Chapter 24
Commander Ammon was exhausted. As soon as he and Seth had returned from the blue green planet, they had called for a meeting of the council and put forward their options. The decision had been made. And it had been made easily, as the options were little more than a choice between go and live, or stay and die.
Now he had to prepare for the withdrawal and evacuation of close on one and a half million beings.
All told there were approximately 100 000 fair folk. 80 000 constructs, 800 000 battle Orcs, 10 000 trolls and 400 000 goblins.
Firstly Ammon had ordered mass hunting to take place. All edible animals both domesticated and wild, were killed, quartered and smoked or salt-cured. Maize meal was ground and stored in sacks, vegetables were pickled, fruits became jams and barrels of flour for bread were stocked up. This was to ensure that, when they got to their new chrome, they had at least six months worth of food.
As well as food he started stocking extra arrows by the hundreds of thousands, spears, armor, handcarts, tents, shovels, cooking pots and swords. Everything that he would need to start what would basically be a huge tent city surrounded by a stockade. He had not noticed a great number of trees in the area they were heading to so even the stockades had to be prefabricated ready to be transported through the gate.
At the same time, Ammon could not allow the hive to suspect that something untoward was happening. So, he had instituted a series of lightning strikes against the enemy. Sending his fast, mobile Orc battle groups deep into enemy territory to slash and burn. Cut supply lines. Raid camps and put tents and other structures to the torch.
The first party through the gate were to consist of a handful of fair folk officers, five thousand Orcs and five thousand goblins. Their remit was to secure the area. Once that was achieved then the rest of the nation would be fed through the gate.
He would leave a rearguard of mixed troops defending the gateway until the last possible moment and then they too, hopefully, would be brought through to their new world.
The major thing that worried Ammon was the beings of the new planet (Seth had told him that the inhabitants named it Earth, so he’d better get used to calling it such. Also, Seth had said that the beings were Humans, so that was another one to remember). Although Seth had assured him that the humans were experiencing some sort of meltdown in their civilisation it was obvious from the mage’s other stories of Earth’s history that the humans had, at one stage, been unbelievably powerful. And without magik. A purely technological power. Actually, that had not been strictly true. As Ammon had pointed out to Seth, the very gateway itself was going to open in a circle of Light stones or, standing stones. And that proved that magik had, at least at some stage in the extremely distant past, been well used. But again Seth had assured him; the magik had long since died out. There was little to worry about. They would be the superior beings.
As well as their lack of magik, Seth had noted that they were extremely susceptible to the Fair-Folk’s glamouring skills. This was the skill that the Fair-Folk had since birth. A way of letting people see what they wanted to see when looking at them. It was an ancient survival technique that they had, of late, had little use for but, when actually physically entering a new realm or planet it would serve them well.
Seth had conducted many experiments in his Earthly travels and had concluded that, with a small amount of concentration, the human beings saw the Fair Folk as tall, well muscled, handsome and blond versions of themselves. However, when they first see the Orcs, Goblins and Bugbears they would see true. The magikal-biological constructs that the Fair Folk bred would also be seen as their true selves; however, they were, on appearance, similar to human children. Small, smooth skinned, large eyes, a fuzzy crop of hair on their heads. The only major difference being that they were possessed of two fully adult sets of genitalia. After all, they had been designed not only to fetch and carry but also to provide entertainment for the soldiers after battle.
Ammon had also been toying with a few ideas. He had not broached the subject with Seth or any other members of the council yet. But he was convinced that, due to the humans ease at being glamoured, they might find that there would be no need to create any new constructs. It may be that they could simply glamour the humans into doing their will, and doing so gratefully.
However, those thoughts were for later. For now he had a mountain of administrative work and then he needed some rest. A full night’s sleep would be perfect but a couple of hours would suffice.
He drew his cloak closer around his shoulders to ward off the chill and set to his work.