Chp.42: Winners and losers
The ogres arrived at what was left of the fairy capital the following day. After seeing the dragon pass over them, Sarpas had seen that his soldiers were too scared to approach the city, so he had decided to postpone the attack. In a way, he was pretty scared of it too. So he had the army encamped and sent only a few scouts to check the situation.
For a long time, the ogres had felt the earth shaking and strong gusts of wind had reached them, some of them still strong enough to snap the topmost branches of trees. Then, everything suddenly stopped. Calm had returned to the forest. The scout squads Sarpa had sent earlier hadn't returned, and they had probably been overwhelmed by the countless catastrophes that the dragon had unleashed. So Sarpa sent other ogres to check what was going on. The scouts returned shortly after reporting that there was no longer a trace of the dragon and that the entire fairy capital, and also a good part of the forest that surrounded it, had disappeared.
The army was happy to hear that the dragon was gone, but Sarpa, just to be on the safe side, preferred to wait a little longer. After all, the danger posed by an adult dragon couldn't be taken lightly. So they had spent the night in camp and only set out again the next morning.
By the time they'd gotten halfway there, they'd already begun to notice signs of the devastation: fallen or bent trees, cracks in the ground, uprooted plants, and even rocks that looked like they'd been dragged a few feet. After they got within twenty kilometers of the city, the forest gave way to a wasteland strewn with broken logs and deep cracks in the ground. It would have taken decades, perhaps even centuries for the forest to return to its original state.
When they arrived at what had been the city, even the ogres, warlike and battle-hardened creatures, couldn't help but howl in horror at the disaster that had been unleashed. Every single building had been reduced to rubble. Everywhere there were craters, chasms, puddles of water and huge black patches formed by charred wood. There were even a few fires that were still burning despite several hours having passed.
Sarpa gulped. He couldn't help but imagine what would have happened if the dragon's wrath fell on the ogres and not the faeries. Most likely, they wouldn't have suffered a different fate. Something told him that Haku had something to do with that monster's appearance; he didn't know how he had done it, but he was sure it was his plan. Although he knew the young dragon's ruthless personality, he was once again astonished at how far he could go to achieve his goals.
He looked around. The huge dragon was nowhere to be seen, which was to be expected since the fairies could hardly stand up to it. He hoped that Haku had also thought of a way to keep the dragon away from the Karbraland Great Forest in the future, or the ogres would have been in serious trouble.
However, despite the carnage, the situation was beneficial for him and his people. Sarpa knew that now the ogres would no longer have had to worry about the fairies: even if there were any survivors, they would have been too few to pose any serious danger. Now, the ogres were the absolute rulers of the Karbraland Great Forest. Sarpa felt a little sorry for the fairy people (he would have preferred to conquer the city and put the population into slavery), but in any case he had achieved his goal: the war was now officially over.
Additionally, the ogres gained enormous benefits as they scoured the ruins of the capital. The fairies had many precious materials such as gold, silver, diamonds and other stones, and they had been able to resist fire and other natural disasters: the ogres only had to look for them well and recover them. Even the precious materials that had been closest to the fiery breath of the dragon were still usable: many of them had melted, but still they remained gold or silver; it would have been enough to deliver them to a blacksmith to transform them into ingots, coins or other objects. The wealth that the ogres gained from sifting through the city was incredible, so much so that several dozen carts were needed to transport it. And there weren't only precious metals and stones: many magical objects and weapons that had been found away from the fire were saved. Many of them were damaged due to the earthquake, shock waves and any other catastrophe that had hit them, but they were still usable.
But the biggest gain was what the dragon had left. The ogres found numerous scales, each the size of their own arm. The scales were basically indestructible, and the ways they could use them were endless; Sarpa already had some ideas in mind. But what he liked to find the most was the blood: some pools of dragon blood, not a young dragon like Haku, but an adult dragon that had already unlocked its domain.
According to his orders, the ogres collected the blood and put it in containers. There wasn't much, but it was enough to fill a few bottles. Once this was completed, Sarpa could no longer hold back and took a sip of the dragon's blood.
If drinking Haku's blood was like swallowing a volcano, drinking the blood of an adult dragon was like swallowing the sun itself: Sarpa felt burnt from within and suffered atrocious, almost intolerable pains. He didn't know how long that lasted, but when his body finally managed to absorb that strange substance, it was already late at night and the other ogres seemed very worried for their king. When he woke up, they asked him apprehensively if he was all right. But Sarpa wasn't just fine… he felt stronger than ever.
The mana in his body seemed to have increased thousands of times. He had reached an extraordinary level. He was now certainly beyond level diamond, maybe even level mithril. Level adamantium? Maybe, but he had to check it out. He walked towards a stone twice his height and without using the runes he poked it with the tip of his finger. The stone crumbled as if it were made of sand.
