23:49, Rotation 264 / 365, 232 AE, -67.305118, -68.774432, Reath

  It had continued to devolve, most of the sensible orcans had fled the scene, but the remainders were the hardcore, the ones who were there for the WAAAAAAGH. It was a purge of their angst. A violent passion surrogate. A proxy.

  What was worse was now some older ruffians from San Martin had heard about how things had gone and wanted to get in on the action, knowing that the whole razza terror campaign thing had been in planning for lunas, and in fact all the of the diagrams, maps, complicated itineraries, and hard evidence tracing directly to the culprits involved could be found in the town hall.

  Eight orcs burned alive trapped in the temple, but about seventeen had been trampled to death in the stampede on the way out.

  Thirty-two orcans had been cooked under the rubble of the Ziggurat. It was where the fire burned the brightest. The Ziggurat had toppled in such a way that the flaming bamboo now fell to the unfelled trees, which started a full-fledged forest fire.

  There were around four hundred orcs still waghing out at the yurt, but that was the first place the parents hit, and now there was nothing but the relentless staccato of gunfire exchanges instead of the sound of meat smashing meat, but still in all out, no holds barred, chaotic close quarters combat.

  What was a wonder was that somehow, through it all, the punk stage had just reformed itself and was now going stronger than ever. It was more than just a music stage now, it was an action. The punks had commandeered all the scrap material they could find left in the wake of the WAAAAAAAAAAAGH- and there was a lot of it- to assemble new tents, do it yourself, just total improvisational cooperation between strangers. They put together an infirmary, a free kitchen for those who were hungry because there was no food tent at all, spaces for rotating workshops by the hour. And still the music went on:

  “I DRINK CHEAP BEER! SO WHAT? FUCK YOU!”

  Deyandra was a bit bummed that she didn’t spend more time there.

  The improvised explosive devices that the San Martin bois had planted all over the place – they had no real coordinated plan on when to detonate them, or even why and what kind of message they were trying to send in the first place – were mostly detonated. Mostly. The soot stains left by the blasts pockmarked the big clearing where there once was a music festival. But now it was just a- yes, that.

  The sole exception was the pop-up beer bar, which had unanimously been agreed upon by all to be neutral territory and a protected safe zone where all could mingle without fear of reprisal – if you had beef, take it outside – so it was functioning normally. Better than normally, they were killing it. Those who did not care to be swept up in chaos decided to throw the afters there.

  The Lion in charge of the pop-up beer bar, Rhatag’s son Rhogun, could scarcely believe that they were really going to run out of alcohol.

  Dey and Zhon had fled as far as they could to the edge of the clearing after taking out the last group of San Martiners, only to find themselves beset by a flamethrower wielding orc and his gurl.

  More- it really was never enough, was it?

  They watched helplessly as three Lions were torched by the flamethrower. The San Martin bois had hidden it way deep in the woods, where only they knew where to find it, loaded up with ghash and kerosene. The orc that wielded it yelled to his gurl friend, “Frungcheska! Frungcheska, honey, I gotsha some barbequed lion!”.

  Frungcheska Sateph, sat behind him and not helping with his rampage at all, yelled back “Remember that we’re not cannibals, honey!” and then she added, “And this does mean sha still needs ta decide what sha cookin’ tonight!”

  Flamethrowerboi, one Hangdru Hyde was totally bald and had a scraggly green-black beard that had split ends that stuck out like sword grass. He wore a tank top and a baggy pair of sweatpants. He was blind drunk; he had drunk methanol. Orcan servings of methanol. That’s why he had to use the flamethrower. His eyes could barely see anything other than light gradients approximating what he assumed was where the light was, for his optic nerve had been so seared by formic acid.

  But with the flamethrower, his beloved ‘ghashthrakka’, all he had to do was point that kanon in any direction, which alone ensured that everything had been burned to the ground. Avoiding the thrower’s flames was when he looked for light, before walking in that direction after the flames had died, when he looked for the darkness. Also, he could echolocate, so he was entirely combat capable, and really had no disability at all, despite his blind drunkenness on methanol. He wouldn’t have survived if that weren’t true.

