Chp.38: Thinking about future difficulties

Haku was boredly watching the Zamor soldiers marching below him. He was perched on a high rock and from it he had seen the small army move from horizon to horizon in the space of an hour. It bothered him a lot to see how slow the newcomers were: for him, who valued efficiency, it was really annoying having to stop and wait for them instead of continuing on his own. Literally he and his sisters only had to jog ten minutes to get to a point on the trail that newcomers would take an hour or more to reach. It was unnerving, not to mention irritating. The only positive side of that situation was that at least it gave him the opportunity to reflect.

Having achieved their victory, he and his sisters and all the army had quickly abandoned the Arapaina Gorge and started their journey back. Zamor obviously didn't know that that hasty escape was due to the fact that Haku feared that Carrion would free himself before they could be far enough, therefore the dragon had told him that he simply feared that King Marcus might betray them and therefore it was advisable to move up as far away as possible. possible. The beastmen had agreed to those words and then for a full day and night they had performed a forced march until the sun had risen the following day; only then had they finally made camp and rested. Thanks to that march they had put several tens of kilometers between them and Carrion, and Haku hadn't heard any noise to signal that he had broken free (he was pretty sure that to move all those stones Carrion would have released his energy with a strong explosion that would have blown it all away, so not exactly a silent thing; even if the newcomers couldn't hear it from great distances, Haku would definitely feel it), so the situation was flattering for them.

After resting, the beastmen celebrated. Haku hated that waste of time, but he couldn't help it: after all, continuing to insist on leaving as soon as possible would have generated suspicions, and furthermore a short party would have improved the morale of the soldiers who would then have marched with more ardor. While the beastmen celebrated, however, he had not been idle: he, Thora, Zamor, his sisters and the various avatars of his brothers and sisters scattered throughout the rest of the Province of Baudonia had held a small meeting to discuss the plans for the future.

"Currently, we are located not far from the lizardmen labor camp, in an area where the water is quite placid and where it is easy to dock. The lizardmen are performing funeral rites for those who have died" Darbi had explained, who were talking thanks to an avatar.

"Do they intend to bury their loved ones there?" Tikka had asked curiously.

Darbi had shook his head. "No, they don't want their relatives and friends to rest forever in this land. They want to take the bodies to their future new home and bury them there"

Haku had huffed bored. If the burial wouldn't have taken place anyway, what was the point of performing the funeral rites in advance? It was ridiculous as well as silly. But for the sake of decency he had avoided commenting. "And your two friends? When will they join you?"

"I'm in constant contact with Gord and Brenno. The first will be here in a week, the second in two" Darbi had promptly replied. "Once we're reunited, we'll set off for Skai Elbow. It'll take us just another week to get there"

The Skai Elbow was a place in the Skai River where the riverbed made a strange curve that almost looked like a bent arm, and consequently the central part of this curve was called Skai Elbow. It was the fixed meeting point for all the teams: there they would all gather and using the boats they would cross the river, and then begin their journey across the desert.

Haku had nodded. That answer had satisfied him. "We should get there around the same time" he had said. "Rhaegal, what about you? How long will it take you?"

"Our road is a little longer. Even if the forced quarantine has cleared the passage for us, it will take us at least a month to reunite all the ships and reach the Skai Elbow" the brother had replied, who was also communicating with an avatar.

Haku had huffed and had narrowed his eyes. "I get it. Make sure you use as much attention as possible: don't forget it, you are the one most exposed right now. Even if everything has gone well so far, we can't know if the king won't make some sneaky move"

Rhaegal had nodded. He knew that his brother was absolutely right: since they were located directly next to the population centers, he and his men were the ones most exposed to the risks represented by a possible retaliation from the king. Even if everything had gone well up to that moment, they absolutely mustn't let their guard down.

"Now let's talk about numbers" Haku had said at that point. "How many prisoners have you rescued in total, and is the food you have with you enough to feed them for this entire month?"

That was a legitimate question. Even though Darbi and Rhaegal had set out laden with supplies, and these supplies had been calculated based on an estimate of the number of prisoners held in the camps, there was no guarantee that they would be sufficient. So if food was a problem, Haku should have known about it right away so he could send supplies if needed.

"I have already done the calculation. I have a total of 15,612 prisoners released" Darbi had answered. "5,367 lizardmen, 4,890 tigermen and 5,355 lionmen. We have sufficient food supplies"

"For my part, putting together the prisoners released from all the camps scattered across the various Province of Baudonia, I have a total of 2,161 other people" Rhaegal had said. "768 lizardmen, 923 tigermen and 560 lionmen. Unfortunately we have slightly underestimated the numbers in question. We have sufficient food supplies, but only if we ration them"

"You don't have to worry. We'll send you more supplies within a few days" Haku had replied. Now that they had the bodies of flying creatures, he could have one of his sisters possess one of them and use it to bring food to the other teams.

