The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 710: Advance Notice

"How are we supposed to load this?" One of the drivers muttered as he stared at the pile of potatoes.

The Trolls laughed. "Don’t worry about that, little human, we know how to load potatoes. Just move the truck to the low spot in the road, and we will have it full right quick."

The driver looked skeptical, but moved the first truck to the low spot in the road.

The Trolls took out a whole roll of burlap and a bunch of buckets, and began shovelling the potatoes onto the makeshift slide. They lined up in order of size, so it was all downhill, and with Trollish strength, they had the entire trailer full in ten minutes.

"Line up more trucks, or we will be here all day," the short woman insisted.

"Right, got it. Lads, back the trailers up side by side, as close as you can get them. We should be able to load ten at a time in the loading ramp they made for us."

The trucks began to shuffle into position, and ten minutes later, there were ten more loaded trucks.

It was still going to take them hours to get all the potatoes moved, but that was better than taking days to load them like most warehouses would have.

"Next time, we’re sending bulk bags in advance." Rill muttered.

"What are those?" The Trollish woman asked.

"They’re large burlap bags that hold a tonne of potatoes. They make it easier to load."

"Oh, those would be good. Send us bags, and we will pick crops into the bags to ship them out, then you can just tell us how many bags you need."

"Dave can’t count past ten." Rill reminded her.

"But I can. It’s fine. If it’s like this time, we will just load until all the trucks are full. We don’t have a scale, so we’re mostly guessing by volume."

Rill laughed. Their nature magic told them quite precisely how much food they had, they didn’t even have to measure when cooking. But technically, it was a guess.

"Alright, should we send these all when we’re finished, or send them in batches?" He wondered.

"It will be easier on the guards to send them together. Albroles was partially flooded, then invaded by zombies. The place is a disaster zone, and at one point, the King had to be evacuated by Cygnian forces. You don’t want to give them multiple chances to form a mob."

Rill nodded. "That’s a good point. I should have brought the new soldiers with us here, so they could protect the delivery."

"I can go through first and get them to gather a unit of Royal Guards to do the distribution. I’m sure that’s how it’s going to go anyhow." Dominic offered.

"Given your reputation, are you sure that you should be the one going?"

"I thought that was the reason I should. Who would attack me, knowing what the outcome is likely to be?"

The Trolls laughed at the thought of a bunch of starving villagers attacking Dominic. Even if he didn’t use magic, he still had guns and claws. There was a reason that he had managed to survive in the wilderness from childhood.

Amie shrugged, and held up a small amulet.

"I can go with you, if you’d like?"

Now, the trolls were openly laughing. They all knew that she wasn’t human, they could tell the difference, no matter how good her shapeshifting was. And her reputation wasn’t much better than Dominic’s. If things got violent in Albroles, they would definitely cause an international incident together.

And the Trolls wouldn’t really mind.

The Dagos humans were mean, and chased them completely out of their old villages. Only when Dominic had come back to claim this place had they been able to bring Trolls back to the land.

Amie didn’t wait, and opened the portal to the portal array near the Palace in Albroles.

She stepped through with Dominic, and they were instantly surrounded by armed Palace Guards, who all looked battered and ragged, like they had been on duty since the King returned to the Capital.

"Gentlemen, good day. If you’re not already aware, I am the Duke of Wistover, and I am preparing a delivery for the city today. A full shipment of freshly harvested Wistover grown potatoes, and a truckload of magitech fireplace inserts.

If you could prepare an escort and a Royal notary to receive them, I would appreciate it."

The guards stared at Dominic as if he had grown a second head.

"You’re sending it... today?"

"Yes, in about an hour. We’re just loading the convoy now, and we’re going to send it by portal to this location. It’s safer than sending it overland to the capital. Was there not a Royal announcement about the arrangement?"

The guard nodded slowly, "There was. But we didn’t expect anything to make it to the Capital for at least a month or two. Even if it came up the highway from Staptontave, it would take two or three weeks, and there was no guarantee that it would make it out of Staptondon Province, given their situation."

Dominic shrugged. "There are other convoys for them. Our deal was with the King, so I am making my delivery to the King."

The guard nodded, and began to look relieved now that he knew this wasn’t a prank.

Then came the dawning horror, as he realized that he would have to get an entire convoy to the Palace safely, so the distribution could begin.

"If you can tell me, how many trucks of food are the farmers of Wistover providing the capital this month?" He asked fearfully.

Too few would make little difference. Too many would be impossible to protect.

"One hundred trucks of potatoes. Plus one of inserts for stoves, so you can cook on magic, instead of wood. I thought that might be important after the flood."

The guard smiled. "That is going to save more lives than you could possibly know. Most of the trees were washed out to sea by the river as the flooding stopped, and the rest are waterlogged and scattered through the fields.

I don’t know if you’ve toured the devastation, but there isn’t much left. Fortunately, the high parts of the Capital didn’t flood, so the loss of life was less than in most regions."

Now, he just needed to find enough guards to protect a hundred trucks for a full kilometre.