The ogres rejoiced that their king had grown so strong, and they greedily watched the dragon blood they had collected. Sarpa smiled and then made a big announcement: "Listen to me! Even if there was no battle, today we still have to celebrate! Because we have gained enormous wealth! In the coming days, weeks and months, we will study the magical items we have recovered and we will obtain the knowledge of the fairies, which we will use to improve our way of life and above all our army! We will use the dragon's scales to create impenetrable protections, armor and shields! But above all, I will personally distribute the dragon's blood to the warriors who have proved most worthy in this war, and I will form an invincible legion! Thanks to these things, we will transform this forest into a prosperous and powerful kingdom in the coming years, which no one will be able to attack without paying a heavy price!"
The ogres let out exclamations of joy and began to celebrate. Not only they had conquered the enemy capital effortlessly, but they had also obtained the foundation for a bright future! Many began to thank the dragon who, albeit unconsciously, had allowed them to earn so much. Some even started to say that it was the god Baat himself who sent the dragon to reward them for their efforts with those magnificent gifts.
Sarpa inhaled deeply, extremely happy as he clenched his fists and felt his newfound strength coursing through his veins. Now he had everything he needed to counter the future invasion of humans. With the dragon's blood he would have greatly increased the strength of his bravest and most faithful soldiers, with the scales he would have created indestructible protections, and by studying the magical objects of the fairies he could have obtained further runes and enchantments with which he would have improved even more the his army. He would also have fortified the cities better, using the excuse of wanting to avoid a disaster like the one he had been part of, and he would have made the ogres a more united people than ever using his new influence. Even though he knew it wasn't true, for a moment he too thought that perhaps the dragon had been sent by Baat... or rather, that Haku had come there at the behest of Baat to help the ogres eliminate their historic enemy and prepare for a much more dangerous one.
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While the ogres rejoiced and enjoyed the fruits of the fairy city destruction, far from them, another people were plunged into weeping and despair. Or it would have been more correct to say what remained of a people. Very little, by the way.
The fairies had retreated to a point far south of the forest, away from the ogres and their now destroyed capital. Of the more than 100,000 inhabitants of the Kingdom of Tai-Chinn, only 800 were still alive. These were veteran and experienced soldiers, who had been able to withstand the devastation wrought by the dragon, and to a lesser extent some lucky fairies who had been in the right place at the right time. But all the others were dead, swept away by the fury of the dragon. And the only things that the survivors could do was mourn their deceased loved ones and pray for their souls.
Fridya was among them. After the dragon finally died, she retrieved the relic and wrapped it in cloth to carry it without being affected by its power and risking her death. After that, she left as soon as she regained her strength. She had flown off to where she knew she would have found the survivors, and there she reunited with them and told them what had happened. Then she had gone to a secluded place with an excuse and there she had burst into tears.
Now she was the only high-ranking fairy left, and consequently the one in whom everyone placed what little hope they had left. Therefore, she couldn't cry. Never. Not in front of the other survivors at least. If she collapsed, they would all have collapsed. Many of them already looked ready to stick a knife in their throats, she couldn't afford to look weak. If she had to cry, she could only do it if she was alone.
Her body trembled as she held her hands tightly over her mouth to stifle the sobs and prevent anyone from overhearing her. As she cried, she thought about everything she had just lost. Everything. Her home, her country, her queen, her friends, the people she was supposed to protect, almost all of her soldiers. She had basically nothing left. Except rage. Rage at the dragon who had unleashed this disaster, but mostly rage at the one who had drawn the dragon against them.
Fridya knew that the chances of a dragon suddenly deciding to attack them were one in a million. While dragons were evil and cruel creatures, they didn't kill for no reason. The dragon that had attacked them had ignored all the rest of the Karbraland Great Forest and had headed straight for them: it was clear that the fairies were her target. But the fairies had done nothing to provoke her wrath: they didn't even know of her existence before that day! Which left with only one explanation: someone else had made the dragon want to kill all the fairies.
Fridya now had absolute certainty: someone had manipulated the situation from behind the scenes. Perhaps the whole conflict with the ogres had actually been a ruse. Behind the strange series of events that had completely destroyed her people was a cruel and skilled puppeteer who had no qualms about killing everyone to get... anything they hoped to get.
She took a deep breath, and then she wiped away the tear marks as best she could and went back to the other survivors. They all looked at her waiting for her orders. They knew she had probably cried, but as long as they didn't see it, it was okay; it was a strange psychological mechanism that Fridya had come to know in her years as a general. "Let's go to the mountains" she said. "We can't stay here, not with the ogres still around. We'll be safer in the mountains. Now rest, we leave in an hour"
For now, the best thing to do was to get the remnants of her people to safety. But Fridya swore to herself that one day she would have found the bastard who had destroyed her people. A flame seemed to burn in her throat as she thought about it and she couldn't suppress a growl. Oh, yes, she would have found them. She would have found them and made them pay for every single life they had destroyed.