"Okay, first question: how do we get out there without suffocating?" Gord asked as soon as they stood at the border between oasis and desert and a little sand was already starting to hit his face. The strange plants that absorbed the specks of dust before they hit the ground were protecting the whole oasis leaving it practically pristine, but here near the border the strong wind generated some whiffs of sand that also penetrated through the trees.
All those who wanted to help had gathered there and were now thinking about what to do. Most of Haku's siblings were of course there: Malchia, Kotaru, Sisna and Maldor were left out as they were in hibernation, and also Rhaegal, Serengal and Corgorin as they were still underground, and finally Teramon too had to stay behind to tend to the children at the cave. She didn't take it very well, but Darbi practically begged her on his knees to do it, as the alternative was that they risked getting hurt and thus nullifying a lot of Haku's work, so someone had to stay behind to control them and… well, she was one of the weakest ones in terms of physique, so she would be at a disadvantage in the middle of the sandstorm. Though with much reluctance Teramon had agreed to stay behind. Darbi had also tried to ask Tikka to stay behind, since she too wasn't exactly physically strong, but she, unlike her sister, had been impossible to convince. So, ultimately, those who would go after Haku would be Darbi, Keita, Tikka, Finiar, Maleficial, Kialandì, Glausar and Jatara. Eight dragons then, who weren't a force to be reckoned with anyway. With them were Misune, Gord, Brennus, Thora, Tzegorn, and a handful of at least twenty other people whom the dragons didn't know, but who had volunteered to help; many were there just out of solidarity with Brenno or Gord or even Thora, but some had come because they really wanted to help Haku. According to them they owed the dragon a debt and it was right to repay him. It seemed that all of Haku's efforts to get dragons accepted in the community were slowly paying off if some people were even willing to risk their lives to help him.
"We have these" Keita said pulling out of her dimensional pouch some strange pouches clearly made from animal organs. "Serengal designed them for… well, I'll explain later. Anyway, they're respirators. They can supply air for half an hour and should be strong enough to hold up even against the wind from the sandstorm"
"Thank goodness, I didn't want to die suffocated by stupid sand!" Brenno exclaimed wearing the respirator, and then he looked at the other people next to him: "Listen to me, all of you wear light but at the same time resistant armor! The violence of that wind will have transformed those grains of sand into real deadly arrows!"
"My sisters and I will move diagonally to the wind" Darbi said. "You stay beside us and use us as a shield. Our scales will protect both us and you from the sand!"
"Well… thanks" Gord said, then he began drawing lines on the ground with a stick. "Ok, now let's do a quick planning. We don't know exactly which direction Haku moved, but we do know that he went south. This leaves us with only three possibilities: proper south, southeast and southwest. If we split into three teams we'll have a better chance of finding him. How much air do we have available?"
"Considering the number of ventilators we currently have and the number of people present here... I'd say that each of us has no more than an hour and a half available" Kialandì answered making a quick calculation.
"So we have an hour and a half to hunt him down, find him, and bring him back" Gord muttered. "So we won't be able to walk more than forty-five minutes away from the oasis, which leaves us with a good margin of research. Considering the direction of the wind and that you dragons have no problem moving through it thanks to your weight, and that you have proposed us to shield us, we could arrange ourselves in this way". And he drew some lines and dots on the ground. "The teams that will go southeast and southwest will be composed of three dragons each and eight people. Since the direction you will have to go is diagonal to that of the wind, the dragons will have to walk in single file and the people will have to be parallel to them, so their bodies will act as shields. Instead..." and drew a strange figure formed by two lines forming a triangle without a base, in place of which there were several dots. "...the team heading south will be parallel to the direction of the wind, so you'll have to position yourself like this. The dragons will be curved slightly, forming a wedge with their bodies, and the people will stand in the center, so that the wind can't completely sweep them with its fury"
"Sounds like a good plan" Darbi said. "I'm going south"
"Me too" Tzegorn said stepping forward. He remembered well the direction that Haku had taken when he left and therefore he knew that it was more probable to find him in the south. So that was where he had to go to make sure he was dead.
"I'm coming south too" Misune said stepping forward.
Darbi noticed that the girl didn't seem to have changed her clothes. "Ehm... did you hear Brenno when he said to wear at least a cuirass?"
"I already have my armor" the half-elf replied as she opened her robe and revealed the dress made of dragon scales that Haku had given her a long time ago. "I never take it off. It's light and it's very durable, so it's perfect for this occasion"
"I'm going south too" Thora said as she stretched her bones.
"I'm coming too. I'll act as an extra shield… unless someone here thinks I'm too fragile" Tikka said glaring at Darbi, who said nothing to avoid unnecessary quarrels.
"In this case I'll go southeast" Gord said.
