Chp.18: Sack the city
As soon as Sarpa saw the wall begin to burn, he knew he was running out of time. He could no longer continue to bring citizens to safety: now, he had to worry about those who were already safe. He tried to console himself: thanks to the precautions he had taken, even if there were still many ogres out there, they were still a small number.
He grabbed a horn and blew with all his might. A loud rumbling spread throughout the city. That was the signal he had taught the thirty ogres of the 'special unit', which meant that the defense was now lost and that they must abandon whatever they were doing and rush to defend the passage to the underground cavern.
After blowing the horn, Sarpa ran towards the chieftain's house. Several other ogres were still arriving, but far fewer in number than when he'd spoken to Goroth. Sarpa hastened to show them the way; even though he knew he had to enter the tunnel right away, he still wanted to save as many people as possible.
The entrance to the underground cavern was directly next to the chieftain's house: it was a deep shaft with a spiral staircase leading down. It was at least five meters wide, enough to make it easy for large numbers of people to descend. At the bottom of the well was a tunnel that descended diagonally and with a solid iron door protecting the entrance to the cave. After the door, the tunnel continued for a few meters and then came to a huge underground cavern lit by a large number of small torches. There the women, the children and the elderly had gathered, huddled together as much as possible to make room for the others.
Sarpa was pleased to see how many people there were. Apparently, even if he hadn't been able to rescue everyone, at least four-fifths of the civilian population had already been herded there. That was reassuring.
Some ogre soldiers were already there: Sarpa recognized them as members of the 'special unit' that had to bring the citizens to safety. Within minutes, more arrived. All of them had answered the call of the horn and had gone there to protect the population.
There were only twenty-three of them out of thirty. Evidently, seven of them hadn't been able to abandon the civilians and had stayed behind. Sarpa could understand them: despite the intense training he had subjected them to, it was difficult to perform the same operation while the people around them were actually dying. For a moment, a brief moment, he was tempted to wait some more time, to still hold the doors open and to hope that someone else would have been able to reach the safety of the underground cave…
But a moment lasts only a moment. As soon as one of the ogre soldiers asked him: "What are we to do, sir?", he knew exactly what to answer.
"Our defense has lost" he said loudly for all the soldiers to hear. "The chief in charge Goroth and all his soldiers are dead. The fairies will be here in moments. Now we are the last line of defense that can protect the people. Remember: your only task now is to defend this passage with all your strength, even with your life if necessary! Close the doors now!"
Many ogres immediately rushed to do what Sarpa had ordered, struggling to move the huge, heavy iron doors of the door; but some of them remained motionless. "Sir... shouldn't we wait? There are still people out there..." one of them whispered.
Sarpa snorted, trying to build up his courage, and placed a hand on the ogre's shoulder: "I wish we could wait too, but we have to do our duty. We already knew we wouldn't be able to save everyone. We have to focus on those ones who already are here!" he exclaimed. "The fairies will be here soon, and if we haven't closed the door by then, then we won't have a chance to resist them. We have to do it, or no one in this city will survive. I know it's hard, but you must close your heart and think only of protecting this passage. We can't allow the sacrifice of the chief in charge Goroth to have been in vain!"
That short speech was enough to shake the spirits of the ogre soldiers; albeit with tears in their eyes and the weight of the awareness of abandoning innocents pressing on their hearts, they ran to help their companions and with great effort closed the door. After that they planted several pieces of wood to act as awls, in order to improve the resistance of the doors.
They did just in time: as soon as they had sealed the door, something hit it with unheard-of force. The wooden stakes cracked and splinters flew in all directions.
Moments later, a second shot came. The ogres were terrified. Like all other soldiers, they too were nothing more than recruits who had never faced a real emergency: their courage faltered under so much pressure. "What is that? A breakthrough ram?" someone asked.
With the third blow, the wooden stakes broke completely and fell to the ground with a thud. The metal door was clearly using all its strength to keep from collapsing. The ogres tightened their weapons, preparing for the worst.
But then it happened something that none of them would have ever imagined: Sarpa ran towards the door and flattened his back against it, then he raised his arms and grabbed the rock of which the tunnel was made. He did it with such force that the stone split and his fingers dug into it. Sarpa planted his feet firmly on the ground and when the fourth blow came, his body was like a shield and he didn't move a single millimeter, keeping the door shut.
The ogres were speechless: being able to exert such great force wasn't something trivial! At the very least, it was the work of a soldier of level gold! Was it possible that Sarpa was much stronger than he had let on?
Obviously none of them guessed that the strength shown by Sarpa wasn't due to his skills, but to a little... trick. In fact, on the palms of his hands, Sarpa had drawn two small runes that Haku had taught him: these runes allowed him to increase his grip on any object, including a rock wall. In addition, a rune of endurance was drawn on his back, which prevented his spine from breaking from exertion. Unlike Haku and his siblings, Sarpa could control the mana in his body and continually directed it to the runes, which fed on it.
