Chapter 88 – Accidental Animal Husbandry
I blearily selected yes. The new screen flashed in front of my eyes with a set of sliders underneath labels for all my unlocked variants. I played around for a minute, watching as dragging one slider up or down influenced the rest. Not all variants were equal, it seemed. The igni and the canoneers required more of the total variant capacity, while taskmasters required more, still.
I dragged the slider for canoneers down to the lowest it would go, closed the window, and went back to sleep.
I woke up some time later, still sleepy and contented from the meal the night before. Starlight filled the opening in the top of the tower, with the barest glow of dawn gilding the eastern horizon. The tower swayed back and forth, pushed by wind. I think the motion was what had woken me up. I wasn’t worried about it tipping over since we’d secured it with cords staked down at each of the four corners. I mumbled to myself and rolled over on the top of the pile. I could get at least another hour’s worth of sleep in before we got the convoy on the move.
Wha…?
A particularly stiff gust hit the side of the tower, and I heard the lines part with a snap. The whole thing tipped dangerously, becoming a tunnel of squawking, startled goblins as sleeping mounds all shifted to one side. That, of course, accelerated our rotation. I shouted in surprise as I went zero-g for half a heartbeat before the tower collapsed.
Panicked, screeching goblins worked to extricate themselves from the nets and iron and wood that had quickly turned from fortress to prison. I tried to free myself from the sleeping net, and eventually resorted to simply biting through the cordage to get free from the tangle and out into the early morning light.
Goblins poured out of the collapsed BHR tower like ants scurrying out of a compromised hill, confused and disoriented in the dark. The hoppers we’d sequestered in the bottom of the tower all bolted, seeing their chance at freedom. They raced into the darkness, collectively shrieked in alarm, and then they came racing back through the camp, knocking goblins aside as they decided we were better than whatever they’d found waiting.
Slowly, a lumbering shadow resolved, pawing at the downed tower. I squinted to get a closer look, and then held my hands up agains the sudden glare as an arc of electricity split the night between two massive tusks from a white, shaggy creature. It was like someone had taken a mammoth, then taken away the trunk and squished it down shorter and wider and bleached its fur. It hunched down on wide paws with stubby toes.
It caught sight of us for the first time as well, flinching back in confusion. Numbers resolved over its head. 36. The bio-electric arc cut off, and the creature faded back into shadow.
One of the goblins got ahold of a rifle, and I heard the crack of a shot splitting the early morning. The—what had the System called it, a Thunder-cleave?—shied back, growling. Another crack followed, and the beast growled in response. A small silhouette ran out in front of the beast with its hand raised. It tossed what it held, and the flash of a popper exploded against the animal’s tusk in a brief, bright flash.
The thunder-cleave took a half-jump back, planted its feet, and lowered its head.
“Uh oh,” I said.
The bioelectricity snapped again, igniting an arc of what must have been extremely high voltage between the tips of the two tusks. Its front paws flexed, digging up earth, and its massive shoulders hauled the thing forward as it charged through the camp.
Most of the goblins got out of the way. The few that didn’t scramble out of its path in time were caught in the bolt between its tusks. I saw a brief flash of big-headed skeletons, and then all that remained were rapidly expanding clouds of blue fur.
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“Move, move!” I shouted.
The thunder-cleave tore past, swinging its head in a wide arc, and I managed to dive down and avoid being trampled under its wide front paws and rear hooves. I bounced on the ground with the impact of its massive footfalls, covering my head as it bounded over me.
Not interested in sticking around, apparently, the gigantic beast plowed through one of the trikes, smashing the vehicle into a cartwheel that shredded it from the force of the spin. The thunder-cleave shadow receded into the night as its footfalls continued to resonate through the hard-pack ground.
I climbed to my feet, knees shaking, and stared after the retreating shadow. I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders, steadying me.
“Boss! Boss, you alright?”
“Armstrong?” I asked, staring up at the hobgoblin. I shook my head to clear it, then shook his hands off my shoulders. “To the vehicles!” I shouted. “Everything we’ve got, move, move!”
The disoriented goblins snapped to attention like my voice had jolted them as bad as a tesla wasp. It was close enough to morning that we hadn’t been put into a sleepless stupor, and they were hungry. The crowd of disheveled, rudely awakened goblins piled into the buggies and the roar of engines started to split the night. I hauled myself up onto one of the four-wheeled buggies and looked around.
“Where are the wranglers?” I asked.
