Chapter 539: Book 8-20.3: Crossing the Desert

“The palm fruits could feed us for a couple of days,” Yuriko muttered as she surveyed the rest of the village. She saw a few of the liberated captives…refugees now, she supposed, milling around the crop gardens. Most of those plots contained brown and wilted vegetables. A waste and a pity.

Worry gnawed at her tummy and every bit of food she ate reminded her that there would be less the next time. Heron and Gwendith ate much more than the others, owing to their use of Body Forging, and even if their use was accounted for, the fact that there were now a hundred or so refugees meant that supplies that should have lasted weeks, would only last days now.

The village.

There was little doubt of what happened, but the why of it still bothered her. By creating nameless, the leadership of the city-states could bolster their defences, but…so what? Would they even have people left by the time this was over? Were they power-hungry? Insane?

Decades of peace between Faron’s Crossing and Haveena broken by what? A council meeting?

“Mistress.” One of the refugees, a liberated captive, well into his middle ages and with grey hair, came up to her.

Yuriko turned to look at him and he gulped, nervousness warring with adoration. Yuriko held in a sigh and tried to rein in her Mien. If anything, the adoration only intensified.

“Yes?” she asked after several seconds of pained silence.

“Ahem, erm, yeah. The crops, mistress. They look wilted, but Sarah, Ruby, and Eric, and, well, me, too, think we can refresh them.” He shifted his feet awkwardly. “We’ve got land bonds, mistress.”

“Land bonds?”

“We were farmers.”

“Oh!” Yuriko’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Do you think you can grow enough to feed the rest?”

“Ah, not without more Animus…”

Yuriko shook her head and gestured. “Show me.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

As awkward as it was to have an older man refer to her that way, she was, after all, a Knight. Even by their own hierarchies, someone who had achieved her level of Anima strength always had inherent authority.

They drew a gaggle of rubberneckers as they neared the crop gardens. The village had twenty dwellings and supposing an average of four residents a piece, the lost population should be about a hundred. Each building was square, made of hard-baked earth, with small windows.

There was a central field for crops, but she also saw fenced-off areas of livestock. From the hoofprints, she guessed goats or sheep. There were no signs of them, except for a few clumps of wools or hair caught underneath a fence post.

Ah, about fifteen of the dwellings had a garden next to them, also filled with wilted vegetables. The middle-aged man leading her, who named himself Sam Milton, pointed to a group of three. Two women and another man, each of them well within their middle years. If she were to judge, they were only at the Apprentice level, or Beginner Binders.

The other farmers looked at her nervously.

“Please,” Yuriko said as soon as she was within easy earshot, “show me what you can do.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sam knelt beside a row, then pressed his fingers into the dry earth. He frowned as he dug his fingers in, then Animus light rolled off his body. Yuriko’s perception found his focus items: a necklace and a ring, it turned out. The light spread down the row, but stopped a mere two paces from where his fingers stuck in.

The other three did the same, with all of them now focused on the singular row. Different coloured lights spread across the earth, and they managed to cover the entire vegetable row. The wilted brown leaves visibly perked up, and then slowly changed to green. But just before the leaves could grow to their ripest green, the lights cut out and the farmers, all four of them gasped and fell to their knees, their arms the only reason they didn’t plow the ground with their faces. Their faces were pale and sweat ran down their cheeks.

“Out of Animus?” she guessed, not needing the confirming nod. That was fine, she could just transfer some Animus into a jade cartridge and they could absorb or make use of it…

Her hand reached towards her belt and found only her combat knife. None of them brought any plasma projection weapons with them, and certainly no jade cartridges. Swarm fodder.

Wait. That was fine. She could just find a solution. Food and water, as well as shelter, were right here, and if she can allow these people to live here in peace then she could continue with her mission. Of course, her current goal was to lure and defeat more nameless to figure out the exact location of their base in the Chaos Sea…

Focus. She could probably allow some of her Animus to denature and let the farmers absorb it, yes? Best ask if they can. Ah before that though…

“How many lumens did you use?”

Sam and the others looked at her quizically, then Ruby turned shamefaced and the others coughed into their hands. Sam said hesitantly, “I, uhm, we don’t really know.”

Yuriko stared at them blankly for a few moments then reddened. Of course, they wouldn’t know the exact numbers. How long had it taken her to do so instinctively? And the only reason she managed was that Damien had told her the method and drilled her occasionally. Even back in the Empire, Animus count was accomplished using Animatech devices and chambers.

Shaking her head, she stuttered, “Do you know how to use foreign Animus to power your techniques or increase your recovery?”

Sam nodded when she posed the question. “I haven’t tried before but my old man taught me how to do it.”

At first, Yuriko simply collected Pure Animus onto her palms, diverting nearly twenty lumens to do so. The four of them, and the rest of the gawkers, gasped at the golden orb.

“But mistress, your Animus would be too dense for us to absorb,” Sam protested weakly.

Yuriko shook her head. “It isn’t.”

She extended her hand and the farmer gingerly reached for it, but as soon as his fingertip touched the light, he snatched it back away.

“It’s hot,” he said sheepishly, while the others around him chuckled. He reached out again and took hold of Yuriko’s golden orb. He flinched the moment he touched it, squeezed down on it, and hastily let go. The orb radiated golden rays, fierce and proud, but then softened as Yuriko frowned and pressed her Intent. The Animus was to nurture, to strengthen, not to harm.

Sam nodded as he held the orb hovering between his fingers. He moved to the side and settled into a seated meditation pose. Wisps of golden mist rose from the orb and licked at his fingers before it slowly denatured and turned into a pale white cloud that the middle-aged man inhaled.

