The night haunts realized pretty quick that something in the air had changed. Maybe the elf felt that deep rumble in their gut, same as I did, and knew it was some new toy come to vex them further. If so, it was good intuition.
High in the sky, riding a plume of white vapor, three fast-flying aircraft cut across the moon, and then dove down toward the bluff.
I felt a small jolt as the aircraft flew close enough for the pilots to pass the new technology to me and recovered in time to watch the knowledge spread across the bluff, informing every goblin that the tide was about to turn. It was just the second wind they needed as they pressed back with a confident cry of premature triumph.
Small rockets detached from the wings, streaking down and exploding all around the bluff.
In true goblin fashion, the unguided rockets did more damage to our own tribe than to the night haunts, but at least one of the haunts took a direct hit. The rest roared and lifted off into the air. Wranglers with nets and pole hooks kept two of them from getting airborne, dragging them back down where the forest goblins could finish them with cleavers, spears, and rifles. The silvermane sporting the elf clawed its way out of the barricade and launched into the air. He joined the night haunts still flying and climbed to address the new threat.
Overhead, the trio of our first functioning jets wheeled around to engage the haunts on their own terms. The fat aircraft were sluggish and slow to turn compared to the nimble night haunts. As far as performance went, they were far below even the earliest Earth analogues. They were outnumbered, too. At least 8 or 9 night haunts remained. But the jets were faster and had nose guns. And they had one more advantage.
“Guns up!” I shouted. “Lever guns and recoiless rifles on those haunts. Flares, too, and airbursts. Anything we’ve got!”
The goblins on the bluff cut their cheering short and scrambled to find anything that could shoot up. The cracks of gunfire and the whumps of recoilless rifles began to sound across the bluffs, and dozens of little contrails began to shoot skyward. I didn’t know much about military strategy, but I did know that you never wanted to be in an air-to-air fight above the enemy’s air defenses. Every goblin on the ground shot gleefully into the air, heedless of whether or not their rockettes could even reach.
The fighters themselves corkscrewed and barrel rolled and looped, making runs at the night haunt cluster. Surprisingly, the night haunts made a good show of it. The fast, sleek silvermanes were able to keep up with the aircraft in a dogfight, and I saw one of them shred the tail of a fighter that turned a little too tight—right before that silvermane took a direct hit from a recoiless rifle that knocked it right out of the air. The fighter, likewise, spiraled down into the forest and exploded.
The self-cycling nose guns on the fighters clipped two more night haunts before the elf decided he’d had enough and turned the pack to the east to beat a hasty retreat. With two fighters left, they didn’t give chase, but instead circled in the air above the bluff, above the crowd of cheering goblins and discouraging the night haunts from trying for a second rounds. Armstrong had two goblins up on his shoulders cheering even as he cupped his hands around his mouth to whistle at the planes.
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Still. This had been too close. The elf had found the most dangerous predators in the forest and weaponized them. Then he’d set a trap, which we’d only narrowly avoided—thanks to technology we hadn’t had a week prior. Without radios, without turbine engines… well, this encounter might have had a very different conclusion that ended with every goblin abandoning the bluff and scrambling in a different direction, in hopes the elf didn’t get lucky in nabbing me out of the chaos to take back home.
The missing elf had graduated from a nuisance to an emergency. But Eileen had been right. We knew where he was hiding out. We’d scouted the night haunt nest before the elves had made their play in the swamp, and avoided it because we hadn’t had the tools to deal with it.
Well, we had the tools now—or at least the ability to make them. And that elf was in for a rude awakening if he thought we wouldn’t go spelunking to excise his pointy-eared behind.
It wasn’t long before the jet fighters had to return to Apollo. Turbine engines burn through fuel like no one’s business and they’d no-doubt been in too much of a hurry to fully fuel them up, anyway. But not long after the jets departed, I spotted the silhouette of Gerty, flanked by a handful of spare choppers to bring additional personnel and supplies to Red-Rock Bluff. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with an idea of how important this location was.
It took about 20 minutes for the airship to touch down with relief. The gangplank dropped, and Buzz disembarked with two-dozen of his builders hauling tools and planks. He waved at me and looked around. “This place could use some shorin’ up, eh boss?”
“A bit,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder.
All of the Red Rock natives elected to stay, along with about half the survivors of the goblins who had come with me initially. They were already busy hauling supplies to build new, improved fortifications to keep another night haunt incursion out. Others had started butchering the night haunts killed in the fight, so that was dinner sorted. Rifles were collected, ammo was collected, counted, and redistributed. Within an hour, the bluff already had better defenses and more defenders than when the elf had hit it originally. It would be a much harder target now.
But it wasn’t the only bluff in the area. At least four more integrated villages were within range of the night haunt cave—including Canaveral, where the Midnighters were camped out. Part of me hoped the elf would be stupid enough to attack, whereby he would probably be very surprised to find the elite flying cavalry of the sorceress’ personal guard, along with whatever nasty tricks the insectoid priest herself possessed. But better not to find out.
“Time to go, Armstrong,” I said.
My scrapper chief, who had been helping Buzz prop up the side of a building so the builders could hammer it back together, nodded. He left the work to Buzz’ lads and whistled to round up his own. Together, with Eileen and Buzz, we boarded Gerty and headed back to Bluff Apollo.
“Good work today,” I said to Armstrong.
“Weren’t nuffin’ boss,” my scrapper chief replied. He ground a fist into his palm. “I just want to give that elf the boot, yeah? Get him out of our turf, then turn the moon into our turf, too!”
“You’ll get your chance,” I said. “I want you leading the assault into the nest.”
“Sounds great!” said Armstrong. “Only…”
“What?” I asked.
Armstrong tapped the last knuckles of his index fingers together. “Only it’s real dark in caves, yeah?”
I laughed. I couldn’t believe it. My big, tough, hobgoblin taskmaster was afraid of the dark. In fairness, with the moon the size it was in the sky, it never really got that dark on Lanclova. Heck, even the daily new moon phase only lasted about 20 minutes, and other than that the darkest time was the eclipse totality.
“You don’t need to worry about that, my friend,” I said. “We’re going to bring a little something for you to brighten it up.”