Chapter 90 - A Hunter Past Prime

I looked down at the brass jar in my hands with the tiny blue flame licking out of the open throat. I like to think I recovered quickly.

Lura pursed her lips. “Impossible. Goblins have no standing to join the Stampede.”

“It is my standing as a grandfather spirit which grants claim.”

Lura Sunskin looked uncomfortable. “Elders are, of course, able to join the Stampede—but not so late in the season. The bones whence cast dictate the counting of the hunt chiefs. They will not brook more—lest discord grow within the cadence of the spirits and the Stampede. Such a thing is taboo. You know this.” She shook her head. “It is too late in the season for a new team to be founding.”

“Is it his right or not?” I asked.

Lura chewed her lip. “It is,” she admitted. “You carry the elders with you and honor the hunt—even if your methods of artifice are strange. Eligible, if ill-favored, this makes you. A conundrum.” She considered, working through the idea in her head. “But another team so grows the competition, thus stacks my glory ever higher when I the victor am named. Perhaps there is yet another way. Come with me.”

We followed Lura deeper into the camp. Most of the orcs weren’t strong individually. Lura herself was only level 12, and most of the orcs ranged from 7-15. But they worked together with a level of coordination and diligence that put goblins to shame. It seemed they operated off pure muscle memory, as most of their time was spent in raucous laughter after telling each other jokes or anecdotes. Some worked with weapons, practiced riding in formation, and I could already make out the ring of a hammer on iron.

I also spotted several totems lining the camp, and stopped to examine one with the skull of a creature I didn’t recognize cresting it.

System, can you tell me what this is?

Do the orcs have their own tech tree?

Is it compatible with ours?

Interesting.

“Dawdle not, Apollo,” warned Lura

I double-timed it to keep up. We crossed over to what seemed to be the workman’s portion of the camp, already choked with coal-fire smoke and the smell of oils and lye. It was here I saw the metalworkers forging and mending equipment, as well as other artisans making arrows, saddles, clothing, dyes, and various other sundries.

Off in the corner, a shaded table sat beneath a stretched hide, where a half-dozen orcs hunched over mugs spread across a low field table between them. Some of them had armbands of grey and white, others no armbands at all. Most had the lopsided muscle of smiths, clearly stronger on their hammer-hand side with corded muscle and faces framed by forge soot.

One of them, larger and higher leveled than the rest, looked up and scowled at Lura’s approach, then looked at us and scowled. Then looked back into his mug and scowled even deeper. One of his teeth was cracked and blackened, and his lips were drawn back over that side as though it pained him. His hair had gone mostly grey, with only a few black patches remaining in the bundle of locks bound behind his shoulders.

“Lo there, dawn huntress,” said one of the other orcs, whose cheeks and nose had gone red. “This is a Flock table, and your own ought you find.”

Lura leaned in. “And gone ought you get, little Wormwood spawn, for Sourtooth’s ears my words are. Difficult you’ll find it to jest through tusks clipped and nose awry.”

Jesus. I had expected a grunting, guttural exchange of limited vocabulary. Did all orcs talk like a drama club who just discovered Shakespeare?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Be off with you, Lura,” said the older orc, hunching lower over his cup. “Poor enough the season cut short, without your come to gloat of fresh killing.”

“Sour words from a sour orc spill forth, proven lies before reaching the ground. These little brothers wish to join the Flock—unless a stubborn old orc prefers continuing to turn out nails, rings, and oryx shodding to the wind through his locks.”

The orcs leered over the table at us, as though noticing us for the first time. Then they all burst into laughter. The only one not laughing was Sourtooth as he glared daggers up at the huntress. Lura waited for them to finish.

The old orc reached under the low table and dragged out his stump of a leg, thumping the remnant and a crude, peg prosthetic, on the top of the table, overturning two drinks in the process. “It seems the morning star of the dawn hunt has forgotten. Numbered are my hunting days. One who cannot ride, cannot run, and cannot leap? Cannot stride the world, he. And now goblins, you bring to replace my hunters lost? This jest is salt rubbed deep in fresh wounds, Lura, and insult so easily offered may not be as easy forgiven.”

