Haku was satisfied. Everything was going exactly according to plan.
As he'd predicted, his little farm tucked away in the desert was thriving. Very soon he would reveal it to Zamor and use it as an excuse to widen the canal and create large arable fields. Since he produced medicinal herbs, no one could have opposed the lizardman's decision. Once a much larger farm was created, it would be easy to convince the Council members to replace medicinal herbs with vegetables such as grain and greens as soon as the epidemic was over.
And it would be over very, very soon. Even if Rhaegal, Corgorin, Serengal and their friends had failed, and could not find a permanent cure, in each case the number of infected was slowly decreasing. Sooner or later the epidemic would stop completely and no one would have to worry about it anymore. Of course, Haku would have much preferred that Rhaegal return with the cure, so that the dragons would earn even more respect and admiration of the whole village, facilitating the integration between their two species... but even if that hadn't happened, he had still been able to create some gratitude by inventing ways for people to talk to their sick loved ones or even for their children, and that was enough. It wouldn't have been as efficient as providing the cure, but it would still have been enough to plant the seeds for coexistence and mutual trust.
Haku had spent the last few days trying to find other ways to gain fame among the newcomers, but unfortunately he hadn't found any. It didn't matter: already now some people sometimes thanked him, and when he revealed his farm and thus solved the problem of ingredients for medicines that number would increase even more, and if Rhaegal returned with a cure it would be exorbitant; even though Haku still liked to take every chance, he was content with what he had when he had no other available. Therefore, if he really had already done all he could and there were no other methods to control the emotions and mentality of the newcomers, he could be satisfied and slow down a bit. Or at least, that was what he thought until Zamor urgently called him.
"We may have found something that would allow us to make up for the shortage of ingredients" the lizardman explained when Haku asked him the reason for that sudden summons. "Tzegorn may have had a hunch"
The dragon looked at the tigerman, not understanding what he could have invented that time. Tzegorn showed him Isaac's list of possible cures for the disease, one in particular underlined: mana-rich animal innards. "I spoke to our head healer a few hours ago to ask him about that point. It seems that the innards of some animals can produce a substance that can make blood thinner, even more so than what we already use and which we produce using medicinal herbs. There aren't any of the animals Isaac mentioned nearby, so I ruled it out regardless... but recently I've thought maybe we need to think outside the box. After all, none of us know the animals that live here, so some may have similar characteristics"
Haku reflected. That reasoning wasn't wrong at all: it was exactly what he had done when he sent Rhaegal and his sisters to seek the cure. After all, nature tended to produce very similar shapes even in different environments: consequently it was probable that the characteristics of the animals Isaac needed were present in some of the animals in the oasis. "What animals are these?"
"Isaac told me they should be molluscs. Or at least skeletonless, squishy, and with a high amount of mana on them" Tzegorn answered. "I think we could try using a sand worm"
"Th sand worms aren't molluscs" Haku opined.
"No, but they're the closest thing to them we have here. They're skeletonless, they're squishy and slow, and thanks to the fact that they periodically descend underground, they have a lot of mana. They might be worth a try" Tzegorn replied.
"It's true, we must at least try" Zamor said. "Every possible way to accelerate the defeat of this epidemic must be tested. In the worst case... we'll just make a bust stick. Haku, could you go find a sand worm please? If you did it, we could test if this idea can work already tonight"
Haku let out a slightly annoyed snort. If this idea worked out, then there would be no more need for his medicinal herb farm and he could say goodbye to his project… but on the other hand, he could earn more gratitude among the newcomers if he brought a new remedy to the village. Furthermore, Zamor was on his side when it came to approving the project to create fields to cultivate outside the oasis: even if they had had another remedy, he would certainly have ignored it and would have been on his side with the excuse of 'we must use any means available', and therefore he would have ordered their construction anyway. And even if he hadn't done it, Haku would still have proved to everyone that farming in the desert was possible and could have leveraged the population to force the Council to approve it. No, perhaps that situation could bring him more advantages than disadvantages. And then, in any case, there was a low probability that this idea would work: it was more likely that the innards of the sand worm would prove useless. "I caught some a few weeks ago. What happened to them?"
