Goblore Pt. 03

He finished his jam taco and walked over to where Huntress stood, near the front of the raft. Licking his fingers clean, he realized that she hadn't eaten yet. Her eyes were locked on the far side of the river, hand resting on a freshly strung bow.

"You know, Miri makes a damn good jam. I can take over a lookout for dangers if you want."

She gestured with her chin ever so slightly to the treeline. "Danger's already here."

Jesse looked out toward where she nodded. His eyes scanned a dense forest, similar to the one on the side of the river he was familiar with. He looked for movement, for limbs, for fur, anything.

"You sure? I can't see anyone out there."

"They're good. Better than the Folk at this. Staggered formation, small groups."

"Krosen?" Jesse ventured.

Huntress nodded. "This far west, they're likely traditionalists. Embracing their old ways, before the Folk captured them and used them as cheap muscle."

"Your kind of people," he said with a laugh.

She broke the stare to face him. "Do not mock me, Human."

"I'm not...I just meant they were survivalists like you."

Huntress stared at him stonefaced. To his eternal gratitude, her attention drifted, returning to the forest. "In a way, I suppose you're correct. I see the trappings of our supposed civilization as fetters, they see their own culture as corrupted by their former masters. But it would be a mistake to think them as backwards or primitive."

"I don't think we could call anyone primitive, given our level of tech at the moment. Hopefully, with what we get from the car, I can help us along."

She spat over the side. "I've seen your metal machine. Perhaps I should shove you in the river. Let the Krosen deal with your kind of 'help'."

"God you suck. You're like if Ted Kaczynski was three feet tall," he said, shaking his head. He went to go find someone slightly less Luddite, leaving Huntress to her silent vigil.

***

"Squad Leader Kolis!" a whispered voice called out. Kolis' cold grey eyes snapped to the source: the youngest member of his squad. Some vagabond from the North side of Nowhere, fresh in his first tour out on the borderlands.

"What is it, Veren?" he rasped. Kolis was getting too old to be playing in the woods with children barely out of their first century. His hair was turning from its natural platinum to a duller grey, the keen senses that had served him well were starting to dull. But what he lacked in vigor he made up for in experience. It would take more than the sight of some forest creature to make him break silence.

"There's something...unnatural. Just out of the glade there, do you see?" Veren pointed a gloved finger in the direction he was indicating. It took a moment of concentration, but just this once his older eyes didn't fail him. There, several hundred metres forward amongst the trees, was a smooth shape.

He motioned for the squad to form up and follow behind him, which they did without another word. They walked in a staggered column, arrows nocked. In his time, the bow of a scout was as unique as a fingerprint. Ornately decorated and customized to the wielder, they served as an extension of their body. You didn't just pick one up and start firing. You had to train for years to make it a part of you, to make each arrow count.

Or at least, that's what Kolis believed. His was just so: a masterwork. The others in his squad were fresh hires on Frostfire's payroll, equipped with weapons from a quartermaster's shelf. They were well trained enough, he'd seen that they had been put through their paces else he wouldn't have taken them into the field. But it wasn't like the old days.

They rounded a large, half-decayed log and finally got a closer look at the object. It was unlike anything he'd ever seen in his many, many years. A metal...cart? Carriage? There was nowhere for a beast to be hitched, no means of visible propulsion at all. Furthering the mystery was the dense cluster of trees immediately surrounding the anomaly. There was no way it could have been pulled here unless it was dropped from the sky. Or, he realized with an icy chill, it had been here and the forest had grown around it.

"It might be something of the Old Empire," Kolis pondered. He tapped the impossibly clear glass with a finger. Only the slightest refraction of light told him the pane was even there to begin with. "I've heard stories of self-propelled conveyances. But this doesn't look at all like the frescoes in the Hall of Memories."

Malar, his second in command, shook her head in abject confusion. "What else could it be? Surely not a product of the Krosen. The brutes couldn't design a forge for themselves, let alone this wonder."

"It's far from the sea, so not Vulperi make either..." Kolis wracked his brain, settling on a disturbing thought. "What if it's Kith?"