I looked at the remnant of his leg, severed raggedly just above the ankle. His peg leg wasn’t much better. It was poorly balanced, and slightly too short for him. Likely he’d walked with a terrible limp ever since he’d gotten it, which based on the bruising under the strap, had been fairly recently.

Of my own initiative, I bounded up onto the table, knocking a few more drinks over and putting my own prosthetic blades on full display.

A couple of the orcs shied back, startled. But Sourtooth stared. Even without lower legs, I’d jumped up the half-meter or so to the field table—fully half my own height—and landed without a stumble.

“Clear off, lads,” Sourtooth finally said. He scowled at Lura. “And back to your skinners, you. Think you not that I see your ambitions?”

Lura Sunskin bowed out with a grin. “My work here is done, then. I shall set eyes on you afield, elder.”

The old orc waved her off and then craned his neck to make sure she’d gone before gesturing me closer.

“Far too clever, she, for an orc so young.” He leaned in and squinted at my prosthetics. This is no orc artifice,” he said, peering at the spring-steel blades. “From where came these feet of steel?”

“My Igni made them,” I said. “And I can make you one, as well.”

Sourtooth massaged his thigh, digging long, lean fingers deep into the knobby muscle. “Would be a waste of fine steel to do so. But Igni… and scrappers aside, unless my mark be untrue. And…” he narrowed his eyes at the canoneer. “whatever that one be. your tribe numbers higher than the gaggle what suns south of the Stampede.”

“Yes,” I said. “And they’re hungry. They’re hunting and fishing, but they haven’t taken to farming. I need to hunt the plains, and I can’t hunt the plains because I’m not part of your Stampede. If you quit because of your injury…”

Sourtooth huffed. “Not the injury you can see, little brother. I retired when the whistler that took my leg cleft the souls from the bodies of my hunters’ mounts numbering 20 and 9. Near 3-dozen oryx to the spirits gone, and half again as many riders, leaving a hollow shell of a once-proud team.”

“Rough accident,” I said.

“Twern’t such.” The orc spat on the ground. “Braced between the hammer and Lura’s hunters, my team under foot was forced.”

“Ah,” I said. “That’ll do it.” Explained why the orc hated Lura, at least. I had to imagine orc hunters were a bit like corporate lawyers—cut throat and quick to blame the victims of their cruelty.

“I don’t expect a goblin to understand loss.”

I thought of Dave Sanders and Sandy Davis. I thought of my dad, who never got to see me be an astronaut (though maybe it’s best he didn’t see his son explode). I thought of after the accident, when people I’d long thought were my friends never even tried to reach me in the hospital, or in physical therapy. And I thought of how my dreams had been dashed until NuEarth headhunters came along.

“I understand it,” I said. “I can’t give you back everything you’ve lost. But I’ve got a hundred hungry goblins atop self-propelled chariots and they all want to eat. And I can give you a new leg. Like mine. We can scout, we can chase, we can even fly.”

Sourtooth shrugged.

“Plus, with my craftsmen and your forges, I can build you a motorcycle,” I said.

“What’s that?”

I revved my hands. “It’s got two wheels, it’s loud, and its fast.”

“Is it safe?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “You’re likely to kill yourself learning to ride it. But…” I pointed to his peg leg. “… you’ll only need one foot.”

“Welcome to the Flock,” said Sourtooth. He looked up into the air. “Grandfather spirit?”

‘Advanced’ goblin devices. There was an oxymoron.

My tribemates behind me slipped into a stupor for a moment as their little goblin brains absorbed the new changes.”

Sourfang shivered and pushed to his feet. “Always sends my flesh a shiver to see that happen—the goblin king skill transfer.”

I looked at the old orc. “You’ve seen goblin kings before?” I asked.

“Of course. The humans and elves as a nuisance see your kind to be stamped out on sight. But Kelem has many tribes, and on occasion does a king emerge from within their ranks. Of course, we do the sensible thing and kill them ‘fore they get strong enough to threaten.” He slapped me on the shoulder and grinned, broken tooth looming in his smile. “Fortune favors you, we are not in Kelem, little brother.”

I swallowed.

I suddenly didn’t feel very fortunate.