Chp.3: Plan to sack a city

If there was a general way to describe dragons, it was as selfish and opportunistic creatures. They weren't necessarily evil: simply, in their eyes, other people's lives mattered according to how many benefits they could bring them. In their view, animals and other intelligent races were no different. A newcomer might feel pity for an animal, but they would have had no qualms about killing it if they were hungry. Dragons likewise didn't hesitate to devour other intelligent races and they felt not the slightest remorse in doing so. They didn't even disdain cannibalism, so how could they feel guilty about eating an ogre or a human or any other intelligent creature? To them, they were no different from the wild cows or boars that they normally hunted. Unless they could bring them some benefit, like Sarpa, they were only a source of food.

That's why Teramon had just suggested storming a defenseless city with a smile on her face. If she had been in the midst of newcomers, most likely her proposal would have generated disgust or even horror; but among dragons, that was just a simple idea to solve a problem. And indeed the other dragons, including Haku, seriously began to consider her proposal and they smiled in turn when they realized how feasible it was. None of them thought even for just a moment that attacking a defenseless city full only of the elderly, women and children was morally wrong. Morality was a social construct of the newcomers, not the dragons.

"This… might work, actually" Haku murmured in a hesitant voice, but not because he felt bad at the thought of doing such a thing, but because he was ashamed that he hadn't thought of it himself. "Since all the soldiers and warriors of the tribe are now busy on the battlefield, entering one of their cities or villages would be much easier than before"

"If we did that, we could achieve a lot!" Rhaegal exclaimed. "Not only refrigerators, but many other magical items as well... and also many supplies! With our current strength, we could wipe out a small village without effort and leaving no survivors!"

"I don't think it would be a good idea to storm a village. We might leave survivors" Sisna contradicted him. "If even one ogre escapes us, our cover will be blown. I think the best course of action is to put the violence aside and organize a simple theft, quick and silent. After all, because of the war, the smaller villages have been completely emptied of guards and sentinels, and then there will be no one to detect us. We could go in and out without even encountering a single ogre"

"Sisna is right. We can't risk leaving witnesses" Kialandì said. "I also propose a theft"

"Though that would be hard to explain. Think about it: why should fairies only steal from small villages?" Kotaru points out. "With their abilities, they could raid much larger targets, such as cities. I doubt the ogres will believe that the faeries just happened to choose to attack a village or two"

"What does it matter? We'll stay here for just little longer. Once we'll get the refrigerators we'll have pretty much everything we need" Serengal opined.

Haku stamped a paw on the ground, drawing their attention to himself. "It matters a lot, instead. If the ogres would have the slightest suspicion that a third faction is involved in this war, they would choose to speak with the faeries to find out the truth. Once the two sides would meet to negotiate, there would be no way they wouldn't understand what has happened. Within a few days, both ogres and fairies would be searching all over the forest for find us". Haku looked at Teramon: "Your idea is good, sister, but we have to perfect it. Let's think carefully..."

His brothers and sisters stared at him intently without saying a word. They knew that when Haku had that expression it meant he was planning something, and disturbing him at that moment could annoy him. "We have several problems that we need to solve. The first is the number of refrigerators we need. Since so many of them have been taken away by the army, the small villages keep too few. I guess each village has only the amount needed to preserve their food until their soldiers return. Which means that even if we raid every single little village in all the forest we won't get the number of refrigerators we need" he muttered. "The only way to get the exact number is raid several medium-sized tribes… or rob a single, large city, which surely has many of these items stored in their warehouses"

"But both robbing a medium-sized tribe and a city is impossible to do quietly" Darbi noted. "Unlike small villages, they still have some sentinels"

Ogre tribes differed in their numbers: the small ones had a population of 1,500 to 2,000, the medium ones had 2,000 to 5,000, and the large ones could number up to 10,000 and thus they formed entire cities. Generally, two thirds of each tribe consisted of individuals who were unable to fight, meaning women, elderly and children. Which meant that a small village of 2,000 ogres only had a little over 650 soldiers at its disposal, and consequently they all had to leave for war leaving their tribe completely defenceless.

But the larger tribes were different. A medium-sized tribe with a population of 5,000 ogres could count on at least 1,600 soldiers, so the chieftains could afford to leave a few dozen of them to protect the village. As for cities with a population of 10,000 ogres, they had more than 3,000 soldiers, so a few hundreds of them were left behind for protection.

But Haku wasn't willing to let that scare him. "There are only a few hundred ogres capable of fighting, and they can easily be managed. We can use magic now thanks to runes and those left to protect the cities are probably young recruits still unable to fight. We will just set a trap, as we do always with our prey"

"A trap?" Rhaegal thought back to the ways they commonly killed animals. "You intend to lure them somewhere and then..."

"… and then use some earth magic to make them fall into a hole, and then set them on fire" Haku explained. "Even if there were some lucky survivors who were left behind, we could easily handle it"

"How are we going to attract them?" Sisna asked with much interest in her voice. It was clear that Haku's plan was having some success.

"With a diversion. We'll set fire to a house or something" Haku explained. "Just a few of us will be enough. We will just have to enter the city and set the trap. The warehouses will almost certainly be guarded, but any street or house will be easy to set on fire. Once that happens most soldiers will rush there and in one fell swoop we will eliminate them"

"And I guess you already have an idea to how to get into the city" Kotaru said, who already guessed that Haku had thought of everything.