That had, in essence, been the conversation that had taken place that day. When they'd finished, they'd left the beastmen to amuse themselves for another hour and then had set off again, heading for Skai Elbow. Haku and his sisters, accustomed to moving much faster, obviously found such marching slow and boring, and spent their time patrolling the surroundings, conversing with the newcomers (especially Maldor, who seemed to have really taken a liking to that human, Isaac) or to take a nap on some very comfortable and sun-warmed rock, like the one where Haku was lying at that moment. With the difference that Haku wasn't sleeping at the moment, but as usual he was immersed in his continuous thoughts and calculations.

Since he was the mastermind of that intricate plan, Haku knew well that defeating Carrion, despite being the biggest challenge, wouldn't be the only one. Crossing the desert would have already been difficult if it had been just him and his family, but doing it with all those newcomers would have been a real feat. The number of mouths to feed was immense: counting only the newcomers who were at his service, meaning the beastmen, the ex-slaves, their adventurers and that strange mage (obviously excluding his family, since they already had the necessary provisions), their number was already 1,275 people. Combined with the 15,612 prisoners rescued by Darbi's team and the 2,161 rescued by Rhaegal's team, the total was 19,048 people. Furthermore, probably only the first 1,275 were able to move quickly and to resist the extreme conditions of the desert: all the others would have needed a slower march, which meant more days spent in the desert and therefore without the possibility of finding food .

Luckily, Haku wasn't someone to be caught unawares. Thanks to the reports from Darbi, Gord, Brenno and Isaac, he had long since decided to make his calculations for supplies assuming that there would be at least twenty thousand mouths to feed, and he had been right. Therefore, the accumulated food was sufficient: it came from various areas of the kingdom where his siblings had performed an indiscriminate hunt, as well as from the reserves of 'The spider' who had bought a lot of it. Therefore, crossing the desert was a feasible, if difficult, undertaking. But this assumed that once they reached the Thul Oasis any seeds that the beastmen brought with them would take root immediately, or that the animals and fish (which the lizardmen carried in large glass bowls) would adapt to their new environment. In practice, the plan could work if a long-lasting and sustainable food source were formed at the Thul Oasis in the short term. Otherwise, there would have been a collapse of food supplies and virtually all of the rescued prisoners would have starved to death, leaving only the strongest and strongest alive.

Haku absolutely didn't want that eventuality to arise. Of course, he had no intention of sharing his and his siblings' supplies with the newcomers: after all, they were their life insurance. Speaking of these supplies, by the way, thanks to the last few battles they had grown further: Haku was after all an opportunist and hadn't let so many food sources slip away. The total soldiers killed in the battle against Carrion, combining those in Yvon's main army and small army, was 5,230; Darbi had informed him that the labor camps looted by him, Brenno and Gord had 200 guards each, therefore for a total of 600, while Rhaegal instead stated that on average in all the 12 labor camps he freed there were 100 guards each , for a total of 1,200. As a result, Haku and his siblings now had 7,030 more human corpses they could feed on. Since each human weighed an average of 70 kilos, they provided over 492 tons of meat. Add in the meat of all the various beasts they had killed and were at least using for other purposes (basilisks, amphitrites, wyverns, etc.) that number rose to at least 800. Haku and his siblings already had enough food to last them ten years, by which time they would have unlocked their domain, and also had a surplus that would have allowed them to carry on for another year or two. Considering that a dragon over the age of ten needed at least 500 kilos of food a day, Haku was sure that with that additional 800 tons surplus, he and his siblings wouldn't have to worry about food until they would be fifteen years old. So it wouldn't have been such a big deal to share some... but of course Haku wouldn't do that, and then he was pretty sure that newcomers wouldn't like to eat other newcomers' flesh.

Haku wasn't the type to share resources, considering how hard it had been to get them; rather, he preferred to have the beastmen successfully establish themselves in the Thul Oasis and be able to produce their own food. Therefore she had asked Sisna and her other sisters who had avatars mixed among humans to find out as much as possible about agriculture and breeding; however, they had not had much success since they had discovered that the techniques for cultivating or raising animals were not written in books, but were handed down orally by farmers from generation to generation. That discovery had infuriated Haku: how could newcomers not write down such important things!? Unfortunately getting angry was useless, and he had tried to console himself by thinking that among all the beastmen they would have saved there would have been someone expert in those matters. To avoid relying on chance, however, he had asked Maldor and Isaac to look for magic to encourage the growth of plants, or at least to strengthen them or make the soil more fertile. The two had had little time to work on it, but they had gotten some results; even if they weren't extraordinary, they were still promising.

In any case, Haku was sure there was still a lot to do. Even if Carrion had chosen to not follow them, they would still have to face very difficult challenges. Consequently, as always happened in these cases, his brain had entered in the full phase of processing all the data at his disposal to obtain solutions to the various problems along the way. And as often happened in these cases, he was promptly interrupted: "Are you still thinking?"

Haku just lowered his gaze. He had heard her coming since he hadn't let his guard down for days, but he had pretended to not notice her, hoping she would go away. "Hi, Kotaru" he greeted her. "Let's skip the pleasantries. I know why you're here"

Kotaru was silent for a moment, then she let out a huff. "Well, apparently you've achieved a little greater self-awareness. That's a start"

Haku ignored her joke. "You want to talk about what I said to Carrion, right?"