Chapter 123 - Much Ado about Elves

  The first thing I did was open up the vassal submenu. It gave me the option to determine which variants and technologies passed both directions. I quickly zeroed out advisors for myself and canoneers for Ringo. No sense allowing competing ideologies to pop up. I also restricted his access to guns, obviously. No vassal uprisings, either—and I still didn’t quite trust the kid to not stab me in the back.

  I patted Ringo on the shoulder and went to talk to Sourtooth and his new (pet?) elf.

  “Don’t suppose you understand him,” I said, peering at the unfortunate elf at the end of Sourtooth’s lead. The old orc himself sat on a low stool on the side of Ringo’s throne room, puffing pipe in one hand while the other kept the elf on a yard’s worth of slack. The others had been killed in the fighting, unable to escape the fortress they’d lain with traps and pitfalls—some of which were still claiming goblins as they swept the place for bewitched beasts and hidden mechanisms.

  “A word, here or there, may brush between tongues learned long-past,” said Sourtooth. “But a crass and unsubtle people, they, for all their slink and creeping.”

  “So what’s he saying?”

  “Harsh Indictments, utter shall I not, concerning my brood’s mother and your lack of one.”

  I sat cross-legged and looked at the little fellow on more of a level—though speaking of levels, once cleaned, this one was level 29. Like the other, he had the physique of a 9-inch action star and spoke in the rapid-fire barrage of down-pitched cartoon chipmunks.

  “And you’re sure he’s not dangerous?” I said, eyeing the number superimposed over his head.

  “Only to your ankles. Nay, absent his druid-bough, no charms can he work. Withered is his power less focus or tool.”

  The elf lunged for me, but Sourtooth hissed and yanked back on the chain, swinging the elf overhead, where he spun the chain for a dozen or so seconds like a helicopter blade(and the elf made much the same sound). When he set the elf back down, the creature stumbled drunkenly and then collapsed on its haunches.

  “A nuisance, still,” he admitted. He changed the pitch and camber of his own voice, slipping into a rapid-fire falsetto. The elf responded with a kata of gestures that were undoubtedly obscene to someone, even if they were lost on me. “He’ll make a fine gift, indeed, once properly tracted.”

  Part of me had reservations about letting Sourtooth ship off the creature to be someones… slave? Servant? Pet? But then, the elves were snorting goblin ears, so all bets were off.

  “Have you learned anything from him?” I demanded.

  A quick exchange passed between the two before Sourtooth looked back up at me.

  “Mercenaries from Habbe. Expected a sprinkle, did they, and found a deluge. The prince awaits their return with good news—absence shall be with action met.”

  “A further escalation,” I sighed. But it would take time, and more time still for the port city to muster troops from the mainland. I hoped. I had no illusions about how well my goblins would fare against seasoned human fighters. Even with the benefit of the Goblin Tech Tree, magic seemed like a force multiplier that couldn’t simply be countered with technology. At least, not with what we had now. Numbers, as well, were an issue. The tribe grew swiftly, but we were talking about an entire pre-established city of humans, here. Thousands of them—and that just a splinter of their mainland population across the sea.

  We already had so much to contend with. Lanclova was at least harsh to human forces trying to penetrate the interior, but that was a deterrent, not a barrier. Off in the south, the Ifrit were simmering with whispered lies, and I didn’t know how well Rufus’ attempts at quelling them would go. Somewhere in the forest, an elf still roamed, and I’m sure it was going to play merry hob with our operations until we could suss it out. All the while, we’d be working toward’s Lura’s task and the inevitable moon missions that would require a monumental effort and procession of steps. Orbital dynamics aren’t exactly high school algebra, and I doubted there was some sort of math variant goblin. I was going to have to start from scratch there, too.

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  “Is there no way I can send an envoy to Habberport? Work out some sort of peace accord?”

  Sourtooth rolled his head back and laughed, hands over his belly. And to my supreme shock, the elf mirrored his humor, gesture for gesture.