  Zhon and Dey were done. Zhon had one arm left, and he felt that sufficed as reason to get him out of the game and back on the bench. He wished he was in bed right now.

  Dey had no bullets left, and she had already waghed what she could. Worse, she had committed the cardinal mistake, which was, of course, getting high on her own supply. Dey had so little appetite from rote to rote – it was practically Godlike instead of orcan – that she hadn’t brought enough juice for the juicer. While Dey was super proud of her trim figure, she had to keep shaving the grass sprouting out her skin all the time. And she really wished she had eaten more now, because with second degree burns all over her right forearm, she could really use it.

  They kept deadly silent because it was obvious that Hangdru could not see.

  Then Zhon farted.

  Fuck, thought Deyandra.

  “I’m sorry, I really- I really tried to hold it in as hard as I could-”, muttered Zhon.

  “Shut up, Zhon.”

  “Aha! Rotheran!”, roared Hangdru, and he turned towards their general direction.

  “Honey, honey ah- hey can sha maybe- hm you know what never mind”, Hangdru was now pointing the nozzle of his flamethrower directly at his zug friend’s face, but Miss Sateph decided maybe it was better to just walk around behind him, so she did so.

  Hangdru sniffed and an evil smile spread across his face. His echolocation wasn’t the best because he listened to too much loud music and so his eardrums were a bit fuzzy – he’d been going tang tang at the clearing for a while – but he prided himself on his sense of smell. The nozzle now pointed directly at Dey and Zhon.

  “Well, Dey, it was nice to know ya. Lion pride.” Zhon was convinced it was the end. He had eaten so many beans he stashed in the pop-up beer bar, that he was sure his fart would act as a pre-igniter for the jet of flame that was surely about to conflagrate his sorry orc ass.

  Deyandra just dipped her head, put her palms together, and started praying, “Dear God, Dear Jesus, Holy Redeemer, Holy Spirit, Holy Prophet, Holy Buddha, please don’t let me die with my last moment being Zhon saying ‘Lion Pride’ after all that we’ve just been-”

  BOOM!

  Just as Frungcheska had walked around the nozzle to be standing right behind Hangdru, so that she was standing right next to the ghash and kerosene tanks strapped to the thing, Gnosta shot the kerosene tank. It exploded, ripping Hangdru apart limb from limb, and smashing flaming Frungcheska Sateph away. After the smoke cleared, there was hardly anything left.

  Dey and Zhon stared in shock, wondering what miracle just saved their sorry orc asses.

  “ZHON!”

  Zhon turned around to see his father smack him in the face.

  He tried his best to get rid of his orcish – real talk – but could only get rid of the shas, for his brain simply didn’t have the immediate vocabulary to vocalize any other way:

  “Zhon dinnae I tell ye that this gangster shit would end in some wagh nuk-nuk? Well, here we are.”

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  He remembered the talking point, so he continued, “-and sha dragged GITHARIE and ZHAKKATHAN into this nuk! What do ye have ta say for shaself?”

  Zhon just tried to hug him with his one arm, and that’s when Zahul fully realized that someone had torn Zhon’s arm off. Deyandra jumped into the hug too, “War Master Thraxes oh my God, terima kasih, we’re saved!”

  “Boi! How-” he shook his head in disbelief, “-How did you get-”, he almost didn’t want to ask. He also hoped that Gnosta was covering him still.

  But this was just gezzno Zhon and his- what did Gnosta say she was? ‘Shady’ friend Deyandra. Lowest priority. Zahul would never admit this to his children, but for Zahul, the order for the rest of them would very obviously be Githarie first, then Zhakkathan, and then Zholl.

  “Rotherans!”

  Kullmang and Sarvok.

