North of us, a great column of smoke rose from what, just yesterday, had been one of our newly assimilated bluffs. Granted, smoke now rose from almost all the bluffs as they built fires and forges and kilns. But this was the dark smoke of an unchecked fire burning things that weren’t supposed to burn. And it didn’t seem like there was anyone left to put it out. Goblins that had joined under my leadership were now as toast as their home. I watched from atop the guard tower on the north edge of City Apollo with Armstrong, still wiping the sleep from my eyes.
The reality of the situation was that as the tribe grew, so too would the losses. Technically, we were still at replacement levels even with the loss of over 60 goblins in one day. But it’s hard having those numbers shoved in your face first thing in the morning. Goblins I’d never seen, never met, but who were part of my tribe all the same. Taskmasters, scrappers, igni, wranglers, sparkers, and maybe even a canoneer.
“Armstrong,” I said.
“Already onnit, boss,” he said. “Choppers are fuelin’ up.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m going.”
My scrapper chief mulled something over in his head and nodded. “Reckon that’s proper. We’ll have the lads wiv us.”
“Do you… think anyone survived?” I asked.
He hesitated. “Been nuffin’ on the radio. But the lads are sneaky. There’ll be someone gone to ground. That’s what we done ‘fore you found us.”
I hoped so. I went down to the rotary pads, where over a dozen aircraft were being rolled out under the totem-ized skull of the whistler that gave speed and durability to vehicles. Some part of me had expected the helicopter designs to become more standardized as we iterated, to start converging on a homogenized design that took inspiration from the best parts of previous models. If anything, the opposite was true.
The 100% goblin-built helicopters were a mishmash of design philosophies that intersected at obtuse angles. Some aircraft had coaxial blades, like the ifrit vessels. Some had as many as 3 or 4 rotors of various sizes and mounting angles. A few sported larger cabins or cargo slings, which armed and armored goblins were piling into in anticipation of going to check out the commotion. Dozens of rifle-toting goblins and goblins armed with popper slingers would be my escort, and Armstrong jogged off to make sure my secretive service was kitted out with the best of the gear.
The fuel trucks pulled out of the yard, and I climbed into the cockpit of one of the choppers. Eileen scrambled up beside me and pulled a headset on over her goggles.
I narrowed my eyes. “Am I going to have to fight you for the sticks?”
“You’d lose,” she said.
“I’m your king, I could just order you to let me fly.”
“You’d still lose,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “I’m your pilot, sire, ain’t none better the whole tribe round.”
I crossed my arms. “Except for me.”
She grinned, dropping a rockette into the starter. “Remains to be seen, don’t it?”
The helicopter shuddered, not only from the rotor coming to life, but also from the dozen scrappers wrestling their way onto the back or just clinging on to the sides. Armstrong squeezed past us to his customary seat in the nose gun.
Around us, several other aircraft were already lifting off, so Eileen hauled up on her collective pitch and we got light on the skids. The engine began to rumble under the increased load, and then the ground dropped away. I pulled on my own headset and listened to the sparker relaying what passed for air traffic control. Considering the sheer volume of traffic around the bluff, it was a chaotic spiral of stepped-on calls and angry, chittering controllers arguing with disagreeable pilots intent on their own plans. So, not too unlike traffic control back home.
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On the ground, several air delivery goblins with smoldering flares signaled us directing us out west over the livestock paddocks. Eileen followed their signaling until we were over the cleared grazing land and then banked us toward the north. We climbed up over the forest as we transited. I looked down, marveling at the size of the area we’d cleared to the west and north. Roads of flat stones curved out from the bluff, often looping back on themselves or crossing each other nonsensically. Watchtowers dotted the flatland, and I spotted a group of wranglers on dirt bikes herding a flock of the kangaroo-like horned lopers.
“Won’t be long til we’ve cleared all the way to the stream,” I commented. The livestock in the paddocks looked up at us, incurious as we passed. They were used to the flying machines by now. The wranglers cheered, raising their zap-rods and lever guns.