While the ogres still wondered at Sarpa's sudden strength, he lifted his sweaty head and stared at them; his gaze was so full of determination that for a moment the ogres forgot about the danger outside the door. Then Sarpa spoke: "You are proud soldiers of the Bolvek tribe! No matter what horror lies beyond this door, you won't give ground!"
The ogres stood motionless for a moment, then one of them yelled: "YES!" and rushed to the door with Sarpa. Then another, and then two more, and then four more. One by one, all the remaining ogre soldiers flattened themselves against the door, forming a wall with their bodies. Their limbs vibrated and their muscles burned every time a new blow came to the doors, but all of them planted their feet firmly on the ground and didn't budge from their positions.
"Hold on! Don't let the fear control you!" Sarpa yelled. "This door won't fall while we are alive! The Bolvek tribe won't fall while we are here to defend it!"
"YES!" the ogres yelled, using all their strength to hold on against the loud blows that came from the other side of the door. Despite the dire situation and the fear gripping their hearts, a strong courage and determination was driving them. Thanks to Sarpa's inciting words, each of them secretly promised himself that he would never have allowed the fairies to enter the cave.
Of course, it wasn't the fairies who were hitting the door: it was the heads of Kialandì, Teramon and Sisna. The three sisters had been sent by Haku to the door to keep the ogres busy. After all, if no one showed up, it would have been weird and some ogres would have thought they might come out and have a look. Better to keep them busy then. Furthermore, in this way Sarpa would have gained some fame. If Haku wanted to make him the king of the ogres, then it was wise to use every opportunity to increase his charisma: being the hero who had courageously led the resistance of the Bolvek tribe would certainly have earned him some admiration from the ogre people. It mattered little that defending the underground cavern was a relatively easy task: once people started talking about it, Sarpa would have been painted as an indomitable warrior of unwavering courage.
While Sisna, Kialandì and Teramon kept the ogre soldiers busy, the other dragons rampaged through the city, slaughtering every single person who had the misfortune of not arriving at the shelter in time. The city was small and the flames trapped the ogres inside, and there was no way they could hide from the dragons' scent. Very soon, the streets were littered with corpses which were quickly engulfed in flames.
"I almost regret leaving so much food here" Rhaegal muttered as he slit another ogre's throat.
Haku knew what his brother was referring to: unfortunately, since they had to pretend that that attack had been organized by the fairies, they couldn't have taken the bodies away, but they would have had to let them burn in the fire. After all, why would have a group of fairies away from their army taken prisoners? It would have been wiser to kill everyone and let the flames consume their bodies. Therefore, the dragons would have had to leave all that meat there to rot, which was a great waste in their perspective.
"It doesn't matter, we'll get a lot more food soon" he said. "And by the way, these ogres are not our target"
Haku hadn't come here to get more ogre meat. He was aiming for another prize.
As the fire spread more and more, Haku reached the warehouses. Normally, it would have been impossible to enter them: they would have been constantly defended by a large group of guards. But now, the city's defense had fallen and there was no one left to protect them.
With a flick of his tail, Haku broke down the door and found himself in front of a real treasure. The warehouses were full of frozen food, and the temperature was kept low by a refrigerator. The dragons of course took everything: those were supplies, so why shouldn't the fairies take them away? But what Haku cared about was the refrigerator, the key to keeping food fresh. But he wanted more, much more.
Haku went to another warehouse complex; this time he found a large number of weapons of all kinds. Unfortunately, these were normal, non-magical weapons, so the dragons left them to burn.
Another warehouse. This time what Haku found were several crates filled with different items. He doubted many of the items were magical, or otherwise useful in battle since they'd been left there, but he took them all anyway. And finally, in one of the crates he found what he was looking for: an immense amount of refrigerators.
Haku's eyes sparkled as soon as he saw them. The amount of refrigerators in the crate was far more than he needed to store his 7,000 tons of food for the next ten years. Haku took them all and put them in his dimensional bag: he got what he wanted. He could call that an absolute victory.
After that, Haku let his siblings destroy other parts of the city and kill all the remaining citizens, while he went to explore other important buildings such as the chieftain's house. Unfortunately, he found nothing of value. So, he let it all burn.
When the city was almost completely engulfed in flames, about an hour into their attack, Haku decided that enough had been done. Their work was done. So he called all his siblings back and together they left the now devastated city of the Bolvek tribe, disappearing in the darkness of the night as the fire devoured what remained of the wooden buildings. Sarpa and his companions noticed that the knocking on the door had stopped, but fearing it was a deception they decided to wait before going out to have a look, giving the dragons plenty of time to get away.
And meanwhile, the patrols of the far distant ogre army had already sighted the fire, and the chieftain Volgor was making his way back to his city as fast as he could. But it was too late now. The plan had been a success.