“No good to anyone, woken up like they was,” said Armstrong, swinging into the driver’s station. Much to my dismay, a canoneer seemed to have been born overnight before I could de-prioritize them, and he scrambled into the seat to my left with a handful of crumpled paper and a charcoal stick.
Armstrong dropped a rockette in the starter. “Lucky my boys went down early, so at least we got scrappers.”
“It’ll have to do,” I said.
“You don’t mean to chase that fing, do ya?” he shouted over the roar of the starter.
“Heck yeah, I do. System let me see its level. Which means we should be able to take it down.”
Armstrong threw the buggy in gear and we peeled out, chasing the receding shadow of the thundercleave. We may have lost the extra hoppers we’d kept in the base of the tower, but this thing was big game. I bet it could feed the whole tribe for a month. Maybe longer. Not to mention it had more bioelectricity, like the wasps. Only this wasn’t enough to just shock a goblin, it was enough to vaporize one. Millions of volts. Which meant that electricity had to be stored, channeled, insulated from the rest of the creature, and eventually released. That meant natural capacitors. And if I could figure out a way to release it gradually, instead of all at once? Well, that would make a fine battery.
The sun crept over the horizon ahead of us as we pursued the thundercleave. It looked back at the wedge of vehicles behind us and howled, before lowering its head and charging away.
“Keep after it!” I shouted.
Armstrong floored the accelerator. Luckily we’d fueled up the vehicles the night before—the ones that didn’t need critical fixing. Surprisingly, the mono-cycle had survived its encounter with the bladed buggy, and rolled along right next to me, piloted by one of the leather-bound S&M club goblins.
On my other side, a half-dozen bikes, trikes, and buggies made up the bulk of the fleet. Slowly, we started gaining on the thundercleave. It must have realized it wasn’t going to outrun us, so it spun around, claws dragging deep furrows in the ground.
“Slingers ready!” I yelled. “Here it comes!”
I worked the crank on my own buggy’s heavy slinger along with 3 other goblins, and we got the payload in place as the thundercleave dug its paws in and lurched toward us.
“On my signal!” I shouted as I cranked.
The other vehicles must have thought that was the signal, because most of them launched their payloads. Cast nets shot skyward from several vehicles, while others launched rocket-propelled poppers. Any goblin with a gun fired it, and even the mono-cycle goblin leaned out with a pistol and took a pot shot.
Most of the nets fell short, but as the thundercleave began to charge, one managed to get tangled between its paw and right tusk, and it stumbled. Armstrong jerked his wheel to the side as the bulk of the thing tipped mid-charge and it rolled over, right where we’d have been in another second.
Three goblins shouted war cries and leapt from the buggy, catching the thundercleave by locks of its thick, shaggy fur. They climbed it, trying to keep their balance, and attacked it with spears, cleavers, and knives. Its fur was, unsurprisingly, an absolute deterrent to the close quarters weaponry. We weren’t going to take this thing down by stabbing it.
The thing pushed to its feet, shaking to try and dislodge the goblins on top. 2 of them flew free, while the other managed to stick his spear deep enough to lodge it, and held on for dear life as he whipped like a flagpole.
The thundercleave growled, and the lightning began to arc between its tusks again. It reared up on its back legs, and then dropped into a charge at the circling vehicles.
The goblins in its path scattered in a dusty scramble as wheels spun out. One trike wasn’t so lucky, and the ‘cleave managed to plant a heavy paw on the back quarter of it as it ran past, flipping the trike and crushing a few of its riders.
The rest of the goblins bailed out as the thundercleave wheeled around, digging its tusks down and tossing the wreckage into the air, where it spun before crashing back down. All the while, gunfire rang and poppers popped against its hide, to little avail.
I cursed to myself. This thing was flesh and blood. We could kill it, but not with what we had here. We needed heavier ordnance. Cannons might do the trick, maybe heavier rockets. But varmint rifle rounds? Might as well have been BB guns and slingshots.
“Pull back!” I said. “Make sure we get the Ifrit out of that wreck,”
“Boss! Dust cloud! Something’s coming!” shouted Armstrong as he swung us around close enough for the stunned fire spirit to jump from the destroyed truck into our own engine.
I stood up at the gunner’s station, watching as a wedge of large, horned creatures barreled towards us on four hooves, with larger creatures interspersed with the pack. They looked like muscular antelope. But that wasn’t what worried me.
They had riders.