by Gregory Loui
Bones took another draft from his pipe and belched, “There’s such a thing as too much attention. You would do well to remember that… I—”
“Good! Good! GOOD!” cackled the Warchief as he unslung a massive song-hammer from his back. Flames burst out from within red bronze to light up the night sky as the Warchief twirled the behemoth relic around. “Then let’s get to the fun part! You insects all know these Toretto trials! Whoever passes will obtain the chance of ten thousand lifetimes! The chance to battle me in the Blight Festival!”
The crowd roared in response, beating their chests and stomping the ground, howling like beasts. Ignoring the horde, Gore glanced down the starting line at her competition. Steeled eyes glowing with murder greeted her. Most pounded their chests but the lead Squirrel mimed slitting her throat. Gore gave the Squirrel two fingers.
“A score of cars enter! Only eight exit! No time limit! No laps! No rules!” howled the Warchief, pumping the song-hammer into the sky.
Slipping on her driving goggles, Gore revved up her engine. The Magnum Orcus growled and crouched low, wheels already turning. Sparks spilled out around Gore, surrounding her in smoke and ash.
“WITNESS!” screamed the Warchief as he slammed his song-hammer into the earth.
Cracks spread out from the impact as a melody from within Gore’s own childhood memories filled the sky.
A tremor ran through the asphalt, up the Magnum Orcus and into Gore’s legs. She shook, every bone in her body shivering and cracking from the sheer pressure. The roar of defiance raged within her, rippling through her veins and curling her hands into fists. Unleashing a hoarse, wordless scream, Gore floored the accelerator.
The Magnum Orcus jumped into the air, launching itself off the asphalt. Over two tons of elchite and raw power arched through the air. Then the wheel hit the ground once more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Blood on the Asphalt
Strapped into the driver seat by a new harness, Gore didn’t even jump as the Magnum Orcus leapt about, hopping around potholes and explosions while the rest of the racers opened fire on each other.
Green flames lit up the night sky. The Battle Rams soon fell behind the pack as the Squirrels buzzed around the racers, dashing through the cars and unleashing magical attacks at the drivers. The Warboyz cars smashed into one another, the riders on the back pulling out spears from the roof.
Blight, Gore wrenched the wheel to the side just in time to dodge a spear.
The spear exploded, throwing the Magnum Orcus half a feet to the side, right into a Squirrel. Gore smiled as someone else’s bones crunched against steel.
“By the Forge Master…” gasped Debbie, ducking down to avoid a salvo of elvish arrows. The glittering arrowheads skidded off the upgraded chassis. “This isn’t a race. This is a war!”
“A race to death!” laughed Bones as he stood up and unleashed a burst from the Dakka. “Last one wins!”
High-pitched screams echoed behind them. A moment later, a couple of motorcycles exploded.
“Hahahaha!” cackled Bones, firing off another burst.
Jerking the wheel to the side, avoiding a light trail, Gore joined her voice with her brother’s laughter, rising up together with the roar of the Magnum Orcus.
Their bonding cut short, however, when a Warboyz car rammed into the side of the Magnum Orcus. Spikes screeched and scraped against the side but didn’t sink in. As Gore pulled out her pistol, she silently thanked the engineering department. But at the same time she shouted, “That was a new jagding paint job, you assholes!”
The Warboyz laughed and rammed back into the Magnum Orcus. One of the roof-riders raised an explosive spear, aiming the grenade tip at Gore. Snapping up her pistol, Gore snarled her defiance as she pulled the trigger. And missed again.
“Shit!” Gore tried to jerk the Magnum Orcus away.
Too late.
But then Debbie jumped over to the Warboyz car and grabbed the explosive spear. The dwarf tugged the spear out of the Warboy’z grasp, spinning around on the wobbling car before head butting the orc in the face. How much was accidental and how much was skill? Gore whistled as the Warboy fell out of sight, “Crazy dwarf…”
“Hahaha! Crazy’s right! Debbie! Jump back over!” burped Bones as he shot the Warboy driving the car. The Warboy’z head jerked away from Gore, taking the car with him.
