Chp.11: Preparations

While Sarpa was getting permission from the chieftains to go to the Bolvek tribe, Haku and his siblings had already returned to their cave with their loot. Their brothers and sisters who had stayed there were happy to see them return with so many items, which testified that the plan had been successful.

"Brother! Once again everything went well, I say!" Darbi said running towards him, then he looked at the two fainted and emaciated fairies. "And you've, uhm, gotten even more than I expected"

"It wasn't intentional. These fairies are tougher than I thought" Haku replied. "But maybe they could be useful to us. At the moment they have no chance to resist us, so we can afford to leave them alive a little longer". He nodded to his sisters: "Take them into the depths of the cave and watch them. Notify me as soon as they wake up"

Haku hadn't planned to take other prisoners besides Sarpa's son, but he had preferred to prepare for that eventuality anyway: so he and his siblings had used some runes to dig a small twisted tunnel inside the cave that served as their home. It had been a long job, but by continuing a few meters every day they had managed to obtain a satisfactory result. They had built it in imitation of the architecture of the cave in which they had confined Freyar long ago; it wasn't as efficient as that one, since the materials were different, but it was still able to absorb sound effectively. Once the two fairies were down there, no one could hear them scream.

Haku placed his loot on the rocky ground of the cave. There were indeed many interesting magic items, and he surely would have needed a lot of time to study them all. At the moment, however, he was focused on the ovoid objects he needed to set fire to the walls of the city he would have decided to storm, which, of course, would have been the Bolvek tribe.

The magic items in question were no bigger than his finger and weighed just a few tens of grams. They were beige in color, but were covered in runes that glowed with a golden glow. The runes were linked together in a strange formation, similar to that of the portable gate but very different at the same time.

"I hope they were worth all our effort" Finiar grumbled. "If it turns out that we need to use mana to activate them, we would have done all that fatigue for nothing"

Unfortunately that was a real concern. However, Haku wasn't too worried. "I doubt that's the case" he said. "I've noticed that when there are so many runes and magical formations on an item, it's because that item can work on automatic. It's the objects or weapons that have few of them that require using the user's mana. Also, these things have to be used in battle, so it's likely they're automatic since it saves time and doesn't require to decrease the concentration to charge them"

Haku unfortunately knew almost nothing about magic, but he was a good observer. And thanks to his observations, he could piece together the data and draw conclusions. Since up to this day all items that didn't require the user's mana he'd come across possessed an intricate magical formation, he had no reason to believe that these small ovoid objects would be different.

He looked intently at the magical formation on the object in his hand. At first glance it looked identical to the one on the portable gate, except for the different runes, but the more he looked at it the more he noticed that there were different details. In the portable gate, the runes were surrounded by some kind of circles and connected to each other by lines. In those ovoid objects the scheme was similar, but instead of being connected to each other, all the runes of the formation were connected exclusively to a central rune, much larger than the others and surrounded by at least three circles.

"In the portable gate, the object had to be destroyed to activate it" he thought as he twisted the strange ovoid item in his paw. "But in this case, the object must remain intact after activation, because it must emit that kind of light. Therefore, destroying it cannot be the right solution. There must be some other way to activate it. Therefore, since all the runes are connected to the large one in the center, it is logical to think that it contributes to the activation of all the others. Therefore..."

Haku went to a point of the cave and began to stack large stones, to form a sort of large container. Then he pressed with all his strength on the large rune and threw the ovoid object through the only remaining entrance, which he quickly closed after doing so.

After a few seconds, a crack was heard and through the small openings through the stones several beams of light passed, which were shot in every direction. Haku and his siblings had moved to a safe distance and therefore avoided them, but anything capable of burning that was hit by those rays started to burn: the few plants present in the cave caught fire instantly. The whole thing lasted less than a second, then the rays of light disappeared as quickly as they had come.

As soon as they were sure that the danger had passed, Haku and his siblings approached again and put out the fire, then they moved the stones again. The inside of their 'container' had turned completely red and some of the rock was still hot.

Haku was satisfied. "It looks like we figured out how to use them" he said with a smile. He'd had to waste one of those items, but he still had fifteen left, so it wasn't a big loss.

His siblings too were happy. "Now we have everything we need!" Darbi exclaimed. "When will we attack?"

"We will leave for the Bolvek tribe tomorrow morning" Haku replied. "We will wait for Sarpa to confirm that there are no too strong enemies inside the city, and then we will attack"

"Right, Sarpa!" Kotaru exclaimed. "So, did he accept?"

Haku almost felt uncomfortable under his sister's inquisitive gaze. Kotaru had been the one who brought the ogre problem to light, so it was only natural that she was so apprehensive. "He accepted" he confirmed. "However, he asked for some small… changes to our original plan"

His brothers and sisters were somewhat confused by that statement, except of course for Finiar, Glausar, Corgorin, Maldor and Rhaegal, who had been with him during the 'negotiation'. "What kind of changes?" Keita asked.

Haku briefly explained to them about the deal he made with Sarpa, in which he promised to give him some time to secure at least part of the population. By the time he was done, his siblings seemed to have conflicting opinions. "Well, it's not a big change..." Darbi murmured. "... but in this way we'll lose a lot of food!"