"And I southwest" Brenno said.
One after the other everyone chose a team and then divided into three groups. "Ok, but how do we avoid getting lost ourselves?" Thora asked at that point. "Visibility in the middle of a sandstorm isn't exactly perfect..."
"Don't worry. We have him!" Kialandì said pulling from her dimensional bag the scroll in which Inpu was sealed and calling out the spirit. He emerged from it within moments, ready to do any order. "Hey, playwright! Can you do something about this sand?"
Inpu was clearly annoyed at being called 'playwright', even though all dragons now called him that because of his high-sounding way of speaking; but when he understood what Kialandì was referring to, he completely forgot about it. "What do you take me for, a god?" he exclaimed. "I can't stop a sandstorm this size!"
"Yes, we already had imagined it" Kialandì said. "But can you at least make each of us find our way back here?"
Inpu most likely would have much preferred to see them all die suffocated in the middle of the desert, but he couldn't oppose the requests of his masters, so he replied sincerely: "I can use my powers to make the sand behind you condense into a compact strip one meter high. In this way you will only have to follow it to come back to the oasi"
"Will this work for all three teams or just the one you're coming with?" Kialandì asked. "I remember that in Corgorin and Serengal it was enough to block you within nine meters to seal your power"
"I may be a minor spirit, but I too have my tricks" Inpu replied. "If I leave a part of my power on each of you, it will work even if I'm far away. I couldn't use this technique during the battle because I had no one to leave it to"
"Okay, I understand. Come on, do it" Kialandì said. Inpu let out a sigh of disapproval, but he carried out the order. In an instant a strange yellow light illuminated all the people and dragons present, only to vanish an instant later. Misune tried to take a step forward, and a meter-high column of solid sand formed immediately behind her.
"Okay, it works. Let's not waste any more time and go!" Darbi exclaimed as she pulled on the respirator and set off into the sandstorm. All the others did the same and got into positions set by Gord, and then walked through the desert trying to ignore the strong wind and the sand that continuously struck them with extreme force.
The strategy Gord designed worked: thanks to the positions of the dragons and the newcomers, all the teams could proceed with a certain speed. In fact, the dragons had no problems moving in the storm thanks to their weight which allowed them to counteract the force of the wind, and since their bodies shielded the newcomers, they too could walk quite quickly. Very soon the oasis completely disappeared behind them and even for the dragons it became impossible to see it despite their extraordinary sight, leaving only the strip of solid sand created by Inpu to indicate the right way back.
"How are we going to locate him?" Tzegorn bellowed, trying to match the howling wind with his voice. "Here you dragons can't use eyes, nose or ears!"
It was true: the patina of sand indeed blocked the view, the roar of the wind hid all other noises, and since they were using the respirator the dragons could not even use their noses to smell. But they had many other possibilities. "We are listening to the vibrations of the ground through our paws. That's why we move so slowly" Darbi answered. "And then we dragons can sense the electric field of living creatures. If we could pinpoint our brother's we'd know exactly where he is"
Tzegorn nodded as if pleased, but he was actually annoyed. He had underestimated the ability of dragons to locate prey. And above all, he hadn't calculated the possibility that that damned minor spirit could help them find their way back to the oasis: his knowledge was based on the fact that Inpu's power had no influence over nine meters away, he didn't imagine he could use that trick! It was really annoying: without it the dragons would almost certainly have been lost in the desert, even if they had found Haku, and Tzegorn would have had only to destroy any of their defenses to have them buried by the sand. Now he had to come up with a new plan.
Fortunately, the situation was on his side: with the dragons having their vision, hearing and sense of smell limited by the sandstorm, he could operate more freely. All he had to do was hold them in the desert long enough for the respirators to stop working, at which point the storm would take care of them. He too would have died…but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. Without air, no one stood a chance; indeed, it was probable that Haku was already long dead by now.
To do so, he only had to destroy their only source of salvation, which was the line of solid sand that showed them the way back to the oasis. Without it it would have been impossible to get out of the storm. Luckily Inpu had used sand to create it: solid, but still sand. A well-placed blow would have been enough to destroy it… an explosion. Tzegorn smiled as a plan formed in his mind: he could still harness the knowledge he'd gained from the dragons. They had used water bubbles to trap Inpu, bubbles created through runes that his underlings had seen and used; he could do the same. So as they traveled, being very careful that he was in the blind spot of the two dragons with them, he drew runes of water on the ground and then went on. They would have activated after a few minutes, when they would have already been far away, and would have destroyed the line that indicated the way back with a bubble of water which would then have collapsed after a few moments; the wind and sand would then cover all tracks. And since the noise would have covered this 'explosion', no one would have noticed until it was too late. It was the perfect plan.