Running towards the Magnum Orcus, the last remaining Warboy clawing at her heels, Debbie leapt into the air. Turns out short legs made for a shit jumper, however. Gore cried out as Debbie fell short, her hands reaching out, clawing air…
…Catching on Bones’s outstretched hand.
“Got her!” growled Bones.
Clutching her chest, trying to keep her heart from beating out of her chest, Gore breathed a sigh of relief. Then she blinked, looking into the rear view mirror.
“Shit!” shouted Gore as she jerked her pistol out. “Bones! Watch out!”
The last Warboy leapt up from clinging to Debbie’s feet and onto the roof of the Magnum Orcus.
Bones cried out, firing off a burst. Bullet fire illuminated the Warboy’z face, smoke curling around the Dakka as the roars smashed into Gore’s ears. Bullets exploded out of the Warboy’z skull. Right out of the neck.
But orcs weren’t frail like other races.
Roaring, claws slicing into Bones, the Warboy lunged forward, silhouette merging with Bones.
“Get out of the way!” roared Gore, jabbing her pistol through the back window. She cursed. No way she could fire a bullet with the two orcs wrestling. Not with her aim.
Gore cursed again as the stalemate ended
The Warboy slapped aside the Dakka, claws wrapping around the barrel and wrenching the gun out of Bones’s grasp. Raising the Dakka high like a song-hammer, he laughed, pausing for a split second, savoring the moment before the kill.
He might as well have shot himself in the face.
At least, the Warboy would have died a clean death.
Leaping forward with blinding speed, Bones smashed his thermos into the Warboy’z jaw. Jagged bits of tusk spun through the air, strings of red blood swirling after them.
The Warboy fell back, flat on his ass, clutching his face as he writhed on the back of the Magnum Orcus. He couldn’t do a damn thing to prevent what came next. Diving onto the Warboy, throwing his entire body into the blow, Bones rammed the thermos into the Warboy’z head. Then he lifted the thermos. And brought it down again. Again and again. Over and over.
Bones didn’t stop until the orc’s head splattered against the side of the Magnum Orcus.
“Oh shit… you killed him with a freaking thermos,” gasped Debbie as Bones reached down and jerked her back onto the Magnum Orcus. Then, writhing on the trunk, she retched out her dinner over the side. “You killed him with a FREAKING THERMOS!”
“You can never get bored around us,” laughed Gore through a grim smile as she stowed her pistol back in the holster. Her hands shook. Then, blinking, Gore bit her own words. Another Warboyz car sped up from behind. “Well, time to test out a few new functions.
Gore pressed another button. Spikes and caltrops spilled out from the back, growling and bursting into twice their size. The Warboyz car crashed right through the caltrops, ramming through a Squirrel in the process as it sped towards the Magnum Orcus.
“Brace for impact!” barked Gore, cringing, reaching for another button. She winced in tune to the Dakka’s burp.
The Warboyz car zoomed in. Less than a hundred feet away and closing in… The Magnum Orcus growled, readying herself for the impact.
An impact that would never come.
Flying high from the side of the highway, a Squirrel unlike any other jumped in the Warboy’z path. Bones and Debbie hissed. Sweet pollen bit into Gore’s nose as she looked around.
Her eyes turning white, Gore’s heart froze from the elf’s glare.
“Die,” whispered Arianel, letting loose a volley of arrows.
The glo
wing bolts of lightning curved through the air, bouncing off the road up into the Warboyz car. Lightning lit the night sky as the arrows burst through the car. Metal bits and orc flesh pitter-pattered against the Magnum Orcus.
Debbie’s voice broke through the tentative silence. “By the Forge Master, what a monster…”
Then the elf turned her attention to the Magnum Orcus. Slanted eyes glared through the darkness, through a hundred feet and Gore’s skull.
“Shoot her in the face!” shouted Gore, pressing the dragon blood button. The Magnum Orcus roared and jumped forward, tearing through the road, eating up miles in the blink of an eye. “Shoot her in the jagding face!”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” burped Bones as he pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Only the sound of an empty chamber clicked through the Magnum Orcus’s roar. “Oh boy…”
The Squirrel pulled back her bow. A trio of glowing arrows blazed, ribbons of light fluttering in the breeze, burning, breaking the air apart.