"Obviously. Or rather, I don't have it, but this does" Haku replied pulling Ethan's diary from his dimensional bag. "That human had the duty to locate every weak point in the ogre cities, and he pinned them all here. Thanks to this, finding a way to enter without being noticed will be as easy as blinking"

His siblings nodded in response, smiling at the thought. Entering a city and committing a theft would have been almost impossible, because the warehouses were guarded. But conquering it and then taking everything away... that didn't seem to be so much impossible.

"One problem remains" Tikka said suddenly. "How are we going to keep the ogres from escaping? A city is big and there are only seventeen of us"

What Tikka had said was right: after all, Haku himself had remarked just before the importance of not being discovered. But he already had the solution to this problem. "The architecture of the ogres will help us. Their walls almost completely surround their city and are made of wood. We just need to set them on fire to turn the whole city into a death trap. At that point we will only have to destroy any towers and block the exits, and no one will be able to escape" he explained quickly. "Once the ogres are trapped and we have killed all the soldiers, they will be helpless. All we have to do is find them using our superior nose and kill all of them one by one. Then we just have to loot their warehouses and get away before someone else come and discover what happened"

His brothers and sisters laughed and burst into cheers. They had found the perfect plan! Haku put a paw on Teramon's shoulder, making her jump. "Great idea, sister" he said.

Teramon shook her head. "Don't kid me. You're the one who thought of everything" she responded.

"True, but I never would have succeeded without your suggestion. My previous view was too limited" Haku replied. "Don't belittle yourself. We are a family, each of us has a role. And today you allowed us to find a solution to our food preservation problem. The glory is all yours, not mine"

Teramon smiled, flattered by the compliment. After all, all dragons, especially the females, were extraordinarily sensitive to flattery.

But suddenly Kotaru's voice stopped the celebrations. "Wait! We still have a problem"

Haku looked at her. "And that is...?" he asked.

"Sarpa" Kotaru answered. "How do you think he'll react after he knows what we've done?"

"Who cares. He's just a means to an end" Darbi grumbled. "I don't care about his emotions"

"Well, you should!" Kotaru exclaimed angry at her brother's shallowness. "What if he couldn't keep the secret anymore? What if he would lose control? What if he would reveal our existence?"

"But he took an oath" Teramon opined. "So far he's kept it..."

"So far, exactly. Newcomers aren't like us" Kotaru replied. "They can break their promises. And they are also very emotional from what I understand. There is no guarantee that Sarpa will keep his oath after he knows what we have done"

Haku understood what Kotaru meant. He too had often had the same doubts. He had watched Sarpa to make sure he never lied to him. Up until now the ogre had kept his word almost always, but Haku was sure that he too had a breaking point. After learning that they had destroyed a city he could have decided that so many people weren't worth his and his son's life and reveal everything. "I've thought about that too" he said. "That's why we're going to kill him. We don't need him anymore, after all"

Unlike newcomers, dragons never broke their oaths, even if it cost them everything. However, they were good at finding loopholes. Some time ago, Haku had promised that he would have let Sarpa and his son go alive and unharmed when the job was done. 'When the job was done' meant that the dragons would have gotten everything they needed for their journey. But since this hadn't happened yet, there was nothing to stop Haku from killing Sarpa, since the job wasn't finished yet and therefore he didn't have the obligation to leave the ogre alive and unharmed.

But Kotaru shook her head. "We can't. We still need Sarpa"

Haku didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"Come on, brother, you're smarter than that!" Kotaru exclaimed. "We have no information regarding the soldiers left to guard the cities, we have only guesses. Who tells us that they are just inexperienced recruits? Who tells us that there isn't someone very dangerous among them instead? We risk getting into big trouble if we go blindly! We need someone to go in there and brief us on the situation! And unless some of you is able to change his appearence, the obly one that can do this is another ogre!"

Haku narrowed his eyes. This actually made sense. It was best not to enter the predator's lair without knowing how strong it was. "In that case we'll kill him later" he said. "Or, if the amount of ogres we kill is enough to fill the last 1,000 tons we have left, and thus the work can be considered finished, then we will imprison him. We promised him that we would have let him and his son go and that we wouldn't have hurt them, but we never said where we would have let them go. We will take them to a cave and then we will close the entrance with a boulder. They will be able to free themselves, of course, but by the time they have done so we will already be over the border of the forest..."

"And what's going to stop the ogres and faeries from warning the humans or beastmen? They can't chase us into their territory, but they can set the locals against us. They would have a lot of reasons to do this" Kotaru continued. "Or what's going to stop Sarpa from breaking his oath before we storm the city? We'll have to tell him what we'd like to do since we need him. Or do you think he won't question if we order him to go scout an ogre city without explaining why? He might decide to warn the inhabitants, or worse, the army"

Haku reflected. Actually his sister was right. There were too many variables to involve Sarpa in the plan, but his participation was essential if they were to avoid risking a bad ending. "So what do you suggest?" he asked.

Kotaru shrugged. "Offer him something"

"Something?"

"Yes. Something that will guarantee great benefits for him. All people, whether they are dragons or other races, have desires. Find out what Sarpa wants and offer it to him. Added to the threat to kill his son, this should be enough to appease the his conscience"

"It should be?"

"Unfortunately, we don't have absolute certainties. Sometimes we have to make bets"

Haku snorted. He wasn't a person that liked to bet, but unfortunately he didn't have much choice. Entering an ogre city without knowing how strong the guards were would be an even bigger bet. "Benefits, huh?" he murmured. "Maybe I have some ideas. I'll have to think about it... In any case, however, the choice is made: we will attack an ogre city and sack it!"

His brothers and sisters gave an exclamation of assent. All of them had absolute confidence in their success. The plan was ready: now they just had to refine the details.