Supply Run
#5 of Dragon Hunter Saga
The next morning I wake up to hearing rain still falling, though is has lessened some. I surmised that it might be possible the storm may end this day at some time so we could continue on our way the next morning. Shadow hands me a water skin and a piece of freshly made acorn bread with some bits of simmered dried meat inside of it and he nods towards the door way. There I see Jake and the local Headman talking with Jake occasionally looking my way, when he notices me looking at him he waves me over to him.
I take a bite of food as I walk over to Jake, noticing that Harriet was occupying the twins and also helping with the other children. I did notice a young lady standing near the local Headman that I had seen the day before almost always surrounded by the Headman's 'guards'. The woman was looking longingly at the children who seemed to be getting a history lesson while Harriet made sure everyone stayed put.
Considering the local Headman's attitude I ignored the woman for now as I was now standing next to Jake. " So are we ready to start going through the supplies Jake?" Jake nods his head and a female from our group comes forward with a leather bound book and a home made pencil in her hand. This was our Quartermaster Brehea, funny how her name means "self-sufficient". We picked her up outside of a town where she had gone through every house and cataloged everything and made sure anything immediately useful was tucked into hiding places of her choosing. She had her own version of short hand that she used in her supply ledger, we hope she'll teach it to anyone we have working under her when we get settled.
Brehea turns to me, "we'll need Harriet to assist." She turns her head to glare at the local Headman, "the only reason he hadn't fed Harriet to the Dragon is that Harriet was a Master Gardener before the Dragon's appeared. So he needed her skills to keep his people fed, she'll know what seeds may or may not be in the store room and if it would be survivable on our trek." The local Headman looked angry for getting called out which Jake noticed and turned his head into the room and called out. "Harriet can we borrow you for a bit? Brehea says you can help us go through the stores." Harriet looks momentarily surprised and then grins, and after speaking to the twins quietly joins the rest of us.
We walk down to the store room, and step into it. The room was bigger than I had thought it had been, making me wonder if maybe this building had been a community center before. The room we were in appeared to have been a small gym, large enough for a single basketball court. The room's stores however seemed to be piled haphazardly with no sense to where anything might specifically be. Brehea shakes her head, "this could take hours. I guess it's a good thing the weather is still bad, Harriet. Due to you needing to get back to the children, do you know where the seeds and anything else planting related is?"
Harriet nods and immediately heads towards the back of the room around a few of the piles. She rummages about, while we wait at the front of the room. She lifts her head and spots Shadow behind me (as always), and waves him over to her obviously needing help with something. He after seeing me nod goes over and helps her get to what she was trying to reach. The two of them come back (2 trips mind you) with one large crate requiring the two of them to move and a few boxes a piece. Harriet leans over and opens the crate first, the local Headman starts trying to protest until Shadow gives him a wicked look.
Harriet reaches in and pulls our a burlap bag, that she reaches into and pulls out a burlap wrapped bundle. "These are day lily rhizomes," she says. "The 'old fashioned' kind with the bright orange flowers, the young shoots of the plant are edible and taste kind of like Asparagus. The flowers are edible, you can eat them straight, or even cover them in batter and deep fry them for a treat. Also the unopened flower buds can be dried and used in soups and stews, I have heard they can thicken soups and stews as well." She puts the bundle back into the bag and pulls three more similar bags out and after checking them, sets two outside of the crate; places one back in the crate and tosses the third by the door. "That bag I tossed is too dried out to be viable, we can safely leave them with one bag and if they harvest carefully they'll have plenty as they propagate themselves swiftly and easily. There are seed potatoes in this crate as well but unless you are going to be able to plant them this year taking them will be a waste, they will rot before they will be of use to you."
She digs back inside the crate again and pulls out a dark colored burlap bag and reaches in and pulls out something that looks almost like a hand. "This is a dahlia tuber, while it does produce a beautiful flower the tubers are edible. These ones I myself dried out in a way that they will still be viable once planted again it will be a nice alternative to potatoes until you can get some. There is also something called a Jerusalem artichoke, that is in this crate. Again, unless we can plant them this planting season they are going to go bad. They are another potato like plant, and trust me; they don't taste like potatoes." She pulls one more small leather pouch out of the crate, the Headman starts making noise like he's going to protest; and before Shadow can give him a withering look Harriet remarks. "These will do you no good if I am not in your group, you have no idea how to care for this plant other than it needs a green house. Find a different trade good to be your way to riches."
Harriet turns to me and Jake and informs us of what she is holding. "These are Piper nigrum,or black pepper seeds. They require a green house to grown any place that gets colder than just above freezing. I am sure you will find away to create a heated greenhouse. I had a special permit to grow them before the dragon's appeared, they are considered a pest species in some places." I was shocked and pleasantly surprised by that piece of information. I had liked to grow plants myself as a child and my father had loved black pepper so much he ordered it by the pound and had special grinders for it. Trying to be helpful I had looked up if I could grow it for him, only to find out that yes; you needed a permit. Also yes, you needed a green house; it was a picky plant. However if you knew what you were doing it would grow beautifully.
