Mongol Horde Pep Rally
(Vignette)
"You know, bein' a nomad has its ups and downs, an' part of the deal is, you can't really stay in one place too terribly long... I mean, we've been stuck in this God-forsaken place for months now, and there really ain't much out there for the horses to eat other than grass roots, and some of the guys are on the edge of goin stir crazy an losin' it. I wish I knew what the hell this was all about."
"Stayin in one place this long ain't no better than livin' in cities, an' it's startin' to smell just about like a city here... kinda defeats the whole purpose of our way o' life."
"Keep your shirt on just about another ten minutes here, babe, the mystery's about to get resolved, one way or another."
"I say, we all know this shit's gotta have somethin' to do with them asshole Turks, an' that asshole Shah of theirs... I tell you, them bastards ain't about to let us start running caravans through there... that caravan is history, man, an all them dudes went with it are dogfood.!"
"What nobody ain't told me, an' what I'm waitin' to hear, is why anybody would do somethin' like that to a swell guy like the boss? It just don't make no sense..."
"Looks like we're gonna find out what's what right now! Cheese it!!"
"All rise for the Kha Khan, the emperor of mankind, the baddest of the bad, the big boss!!!"
"Gentlemen, be seated, and listen up. I'm not going to bore you or insult your intelligence with charts or graphs this evening; I'm going to get straight to the point. I know a lot of you are wondering why I've called you to this God forsaken place, and why you've been held here on station as long as you have. I know Mongolia isn't one of the world's garden spots, and this place makes Mongolia look good. Some of you have probably surmised that the problem here involves those asshole Turks and that asshole Shah of theirs, and that's a pretty good guess. It turns out, they not only took that big caravan you all saw and killed everybody with it, but I sent four ambassadors to check it out about two months ago, and the two survivors just got back in this morning with their beards burned off!"
"I'll be a son of a bitch!!!"
"Ain't that some shit!!"
"You gotta be kiddin!!"
"QUIET!!!! the boss is still talkin'!!!"
"Now, those two gentlemen weren't ever going to win any beauty prizes one way or another, and there simply wasn't any reason for those guys to go to that sort of length to impress me with how bad they are. The problem here isn't what you might think it would be; it's not that the Turks and all their leaders are assholes per-se; the problem here is COMPLACENCY!... "
"Huh?"
"Say what?"
"What a guy! Always checkin' us out wit' dem big words!!"
"Lack of competition. Those guys have had everything their own way for over 50 years now, and they get to thinking it doesn't matter how they treat other kinds of people. If you look at it one way, were I to let this little incident slide, they'd figure they could treat every other group of people the same way, and Sooldyeh's curse would fall on me for not putting a stop to that when I had the power to. The other way to look at it is that we want to set up trade routes between China and the far West, and those idiot Turks are right in the middle of all that."
"And that, gentlemen, is why I've summoned you here to this God forsaken place. I need your help. Our Turkish friends require a cure for complacency, and I know that that's something which you are good at. They need some unusual sort of excitement in their lives like, perhaps, two hundred and fifty thousand blood-thirsty, crazy mother-fuckers riding roughshod over their countryside, carrying off thier women, and pulling thier cities down to the last stone!!"
"Here, Here!!!"
"Bravo!"
"I knew it, I knew it...!!!"
"Bully!!"
"QUIET!!! Let's have some order here before I hafta boil somebody in oil!!!"
"Gentlemen, this is going to be big, possibly bigger than anything most of you have seen since China. I'm talking about ten or fifteen cities of half a million population or more, and all of those people, every single one of them, need the kind of excitement which only you can provide!
So, what do you say? Are we gonna rape?!?"
"You know it, boss!!"
Are we gonna PILLAGE???"
"Hot damn!! Just like old times!!!"
"You better believe it!!!"
"Does a wild bear shit in the woods??"
"Fuckin A, boss, you sure have come to the right bunch of people if that's all you need!!"
"Are we gonna LOOT?"
"Kxhuu - Kxhuu - Kxhuuu - Kxhuu - Kxhuuu - Kxhuu - Kxhuuu- Kxhuu!!!1
"Whoa, MAMMA!!"
"It don't get no better'n this!!"
Are we gonna BURN???"
"Whoooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaah!!!!! now you're talkin!!!!"
"I never woulda thought workin for a livin' would be this much fun!!!"
"Geesh what a great guy! You couldn't beat this with a hammer!"
'I mean, are we gonna have one fuckin great time or what?
"Hip Hip, HORAH!! Hip Hip, HURRAH! HIP HIP, HURRAH......."