Chapter 94 - Scaling New Heights

“I have something for you, Sourtooth,” I said.

The old orc followed me to the temporary motorpool where we had our newest functioning vehicle—mostly cobbled together from the remains of vehicles that had met their untimely end.

As the sun crept over the horizon, the red rays lit the ape-bars of a brand new chopper-style bike, built with the lanky proportions of an orc in mind. Sourtooth circled the machine, eying it suspiciously before climbing up into the seat and wrapping his hairy knuckles around the grips.

“What is the purpose of having so far extended these?” he asked.

“Style, comfort,” I said. I pointed to one of the wrangler bikes, where one of my secretive service hobbies was hunched over. “See how he has to lean forward? Yours is designed to let you lean back, instead. Kick that first pedal.”

Southtooth obliged, and the engine rumbled to life. Much stronger than a goblin, it seemed an orc would have no need for the starter rockettes in order to get a goblin engine to turn over. Figures. Sourtooth’s back straightened as the vibration mounted below him. “Little brother…”

Other orcs took notice of Sourtooth on his new chopper and wandered over, talking amongst themselves and pointing. One came forward with a brace of spears and stuck them into the open holders on the side, then hopped up on the back of the bike, ready to ride.

“Kick that second pedal,” I said.

Sourtooth obliged, and the bike started forward. Unfortunately, without hydraulic oils, I couldn’t do a grip throttle, but the leader of the Flock figured things out quickly enough, making a circuit of the camp. As he came back, I began to worry, assuming the orc was in some sort of pain—until I realized the withered expression on his face was probably the closest he ever got to a smile.

“Truly the elders have outdone their artifice. Much more practical, these, than brass bodies that walk on points.”

Other than supplying some brass and zinc parts, the Ifrit had very little to do with the creation of the vehicles—that was Earth knowhow and goblin tech tree chicanery. But I didn’t see the benefit in revealing that fact to Sourtooth.

“So, we should find that dart-wing today, right?”

“If luck rides with us, yes, little brother. Tell me truth, have flying beasts you fought before?”

I nodded. “Night haunts, er, skyenas I think they’re actually called. They try and steal goblins at night on the regular.” I spread my arms wide. “Leathery wings, beaks, claws. We’re getting pretty good at it.”

Soutooth rolled his head back and laughed. “I said beasts, not pests. Tis like boasting of skill in killing rats, little brother.”

I’m sure under the blue fuzz on my cheeks, I was blushing furiously. Sure, the night haunts might not be much of an obstacle for a party of leveled-up orc hunters, but the memory of being a tribe only 10th the size was still fresh on my mind, and I don’t know if I’d ever forget the terror of seeing one for the first time. Still, we’d managed that with little more than sharp sticks and flint cleavers. And since then, we’d only gotten stronger. Sourtooth claimed the dart-wing was easier than a whistler or a thundercleave. In fact, we were going after it specifically because it was weak. How difficult could it be?

The orcs began to ride out, and we followed on our buggies with our lone monocycle rider weaving dangerously between. Once we got up to speed, I ordered the kites deployed, and goblins on tethered gliders caught the wind and ascended to altitude for scouting. Behind us, the band of rival hunters keeping tabs on our progress mobilized as well. I could see the dust trails rising in the air.

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The riding oryx our pursuing orcs favored were strong, sturdy animals with good endurance and long legs. They had no trouble keeping pace with us as we rode towards noon. When the rest of the wranglers and scrappers began to wake up from where they dozed in the back of the BHR, we drove close enough for Chuck to climb over. He took my spot at the controls—not that we needed a driver, as Girmaks was proving to be more than deft as a pilot. The Ifrit seemed to have very little learning curve when it came to transitioning from the multi-legged clockwork proxies to internal combustion-driven vehicles with wheels. The buggies had become more than mere extensions of their fiery bodies.

The kite goblins began to squawk a short while after that, and following their direction, we changed course and came up on a dead creature laying on the gravel flat. Sourtooth hopped down from his chopper and probed the beast. I climbed down with Chuck and Armstrong and took a look as well.