Harriet then nudged the two stacks of boxes, "we can take two of these. It doesn't matter which two as they all have the same mix of seeds in them, due to how things were stored here I wanted to make sure that no matter which box of seeds we opened it would hold enough for anything we could use." Jake nods his head at Harriet and Brehea starts writing in her book, Shadow opens one of the boxes to see if there was enough room for the bags of roots and finding there was he tucked them inside one of them. He then picks the two boxes up and walks them into the hallway to set down, in what will eventually be a large pile. Harriet then excuses herself and heads back to the first room to help with the children.
The rest of us spend the next couple of hours digging through the piles of items in the gym, making it through over half the room. We had found a good amount of cordage, that we divided in half. We found an array of still in their wrapper sleeping bags, as if they had raided a store at some point. The Headman said, "we kept them in case anyone went on a long trek." We put all of them into the pile we were taking as we had also found a lot of used sleeping bags too. There was also a lot of camping backpacks and fire starting kits. I called a stop to our searching after finding another fire starting kit in the pile I was digging though. I pondered what was in the pile of supplies. Most of it was canned foods and clothes as well as the used sleeping bags and back packs, and I felt my blood go cold.
I look the Headman in the eye, who was decidedly looking more and more uncomfortable. I marched up to him and looked him in the eye and asked bluntly. "Where you killing travelers?" I could hear gasps from Jake and Brehea, as to us killing another person for gain was aberrant behavior to us. The Headman after glancing at his bodyguards (still surrounding the young woman) stands tall and answers with no shame in his voice. "what of it? It's survival of the fittest now, only the strong will survive."
Shadow comes up and stands even with me and for the third time since I have met him he speaks. "You murdered innocents to gain power, you are no better than that monster you were worshiping." Shadow then hamstrings both of the Headman's legs and as he turns to go help the others says one more thing, "now see how 'fit' you are to survive." The Headman's guards rush forward, not to attempt to harm Shadow but to stop the Headman's bleeding. Jake walks over disgusted and spitting on the local Headman says, " go take him into another room I don't want to see him again before we leave. You will just have to trust we won't rob you now, though considering what you have been doing, it would be just."
His guards rush him out of the room and down the hall to who knows where in the building, the girl they were hiding looks relieved they forgot her and after giving me a pleading look rushes off to the front room. Probably doesn't want me to tell those idiots where she is, well that's not a hard wish to grant as I have no plans on it. I shake my head and go back to rummaging, adding another half of the remaining cordage to our take pile.
After a few more hours we had finished searching all the piles. Brehea was excited by how much we now had at our disposal, that we were willing to take. Granted seeing a few of the items in the 'stolen' stacks made everyone angry, there were pieces of baby clothes and cloth diapers in some of the piles. After the second one I had to order Shadow to not go kill that wicked Headman, it would be too nice of an ending for him. We packed away anything baby related to take with us as I felt any remaining women in his group will probably leave with us anyway. We did find the parts to build a couple of all terrain carts, probably salvaged from an old home improvement store. Now that the rain had stopped some of the more mechanically inclined members of our group were outside putting the five carts together. They are going to be necessary after all we have found here, even with the cordage and canvas tarps we found they were going to be piled high.
We had decided because they had a lot of canned food that they had 'liberated' from travelers we would take every ounce of dried meat and vegetables they had. We also took all their spices, and the water purification tablets they had. Everyone in our group was fitted for new foot wear, and sadly we had enough back packs for everyone. As well as enough sleeping bags for everyone.
What we decided to do for the supplies is everyone got a filled bag. It contained three sets of clothes, a winter coat, spare shoes, five sets of socks, three days worth of dried meat and vegetables, two water tablets, and a fire starting kit. We also included (having found a bunch) a canteen, set of personal silverware, and for the children's packs a toy in each. Each bag would have a sleeping bag attached as well as a spare tarp. Every person above the age of thirteen was given a belt knife, and we had acquired four felling axes, eight splitting axes and an assortment of wedges as well as a couple of log jacks.
We had uncovered a few whole bags of pinto beans as well as of white rice, knowing it takes a very long time for rice to go bad; we took both. We had found some saws and hammers, as well as a few good hunting bows with arrows and an assortment of tanned furs. Those all went into our carts, it looked as if this unfortunate stop was going to give us everything we needed to make it to where ever our new home would be. Which I did have an idea as to where I wanted to go, but it would require we travel on the deadly road one of the Earth Dragon's created across the Atlantic. There were very nice areas in the UK that could be hewn into a sturdy settlement or made from the local stone, as stone doesn't burn. I think it'll be a very longtime before man intentionally builds his homes out of burnables now. The biggest struggle aside from Dragons eating you was finding food on the 'road', as while yes it was wider than a road. About two miles wide at it's narrowest, there was very little cover to be had. So we had to hope we were lucky, most of our group knew I was considering going that route and had faith that we'd make it.
If we can locate another cart or a wagon before reaching the road we could bring firewood, though luckily we had discovered a few propane tanks in the hoarded supplies. Like me though Jake would rather we had back up just in case. The sun started setting as we finished packing up the carts with the supplies, and with our guards in the hallway. We got ready to sleep for the night.