The squad exchanged glances. They'd been there at the Kith's little village to deliver the threat, pulling back to crush the Krosen raids into their side of the Wile river. The Kith were legendarily crafty, if craven and prone to poor decisions. But why had they left their creation out here for anyone to find?

"Whoever created it, they'll likely be back for it at some point. Fan out and look for signs, then we'll report back. Commander Falan is going to want to hear about this immediately."

***

Jesse peered over the gnarled bark of the gigantic log he'd hidden himself behind. He'd spotted his car alright, sitting where he'd left it partially embedded in a tree. But judging by the armed figures peering through his cracked side window, they weren't the only ones. The weapons and clothes resembled the ones he'd seen the Folk wear. He returned to his sitting position, adjusting when he felt a knot of a root press into his back.

"We got a problem," he murmured, his voice weary. They'd trekked all the way out here just to be too fucking late.

"How many?" Huntress asked. Her hand hadn't left her bow since they'd left the raft. A comfort, Jesse thought. At least one of us can throw down if it comes to that. He winced. His crossbow. He'd completely forgotten it, again. It was on the raft, waiting for him.

"I saw three. No idea if there's more, the forest is pretty dense. Might be some hiding."

Huntress nodded. "It'll be five, likely. Old Empire doctrine said go out in patrols of five. The good news is that if this is just a patrol, it's likely the first time they've stumbled upon your conveyance. Bad news, if we let them leave they'll bring down that full force on us and we won't get to haul back a sliver of steel from your mechanical death trap."

"You're not suggesting that we...kill them?" Bee asked, staring at Huntress with wide-eyed terror. "Not only is murder wrong, but if we kill them we'll never get a chance to deal if we end up taking them on their offer! You'll be dooming us to getting attacked!"

Huntress exhaled sharply through her nose. "You still think they were telling the truth?"

"I don't know if they were telling the truth. But I do know that trying to fight a trained and well-equipped army is worse than suicide. It's a bad idea." The linguist said. She'd been one of those opposed to the whole 'stay and fight' plan in the first place. Why she'd come along was anyone's guess, though she carried several of those religious talismans around her neck. Glora's influence was not to be underestimated.

"Ladies!" Jesse hissed, holding out his hands to them before adding: "And Kalvis. Arguing will just reveal ourselves to the scouts. If Huntress is right, five's more than we can probably take on. I ain't an operator, and they're likely very good with those bows. I think we should wait for them to head back to tell the others, then see what we can do about hauling as much of the car as we can."

***

By the time the Folk were on the move, the rest of the raft's compliment joined them in the cover around the car. Looking from them back to his vehicle, Jesse suddenly had deep doubts him and his short compatriots could get a meaningful amount of steel out before they had to flee.

Huntress appeared from the trees whence the scouting party had departed, giving them the all clear. The wheelbarrow squealed and squeaked as it rolled over roots

Kalvis ground to a halt at Jesse's side, his eyes wide. "Gods...you know, after all this time I still thought you were kidding."

"Nope. That's my car. Shame it wouldn't turn over, of course. I think you'd get a kick out of hearing an engine."

"Likely. From what you describe, it's...well, it's something I want to spend a year with a workshop to try and replicate. But there'll be time for that in the future, I'll wager. Now, we need to take this thing apart as quick as possible. Firstly, how dangerous is dismantling this thing?"

"It's not going to explode if you cut the wrong place, if that's what you mean," Jesse said, then caught himself, "Actually, good point. There's a tank of a flammable liquid at the back, it's called gasoline. There won't be more than a few litres in it but a wayward spark could cause it to ignite. Best to drain it, if we can. Other than that, and with the battery out already, I think the only dangerous parts is the weight. Oh, and the tires. Don't puncture those, they're full of air."

"Full of...you mean they're hollow?"

"No no...well, yes, but not quite. It's full of pressurized air. Like using a bellows then sealing off a container. The air keeps the tire's shape while allowing it to deform over rough surfaces."

Kalvis nodded at the explanation. "I'm not used to thinking of the air we breathe as a material in and of itself but indeed it is. Interesting. Alright, next question: what should we NOT destroy?"

