Chapter 89 - Healthy Competition

“Regroup!” I said. Keep distance!”

I didn’t know what I was dealing with here, but we were not ready to be facing cavalry in the middle of a fight we were already losing. Armstrong pulled us out about the time the thundercleave noticed the new arrivals. It bellowed out a warning, before turning and running again.

“Ready all guns and slingers!” I shouted as the badlands cavalry came on. But rather than angling for us, they shifted toward the thundercleave. As they did, I got a better look at the riders in profile. They weren’t human, that I could tell. They were shorter—maybe halfway between a hobgoblin and a human. They were lean and lanky, with long arms, and they each wore wraps around their heads to keep out the dust. Their saddles were minimal on the antelope, but still ornate and worked with beads and charms. Their weapons, likewise, were decorated with feathers, beads, and sported black metal blades.

One of the riders broke off, coming close enough to us get a look of his own. I saw the puzzled tilt of a head. Clearly not sure what he’d found, he yanked his reins around and kicked the sides of his mount back to rejoin the chase. At least he wasn’t immediately hostile

“Who are they?” I shouted down.

“Dunno, boss. Wot we doing?”

I considered, watching them spread out to flank the thundercleave and keep it from heading for a thicket of tall grass. They clearly knew their way around the plains.

“Follow them,” I said. “But keep your distance. Maybe we’ll learn something. They obviously think they can take down the thundercleave.”

Armstrong kicked the buggy back into gear and we shot off, with the other goblins following behind us. We maintained a respectful distance as the hunting troupe ahead of us got riders out ahead of the beast, casting back some sort of dust that made the thundercleave flinch and slow. It slowed enough for the larger of the hunting animals to draw close, and much to my surprise, hunters leapt from the tops of the bunkers onto the back of the thundercleave. These ones had thick, sharpened poles, and they wedged them down around the head and tusks of beast to arrest its head movement.

The beast, caught, tried to work its head loose. But couldn’t manage it. It tried to arc electricity between its tusks, but the poles must have had grounding wire, because the voltage just sparked off one tusk, and nothing else happened.

“Look at ‘em go,” said Armstrong, standing up in his station.

I climbed down closer to the engine. “Girmaks, you with us?”

“Indeed we have that privilege,”

“What are we looking at here? Elves?”

“No, King Ap. These are orcs. But it is rare to see them this deep in the interior.”

Orcs. Rufus had all but warned me about them, with their name for Rava translating to something like “To be trampled beneath our feet.”

Judging by how neat they’d trussed up the thundercleave, I wondered if they might not actually be capable of such a thing.

“Based on what Rufus said, I’m surprised they didn’t attack us,” I thought aloud.

“The orcs believe the Ifrit are spirits of their ancestors. They will not readily attack if they see blue flame in your company.”

I looked down at the pale blue glow. “Seriously? Do the Ifrit maintain this fiction?”

Girmaks flared with indignation. “Of course not, King Ap. The Ifrit have told them many times this is not truthful. But they do not believe.”

I looked out across the plain. The orcs had finished off the thundercleave and were beginning to process it. We held positions over the next hour as a large train of pack animals caught up with the hunting party and began to unpack. An impromptu camp was already starting to spring up around the carcass. Maybe they’d leave something for us—bone marrow or offal, or something. I wasn’t above scavenging like hyenas if it meant keeping the tribe fed.

“Why don’t the orcs believe you aren’t orc ghosts?” I asked.

“Orcs are cunning, and they believe the older the orc, the more cunning they become. Therefor, the spirits of elders must be the most cunning of all and would never admit to being who they were. Staunch refusals only stoke their conviction. A most vexing situation.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“It’s a classic catch-22,” I said, running a hand over the top of my fur. “So they won’t attack us?”

“Not readily,” said Girmaks. That wasn’t an absolute negative. But we had guns and buggies and almost a hundred goblins. We might not have had the proper tools to take down a thundercleave, but we’d been fighting javeline and I had to imagine weapons that had worked on the piggies would work well enough on an orc.

“Let’s go meet the new neighbors,” I said. “Maybe there’s parts of the ‘cleave they won’t want.”

Armstrong coughed. “Boss, is this is one ‘o them times I ought warn you it’s a bad idea?”

I looked up at the scrapper in charge of my Secretive Service.

“We’ll split if it turns ugly. But I want to know who we’re sharing the plains with.”

“I shall join you, if I may,” said Girmaks. “It may aid your entreaty to be perceived as under the demesne of a grandfather spirit.”

“I thought the Ifrit didn’t play to superstitions,” I said.

“They also did not fly or drive infernal engines. Yet, here we are.”