  “Sooner you’d walk upon the watchful eye, little brother mine, than convince humans to treat with goblin kin.”

  The elf tilted his head up at Sourtooth and slapped the old orcs shin as they giggled. I didn’t need a translator to understand the intent behind the words that passed up. What is he, stupid?

  Sourtooth chuckled under his breath. It wasn’t lost on me that, being Ravan natives, both these creatures, these mortal enemies, still had more in common with each other than I had with either one. He cleared his throat and spat a thick wad of phlegm on the ground. “Nay, little king. Take it from this sun-dried and wind-blown old orc. I have seen many things in many lands, yet not once have I seen a man treat a goblin as anything but vermin to be stamped out. There is no treating with Habbe—though perhaps your envoy’s tongue may find some use in soothing the prince’s irritated bowels.”

  The elf fell over laughing, kicking his legs in the air. I grumbled to myself. I really did not like elves. I turned my back on the foul little creature and ground the heels of my hands against my temples. “Let’s get back to the bluff. One problem at a time.”

  One problem at a time… as if they ever lined up single file instead of hitting all at once. I needed to know where we stood with the Ifrit before I could decide what to do about Habberport. I collected my secretive service and left the keep. I offered Ringo a chance to come with me, but surprisingly, he decided to stay in the swamp. The boglins were his friends, after all. And even though George still regarded me with suspicion, I knew he’d act in Ringo’s best interest the same way Armstrong and Chuck and all the rest of my taskmasters acted in mine.

  Outside the keep, I boarded one of the boats, and the ifrit in the engine glowed with a pale blue flame and a familiar flicker. Don’t ask me how, but I was starting to be able to tell the Ifrit apart, and this wasn’t Taquoho. I narrowed my eyes at it but stopped short of asking if it was Girmaks. Either way, the spirit would deny it. We pulled the boat around and pointed it back toward the towers of Huntsville, which were just visible over the tree line—helped somewhat by a great deal of the treetops having been scorched to clear the bog of flying fauna. We were certainly leaving our mark wherever we went. And we were starting to go a lot of places.

  Idly, I brought one of the sparkers over and had them tune in to whatever signals were being broadcast on the long-waves—the radios connecting together the various bluffs and outstations. Mostly taskmasters manned the radios, with names like Bootworm, Chokey, Tailbone, and other decidedly non-astronaut monikers, coordinating the dispersement and transport of raw materials and refined goods. Sand and copper from the north bluffs to Apollo, where it would be turned to glass and wire. Sulfur from mountain hot springs to Canaveral to be combined into icky-sticky powder. Lamps and guns from Apollo to outstations on flat-bed buggies. Who was going where, when, and with how much. But word about my change in status had spread fast, too. Emperor Apollo is returning home.

  Goblin Emperor. Even if in name only. As we rode, I opened up my job screen and took a look. It hadn’t even come with any new abilities, just access to the vassal sub-menu. Probably the only ones who would even care were the canoneers. And the System, I thought.

  Once we reached Huntsville, I commandeered one of the choppers. Sourtooth refused to fly in one, so we left him to hop a buggy back to the main base while I slid behind the controls. Two more lifted off as escort and entered the formation behind me. We lifted off and passed over the bog on our way back east, over the convoy of boats returning from Daytona, and over the newly reclaimed platforms pumping the hydrocarbons out of the depths. Just a handful of elves had managed to disrupt our operations in Huntsville to a degree that would have far reaching effects. The logistics infrastructure of the tribe was tight and efficient, but vulnerable. It needed more redundancies.

  Flying over the forest, we passed low-level bi-gliders sweeping the area where the last elf had gone down, and there were parties on the ground as well. Not the most methodical searchers, goblins. Even with scrappers to coordinate, their patterns were hap-hazard, semi-random, and often intersected or doubled back on their own routes. In essence, their sweep had more holes than Swiss cheese.

  Still, it was one elf, and it was isolated and on the run.

  How much harm could it realistically do?