That was a tougher question. Ideally they should outright destroy as little as possible. All the little bits and bobs of wiring could be useful down the line for getting any amount of electronic infrastructure started, but that was a lot way down the road. He explained, briefly, what to look for and what to preserve. Despite reading the pedia entry on cars forward and back he wasn't anywhere close to being an expert. They would just have to do the best they could and hope nothing useful got smashed.

"Anything with wires coming out of it or otherwise looks complicated. Oh, and the glass. Keep the windows as best you can. I'm guessing clear glass is a rarity in these parts. Might be useful if we ever mess around with optics or whatnot."

"Fine, fine. It is pretty remarkable. Without the cracks in the front pane I wouldn't have been able to tell there was glass even there. Your people were miraculous smiths and artisans."

"We just had a head start," Jesse said, uncomfortable with the association with magic or the divine. The last thing he wanted to be was some weirdo lording over advanced knowledge like some pretend god in some bad time travel story. "Had y'all been around for as long as we have, you would of come up with the same things and more, likely."

Kalvis nodded but held a doubtful expression. "Perhaps. At any rate, let's get to work. I'm eager to see the innards of this fantastic contraption."

An hour passed before they were even able to start taking things off. Part of the problem was a lack of compatible tools. Kith had no equivalent to a screwdriver, something Jesse kicked himself for not investigating or preparing for. It took some time for Kalvis to file down a chisel to work in a similar fashion. Once they had it, however, they could start removing the valuable parts in earnest before taking the heavier, blunter tools to the chassis.

The first obvious roadblock was the engine itself. The tree he'd crashed into appeared solid, but the front of the car had partially crumpled inward, squishing the parts together. Getting the battery out had already been a bitch. Removing the engine would be worse.

Their resident smith looked over the tree, block and tackle in hand. "The root structure looks firm, but if the engine's as heavy as you say it is, if we hook it up to the wrong branch it could snap and somebody could get hurt.

Jesse only a basic understanding of how mechanical advantage worked, but he knew enough to not want to mess around with the potential of dropping something heavy from a great height.

"Maybe we could disassemble it too?"

The blacksmith grimaced, pointing at the now exposed engine head. "You see all that? As far as I can tell it's solid metal all the way through. Breaking the elongated frame apart is one thing, trying to section off bits of a giant brick like that'll be another matter entirely. We could try disassembling it, but I doubt I'll have the tools or the time."

The easiest steel to get was the hood, trunk, and roof panel. Cutting the comparatively thin material holding those in place would be laborious but not prohibitively so. While Kalvis worked on the block and tackle, Jesse and the others used a hacksaw and brute force to cut through those, though not before removing the windows and stacking them gently on the side. Then the myriad tubes and fitting connecting the engine components together had to be separated. Kalvis and Huntress took turns, their smaller yet muscular physiques allowing them a better chance at getting into the densely compact machinery. They also tried to hammer out some of the bent-in front grill to get it out of the way.

Once the major components under the hood had been separated from one another, they were ready to send the engine came up. Kalvis had cajoled Huntress into climbing up and hooking a section of chain originally from the Looking Glass up around a high point on the tree's trunk, amidst a cluster of branches. If they didn't hold, hopefully the friction with the trunk itself would keep the whole kit and caboodle from falling on them.

They all worked in tandem on the rope to haul it up. Inch by inch it lifted, the tree groaning against the strain. Finally, when their arms were aching and their hands were ropeburned, it cleared the edge of the car. They lowering it to the ground, immediately exploding into weary celebration. This made lifting the car with a combination of the jack and the pulley system much easier. Kalvis had the idea to actually tip the damn thing over, given that the interior was what they needed least and a lot of the good metal was on the bottom in the chassis.

"Isn't that dangerous?" Jesse asked.

"Everything about this is dangerous, but if we want this done fast, we're going to need to cut some corners."

So they did, but not before draining out the various fluids into whatever spare containers they could find. They couldn't think of a use for oil, transmission fluid, or wiper juice, but they did take pains to carefully catch all the gasoline that was left in his tank. It was enough to fill one of the large casks of water they had taken along for the work, which they had since drunken clean through.