The creature on the ground was pretty big—at least twice the size of a stone-sloth. It had been disemboweled so that whatever killed it could get at the soft innards, but there were curious yellow spikes sticking out of it. I waved away the cloud of flies and took hold of a spike. It took both hands to yank it out. It looked like a crossbow bolt, but close inspection revealed it was a feather—albeit one with a barbed quill and symmetrical fringe. I handed it up to Chuck.

He grunted. “Well, they are called dart-wings.”

“I thought that just meant they were fast,” I said. “Make sure everyone’s wearing armor before we start up again, yeah?”

“Good as done,” said Chuck. He left to wrangle the rest of the goblins to start putting on their vests.

Sourtooth examined the carcass. “Definitely our girl,” he said. “Good color to these quills, and no maggots. The guts still hold heat. Not yet an hour’s past this feast. Sluggish and heavy, she. Headed to the deep desert to sleep off her dinner. We yet stand to catch her before she makes the dunes.”

Armstrong tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the carcass.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Lotta good eating on there still,” he said.

Admittedly, I was trying to ignore my own mouth watering at the smell of the kill. Funny how quickly I was leaving the old trappings of humanity behind and looking at fly-covered roadkill with hungry eyes, now. As a human the sight would have turned my stomach. I glanced at Sourtooth.

He shrugged. “Haste behooves a hunter, tarry not long.”

I turned back to Armstrong. “Not so much that they get lethargic,”

Armstrong grinned and whistled, and a collective cheer raised from the convoy. The goblins swarmed the remains, and after a few minutes of what sounded like electric saws whining, they were loading cleaned bones onto the back of the buggies for later use.

Sourtooth, again, shook his head.

We got on the move again, but this time I climbed up onto the buggy with the Stampede rule-keeper and sat in front of the orc, facing back. If Sourtooth was old, this orc was ancient, looking more like a gnarled old willow trunk than a hunter. She had deep-lined folds of skin on her face, with closed eyes that sat deep under a ridged brow, which itself rested in the shadows of a deep hooded robe.

She’d shrunk in age, little bigger than a hobgoblin now I got close. As she sat cross-legged on the top of the buggy, she worked several sets of beads in her hands made from bones, stones, colored clay, carved wood, and twists of leather or string.

“I’m Apollo,” I said.

“Is that so?” she asked. “Strange thing, a goblin named. A king of the little brothers yet more. Why the elders have blessed you, I know not.”

I waited to see if the orc would say more, but he didn’t. I bit my lip. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Keepers have no names in the Stampede, little brother. To remain neutral, we. Call upon each of us as such, and by nothing other.”

“Alright, Keeper. So, you’re in contact with all the other Keepers, right? Is it a type of magic?”

“A simple spell,” said Keeper. She held up the beads. “Each of these twinned, responds in kind.”

For the first time I noticed several of the beads on the string were spinning on their own. I reached out to touch the beads, but Keeper slapped my hand away. There was no malice in it, and she didn’t even scold me, just kept the same impassive, closed-eyed expression.

“Sorry,” I said, shaking the sting out of my fingers. “Other than the Ifrit, I haven’t seen anything especially magical. I’m just curious. Is this communication spell instant? Or does it have some sort of delay, like a radio transmission? Not that you’d know what that is, I suppose.” I scratched my head. “For that matter, does it go through rock or water as easily as air? If I had a radio tuner, do you think I could I somehow tap into it? What was the bit-rate of information sent through the beads, and could it be optimized with a compression algorithm?”

Keeper opened one eye and regarded me, then closed it again without response.

“Fine,” I said, annoyed. “How are the other teams doing?”

“The Dawn Light have caught the trail of a Spinesnake and pursue it with all haste. The Blood Gorger scouts have just located the same creature from a different angle. Talon’s Talons have just lost the trail of a Gaiwyrm, and must circle back. The Hallowed Spears have just been rebuffed by a Vindleclaw and are licking their wounds before a second attempt they make.”

“Got all that just from twirling some beads?” I asked.

Keeper sighed deeply. I decided to leave well enough alone—and none too soon, as one of the glider goblins raised the alarm, and I shaded my eyes in order to spot a black splotch surging up into the sky.

We’d found the dart-wing, and we were gaining on it.