider, this close to the ground the sensation of speed was immense. As fast as I thought we were going, when we broke onto one of the goblin trails, Chuck really gave the dog its head and the thing tore down the straight-way, tongue lolling out to the side like a pennant. A look back through the canopy and I could see the bluff. We must have covered four or five kilometers already, which was not bad for creatures only about a meter tall.

Chuck finally slowed us up near a stream so the dogs could drink and the goblins could grab some wild onions from the bank. I knelt down at the bank and ran my hand through the water. The water was red-orange in color—much like the clay had been. Upstream were some higher hills in the distance, bordering on mountains. I thought for a moment, then cupped my hands and took a drink. There was definitely a metallic taste to the water. I ran a hand through my fur, considering.

“Chuck, where’s the river dump out?” I called.

He was ruffling the muzzle of his clifford, who was growling and chomping the air. Clearly the pair had built something of a bond, even if the dog got a firm punch on the nose whenever the chomps got a little too close to Chuck’s face. He glanced over at me. “Downstream,” he said.

Well obviously. I headed back over. “You been there?”

“Not yet.”

I headed back over to the hobbies and the dogs. “Let’s check it out.”

I climbed back up on the saddle of the clifford and waited while the rest of the crew got situated. Chuck pointed the dog vaguely southwest and gave it a smack to get it going. We tore down the river bed, scattering some critters and birds. I spotted a splash in the water and several fish jumped out on diaphanous fins—only to be snatched from below by a long-snouted reptile. My eyes went wide. I wondered if that was what had gotten my goblin the first time we tried fishing. It certainly looked big enough to drag one of my fishermen out into the water and then make a meal of it. Note to self, postpone the swimming lessons.

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I noted a possible pocket of clay along the way—based on a resident stone-sloth that we outpaced as it charged after us. The cliffords seemed to need no extra encouragement to avoid the large, clawed creature. It was, by far, the biggest one I’d seen yet, and had a high level to reflect its stature. A volley of rocks from the slingers might have discouraged it from following us too far, but I suspected it just hit the edge of its territory. The stream started to level out, and I caught a whiff of more stagnant water up ahead. The trees got shorter, and then turned more to tangled vines and twisted shrubbery.

Chuck called a halt, and I hopped down from the back of the clifford and rubbed my backside. While fast, the bony canines weren’t exactly the smoothest ride. My blades sank about five or six centimeters into the turf, and I could feel the resistance of moving through water underneath. Chuck swept some foliage out of the way and hissed.

“Bog,” he said. “This what you wanted to see, boss?”

“Sure is,” I said. He and one of the other hobbies held back branches and let me scramble underneath with a pair of slinger-toting goblins and go out into the bog. I was quickly in water up to my knees, pushing through the vegetation. The bog was wide and mostly open, with few, large trees offering broad cover from the heat of the day that turned the air into a humid mire. I could see the spot where the stream emptied out, as well as other slow flows on the other side. The water ran slow through the bog, and the entire thing was covered in a layer of mossy, mulchy vegetation.

Was this peat? I had only a vague idea of what peat really was. I hadn’t had a chance to read the bog-iron book Rufus had left on collecting metal from the swamp, but this seemed like a sound place to start looking once I had a better idea. I reached down and pulled up a handful of the loose matter. It was soaked through, matted, and woven together.

Once I got about waist-deep, something startled a flock of birds across the bog, and I watched them take flight. Underneath them, several of the mounds of peat—at least, what I hoped was peat, slid and slipped on ripples of something entering the water of the bog. Something big. I hadn’t read the bestiary, either. I slowly backed away, unable to see what had slid into the bog. If it was anything like the river monster that had snatched the flying fish, I didn’t want to tangle with it.

I kept my eyes forward for any sign of the creature, but I should have been watching where I stepped. An angry buzzing and snapping brought my attention around in a hurry.

“Boss, freeze!” shouted Chuck.

A small cloud of big bugs flew out of a hive in the peat that I’d apparently disturbed. I stood as still as I could, looking at the flying insects as they flew around, looking for something to take their aggression out on. They looked like some sort of wasp except they had two stingers. And as I watched, a tiny arc of electricity climbed up between the stings like a tiny Jacob’s Ladder. They were like some sort of lightning bug, except in a more literal sense. Mentally, I dubbed them tesla wasps. One of the goblins squawked and dropped his slinger in the drink, jumping and grabbing his backside.

I heard a buzz mounting behind me, and then a snap. A jolt of electricity arced through my little goblin ass, causing my leg remnants to spasm and dropping me face-first into the stagnant water. The thing had stung me and shocked me! I didn’t know what being tased felt like, but I had to imagine it was pretty similar. I let out a cry that bubbled under water and flailed around. I completely panicked when I saw a pair of luminescent eyes coming toward me in the murk and burst back above the water in a cloud of the agitated tesla wasps. Their disposition hadn’t improved any. My splashing attracted their attention, and I’m sure the volley of stones from the goblins on the bank of the bog didn’t calm things down.

Several of the tesla wasps swooped down, narrowly missing me with their sparking thoraxes. They came close enough for me to hear the snap and pop of the electricity between their stinger tines. Another one scored home high on my back and my right arm spasmed, luckily knocking aside another that was diving in on me—but then it went completely numb.

Something big burst out of the water near me with a snarl, and I looked behind to see something vaguely crocodilian, but with four eyes and thick, bulbous tongue. The System didn’t even bother assigning it a level, just a vague “??” over its head—probably its way of telling us we were completely outmatched. My other companion saw it, too, and leveled his slinger at it. He sent a stone arcing forward, but it sailed above the bog lizard’s head and skipped off the surface of the water.

Turns out, the croc-thing had a similar trick. It opened its mouth. The tongue shot out like it was spring-loaded, and I barely got out of the way. My companion wasn’t so lucky. The tongue had a knobby bit on the end, and it impacted the goblin’s forehead with a crack like an egg against a frying pan.

The goblin dropped below the water with a splash as the croc roared.

The wasps luckily switched to the bigger, louder target. They swooped down on the snarling bog monster with the hiss and pop of discharging voltage. That just made the thing angrier, and it thrashed about with tail and webbed claws while I made my escape with the remaining slinger goblin who would win no badges for marksmanship. I got stung/shocked twice more before I reached the bank of the bog and stumbled onto sort of dry ground. I gasped, fur dripping.

Chuck helped me to my feet, which were still shaky since my butt was still numb. “You had enough, boss?”

“Not nearly,” I said. I looked over my shoulder as the bog monster retreated beneath the water. “This place is awesome!”