Cleared land gave way to treetops, and then we crossed the sparkling river and headed back into the northern jungle. I realized I hadn’t spent much time on this side of the river. Bluff Apollo was on the southeastern edge of the jungle, close to the badlands where I’d been reborn. But the forest was a deep, vast thing that covered a good portion of northern Lanclova.
Bluffs poked out of the canopy, here and there. We even passed close by one on our trek north. Word went out on the radio that we were coming, and it seemed like every converted goblin in the village turned out to see their new king—at least 100 of them, wearing leather clothes and standing on fortified perimeter walls. The bluff had several multi-story wooden structures, with more going up with the help of windmill-powered cranes. My tech tree unlocks were helping these goblins thrive.
So what had happened at the bluff to our north? It wasn’t the furthest north bluff, so I doubted it was the inevitable incursion from Habberport. What made this one special? Something made this area feel familiar, though I hadn’t ever visited this bluff before.
It was another half hour of flight, as we moved at the speed of our slowest aircraft. But we finally approached the bluff that had been attacked during the night, a pinnacle set into the rocky foothills of the mountains to the northeast.
“Circle us around. Armstrong, guns ready.”
My scrapper chief racked the priming lever for his two nose guns and tilted them down at the bluff, as though ready for something to leap up at us. Eileen eased us into a bank. She was a natural at handling the bulky helicopter.
“This is one of the places you converted, yeah?” I asked.
“Early on,” she said. “They make that copper wire you’re so obsessed with. We called it Red-Rock Rise.”
Hmm. If this was one of the few sources of copper ore that I had, this had to be marked as a critical bluff and restaffed as soon as possible. Copper was one of the most important resources to advancing electronics and power generation. But it wouldn’t do to just have another group of goblins slaughtered. We needed to figure out why it had happened.
A few structures still burned down below but the majority had been snuffed out by the nightly rain. We circled, looking for activity. But the smoke seemed to be the only thing moving.
“Alright, let’s set her down,” I said.
Eileen dropped the collective and brought us in on a low approach to the bluff, nearly scraping the top of what remained of the perimeter wall and bringing us into the main square. The back ramp dropped, and we disgorged our cargo of angry, war-crying scrappers, who rushed out only to find no enemy to face.
I dropped out of the cockpit myself and felt a crunch underfoot. I looked down and lifted my foot, picking bits of red insect carapace off my soles.
Elves. Or rather, elf, singular. The missing member of the diminutive dude-bro druid commandos. We’d been looking for the one that had fallen in the forest. Our searches had been concentrated around the area to the southwest in which he’d fallen. I’d expected him to either make a beeline back to the coast, or to make his way toward Bluff Apollo to cause more trouble. But it seemed he’d made his way northeast instead, bypassing Bluff Apollo entirely. Curious.
“Boss!” shouted one of the scrappers. “Come look ‘ere!”
I followed the voice around the corner of a caved-in building, where I started at the gaping jaws of a night haunt—dead but still locked in a snarling expression. A few of the red insects still crawled around its mouth, and it had the red buttons of a dozen rockette wounds in its side.
Armstrong whistled. “At least they put up a proper fight. Big job, this.”
“You’re right, it is big. But not big enough to take out the entire village.”
A goblin squawked in alarm from further in. The scrappers charged their rifles and dashed after the cry. I followed at a safer distance, wary. But all we found were more carcasses. At least a half-dozen of the flying predators had been taken out around the bluff by various means—mostly lever-action rifles and spears. It reminded me of the early nights before we were able to repulse the attacks, when goblins would be taken and we were powerless to stop it. Well, these goblins hadn’t been powerless, but they still hadn’t stopped it.
“Hard to believe they did all this,” said Armstrong.
“It wasn’t just them,” I said. “These are just the ones they managed to kill.”