MBGSP Chpt 106

It's coming up a bit late, but here it is! We're closing in on the end of Book 2, as well. We should be hitting it next week.

When the end of Book 2 hits Royal Road, I'll be taking a month or so hiatus to work on the next War Horses book, which has been woefully neglected in trying to keep up with 3x weekly updates to MBGSP and weekly updates to Two of Knaves.

I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 106 - Punch line

“Slow down,” I said. Even though Taquoho wasn’t even speaking fast. My head swam.

“Haut Voclai Behen Mira Do turned on us once we reached the desert and intends to turn the King of the Ifrit against Tribe Apollo,” said Taquoho. “He plans to tell them you have taken our kin captive.”

I looked at Luther, who nodded and explained further between gasping breaths. “They smashed up all the ceramics, then tried to have the Paladins kill me, but they refused. So they tried to do it themselves, and that’s when I took Taquoho and fled.”

Sourtooth growled. “Honorless curs. Bent words from twisting tongues.

“And you made it here on foot?”

Luther groaned. “Little more than stumps, now!” he complained. I eyed the perfectly-functioning feet at the ends of his legs and raised an eyebrow, feeling my sympathy diminish. Luther quickly realized his mistake.

“Your pardon, o’ king! It has been a trial, these last days. We have been hunted and nipped and bitten and harried every step of the way.”

I looked to Taquoho.

“There were minor vermin—deadly to a goblin, perhaps,”

I sighed. “I’m just glad he got you both out safe. Thanks, Luther.” I straightened. “Still. This is a huge problem. The King of the Ifrit thinks we reneged on our deal and kidnapped half of the Ifrit who came to the village.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “I guess that means we can’t expect any more help and material from the Ifrit until we get the truth sorted out. Well, if it’s not one crisis, it’s another. At least food is settled for the moment. We have your friend Girmaks to thank for that,” I said.

Beside me, Sourtooth stiffened, and Lura tilted her head.

“Please elaborate, o’ king,” said Taquoho.

“Well, once we got onto the badlands, we found out there’s this orc hunting festival going on. Girmaks got us into it so that we could get hunting rights for the tribe.”

Sourtooth stalked off, muttering to himself. Lura simply grinned. I raised an eyebrow at her, but continued on.

“So, we joined up, hunted with the orcs for a bit, and long story short, we’ve got attack helicopters and tanks now and we’ve got to help them kill this magic-eating monster.”

“I am familiar with the concept of the Stampede, King Apollo,” said Taquoho. “As well as the devouring sky-devil. But who is this Girmaks you reference?”

I waved my hand. “Right, familiar brevity. Giral mal ksch. The union you said had taken a shine to the buggies.” I looked back at the trike. “Normally he’s hanging out at the motor-pool. I’m actually going to ask if you could borrow his coaxial vessel since he’s in an engine most of the time, anyway.”

“King Apollo,” said Taquoho, carefully, “The union I referred you to was named Odo Fortu Val. I know of no Ifrit called Giral Mal Ksch, or Girmaks, as you have named him.”

I furrowed my eyes. “That’s impossible.” I looked at Lura. “You spoke with him.”

The Dawn’s Light chieftess tilted her head back and howled with laughter. “I spoke with him, yes, little brother. But he gave not his name—for I’d have known it. Girmaks is the name of an orc, you see,” she gazed after Sourtooth and slapped her thigh, laughing. “An elder orc of the Flock! Who died fighting the whistler.”

“I… what?” I stammered. “Are you sure?”

Lura straightened. “Quite sure, little brother. I threw him down the gullet of the beast myself. But I suppose the last laugh is his in having, no? I’m sure a great jest indeed, was binding we three together; to see me kill it and receive credit not at all. A fool, I’ve been—for thinking myself so clever. Devil of an old orc.”

She chuckled to herself and made her way back into the camp after Sourtooth. I looked between Taquoho, Armstrong, Luther, and Chuck for a time, before Taquoho’s voice broke the silence.

“No Ifrit would ever impersonate an orc grandfather spirit,” he said. Then hesitated. “Perhaps the reverse is not the case…” he trailed off.

“Got ‘is revenge on the beastie wot ate him, though,” said Armstrong. He grinned and pounded a fist into his palm. “That’s my kind of sneaky! I like the orcs.”

“Hold on, now,” I said, raising my hands. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Luther, what do you…?”

I glanced over. Somehow the noblin had already managed to produce paper and a charcoal nub, and was hunched over the floor of the desert, filling in squares.

I sighed. I guess it was histry now. The annals of Tribe Apollo—Stampede hunters and great hunts, and the apparent butts of a dead orc’s jokes. But we’d be going to bed with full bellies and the immediate future of the tribe secure from the worry of food scarcity.

So it wasn’t Girmaks having the last laugh. And if he had impersonated an Ifrit once, I had no doubt he was still somewhere in the motorpool, laughing it up and planning his next prank.

I helped Luther up and onto one of the buggies, and we headed back to the orc camp/party. We’d killed the whistler. This was a night for the Flock, who it seemed would be with us for the foreseeable future, just like our contingent of Ifrit. At least until we took out this sky devil.

I held Taquoho’s vessel up to the engine block, and his pale flame slid from one vessel to the other.

“You have made improvements, I can see.”

“Prototype, test, iterate,” I said, climbing to the controls and kicking the trike into gear. “Ever forward. Ad Luna. You should see the choppers.”

“I’m sure I shall,” said Taquoho. But there was an edge of bitterness in his voice.

I pursed my lips. “I’m sorry about what happened with haughty-von-haughty. We may not be able to manage the desert yet, but I will get you home, Taquoho. I promise it.”

“I believe you, King Apollo. But if the king’s mind has been poisoned against you…”

“There is that,” I said. I clicked my tongue. “So how would be convince him?”

“Defeating the null-devil would certainly lend credence.”

I glanced back at the engine block. “I would think calling a desert-dwelling beast a devil would be crude and reductive, for you, Taquoho. What did this thing do that was so bad?”

“It introduced the concept of mortality to the Ifrit by devouring the natural magics of our essence and starving our ancestors of all their wellsprings but one. It is the reason the City of Brass has walls. It does not live in the desert. It created it.”

The hair on my neck stood up on end. “Good thing there’s only one.”

“Hundreds fell to Rava in a time that reshaped the world, thousands of years before the Great Spirit would whisper its first words. It is the last of its kind here. It hunted and devoured all of its kin.”

“Lovely.”

So. On the to-do list: Conquer the sky for the orcs so they didn’t hunt us down, kill an un-killable magic-devouring super-predator, free the City of Brass from its millennia-old oppressor before they sent their paladins to assassinate us for another Ifrit’s lies, and, oh yeah, land on the moon.

Neil Armstrong never had to deal with this crap.