Tanya, who I think understood even less of their angry exchange than I did, didn’t help by adding “Yeah!” every time Ed said anything.

“Now is not the time to debate your feelings on interspecies dating,” Julie shouted as she cranked off several more ineffectual shots. Luckily my wife understood a lot more Orcosh than I did. “Tanya, promise Skippy that you won’t use your elf magic to steal their souls.”

“Uh…Okay. I promise?” Apparently soul-stealing hadn’t been on her To Do list. “You better not try to put my ears on your elf-ear necklace.”

“Fine.” Skippy grunted in frustration. “Curse you, row-tor spirits! Stubborn…Exsrzd!” and then Skippy rattled off some complicated instructions in Orcish. The only word I’d picked out of that was sacrifice. “Fast now go!”

Edward slid to the back of the cabin and rummaged around behind the rear seat. He came out a moment later with a cardboard box that had been wedged in. Ed reached inside and pulled out…a chicken? I’m pretty sure it was the same chicken he had stolen up north. The bird was alive and seemed very nervous. For good reason, too. “Seriously, Ed? Seriously?” Julie groaned. “Okay, fine. Whatever. Do it!”

“Go toward the light, brave little bird,” Tanya said.

“More sacrifice!” Skippy bellowed.

The orc grumbled something to the tail rotor spirits, squeezed next to me, and hurled the chicken like a football right out the door. It zipped straight into the smoking tail rotor and disappeared in a flash of feathers.

“Holy crap! Did you see that?” But then I had to concentrate, since the dragon had swung back around on my side. I lit the beast up with the 240.

The shocking part was that our improvised chicken repair seemed to actually do something. Skippy at least sounded happier. “Much better…Hang on.”

The Hind tilted up, then rolled over, and over, and over, and then we were upside down. Every one of us screamed. The lucky ones were pressed against their seat by the g-forces. A gigantic aluminum case that had been wedged beneath the chicken box came free and smacked Ed in the arm. I floated in the air, holding onto the grip of a machine gun, hit my head on the roof, and then landed back on the floor. I was so temporarily disoriented that I’m not even sure what kind of maneuver we performed, but then we were heading back the way we’d come from and the dragon was below us, furious and trying to turn around.

“Go, Skippy, go,” Julie gasped.