It was an understatement to say junking a car without power tools was a lot of work. But the Kith proved to be much stronger than Jesse had thought, especially when working in groups. A three person team with chisels and prybars worked on one end, while another used mallets to break up partially dislodged pieces. They all went onto the bed of a handcart, which everyone took turns schlepping back and forth to the raft. Jesse proved to be the best one for this task, so he took twice as many shifts hustling long sections of bent, mangled steel to Keela, who stowed them away with an ever increasing look of surprise on her face. From what Jesse gathered, steel wasn't a rare commodity in the larger cities, but finding a giant reserve of high quality steel in the middle of nowhere like this wasn't exactly a daily occurrence. He figured she was seeing...whatever the Kith version of dollar signs were.

He'd just returned from depositing the muffler and some other scraps when Huntress' head perked up. She held her fist to head height, something Jesse gathered meant get down, or silence, or otherwise stop and shut up. Nothing besides the gentle breeze rocking the canopy overhead. Then...the snap of a twig from somewhere to their north.

Jesse scooted over to her side. "Animal?" he asked.

"Technically," she said with a sneer, "They're back."

Kalvis sagged, dropping his hacksaw roughly into his tool pail. "And things had been going so well."

***

Jesse's heart hammered in his chest as he dashed through the forest. It was a minor miracle he kept his footing among the twisting roots that lined the ground. Between them and loping around tree trunks, every step of his flight felt like an obstacle course. But just when he felt like he needed to take a break, an arrow slammed into the bark next to him and he was reminded that, yes, this was life and death.

"Surrender yourself, interloper!" an androgynous voice demanded from behind him, their calls no more compelling than the last half a dozen times. He wondered if the arrows were actually warning shots. He didn't want to test that theory. If they weren't and he did try to give up, there was every chance these Folk would make him permanently cosplay a pincushion.

He hadn't seen any of his Kith allies since the initial volley. God, he thought, I could really use that crossbow right around now.

The Crossbow!

He'd completely forgotten it. Again. Presumably it was still on the raft where he'd left it. He cursed himself for leaving it behind. Maybe he could have given cover to his comrades, let them get away. Or maybe he would have gotten filled full of holes and given the Folk a mechanical advantage.

That was something he hadn't considered in his mad dash to implement as much technological change as he could in the short time allotted. What if his stuff fell into the wrong hands? A crossbow was just archery by another name, but the plans he had on the proverbial drawing board...gunpowder, Greek Fire, things that could break this world's balance of power for good or ill. If he survived, he'd have to give some serious consideration to just how much he should be sharing.

Another arrow plinking off a root knot at his feet knocked him back into reality and the present danger to his health. But the trees had started to thin, and one or two of the landmarks he'd made sure to keep in his head for when he was shuttling steel back and forth were visible. He was close to the river.

Something brushed by his sleeve. At first, he slapped at it like it'd been a speeding insect. But his hand came back a dark red. An arrow had skimmed him, its razor sharp head slicing through skin with barely any resistance and left a trail of blood sliding down his arm. If they were loosing warning shots, the people doing the warning were losing their patience.

Ignoring the wound as best he could he pressed on, blistered feet carrying to the edge of the water. The raft, mercifully, was still there. Kith scrambled to rearrange the steel to form a primitive wall in the centre of the boat. The wagon was tipped over, and Huntress' red hair poked out from the side.

"Down!" she screamed, leaping to her feet. Jesse took the command and dived, slamming belly first into the sandbank. An arrow sailed over his head a fraction of a second later, disappearing into the woods where it terminated in a dull *thunk*. Whatever it hit didn't scream, so it might have missed. Alternatively, it might have very much not missed, and there'd been no time for the target to make a sound.

"Thanks," he said, breath heaving.

"Don't mention it. Couldn't leave without you; would unbalance the load without your lumpy body."

Despite their peril, Jesse laughed. Getting back to his feet, he stumbled on board the raft and collapsed against the pile of salvaged steel opposite the river bank. Hundreds of pounds of former car weren't exactly comfortable, but it was enough protection from arrow fire to keep him safe. At least for the moment. Huntress raced forward momentarily to collect some of her expended arrows, then joined him on the raft.