I got Girmaks’ bottle out of the saddlebag and held it up so the Ifrit could move from the engine to the brass vessel. Armstrong and several scrapper bodyguards came along, as well as the canonneer.

As we approached the orc camp being broken out, I noticed that the patrolling orcs regarded us not as threats, but as curiosities. They noted us, but didn’t challenge us. Honestly, after the reception of the javeline and the boglins, this was something of an unexpected change. I also saw that they each had a band tied high on their right arm. Many wore yellow and blue, others had red on black, and a few had more had various other color combinations. I didn’t know what it represented. Maybe rank or standing within the group? Many of them offered two fingers pressed to the side of their nose when they noticed the brass bottle. I took it to be a sign of respect.

“Strange they’re just letting us walk in here,” I said, looking around. The orcs were breaking out tents and tables and pulling freight down from the back of their larger mounts. “Looks like they’re staying a while.”

“A night, at least, little brother!” said a surprisingly feminine voice behind me. It was so unexpected that it almost startled me, like turning on the TV and having the volume suddenly way too loud might do. I turned to the speaker, who had dropped her face wraps to reveal a slate-colored face with yellow war paint marked beneath bright, copper eyes. A mane of jet-black hair covered her head. She had two spearmen behind her, both of whom had similar face paint. “Lura Sunskin, am I, hunt-chief of the Dawn’s Light team. Be welcome to my table, little brothers, but touch not, take not. A thing curious, is a goblin on the plains. More still when he talks and carries an elder spirit.”

“King Apollo. Charmed,” I said. “Gracious of you to welcome us. I have to admit, I’m surprised you’re so welcoming.”

The orc huntress rolled her head back and laughed. “What threat pose you, to we who stride the world? A time for honor and rivalry, this. We may not have seen the thundercleave if you had not its ire roused by strange, rolling artifice. I know not what tricks our elders play, but they have conspired such that I owe you the scout’s share. Come.”

Lura turned and walked back into the camp. Tents and pavilions of hide or cloth were already being raised against the sun. With the heat of the day beginning to bear down, it offered the hunters some shade to work in as they processed the ‘cleave. They were efficient in skinning and butchering the beast, with tanning frames ready and cookfires already starting to smolder. But the strangest thing, to me, was hearing them talk. From Rufus description, and their toad-like faces, I would have expected guttural, gravely voices and simple, brutish sentences capped with snarls. But Lura talked more like she was reading a classic play—or at least a high school drama club’s interpretation of a classic play.

“Few songs sing yet of goblin kings, and deeds done by they,” said Lura. “Tell me true, how many are you numbered?”

“We have over 100 on the plains,” I said, not wanting to give her an exact count. “And more in the jungle. But food is getting scarce. We came out here to hunt for livestock.”

Lura rubbed her protruding chin. “You come at ill time, little brother.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because in the midst of the Stampede, are we. The great hunt. All beasts upon the plains of Lanclova are hunt chief property claimed.” She nodded to the brass bottle. “We compete for the right to hunt them the year round.”

I bit my lip. “So you’re saying we can’t hunt the badlands because of this… Stampede event?”

“To do so, poaching it would be, little brother,” said Lura. She looked back at the thundercleave being strung up to have the blood drained into barrels. “Be glad twas my team which prevailed and not your kin. For the punishment would make you envious of our departed quarry. I give you the scout’s share in part so that you and I need not come to quarrel, for I do not wish the ire of the elder spirits, nor is there sport in the slaying of little brothers and sisters.”

My heart dropped. “So what you’re saying is, we’re screwed,” I said. “If we hunt while you’re hunting, other orcs will attack us.”

“Not all my kin are as magnanimous as I. Had it been the Sunless Shrine or the Hawk’s Due, you might have found yourselves ‘a cookpot lining, tiny king.”

There was silence for a moment. If you were listening closely, I’m sure you could have heard my heart break to learn that any attempt to feed my tribe would me met with outright hostility.

“There’s no way we could come to some agreement? Trade artifice for meat, maybe?” I asked.

The hunters with Lura laughed, but she merely shook her head. “You know not of orcs, I see. We do not trade. We take what we wish, have we the strength to do so. If your artifice we wanted, it would be ours.”

“So there’s nothing we can offer you?”

“As I said, you come at ill time.”

We stood, looking at one another for several seconds as I wracked my brain, looking for a solution. The orcs weren’t hostile, but they would quickly turn so if we persisted in hunting the badlands.

Lura seemed about to leave, when a small, brassy voice from between my hands split the silence.

“King Ap wishes to join the Stampede.”