  The nakaz zug that had grabbed on to Kullmang’s chain whip had luckily slipped away, but not before Kullmang got his chain whip back. He did not have his jaw back on though, so this time it was Sarvok who had to do all the talking.

  “Ha- ha- huh- huuuuh-”, Kullmang was gesticulating and frantically trying to talk with his hands but Sarvok just look at him with confusion.

  “Huh?”

  Kullmang was trying to sign – not that he actually knew sign language – that Sarvok should Darthrak the olog sharku right now, get the jump, because Kullmang knew that Zahul was a War Master, and a hero of the Exodus, and that he was not to be underestimated, and they needed every advantage they had. They had to end this quickly.

  Kullmang was the brains of the operation not because he was particularly cleverer than Sarvok – if anything Sarvok’s cold, calculated thinking, as dull as he felt he was, probably outperformed Kullmang’s crazy, conspiratorial half-baked web of schemes No, Kullmang was just more bak gwa [八卦], nosy, all Gollum-like, getting all into everyone’s business, because that’s how gigs are found, deals are made, and most importantly- that’s how the vulnerabilities of others are sussed out, and to be exploited. Kullmang kept his ear to the street. Like Karyn it was ironic he could not talk anymore, or perhaps it was just some sick and twisted sense of poetic justice.

  But Sarvok, impatient with Kullmang’s contradictory signing – not that Sarvok knew how to read sign language anyway – decided, skai this. He had been planning on doing this for a while anyway.

  So he smashed the rest of Kullmang’s rekt face in with a little Darthrak Dim Mak [点脉] Touch of Death – concentrating all the rage energy he had into just his grips strength and explosive fast twitch fibers, he could produce explosive power with just two fingers, and even at just a few centimeters away – straight into the eye sockets and through, and Kullmang, his prefrontal cortex now caved in, was no more. Brainless corpse slumped, collapsed to the ground.

  As Sarvok unfurled the chain from Kullmang’s corpse it began spinning off, a bloody yo-yo, and when the chain was fully unfurled it sent the body flopping away, leaving a streak of blood trailing on the ground off from where Kullmang’s face used to be.

  Sarvok swung the whip around him to feel its heft, get a handle on it, and then cracked it. It snapped with a satisfying ‘KH-TINK’. He cackled. It erupted into a howling laugh. He pointed a fist, still tightly gripping the handle of the chain whip, straight at Zahul – he usually went for the biggest guy first – and said hoarsely, rage drunk and wagh mad,

  “I will be the last to remain- and you will be the next to die, sharku.”

  This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the annual sanctioned purge.

  Old enough to be creepy as hell hanging out at a razza, which is why they did not go.

  There was even a diorama.

  Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

  Forbidden fire. The elvans weren’t going to be happy about this.

  They had discovered a secret stash of beans in the pop-up beer bar, which they heisted post-haste, in addition to using a communal pile of snacks for ingredients, provided by those contributors forward thinking enough to bring them.

  Including ‘How to build political solidarity with stakeholding identity groups in a WAAAAAAAAAAGH’, and ‘Bomb Making’.

  It was a cover of Cheap Beer by FIDLAR.

  All that was needed to convince any orcan that planting some sort of explosive was a good idea were simply two words, “boom boom”. The response was always “Cool!”. Any orcan could gesh the words “boom boom”.

  There would be a few stray mines that an unlucky bamboo lumberjack would have to chance upon at some point later.

  The less strict parents decided to join their children. It didn’t hurt to take the edge off after a good bout of fighting, and hey- free beer. It had better be. Snaga kids.

  He was also the one who had control of the big steel coinbox where they kept all the money. And for ether and bit payments – the address was scrawled across the bar surface – and he controlled that too. He made sure to feel gratitude for his magosh. As for how much of this blessing would be shared with the other Lions, it would really depend on how much Rhogun liked ‘em.

  It was a modest proposal.

  He had a great insecurity complex about his last name because it sounded like ‘hai’.

  Being blind already meant that he could just drink more, was his logic.

