Chapter 44 – Get Me Out of This Jungle
Believe it or not, the French invented hot-air ballooning several years before Orville and Wilbur launched the Flyer in Kitty-hawk. While the brothers were futzing with engines, French aeronauts had been floating over Burgundy under colorful canopies powered by the principles of air density for a century. But the Wright brothers had better marketing, so everyone remembers them.
The balloon lifted, and none too soon as the first daily scout glider appeared in the air. It caught the glint of the reflective lizard skin and swooped down close enough to see the goblin frantically waving the red banner back and forth before turning back to the southeast toward the bluff.
We had four color codes. White meant the operation was continuing. Blue meant we were continuing and would need an air delivery. Red meant immediate reinforcement in the form of hobgoblins. Black meant the mission was scrubbed. I didn’t want to have to heft the black banner.
“Alright,” I said to the assembled goblins. “They saw it. Start pulling him down.”
“eeeeeeEEEEE!”
Our aeronaut thumped head-first into the ground and rolled to a sitting position, rubbing the top of his head and grinning. The rest of the goblins cheered, and then looked at me expectedly.
I sighed. “Ok. One jump each, and then back to work. The tribe cheered and shoved and pushed to each be the first to shimmy up the rope for their turn at a swan dive. Some of them ran to the wagons for personal gliders to prolong their air time. I shook my head. Then I stopped and considered. I borrowed one of the gliders and shimmied up the rope myself. Climbing came naturally to me as a goblin. Even without legs, goblins could climb extraordinarily well. Climbing had never been my thing on Earth since I figured if I wanted to go higher I should work harder to become an astronaut.
Once I reached the top, I swung out onto the narrow platform under the balloon and unfurled the personal glider. The hide canopy caught the wind almost immediately and nearly pulled me off the platform. But I got the glider overhead, gripped the pole underneath, and tossed myself down.
The personal gliders the goblins fashioned for themselves weren’t like the night haunt soaring aircraft or Eileen’s heavy glider. They were somewhere between parasails and umbrellas in effectiveness. But it still let me get enough airtime to make a decent circuit of our immediate surroundings. The bog that began due north about a kilometer as seen from the air actually stretched west and then south, as well, making our tower location something of a peninsula intruding into the marsh. The marsh itself was much bigger than I’d initially expected, as well, stretching further west where another river emptied into it.
One positive aspect, I didn’t expect we’d get attacked from this angle. If humans wanted to come down from Habberport, they’d have to either come through the foothills to the northeast, or trek further south to avoid the marsh and come in from the southwest by skirting the edge of the plains south of the bluff land. The bog would slow down any force, and they’d be inundated with hostile fauna the entire way. But it was also a blind spot from the air. A lack of thermals over the bog and thick, humid air made for poor gliding. If a force did chance it, we’d have no way to spot them.
I circled west as I descended, careful to allow myself enough altitude to get back. Getting lower in altitude let me resolve a bit through the canopy, and I spotted an island in the bog with several crock-knockers basking in the mid-day sun through a break in the trees. If they knew we were here, they weren’t making any effort to leave the bog to pursue us.
As I circled south, I caught a flash of red in the trees. I drifted closer, and realized it was some of our missing cliffords running through the bog, I angled toward them for a closer look. If they hadn’t been eaten, it meant they’d just gotten loose and Chuck might be able to round them up. That was good news, as these ones were all trained up. Hell, maybe they’d just gotten spooked when something attacked the hobbies and I could lead them back to the camp.
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My breath caught. The System was not often quick or proactive to warn me of danger. I angled away, just in time for the cliffords to look back at me and open their mouths. A black shadow, or mist, or swarm of something flooded out of them and resolved into a vaguely dog-like shape that was about five times the size of the cliffords themselves. A low, reverberating growl filtered up from the canopy. I would have thought I was seeing things, except that the System was very quick to put an XX level above it, which was System’s way of saying not a chance in hell.
Nope, nope, nope. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I turned the glider all the way around and made for the tower construction as a spine-chilling howl rolled after me. Friggen bestiary was apparently right on the money. I looked back to make sure the weird shade wolf thing wasn’t following me. But it, and the cliffords, were gone. Somehow, that was more worrying. Something hadn’t eaten our animals. Something had apparently possessed them.
It wasn’t just us having problems. I had to remember that the bog expedition was just one arm of a multi-faceted plan to grow and advance the tribe. With the sun slipping behind Raphina, Village Canaveral would be fighting off lizards for the next few hours. The problems in the bog weren’t insurmountable. Sure, the ghost-cloud-wolf-swarm-thing was an issue. But it hadn’t affected any of the goblins on the lattice. In another day or two, we’d be off the ground and in a permanent tower.
I made a small circle of the camp before I landed. Sure, the bog seemed to be fraught with peril. But where wasn’t? Maybe the ifrit had more information about the dangers of the swamp. Once they made their way to Apollo, I could ask them. And I had my motor project, generator parts, rotary engine, and batteries to look forward to, as well. We were going to eat this elephant, one bite at a time. But it all hinged on success harvesting iron from this bog. And that was the next step.
I helped with the tower construction throughout the rest of the evening, which seemed mostly about keeping the goblins from sneaking away for more jumps on the balloon. It was almost a blessing when it ran out of gas (literally) towards sunset and began to sag back down to the ground. None too soon, as a rain started to fall and the wind to howl. Chuck and his wranglers arrived not long after and swung out of their saddles.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay overnight, boss?” he asked after I explained the situation to him. He ran a hand through his clifford’s fur, almost protectively.
“I’m sure,” I said. "We’ll have the sappers in the temporary lattice instead of on the ground in case anything goes wrong. I don’t want to risk more cliffords.”
Chuck relaxed and patted his mount on its muzzle. Despite his offer, it wasn’t difficult to see he was relieved about not putting his personal good boy on the line.
“Besides, I need you keeping tabs on the javeline movements. How are things at Apollo?” I asked.
Chuck grinned. “They tried again, but they broke quick when they hit the buried poppers.” He made an explosion noise and laughed, which spread throughout the village like a verbal meme. “Don’t think they’ll be back soon. Easier to hit other tribes first.”
I nodded. It was troubling that the javeline knew where our bluff was. But at least it was well-fortified. We had explosives as long as we had regular access to the bomb fruit orchards and the hot springs—at least until we stopped being able to collect sulfur.
System?
It was a finite resource, and we were burning through it with daily air delivery flights. I could alleviate the need for it somewhat with rechargeable batteries. “We need to get to those villages first. Any sign of our ifrit friends?”
“Not yet.”
I hadn’t expected there to be. It was likely Rufus wouldn’t even reach the city of brass to start negotiating with the king for at least another day or two.
“Alright,” I said. “Best head back. Thanks for the supplies.”
Chuck glanced at the rear seat on his saddle. “I could take you back, if you want. Sleep safe at the village.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ll turn the camp over to Hadfield once things are running. But I need to be here to deal with the challenges of the bog.”
“Just keep a couple scrappers close,” said Chuck, swinging back up into his saddle. He looked around, somewhat nervous. “Unnatural fer a goblin to nest on the ground, like this.”
The wranglers left. I had the expedition goblins drag the bags over to the lattice lift to haul anything edible up top. It was going to be a long night.