Gore jerked the wheel to the side. Then the other side.
Bolts of lightning arched through the air, bouncing around and off debris, following the Magnum Orcus through every twist and turn.
“They’re not stopping!” shouted Debbie as Bones tried to reload. Tried being the operative word. “They’re not stopping. They’re not—”
Whipping the Magnum Orcus down under an overpass and around the broken pillars as dust whipped at her goggles, Gore snapped, “I have eyes! Damn magic… jagding… wait.”
Jabbing one of the buttons, Gore turned the wheel around as a hook and chain snapped out of the Magnum Orcus. The hook attached to the chain latched onto one of the pillars. A split second later, the Magnum Orcus jerked, flying off the ground. Then crashing back onto the earth.
“Wha! What are you doing?” asked Debbie as the chain snapped and the Magnum Orcus spun across the dusted road.
The arrows slammed into the ground around the Magnum Orcus, missing by a millimeter each time, then surging up and bouncing around the Magnum Orcus like shivfish.
Worst fish in the world, Gore noted as one arrow bounced off the Magnum Orcus. Sparks sprayed down around Gore.
“Turning around,” growled Gore, her hands blurring across the control panel, feet pumping up and down the brakes and accelerator.
After a moment of uncontrolled spinning, Gore regained control and aimed the Magnum Orcus straight at the Squirrel. To her credit, the elf didn’t bat an eye as two tons of metal, surrounded by a flurry of glowing arrows, charged towards her.
Instead, the Squirrel just raised her bow once more.
“Jagding stone-cold bitch,” growled Gore jabbing the dragon blood button a second time while Bones popped up and unleashed another burst of bullets.
But Gore had a plan. She had learnt enough about elvish magic from Elvenheim and her fights with Tawny. The only thing Gore needed to break an elvish spell was to break the spellcaster’s concentration. Easy peasy. Would have been easier if she wasn’t fighting a freaking war golem of a elf.
A savage laugh burst from between Gore’s tusks.
“Gore…” whispered Debbie, her voice quavering, just barely breaking through the howl of wind. “This isn’t one of your berserk rages is it?”
The orc couldn’t answer her as she roared, “Jagd you all!”
“Forge Master save us,” muttered Debbie as Gore’s vision clouded with red, narrowing around the Squirrel.
Just Gore, the Magnum Orcus and the Squirrel. Who would break first?
The squirrel didn’t as she revved up the motorcycle and leapt over the Magnum Orcus.
Gore’s jaw dropped the floor of the Magnum Orcus. Her eyes widened, bursting out of her sockets. Time slowed down to a crawl, a heartbeat lasting all of the eternity.
A glowing arrowhead filled her world.
Narrowing her eyes as her lips curled back into a snarl, Gore reached for her pistol. But she knew she would not, could not be quick enough. She prepared herself for death. To meet her mother in the Halls of Struggling.
The moment passed.
And in the next, a mass of boneheaded determination crashed above the Magnum Orcus into the Squirrel.
Eyes wide, flashing white with shock, blood fleeing her vision, Gore glanced about. A few feet way, the Squirrel spinning, almost out of control. The Squirrel’s eyes whipped around as she smashed into a pillar.
“What the…” muttered Gore as the arrows lost their glow, bolts of lightning disappearing into the nether. “Bones?”
“Not me,” burped her brother.
Turning to Debbie, Gore’s eyes grew wider.
“You? But how?” asked Gore, jaw bouncing around somewhere around her feet. “How?”
“Hehehe… I just used my head,” chuckled Debbie, rubbing her forehead. Gore’s heart jumped as a trickle of blood crept down the dwarf’s perfect face.
“No…”
Debbie shrugged. “Eh, I got a pretty thick skull.”
“You can say that again,” murmured Gore, offering Debbie a rare smile as her eyes glimmered gold.
Flipping a stray hair to the side, Debbie smiled back.
Both blushed.
“Ahem… so, sorry to interrupt but you guys might want to look up,” burped Bones, jabbing a finger back to the city. Gore followed his finger up into the sky.
