Tzegorn had always been a person who was ready to do anything. Not for personal gain, of course, but to protect his people.
When it came to himself, Tzegorn was an extremely respectful person of the laws of morality and fairness. He wouldn't hurt a fly. He would never have dreamed of robbing another person, kidnapping a child, pillaging a village, killing another tigerman or even a member of another race even if he had done him a terrible wrong. If these actions had only benefited him, Tzegorn would never have committed them, for in that case he would have been no different from a profiteer and a murderer. In carrying out those actions he would have felt the pain of the person he was torturing and this would have forced him to stop, to draw back. No matter what benefits those actions brought, he would never be able to perform them if the only person who benefited from them was himself.
But if his people were to gain, or at least benefit from that action… then Tzegorn would have put morality aside and would have done anything. He would still feel the pain of the person he was afflicting, but the prospect of the pain that would affect his people if he didn't was enough to close his heart and allow him to act. After all, the idea that a people could live in peace without anyone ever getting their hands dirty was a utopia: there was always a need for men willing to do evil, to perform acts that normally couldn't have been defined in any other way than horrible. Those acts were what allowed a people to continue to exist. They were the soldier who killed the invader, they were the scouts who set fires in the enemy camp, they were the spies who stole information, they were the infiltrators who caused conflicts among other peoples so that these peoples wouldn't turn their expansionist desires against their own people. Killing, burning, stealing, cheating: horrible actions long condemned by many gods, but which were necessary for a country to continue to exist. And Tzegorn lived by this philosophy: He would never break his morals for himself… but for his people, for all the men, the women and the children who had already suffered too much, he would do anything. Including arranging a murder.
The enemies of a people rarely came from outside: very often they nestled within it, like a parasite that feeds continuously until it devours the whole body. They were the people like Haku: those who deceived the people with sweet words and benevolent deeds, but who really only yearned to gain power for their own sinister purposes. And Haku, if possible, was an even more dangerous enemy: he was a dragon. The representation of all the death and destruction that was in the world. Tzegorn knew that if he let Haku reach out and grab the hearts of his people, as he was trying to do and unfortunately was succeeding, then that would be the end of it and one day the tigermen would become the dragons' cattle. Because that's what dragons did: they devoured everything in their path. It didn't matter how much they were helped when they were in trouble: once they were back in their position of strength, they just knew how to take everything for themselves.
Haku had to be stopped, and immediately. The problem is that Tzegorn didn't know how. Slaying a dragon was certainly no easy feat. Up to that moment he had only tried to hinder his ascent, but he knew that such actions could only be temporary measures: if he really wanted to stop Haku's advance, he had to get him out of the way. And so he had searched incessantly for a way to eliminate it, but all the plans that had come up with him so far would have been useless against a dragon with numerous resources like Haku. But perhaps he had finally found the solution to his problem.
It was Darbi who had originally given him the idea, when she mistakenly revealed that currently dragons couldn't hear more than two miles away. This meant that if an archer had a precise enough aim and was able to shoot his arrow hard enough, he could position himself three kilometers away from the dragon and shoot it without him being aware of the danger until it was too late. However, there was no archer so extraordinary, at least not in the village; but what if instead Tzegorn tried to exploit that situation in another way? If something dangerous was able to travel that distance before the dragon could escape, then escape would no longer be an option… but what could go so fast? The answer was easy: the sandstorms, the same ones that Haku himself had been afraid to encounter during their journey in the desert.
Thanks to the explanations of Leiya, the oldest tigerman in the village, Tzegorn had discovered that a sandstorm could travel up to 100 kilometers per hour; which meant that if a sandstorm appeared three kilometers away from Haku, which was the limit for the dragon's hearing to perceive it, it would reset that distance in less than two minutes. Sure, a dragon could run faster… but he couldn't run forever. If Haku was more than three kilometers away from the oasis and the storm came from exactly that direction, Haku would have no chance of reaching the oasis before the storm hit him. At that point, he would be alone against one of nature's most devastating forces.
But how to predict a sandstorm? Such phenomena were certainly not as easy to notice as thunderstorms, which were highly visible thanks to their clouds. And above all, how to make sure that even Haku didn't foresee it? The dragon's eyesight was much better than his. The only way would have been to know in advance where the storm would form and in which direction it would go, but such an event was impossible... unless Tzegorn himself caused it. Thanks to the venerable Leiya, he had obtained fundamental information: sandstorms formed when winds reached at least 60 kilometers per hour and in conditions of low air humidity. If he managed to recreate these two conditions, even for an instant, he would have generated a chain reaction that would have unleashed the most ruthless killer in the desert against his enemy.
So he set to work. He had worked out an effective plan for days, and finally came up with an idea that might work. One night, hidden from everything and everyone, he had left the village and headed far into the desert, towards the north, because that was where the strongest winds came from. It had been a very dangerous move: if he got lost it would have ended very badly for him… but he was ready to take the risk if the safety of his people was at stake. Once he'd found a fairly sweet spot, he'd started drawing runes on the ground. He knew that Haku and his family continuously watched the newcomers to get every single possible knowledge of them... but he too had watched them, on many occasions. Throughout the journey in the desert the dragons had never been alone, but had always been followed by the watchful eyes of tigermen loyal to him. Even when they had faced Carrion and imprisoned Inpu some tigermen were there. His spies had given him much useful information, including the shape of the runes and how to activate them. And so now he knew exactly which runes to use. As for the wind, he had no problems: as soon as the sun rose, it would become even stronger than 60 kilometers per hour, and since it traveled from north to south, it would head towards the oasis. For humidity, on the other hand, he had created numerous runes of water which had precisely the purpose of absorbing the humidity present in the air so as to make it lighter and therefore suitable for transporting grains of sand. When he was done, he pulled out a flask filled with water that he had had a trusted wizard fill with mana. It wouldn't have the same effect as dragon's blood, but it was enough to activate the runes. He poured a little on each rune, activating them one by one, and then quickly made his way back to the village.
