Chapter 560: The Bigger Picture
The second time he faced the trial, he understood from the beginning that this would test his endurance and the endurance of the people in the village. He started immediately by looking for ways to preserve the crops without using witchcraft.
The people of the Heartwood clan were skilled at woodworking, so the first thing he asked them to build was screens made of wooden slats that would shade the crops in their fields and gardens. They were something that he’d come up with half way through the first trial, when he was looking for ways to make use of the wood they’d salvaged from the fallen cypress trees, but it had been too late by the time they’d gotten them into place to make much of a difference in the end.
The shades wouldn’t completely block the light, but they would reduce the intensity of the twin suns’ fury, and the water in the irrigation channels wouldn’t dry up as quickly either. The gains might be small to start, but over the weeks of the trial, he was certain that they would add greatly to their survival.
The shades were just one of the changes Ollie made. Some crops, he gave up on entirely, harvesting them early rather than trying to sustain everything through the long drought. Others, he defended fiercely, knowing that they would need them when other sources of food became scarce.
He also sent every hunter in the village out as soon as the second sun appeared, giving them orders to catch and kill every deer, rabbit, grouse, pheasant, or other game animal they could find. The unending day would quickly become unsettling to beasts who would flee the area, making game scarce in the days to come, but with the knowledge of what was coming, he decisively overhunted the area, preserving anything they didn’t eat for the leaner days to come.
His choices worked, at least for a time. The village lasted for more than a month, hanging on for several days longer than it had the first time, but still, rescue never arrived. Food still began to run out, bellies shrank, and both the old and the young succumbed to the heat. In the end, though they lasted much longer, the result was no different.
"Why?" Ollie asked when the vision of Ashlynn appeared before him again. "Why hasn’t anyone come to rescue us? Even if Lady Nyrielle is suppressed by the suns, you would never abandon the people like this, would you?"
"Who told you that help was coming, Ollie?" Ashlynn said, raising a brow at him. "Doesn’t this village already have the greatest help imaginable in you?"
"What? But, but I’m only a beginner. I’ve barely learned any witchcraft at all! Compared to you, I’m far too inadequate for this," he said. "I know I could have done better, I could have lasted longer if I’d done a few things differently. If I knew how long we needed to hold on for, I could make more adjustments. Just tell me when you’ll be coming, or when you’ll send someone to help and I promise I’ll make sure we hang on long enough..."
"Ollie," Ashlynn said, kneeling down beside the pleading young man. Even though it was only a vision, he’d watched the villagers suffer and die more than once, and the tears that spilled from his eyes carried a mixture of grief, loss, and deep frustration as he castigated himself for his repeated failures.
"Ollie, there are more than twenty villages in the Vale of Mists, plus the fortress town," Ashlynn pointed out. "How many of those villages enjoy the luxury of a witch who is only trying to help one village survive? The Inquisition’s attack isn’t limited to this village alone, so while you are here, how many other places need help?"