Chapter 97 - Stage 2

The plan to bring down the dartwing wasn’t the only thing with 2 stages. As the rockets climbed up and away toward the flying serpent, they carried with them two lines on reels locked to the front of the rig. I could just make out the tiny figures in the cockpits maneuvering the missiles as best they could, considering the circumstances. The liquid fuel began to sputter out, and then the back half of the missiles fell away.

With the first stage successfully separated, the second stage motors kicked on, and the icky-putty power pumped the smaller delivery vehicles with the needed energy to climb up above the dartwing’s altitude. The serpent hissed, eyes up, tracking the new threat. It wheeled to the left, trying to evade, but the drogue chutes slowed it down, and one of the two rocket pilots course corrected. The other struggled to bring his craft in line.

“Come on, come on!” I shouted. The reels on the rig shrieked as they played out the cord. Overhead, the two rockets caught up with the dartwing. The first pilot bailed out, deploying a personal glider that carried him up and away from the rocket, just before its payload exploded. A wide net, courtesy of the Flock, spread out, and just missed the dartwing. It dropped, and Neil slashed the line coming out of the reel that had been connected to it before it could tangle in the vehicle’s axles.

The second rocketeer got his craft back on track—but didn’t bail out. He screamed toward the dartwing on a column of sickly-brown exhaust smoke. The two converged in the air, and then another explosion… and no glider.

The dartwing flailed in the air as the second net wrapped about its wings, tangling and driving the creature to the ground. This time it fell, rather than diving. It hissed and shrieked as it came down, twisting in the air, until it landed on the badlands with a whump. By this time, the goblins had learned to duck, and we didn’t lose any more to the quill barrage.

“Let’s go!” I shouted, pointing at the downed creature. “Finish it!” It was down, but not out. My mouth was already salivating at the thought of how much meat was on that thing. We’re talking snake fillets, we’re talking wing meat, we’re talking shoulder roasts.

A horn blast sounded from one of the vehicles at the back of the convoy. I looked back, and the blood drained out of me as I saw the orc keeper with a ram’s horn in one hand and her beads raised high in the other. Sourtooth brought his bike nearby, and I didn’t need to hear the words that passed between them to know we were too late. Sourtooth’s dark glower said it all.

The Blood Gorgers’ interference had delayed us just long enough from bringing the dartwing down, and someone else had managed their kill first. If it was Lura, then that would mean the Stampede was effectively over, as she’d have more points than anyone would be capable of overtaking. Unbelievably, I had to root for the jerks who had just attacked us.

I had Neil drop our buggy back alongside the orc leader.

“Sourtooth, who got it? Are we still in this thing?”

The old orc looked at me. “The Blood Gorgers claimed a kill. Onward the Stampede marches, little brother.”

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I breathed a sigh of relief. Then glanced at the dust plume from where the dartwing had fallen. “At least my tribe won’t go hungry for a while,” I muttered.

“We must free her of those binding ropes,” said Sourtooth.

I snapped my head around. “What?! But we have her!”

Sourtooth shook his head. “Forbidden to claim a totem outside given time. To do so is to rob another team of hunting. This law is ironclad, and violated would see us thrust from the Stampede.”

I threw my hands in the air. “So all that work, the goblins I lost, and the resources we spent, and it’s all for nothing?”

“Tis the way of things, little brother. The strong prevail and whine not. Come, we must free her and join the slayer’s camp.”

The rest of the Blood Gorgers were already headed south. I had the convoy stop up while a few of us went on to where the dartwing had landed. Trapped on the ground, it didn’t look like such a monstrous threat, coiled and caught. System had let me see its level, finally, and a luminous 43 hovered over it. This was one of the winged creatures the bestiary had only alluded to, and there were much stronger threats further into the desert. But it was the toughest thing we’d brought down to date, and we weren’t even going to get to eat it.

It glared at us, even as we cut the binding lines off the nets and allowed it to slither free. It didn’t attack us as we did so. Some part of it must have known that we no longer intended to kill it. With a final hiss and ruffling of feathers, it sprung back into the air and headed towards the dunes on the horizon.

Sourtooth sighed, shaking his head. “There’s no catching her in the desert, little brother. We must regroup and plan anew. Come. We shall see if the Gorgers quarry is of their name worthy.”

It was with some reluctance that I piled on the scattered bits of the vehicles we’d lost onto the backs of the buggies and headed south after the detachment of Blood Gorgers. It wasn’t until the sun had dropped nearly to the horizon that we came in sight of the Stampede camp, centered around a massive carcass. The celebration was already in full swing, with the red-faced Blood Gorgers getting a head start on the merriment. I left Chuck in charge of getting our corner of the camp set up and followed Sourtooth into the encampment.

“Little brothers!” I heard one of them shout, and the rest pointed and cheered. One of them sauntered over, grinning. I recognized him as the leader from the detachment that had hounded us. “Well fought, ‘neath the spreading of the dartwing’s shadow. Had we dallied but a few heartbeats more, we might have been feasting on snake tonight, instead! Taste in our victory.”

He handed down a handful of dripping meat wrapped in a flatbread like a gyro, the smell of which made my mouth fill with saliva. I reached out, half expecting him to rip it away in a cruel jest. But I took it, and glanced at Sourtooth, who already had one of his own, which he chewed on the good side of his mouth. The Gorgers had more ready for my secretive service that accompanied us, and even a platter to bring back to the rest of the goblins.

The sandwich itself was fresh and hot and greasy, packed with seasoned meat that reminded me of a kebab joint near my university. The orcs liked things spicy, and my eyes began to water along with my mouth as I dug in. The Gorgers moved on, clearly half-drunk already and shooting for full.

Once they left, I shook my head. “I don’t understand orc customs,” I admitted to Sourtooth. “They refuse to trade, but Lura and the Gorgers both offered us food from their kill.”

Sourtooth stuffed the last of his gyro into his mouth and swallowed it. “For a goblin, you think oddly like a human, little brother. I know not from where this backwards reason comes. Men and elves show wealth by hoarding it, by wearing trinkets of soft, useless metals and stone houses to anchor them. But an orc’s wealth, only by what they can spare is it displayed. All can see the quality of a feast spread amongst respected rivals and know an orc to also be of quality. That is the way of things.”

I pressed my hands to my forehead, trying to understand. “So, you take what you want, because the strong taking from the weak is the way of things. But you share as much as possible with anyone who doesn’t have as much, because that shows off how rich you are?”

Sourtooth clapped a hand on my back. “Now you’re getting it!”

I really didn’t. It was some weird inverse Robinhood custom. Steal from the poor and give to the poor. It was as backwards as their high school drama club speech. But if it resulted in gracious winners and me not going hungry tonight, who was I to judge?