When the sun had come he had already returned to his house and had come out at dawn as if nothing had happened; he knew he had little time left before the dust storm formed, so he immediately got busy. The oasis was protected from the sandstorm by the strange plants that grew there, so he had to send Haku away from the village; luck would have it that the aforementioned village was located in the southern part of the lake, so if Haku had to move away from it he would almost certainly have gone south, and therefore would have turned his back on the sandstorm and couldn't have seen it coming. At that point it was enough for Tzegorn to come up with a credible excuse to send Haku into the desert to hunt a sand worm. And the plan had worked perfectly: without any warning, the sandstorm had arrived and darkened the sun throughout the oasis, and there was no trace of Haku.
"What do you mean he's out there in the desert!?"
The one who was ranting like a madman in the Council Hall at that moment was Darbi, who seemed to be almost on the verge of grabbing Zamor by the scruff of the neck. Obviously Haku's siblings had run to find their brother as soon as they saw the sand cover the sky, and now that they knew the truth they were very angry, so much so that even the Council members closest to them, like Gord and Brenno, seemed worried. "That's right" Zamor admitted. "I sent him to find a sand worm. I had no idea that..."
"No, it was my fault" Tzegorn said stepping forward. "I was the one who came up with the idea. If there's a culprit, it's me". Even though technically he couldn't be accused of anything rationally, those before him were dragons and could easily have given a damn about rationality: rather than risk them unleashing their anger on the village, he preferred to sacrifice himself and let them vent their wrath on him. In this way at least Zamor could see what kind of monsters were those he was harboring and finally open his eyes to the truth.
Darbi let out an angry huff, and he seemed to consider jumping at the tigerman, but then he let out a grunt. "I'll go find him" he said.
"We'll all go find him" his sister Tikka said, with everyone else's agreement. "We won't leave him out there, we have to..."
"If you go out there, you'll get caught up in the sandstorm too!" Zamor exclaimed. "You will be of no help to your brother! You will just die!"
"And what are we supposed to do then? Stay here and wait?" Darbi exclaimed, roaring so loud that he made the walls shake slightly. But before anyone could say anything there was a soft knock on the door.
There was a moment of silence, in which even the dragons looked confused, and then the gate swung open to reveal a petite half-elf who looked rather uncomfortable. Tzegorn recognized her as Misune, that person who had been able to forge a solid relationship with Haku, an action he deemed impossible. "Um… sorry, but people out there are worried. They saw all the dragons coming in here right now with the sandstorm, and they're getting scared. They sent me to ask why they say I have 'the best influence over dragons', whatever that means. So… exactly, what's going on?"
Technically, ordinary people weren't allowed to attend Council meetings, but in fact everyone could hear some shouting coming from outside, a sign that a small crowd must have gathered there. And come to think of it, actually quite a few dragons all coming into Council Hall just as a sandstorm was raging mustn't have been a very nice scene for people out there to see. "Haku is in the desert. He got caught in the sandstorm!" Darbi finally answered.
Misune's eyes widened. "What!?" she exclaimed. "And what are you still doing here!? We have to go and help him!"
"Um... did you hear the 'got caught in the sandstorm' part? How are you going to go out there to help him?" Leuce pointed them out. "You'd be blown away by the wind and you'd suffocate in seconds. What do you hope to do?"
"What I hope to do is help one inhabitant of this community! One to whom we all owe everything!" Misune answered in a somewhat furious voice. "We have to at least try! Haku has always helped us! It's because of him that we're here today, it's because of him that Carrion is dead, because of him that we're finally starting to stem the epidemic, a lot of things are because of him! He's a member of this community like all of us, and he sits on this Council like you! And we don't abandon any member of the community! So let's organize a rescue team and go find him!"
"Girl, you're not a member of the Council. You don't have the authority to organize a rescue team" Yuko grumbled.
"But we do" Brenno said, standing up with Gord. Both had a rather serious look on their faces. "And we'll go help Haku. Darbi, man, we're with you"
The dragon gave a slight smile to his two friends. "Thank you, guys"
Zamor grunted. "Misune is right, and Gord and Brenno are right too. Haku is a member of this community and this Council. We can't leave him to his fate. I too will join this research expedition and..."
"You can't" Leuce pointed out. "You are the provisional leader of the village and as such you cannot leave it. We need you here in case there is an emergency with the epidemic"
Zamor seemed to want to protest, but Thora put a hand on his shoulder. "Darling, they're right, you serve here. I'll go in your place". Zamor looked at her with concern, clearly disliking to hear that he was about to jump into a sandstorm, and seemed intent on protesting, but she stopped him quickly: "I'll be careful, don't worry. But it's true, one of our citizens is out there and if our leader can't help him then it's his spouse's job to step up for him"
"I'll go too. This happened because of me, and I have to take responsibility for it," Tzegorn said as he stepped forward. His face brimmed with confidence and courage, but actually his mind was already reflecting on the next phase of his plan: to ensure that his enemy truly didn't return to the oasis alive. Maybe he wouldn't even have to act, and all those damned dragons would do him the kind favor of getting lost in the sandstorm and dying.