Banquet

3 Days later.

Felipe has met the other survivors, and just like the others, they are immensely grateful to the crown prince for saving them. They constructed an excellent enough shelter to pass the night above the ground. It was just surprising what 26 people with machetes could do in a few hours of work. They cleared the vicinity of bushes and vegetation. They also brought down almond trees, which the somewhat critically injured soldiers began to open and prepare for all of them to regain some calories.

Almonds are not native to South America but from Asia, though they thrive in the environment, which is why colonizers brought them; life always finds a way, so they have appeared dozens of kilometres away from a plantation of almonds.

Though by the considerable amount of blackbirds feasting on the carcasses and the amount of prey-class birds feasting on the corpses and the blackbirds, Felipe could have gotten an assumption of why they were there.

The Orinoco River basin Savanna could be stupidly deceiving. It looks like it is entirely dead but is beaming with life. So much that the main reason they made their plans to start travelling was not due to resources but the fact that the number of blackbirds was too much, too much to ignore; the sounds of the thousands of birds would keep them awake at night as if they were protecting their souls from them.

They also found another mule, which hid 300 meters down the river vegetation; they somewhat knew how many mules were there. They also know that not all horses died, and some have escaped. Still, it is outside their visual range too.

The Black Nirds began perching near them as if they knew they were about to die, but they would waste some black powder to kill 3-4 every so often and show them that they were not food. But who can blame the blackbirds? They have been feasting on 23 thousand dead men for over four days.

They have tasted the flesh of humans and dead horses, so no matter how much hunger they have begun to feel with their diet of almonds, they will hunt no blackbird and eat it. They will rather die first.

A mission to scavenge the dead bodies for gold, bullets, gunpowder, muskets and Bayonets took place the last two days, recovering 3000 working Muskets, there are more curses, but the smell of death has made them leave. However, they must still learn how to transport or use many muskets. They plan to hide most of them, so any counter-attack army only gets an advantage if they lose on their odyssey.

And so, their journey began, all at lower speeds due to the injured members of the party. They only had a compass, a general map, and a general directing through the position of the sunset and dawn. But anything else was at the mercy of god.

Virgin territory, virgin Savanna, walking along the Orinoco River, knowing they must cross it at some time. Their hunger grew as time passed. And after three days of travel, they have finally lost the blackbirds. They arrived at a lagoon/slow water, where they began to look further and set up camp; this would be another semi-permanent one.

They plan to arrive at the nearest village. Their approximations tell them it will be in a day or so of travel. But the hunger has been killing them, so much so they have begun to think about killing one of the donkeys.

"Shhhhh," Felipe said with his mouth and made the hand signal to stop and move back; the other soldiers complied. They were looking for food and had just found it; he didn't want to waste such an opportunity.

"Rojas, Morales, Casablanca, Cordoba and Sarmiento, load your muskets." As soon as Felipe said so, everyone became severe and alert, thinking it was an enemy attack.

"What happened, your majesty?"

"Nothing, only I saw six crocodiles perching on the bank," Felipe said as he smiled, and all the other soldiers smiled.

"I tell you, huge crocs." Another soldier that saw them confirmed the story of the crown prince.

"The crocs are afraid of humans. Deep down, they know that we are god's favourite of all his creations, so being silent is essential, and more than anything, to be a good shooter." Felipe said as he chuckled.

Everyone was excited, so the soldiers Felipe called upon quickly began to prepare their muskets and fix their clothing. He also was preparing his musket. He was too hungry. He has been too hungry. He will not let a such opportunity slide away.

--

Later that night, the whole squad was eating crocodile meat. They resembled the blackbirds devouring bodies; 6 crocodiles between 26 hungry men, most of them used to be professional soldiers.

The crocodiles are Orinoco River crocodiles. In his past life, they were pretty endangered due to their poaching for their skin, but now, there are thousands upon thousands. Felipe was not hesitating on killing a human, much less an animal.

Feeling intoxicated with dopamine, the spirits all of them were high. There was no tension, and so their mind drifted away from the fact that they had just witnessed one of the most horrific battles of the country's history; they had forgotten that their brothers had died.

"Your majesty, can you please tell us about Spain?" Casablanca asked. He is indeed a Criollo, meaning the son of white Spaniards. Only 18 years old, he has just turned of age to start bringing honour to his family with campaigns.

"Most of it is like the Empire, rock everywhere, but god has favoured this land more; their mountains are dead, the heavens don't pour rain as often as it happens here, devoid of life. The infrastructure is something to envy, their cities and wealth, and I hope to show the Empire someday." M

"What about England?" Rojas asked right away, as he was pretty curious. They know their place, but at the same time, they are too interested in the overly open crown prince.

Felipe remembered that he had spent five years of his life growing up in England and the other 11 years in the Colombian Empire, which had been in constant war.

Born in Spain, raised in England, and living in the Empire.

"England is always gloomy. It's always raining, so they are huge food producers." Felipe explained they don't have mountains… at least England does not. The United Kingdom has other countries that have quite a lot of mountains… but… even then, the Empire is multiple times larger than the United Kingdom, our fields are more fertile than the ones of England… we have more potential than England, yet, civil war has already claimed thousands of men with not even a decade of existing." Felipe used every single opportunity to make sure everyone felt nationalism; he planned to make the people that were with him the core of his Empire.

"Then why are we so weak?" Morales asked.

"We are not weak; we are just not organized. The moment we are under one banner and one country, we will be quite invincible," Felipe said as he felt stupidly full and tired. Still, they had to smoke the 3/4 of the crocodile they didn't eat.

The rations for a 10000 army were distributed at the beginning of the campaign, so getting water was the only thing necessary for the enormous armies. After the battle ended, all the rations were in each person, making it a pain to collect them. Moreover, they never really calculated their rations, so most of the soldiers were out of rations anyways; they had to march while hungry most of the time. So yeah, they mostly consumed fresh almonds while they were resting.

"Speaking of which, I predicted the trajectory of Paez correctly; the Venezuelans must have also gotten wind of our departure. It is most likely that they began a counter-offensive through the shorter way… so it is most likely that Caracas will be empty for the taking," Felipe explained as he relaxed on the floor.

"Then we don't have to worry?"

"Anyone who does not worry about the enemy is fated to be defeated, even if we are so close to it." Felipe explained, "Morales, you will act like a spy when entering Caracas. Your job will be to identify the heads of this rebellion and where they live. Later on, we will go for them."

"Yes, your majesty." He said, thrilled that the crown prince trusted him so much.

The crown prince has brainwashed the survivors of such a battle by now. If before they were loyal soldiers of the Empire, they are now loyal soldiers of the Imperial Crown Prince.

They were, after all, quite simple creatures; most of them didn't even know how to read, so when a person of so high standing would be so close to them, their loyalty to him just went through the roof, especially after he had personally sacred them to keep fighting.