The other three looked at her hopefully, and she responded by creating more orbs of Animus. The amount was something that took her roughly four minutes to regenerate, and it should help the four farmers regenerate their reserves faster than sleep would.

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As they settled down to meditate, she stared at the crop field. One row of greens rejuvenated after using up most of the four farmers’ Animus. There were about nineteen rows left, and hopefully, they would be able to finish it by tonight.

She looked over to the crowd and picked out her friends. She gestured for them to convene in one of the abandoned dwellings. Heron, Braden, Orrin, Gwendith, and Asami joined her inside, and Desire followed in after a few minutes.

The common living area was mostly empty, with a depression in the middle of it, with a table. Orrin stepped down and sat on the steps and stretched his legs out under the table. Yuriko settled down next to him, and Heron sat on her other side. Yuriko noted with some amusement as both Braden and Gwendith glared at the tall young man, before huffing and taking a seat along the other side.

“We’re wasting time, aren’t we?” Asami asked as she tapped the table. Dust motes puffed out from the surface and she sneezed with a cute suppressed sound. “Achi! Rotting dust…”

Yuriko’s Anima spread out and she pushed all of the loose dust motes into a pile in the centre of the table, before gathering it up again and tossing it out.

“I don’t know,” she replied to the other’s question. “It’s not as if we can just go straight into the Uaran Chaos Channel and blockade it.”

“Why not, they did the same for ours,” Asami growled.

“For one thing, cousin,” Gwendith said slowly, “Rumiga City’s Channel is in the midst of a mountain. Theirs is in the middle of an ocean. It’s at least a longstride of open water. How would we even block it off?”

“The Rumiga City Channel was easy to block simply by collapsing the tunnels,” Heron said, “but I wonder if that’s really true. Wouldn’t reinforcements from Delovine already clear the rubble?”

“From what Sheamus said,” Yuriko cut in, “Chaos Lords from the two courts are blocking off the fleets.”

“That’s the thing though,” Heron said after a moment of silence. “Why? How could mere Chaos Courts hold off the might of the strongest nation in the Chaos Sea?”

Gwendith answered, “Simple, we’re not the only plane in contention.”

“So. Anyway,” Asami said after a minute of awkward silence, “the first point still stands. This is a waste of time.”

“It’s not.” Gwendith said brightly as she nodded to Yuriko. “What we’re doing is providing a distraction. Even if we don’t find the source of the nameless, the heart of our mission is to find a way to provide relief for our beleaguered town and the Watchtower. By rescuing their intended sacrifice, by building an outpost here, we are a dagger stabbed into the Federation’s side.”

“But we have nothing,” Orrin protested. “Those people are refugees. They will be slaughtered if we are attacked here.”

“That’s true, but…” Gwendith smiled mysteriously, “Yuriko, don’t we know of an army ripe for the taking?”

Yuriko blinked at Gwendith in confusion. What army…?

“The…Warforged?”

“Yes. You told me that their lead asked for your commands. Well, we need them, don’t you think?” Gwendith said.

“But, how do we get back to Synkrasia?” Yuriko shook her head. “Avos Zarek opened the way there, and he closed it behind him.”

Gwendith gestured vaguely towards the east, “Zarek’s right there. We can go ask.”

“That’s hundreds of leagues away,” Yuriko pointed out. “We don’t have the supplies to bring everyone along. I don’t want to leave. We brought them along and took responsibility for their welfare, I’m not about to abandon them.”

“Yuri, you're not their leader,” Heron protested.

Yuriko shook her head. “I am now. And they are my responsibility.”

Heron frowned, but pursed his lips then nodded. “If you wish it. Is it your…Mien?”

Yuriko smiled softly at him. “I think so. It’s, I feel the need to honour the bonds created.”

“Right. So, down to the gritty details then,” Heron said. “There are two things we have to do, scout enemy forces and check for how to get to Synkrasia. In the meantime, we have to decide if we're staying here or moving to another oasis…”

They discussed quite a few things. Sheamus eventually joined them in the room, and he added his opinions to the conference. Saki was nowhere in sight, but Yuriko knew her attendant was either somewhere nearby or off scouting.

Foremost in their thoughts was why the Federation hadn’t attacked yet. She was impatient for the battle but also worried about the safety of civilians. In the end, the decision was to harvest as much food as they could, and then move on to the next oasis, and hopefully to a more bountiful harvest. From there, Yuriko proposed to bring the refugees back up north, to Imperial territory, but Asami vetoed it saying that in wartime conditions, doing so would only strain their logistics.

“So what, do we just help them build a new home, or…” Yuriko argued.

“Or we could have them go back to their original homes,” Asami returned.

“They don’t want that.”

“But it’s foolish. I know you want to take responsibility for their freedom, but Yuri, this isn’t…”

The argument circled back to that, but Yuriko was adamant. She had given her word to Izna, and she had accepted the surrender of the former guards. To abandon them afterwards…why, she should have just killed them all in that case.

Still, this was Yuriko’s mission and her command, so after arguing for a few more minutes, Asami dropped it and they focused on solving logistical issues.

It was well into the night by the time they finished. One of the civilians brought in food for them and Asami left to organise the night watch.

Once Yuriko, Gwendith, and Desire retired to their quarters, Saki materialised out of the shadows.

“Nothing, young mistress. No sign of Federation reinforcements.”

Instead of feeling relieved, Yuriko only felt more disquiet. What were they planning?

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