Haku could understand what his brother meant. He too had thought about it. In fact, with that attack the dragons hoped to obtain not only the refrigerators they needed, but also all the inhabitants of the city who would have joined their supply of meat. Now, however, they would have had to give up a part of them. "It doesn't matter" Haku said in the end. "I'm sure we'll be able to get a big profit anyway. And even if that's not the case, if by some miracle Sarpa manages to save the whole population in the space of fifteen minutes, in the next few days we'll have many more opportunities to get the food that still we miss"

His siblings nodded. The plan to make Sarpa king of the ogres was known to everyone, at least in outline, so they knew that within less than a week there would have been a large number of corpses in the Karbraland Great Forest. Haku was sure that by the time they left the forest they would have far exceeded the 7,000 tons that they needed.

Rhaegal snorted. "I still don't like this plan. Was it really necessary to promise that ogre to make him a king? We'll waste a lot of time with this"

Haku grunted. "I don't like it either, but as much as I thought about it I don't think we could have done otherwise. The newcomers are very emotional creatures, none of them could have agreed to let a city be sacked without a big payoff behind it. Even with the threat of the humans and the possibility of becoming a king, Sarpa still forced me to negotiate for the safety of the inhabitants of the Bolvek tribe. This shows that this was the only proposition available" he said. "Let's console ourselves: when we have destroyed the city, the ogres will do basically all the work. We will have to intervene almost minimally. In the end, we will gain more than we lose: we will only have to stay here a few more weeks, and in return we will get a lot of food thanks to all the dead that there will be as a result of the battles. Having a little more supplies than the expected count won't certainly hurt us"

Rhaegal was clearly upset, but he was smart enough to know that Haku was right. If even after all those offers Sarpa had wanted to negotiate, then there really was no other way to silence his conscience. "Anyway, what are we going to do once he's king?" he asked.

Haku didn't understand. "What do you mean? You know, we're leaving for..."

"No, I mean... what about the fairies? Didn't you promise Sarpa to make him a king and prepare him for future human invasion?" Rhaegal said.

Haku shrugged. "I promised we'd make him a king, and that's what we will. I never promised to let him win the war with the fairies" he replied. "Once Sarpa will be king, I will allow him to take a copy of Ethan's diary. This, combined with the fairy magic that I'll teach him, will count as preparation for human invasion. As for the war with the fairies, that's Sarpa's problem, not ours"

Haku was many things, but he certainly wasn't impulsive. He had no intention of going against the fairies, at least not directly. He had promised Sarpa to make him a king because it was a relatively easy thing to do and it didn't involve much risk. And he had promised to 'prepare' him for war with the humans because he had Ethan's diary with him, containing all the ogres' weaknesses, so by reading it Sarpa could 'prepare' himself to it accordingly.

Haku thought that he was really lucky to have run into Ethan before. Without him, getting to that point would have been much more difficult and uncertain. But after all, as Haku had learned in the hard way, survival was only 10% ability; the other 90% was all just luck.

Rhaegal seemed satisfied with that answer: after all, he too didn't aspire to face the fairies. The dragons dispersed in the cave and returned to their usual duties, leaving Haku alone again... or almost.

Kotaru didn't leave. She stood motionless in front of Haku, watching him with an inquiring gaze. Realizing that she wanted to talk to him, Haku beckoned her to follow him and the two left the cave, going away from prying eyes. "So, what do you want to ask me?" he said as soon as they were far enough away.

Kotaru grunted. "I learned to recognize your tone of voice. I know you were lying to Rhaegal"

"I don't know what you're talking about" Haku replied. "I'm not going to face the fairies, I guarantee you"

"Oh, I'm sure of that. But I don't think you aren't planning something against them" Kotaru said. "Am I wrong?"

Haku grit his teeth. "No, you're not wrong" he admitted. "I have something in mind"

"And you're not going to tell me what it is?"

"Exactly"

Kotaru narrowed her eyes. "I thought I explained to you that you have to trust us. You can't plan something and keep us in the dark"

"I know" Haku replied. "But you also explained to me that certain details should be left out. We did this with our mother, didn't we?"

Kotaru snorted. It was actually true: both she and Haku hadn't told their siblings what their mother really was, they had only hinted that sooner or later they would have had to abandon her. "And this time your secret has the same importance?"

"Absolutely yes"

"And you don't want to tell to no one? Even to me?"

"No. Believe me, it's for your own good"

"I don't think so" Kotaru seemed truly disappointed. "Listen to me, brother..."

"Haku!" Finiar's voice stopped Kotaru. Haku turned around and saw his sister quickly approaching them. "The two fairies have awakened" she said.

"Thank you, Finiar" Haku said, then he looked at Kotaru. "Sorry, I'm busy right now"

Kotaru snorted. "This conversation doesn't end there, okay?" she said. "I hope you really know what you're doing, brother"

Haku hissed in annoyance. "I know what I'm doing" he grumbled, then he followed Finiar and left Kotaru alone.