Chapter 96 - Reckless Rifles

Swoosh-whump!

A shell went flying out the front of Armstrong’s cannon as a blast of exhaust sprayed out behind. Fire rippled up and down the line of buggies, and only one of them burst into flame. I’d consider that a huge success for untested designs. Most of the shells went wide, bursting harmlessly in the air. A few struck home in the leathery wings of our target, and small chutes deployed.

The weapons we’d mounted to the buggies were an old anti-tank technology that I’d co-opted for big game hunting. Recoilless rifles look and function a lot like rocket launchers—a big shell comes out the front and a jet of exhaust comes out the port in the back. But, as their name would suggest, they have more in common with traditional firearms. In this case, the payload wasn’t a rocket, but a self-contained iron shell with a hook in the front and a secondary charge in the back that deployed a small braking parachute. Individually they wouldn’t slow the dartwing much. But as they started to increase in number…

I heaved the action on the recoilless rifle open and pulled out the steaming expended primer case before dropping another one in place. Additional shots whooshed out from other buggies as well. Armstrong adjusted his aim and fired again, this time striking home. The dartwing’s glide began to falter with the additional drag pulling at its lithe, otherwise aerodynamic body.

“We’re in it now, boss!” shouted Armstrong. “Get after ‘er!”

The dartwing hissed back at us, now flapping its wings in frustration to maintain altitude instead of gliding. It reared back and ripped two of the chutes out, snapping the lines. But for each one it pulled, two more goblins landed hits. The beast began to lose lift and entered its dive. But the chutes worked to blunt its impact, and the wave of dust and quills was noticeably blunted.

Not entirely blunted, of course.

The bark of lever guns sounded somewhere to my left, and a crossbow bolt whistled in front of my face. I looked over to see the orcs of the Blood Gorgers closing in on our flank.

“Sourtooth!” I shouted.

The old orc glanced over and his face twisted into a laugh. He yanked his handlebars and moved to intercept, and two buggies with his orcs aboard followed suit.

“They move to intercede! The Gorgers must draw close to their own kill. They fear we might actually have a chance this beast to bring down first! At them!”

Girmaks swerved us left to avoid the dust cloud and brought us over to shore up the flank. I shouted over at Neil, who was commanding a special new vehicle, not unlike the Big Hoss Rig in size but of very different purpose.

“Keep the rig safe, Neil! And keep hitting the dartwing!” I shouted, before Girmaks carried us into the melee.

The orcs had reached our line on the left, close enough to see their face paint. The Blood Gorgers all had a red splatter painted across the lower half of their faces, with blood-red stained cloths tied around their arms. One of them threw a spear at Sourtooth, but the old orc steered back away and returned fire with his new rockette pistol. The shell took the gorger in the shoulder and knocked him out of his saddle. He rolled through the dirt, before coming to a stop and beginning to laugh. But there were more ready to replace him.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Armstrong picked up his double-barreled lever gun, detached from the original stone-sloth mount we’d ridden against the javeline. He fired on the orcs as they closed in, The first of the orcs began to leap atop the buggies. Guns were dropped in favor of cleavers and spears, but the orcs were terrific infighters, nimble, coordinated, and quick. They struck with daggers in close while those still riding oryx probed with spears from the backs of their mounts.

The buggy shifted, and I whipped my head around to find one of the Blood Gorgers had managed to get onto our buggy. He kicked the rear gunner off the back of the buggy and pulled a dagger out from between his teeth.

I had expected him to snarl in rage, but instead, his eyes lit upon me and he grinned. “Ah, little brother king! How find you the Stampede? A lark most bracing, yes?”

I was so stumped for words that I just looked at the orc. Behind us, I heard the whump of the dartwing attacking again somewhere in front of the buggy, and then three feather quills appeared in the Blood Gorger’s chest. He looked down at them curiously, ran his fingers over the fletching, and then tipped off the back of the buggy. But more were charging in on oryx, ready to board for close combat—until the zealots hit them.

And when I say hit them, I mean hit them. The Buggy plowed into the line of oryx, engine and occupants screaming. What goblins didn’t go flying into the desert were quick to swarm onto the backs of the oryx, weapons raised as the cumulative combat bonus from their fervor skill let them fight toe-to-toe with the much stronger orcs—at least with a significant numbers advantage. Armstrong fired his rifle, and I threw several of the poppers we had onboard. It sounded like being caught in the middle of a Midwest thunderstorm.

I spotted one of their members further back, speaking to a keeper on the back of an oryx. That orc raised a horn to his lips and blew a low blast. The Blood Gorgers, whose main goal had been to distract and delay, withdrew from the melee. But was that because they were badly outnumbered? Or because their own team elsewhere was close to securing their own quarry?

Sourtooth seemed to share my concerns. He pulled back to speak with our own keeper, and then moved up to the side of my buggy. “Tis now or never at all, little brother mine. When it launches again, we strike!”

“Right,” I said. I whistled to get Neil’s attention. My taskmaster looked over at me from the back of his vehicle and nodded. His driver came close enough for me to make the transition. Ideally we’d have slowed the dartwing with more of the small chutes, but the Blood Gorgers simply didn’t give us the opportunity. Together, Neil and I pulled the dust cover off the second part of the plan.

The weapon on the back of the buggy crewed by Neil’s most fanatical hunters wasn’t a recoilless rifle. We finished removing the dust cover and threw it into the wind to reveal a rack of two large rockets with a terrifying new addition: cockpits. While I hadn’t expected a shortage of volunteers, I hadn’t expected a practical civil war to erupt over who got to be the ones to strap in. The S&M club smacked and bit and pulled at each other, until two finally managed to get to the top of the pile and tumble into the small seats, laughing maniacally.

I locked eyes with Neil. “No time for speeches,” I said. “They know what’s to be done?”

Neil nodded and opened a small tinderbox to reveal two glowing coals. I reached in and grabbed one, thankful for the heavy hide gloves I’d donned to act as loader for Armstrong’s recoilless rifle. The material hissed and I could feel the heat through it. I moved back to the rear of the rockets as the hunters made a hole. Neil and I nodded to each other, and we touched the coals to the igniters at the back of the rockets. They fizzled for a moment, and for a few terrifying seconds, I worried that I’d gotten the liquid mixtures wrong.

The sputtering sparks turned into a roaring jet of flame. I held a hand against the heat, and the two rockets and their unfortunate pilots shot off the racks and toward the dartwing, just as it launched back into the air.

The goblins still aboard the buggy all held their hands above their heads, whistling and making the sign of the moon above their heads.

This was it.