"As many citizens had to stay indoors and everyone who could go out was busy with something else, we decided to put them down" Tzegorn answered. "There was no one who could monitor and deal with them all the time, so we felt it was more appropriate to kill and slaughter them immediately rather than risking them running away"
Haku rolled his eyes annoyed, since from his point of view it was silly not to exploit the sand worms' ability to survive even with a good part of the body cut off and to regenerate, but he could understand that the current needs had made it very difficult to raise such a large animal and therefore he could accept that choice, even though he didn't agree with it. "Okay, I got it. I'm going to catch one. I'll bring it to you by sunset"
"You'd be doing us a big favor" Zamor said.
"Yeah, as always" Haku muttered as he walked towards the village exit. As soon as he was out of the oasis, he sniffed the air and then ran into the middle of the desert. Who knows why, he was always the one who had to take care of certain things! Couldn't they send a patrol or group of soldiers? Sure, he was more efficient than them, but he wasn't a retriever! Mph... who cares. It wasn't in reality a big deal for him. He might as well have sent one of his siblings to do so, but he didn't want to bother them about such a frivolous thing, and he really didn't mind hunting. He was still a dragon and therefore a predator, after all.
He had to move away from the oasis a bit before being able to spot a sand worm; it was really annoying that those creatures could hide underground, or in a place without visual obstacles like the desert it would have been enough for him to climb a dune to spot one of them with his extraordinary sight. When he saw it, he sneaked up trying to make as few vibrations on the ground as possible, so as to avoid alerting him: he didn't want to force himself to get it out of the ground. As soon as he was close enough he was in position, ready to pounce on the creature.
But just as he was about to jump, he stopped. His ears expanded slightly as a strange whistling sound began to penetrate his ears. But the thing that most alerted him is that this whistle didn't seem to come from a single point, as it happened when it was emitted by a living creature, but from numerous points arranged side by side, like a thunderstorm... and every second that passed was getting closer and closer. He immediately dropped the sand worm and whirled around to where the sound was coming from, and there he saw it.
In the direction he'd come from, a streak of yellow and brown had appeared, filling the sky in every direction and getting bigger and bigger. If he hadn't always looked in the opposite direction to look for the sand worm he would have seen it much sooner. He knew what it was: that brown and yellow blur and that constant whistling was nothing more than the result of millions of grains of sand being blown through the air by a very strong wind traveling straight towards him. A sandstorm!
"Shit!" Haku exclaimed as he spun around and started running away, scaring the sand worm which emerged from its hiding place for a moment before returning underground. As he ran, Haku began to think very quickly: he moved faster than the sandstorm, but he couldn't resist as much as it did. He couldn't go back to the oasis because the sandstorm was coming from that direction; at its present distance, it would have been engulfed by it before he could reach it. This then left him with no safe place to hide.
However, it wasn't completely defenseless: all it needed was a wall to block the wind. Dust storms always traveled in one direction, so if he erected a wall between himself and the storm it would create a cavity where the air would remain breathable. Haku had no reason to fear sandstorms except for one thing: the fact that the sand would block his nostrils and thus his airways, causing him to suffocate. For the rest, his hard scales would have taken care of defending him. If he could find an area where the air could stay clean, he wouldn't have any problems.
But he didn't look for opportunities; he created them. In fact, he could use an earth rune to raise a solid wall that could resist against the force of the wind. However, to do so he would have to take a risk: he would have to stop. For the moment, running could keep the storm away from him… but if he stopped he would have only a few minutes before it hit him with full fury.
He had to risk it; it was all in the timing. As he ran he bit his finger to get some blood out, and then when he felt he had reached an optimal point in terms of position and height from the ground he quickly drew the rune on the ground, then touched it with his scalped finger and then fed it with his blood. The rune glowed for an instant and then raised a wall a couple of meters high and equally wide. In the meantime, Haku had already drawn another rune and created a second wall, and then another and yet another; in the end, the final result was a huge wall six meters high and twelve wide, more than enough to act as a shield. Haku also drew runes of fortification to make everything more solid, and then flattened against it waiting for the arrival of the sandstorm.
When it arrived, the sun disappeared in an instant: the cloud composed of millions and millions of grains of sand completely blocked the light. The wind was so strong it sounded like it was roaring. Haku felt sand rain all over his body, but his plan worked: the small area where he was standing remained untouched by the storm and allowed him to continue breathing. For greater safety, however, narrowed his nostrils as much as he could, to decrease the risk that something could enter.
Now all he could do was wait and hope his defenses held until the sandstorm died down.