  Maybe even take a cold shower if Zholl ever finished his excessive goon offs every damn rote. Could he ever even get into the Chief’s hot tub?

  Number four. She knew she heard that before.

  An indicator to orcans that they might just be a little bit anorexic.

  And that gave Gnosta just the angle she needed to get a clear bead on the skai, and she asked her husband, “Take shot?”

  “Wait, wait, wait, I think I see a twofer,” said Zahul, looking through binoculars. He had spotted for his wife many times.

  “Take. Shot?” Gnosta was saying with a little bit more urgency now. Zahul said, “Wa-ai-it for it-”.

  If there was one thing Zhon knew how to do, it was to survive a razza, he knew that he had to eat while he could, to party as long and as hard as orcanly possible. But he really should have washed those beans more thoroughly, for while orcans could indeed digest oligosaccharides, it came with the tradeoff that they farted even more than the Godlikes when eating beans.

  Deyandra was a firm believer in Pascal’s Wager. What she could not abide is endless hell. But her personal belief, though she would never talk about it, embarrassed to be labeled a nurd, was in reincarnation.

  Deyandra was very well versed in the Mysteries, the spiritual and religious ancient wisdom traditions of the orcans.

  “Shoot the tank.” Gnosta had not even considered that option, so used to drawing for a headshot in her training and habit, so she said, “Geshzugas, Zaza.”

  Which instead of becoming ‘yous’ only became ‘yas’, ‘yes’, and ‘yers’ anyway.

  It was Zhon himself!

  Of course she was.

  It worked like this- Zhakkathan the momma’s boi was ash kop kid for Gnostie, while Githarie the daddy’s gurl was ash kop kid for Zahul. Zahul and Gnosta were a team, they covered each other. It was only fair that if Zhakkathan was Gnosta’s favorite, then Githarie would be Zahul’s favorite. They didn’t even pick this, it came naturally. No choice in the matter.

  Oh, here we go, Gnosta thought. Bhilly was dead, by the way, having blown himself up with his grenade. With vodka all over him.

  Gnosta was considering ending it quickly, but she scoped them out and decided- nah, Zaza’s got this.

  Kullmang was a compulsive liar but sometimes he forgot that he was lying about something, convinced it was the truth. He lied to himself more than anyone. Delulu.

  He would have made a great criminal informant if the orcans bothered to police.

  They would have been terrible charades partners.

  Sarvok, as part of his training for the Darthrak – something passed down to him by his father, Balvok Unchev – had transmogrified a majority of his muscle fibers to fast twitch. But it did mean that Sarvok really had to learn how to conserve his Deathbringer Assault and only use it in the moments that really counted- economy of effort.

  A One Inch Punch, but the Queens of the Elvan Age decreed that only metric should be used, because it just made more sense- they even changed the measurement of time to metric, on the spirits advice.

  It was not that Sarvok was psychopathic, and indeed he felt a little bad for his friend as he granted Kullmang mercy. But the problem was that Kullmang had really become a depraved addict, and behind his back almost every single member of San Martin was convinced that that Yepboi was a liability now and needed banishment. Knowing how many times Kullmang was already banished and knowing that one more time would mean he would die out in the Orcan wilderness all alone, Sarvok simply didn’t want Kullmang to suffer. The Dim Mak destroyed his brain so thoroughly it would have been completely pain free and it would have happened so fast that without berserker reflexes turned on – and he hadn’t turned them on – to Kullmang it would have felt like a blink and would not have even consciously realized his friend’s mercykill before his dar. To Sarvok it almost felt exactly like the decision made in that one book – he rarely read but when he did the book fascinated him – that he could recall was called Of Mice And Orcan (Meldy had gotten her hands on that one). But sorrow for poor glob Kullmang would have to wait, for he was in the heat of battle. It was truly ironic that the olog Sarvok was the George in this case, and the skinny, scrawny, scrappy Kullmang the Lennie.