And They Shall Come From East and West, North and South

What started out as a trickle soon became a deluge. Refugees were arriving by the hundreds and thousands, and then suddenly by the hundreds of thousands. They came in bearing all their worldly possession on their backs, or dragging it behind them on sleds. A few were lucky enough to have wheeled vehicles that had somehow survived the rugged overland journey. They were tired and frightened, but miraculously healthy and well-fed. As they came, the bounty of Karia came with them. Every morning the ground itself would burst in an explosion of fruit and nutrition, which would be quickly gathered up by suddenly animated carts and wagons. No one knew how long the food would keep coming, but so long as it did...

The first refugees from Geneva Prime arrived 40 days after they set out. They came with songs of victory on their tongues. In high spirits, they rejoiced to find the Heroes of Karia Vitalus already here ahead of them, and shouted their confidence that the Stardown Defense Force would win the day against any odds. Among all the refugees the citizens of Geneva Prime were received like journalists straight from the scene of a disaster. Everyone questioned them about the details of the fall of Goshi Tower and the death of Katashi Blade. From the Epicenter of the catastrophe the people of Geneva Prime reported their version of the events, and for once the most outlandish versions of the tale were not far from the truth.

Most refugees came in through the northern passes and were counted as they came, then funneled into one of the major refugee camps built around Stardown. Some refugees began accumulating on the eastern shore of the Stardown Lake and it took days for all of the small boats in the city to serve as ferries, taking them across the crystalline waters into the increasingly crowded and smelly hills outside the city.

When the camps held 10 million refugees they were lively. When the camps held 20 million refugees they approached capacity. When the camps held 50 million they were overcrowded and the planners began to worry about disease, and sanitation became virtually impossible. But the refugees didn't stop coming until they numbered close to 100 million. They lived 3 families to a shack, or on tops of roofs, in caves and trees. They built rafts and lashed them together and lived on the lake. They went up into the mountains and lived above the tree line, or across the lake and crowded all around its shores. The caves built under the hills by order of the SDF generals were reserved for children and caretakers - the future of the Cheldrun if things went poorly. The valley of Stardown became one solid sea of people.

Throughout the exodus Ichirou and Sousauryuko adamantly maintained a final line of defense beyond which no refugee was allowed to cross. Trenches were dug and staked. Razor wire was laid, and mines as well. A killing field for Goshi's army if the SDF was forced to fall back that far. The battle would not begin here, though. The battle would begin at the other end of the pass, hopefully Goshi would give up long before it came to a final stand.

The refugees happily worked. All those who were able bodied had a task, whether it was building more shelters, digging latrines, attending to the sick, or training under the Silver Phoenix Clan generals. No one was idle. No one was allowed to be. Many also joined the SDF though Ichirou preferred to keep the fighting force efficient rather than overcrowded with untrained cannon fodder. Limited by the amount of armaments in their possession only so many soldiers were useful. That number came to approximately 9 million. The largest fighting force anyone among the refugees had ever heard of since the days of the galactic empire. And still many times smaller than the reports arriving of the Goshi Army.

Frustrated with relying on Zipsum reconnaissance Ichirou turned to the Heroes of Karia Vitalus and asked them to go and learn more for him. So they climbed into the Sennin and flew Northwest, toward black clouds on the horizon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, so we have our task. But for the record, Una will never trust another cloud again!

Douglas Underhill said...

Yet another lesson we should've learned from the Lord of the Rings...its not a cloud, its a flock of crebain!


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