Where a red flare arched through the burning clouds, lost amongst the city light reflected across the churning sky.
“What’s that mean?” asked Debbie while Gore floored the accelerator and forced the Magnum Orcus towards the flare.
“Means the rest of the racers must have killed enough of each other that only eight are left,” burped Bones, collapsing onto the roof.
“It also means we have to head back towards the starting line,” growled Gore, her expression darkening as she wove the Magnum Orcus through broken pillars and back onto the highway. “To determine our places.”
Gore could almost hear the bells going off in Debbie’s head as the dwarf gasped, “And whoever gets back first…”
“Gets the girls,” confirmed Gore. Lights appeared in front of the Magnum Orcus. Soon after, shapes emerged from the darkness. Squirrels and Warboyz surrounded two Battle Rams. Orcs, dwarves and elves all fought with one another using tooth and nail and whatever they had left as the racers ripped across the highway.
The surviving racers. The cream of the crop. The best battlers in the world. All heading to the finish line.
All in Gore’s way.
Gore smiled as she pressed down on the dragon blood button, the Magnum Orcus growling all around her. She couldn’t wait to destroy them all.
“Then what are we waiting for?” cried Debbie, slapping the roof.
Almost pointing at her foot, at the floored accelerator, Gore sighed, “Already on it…”
“Then why aren’t we going faster?” asked Debbie as the Magnum Orcus zoomed in towards the battle.
“It doesn’t work like that. Wait, shit…”
Smoke filling the air, glint-power crackling through the air, Gore sniffed then cursed, “Blight.”
“Gas leak!” cried Debbie, leaping up to the driver’s seat.
The Magnum Orcus still purring, not a single hiccup or cough running through the wheel, Gore shook her head. “No… no. No. No….”
It couldn’t be possible.
She had double checked. Triple checked. Quadruple checked.
It couldn’t be an engine problem.
Could it?
“Debbie, take the wheel!” growled Gore as she unbuckled her seatbelt. She needed to go check the engine.
“Wait, what?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Rust, Dust and Guts
“No!” cried Bones, jumping forward onto the front of the Magnum Orcus and shoving Gore back in. His eye shone white through the darkness. “Get back in there! What in the Blight are you doing?”
Gore tried to break through Bones’s grip, snarling, “I need to check t
he engine!”
“Like Blight you do! Get back to driving. We can fix the Magnum Orcus later.”
Blight, Gore cursed as Bones forced her back. She might have well have tried to escape a minotaur’s grip. Damn, how could such withered arms hold so much strength?
“No!” roared Gore, reaching out to the Magnum Orcus’s engine. She glanced at the speedometer. Already, the arrow jiggled, sliding towards zero. “No! We need to check the engine! If there’s a problem, we won’t be able to win the race!”
“Watch out!” cried Debbie, ducking down just in time to avoid a barrage of bullets spewing out from the closest Battle Ram.
Gore growled and whipped the Magnum Orcus to the side, dodging around the bullets until she drove right behind the Battle Ram. The ground erupted around them in geysers. Bones burped, firing off the Dakka. A moment later, the bullets stopped.
“Come on…” growled Gore as she pressed down on the accelerator once more. The Magnum Orcus growled and sputtered.
But didn’t speed up.
“Come on!” howled Gore, looking to her right and left. The other racers began to pull ahead. Gore cursed and tried to hop back up. “Jagd! I need to check the engine, now!”
“No,” growled Bones, forcing her back once more.
Gore’s eyes flashed crimson as she bit into Bones’s hands. “But—”
“This race isn’t worth it!” Bones’s eyes never dropped a shadow below bone-white, wider than the moons as he pressed down with terrified strength.
“The Mag—”
“The Magnum Orcus isn’t worth it!”
“It is,” growled Gore as the other racers pulled further ahead. She reached out past them. For help against her brother. For a life beyond simply existing.
Her finger lingered over the dragon blood button.
“I can’t lose you again!” shouted Bones before Gore could press down.
Eyes flashing white, cold hands clutching her heart, her entire body going numb all at once, Gore blinked and stared at her brother. Just like before with the elf, time crawled to a halt as the two siblings’ eyes met.