Chương 46: 46： Silent Exiles

Soren took another deep breath, turning toward the third and largest heavy freight wagon. Caught in the aftermath of the first wagon's crash, its axle had merely shifted, leaving the rear cargo hold almost entirely intact. Several soldiers pried at the copper lock ring on the tailgate. Crash! The hasp snapped. It was like opening the floodgates of a granary. Piles of tanned, winter-grade furs tumbled out of the wagon. Beneath the furs sat neatly stacked dry wooden crates.

A soldier split a crate lid open with a single chop of his blade, revealing massive slabs of cured, air-dried meat. Wedged between the crates were dozens of sacks of pure white wheat flour. The cargo capacity of three fully loaded kodos had hauled enough rations to supply a thousand-man regiment. Gary and Ein exchanged a look. Wild ecstasy erupted in their eyes, and their hands trembled violently around their weapons.

"Rations... meat... and it's all pure wheat flour! No sand mixed in! Plus these thick pelts... we won't have to freeze in our tattered leather armor this winter!" Soren drew his longsword, planting the tip into the stone pavement and leaning on the hilt. Even with his usual composure, he couldn't help but let out a long, heavy exhale. Short on rations? This single wagon of dried meat and fine flour was more than enough for the two hundred villagers of Greywater Village and the eighty newly integrated goblins.

With over three hundred mouths to feed, it wouldn't just sustain them—it could feed a force of five hundred heavy infantry straight through the brutal winter with plenty to spare! Short on magical resources? Health potions and healing scrolls were sitting right there in the first wagon. Short on heavy siege weaponry? Siege catapult parts and alchemical fire oil were now in their possession! This haul was massive. Soren looked at his men, who were still staring blankly at the meat.

He spoke in a low, commanding tone:"Notify the squad in the inner keep!"

"Draft all the goblins, rig the ropes, and start hauling!"

"We're dragging every last scrap of supplies and gear back to our territory!" Cook, the heavily wrinkled goblin artisan, cracked a woven grass whip with a sharp snap. The old goblin screeched in his grating native dialect.

"Hurry up! Stack those breastplates! Align the edges! Bundles of twelve! Run the hemp rope through the gorgets and tie them tight!" Over eighty newly liberated goblin captives scurried back and forth between the granite ramp and the inner keep. Their scrawny shoulders bore the weight of heavy military provisions. Salvaged black iron breastplates, greaves, spiked pauldrons...

Slabs of dried meat seized from the kodos, sacks of white flour, and even the disassembled components of the two catapults—winches, throwing arms, counterweight boxes, and dozens of barrels of alchemical fire oil... Everything was sorted and loaded onto two massive flatbed supply wagons that had been sitting in the corner of the inner keep. Kyle, gripping his halberd, jerked his head toward the depths of the corridor. Clatter! Iron chains dragged across the stone pavement.

Over fifty massive direwolves, each measuring over two meters in length, were violently dragged out of the inner keep's pens by a dozen heavy halberdiers hauling on the iron collars around the beasts' necks. These were the combat mounts of the wolf cavalry—vicious by nature. But last night, their riders had met a quiet end, their mouths smothered and throats slit by Soren's soldiers while they slept. Smelling the thick scent of orc blood in the air, the alpha wolf bared its fangs.

Its claws dug into the earth, a low, guttural snarl rumbling in its throat as it lunged forward, trying to snap at the goblins managing the leads. Thwack! A nearby human soldier didn't hesitate. He reversed his grip, sending the two-and-a-half-meter ash wood halberd shaft whistling through the air to smash brutally against the alpha wolf's brow bone. With a sickening crunch of bone, the alpha yelped in pain, its head slamming hard into the mud. Instantly, the rest of the pack tucked their tails between their legs.

The soldiers tossed out index-finger-thick hemp ropes, forcing harnesses over the direwolves' hardened leather chest pieces. They tied off the other ends in dead knots, securing them to the iron towing rings at the front of the black wooden wagons. Exactly twenty-five massive direwolves were hitched to the front of each towering, mountain-like supply wagon. Soren stood alone on the ledge of the inner keep's highest watchtower.

As he watched the supply convoy finally lurch into motion down below, the system chime rang out in his mind right on cue. [Ding! Shattered Bone Pass successfully eradicated.] [System calculation complete. Phase Campaign Rewards distributed:] [1. Blacksmith Forge (Includes High-Temperature Blast Furnace Technology: Capable of secondary smelting, purifying, and recasting impure black iron.)] [2. Bog Tuber Seeds x100 Sacks (Thrives in acidic, cold, and muddy soil. Growth cycle: 60 days.)] Soren raised his right hand. A translucent blueprint floated before his eyes, ready to be placed at any location he designated. Meanwhile, within his Warlord System inventory, a hundred neatly stacked burlap sacks had appeared. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Soren's gaze then drifted down to the heavy halberdiers pushing the wagons. After last night's brutal slaughter, the leather armor on his men was battered and torn to shreds.

Since the beginning, his elite squad—trained to the standards of modern special forces—possessed incredibly high individual combat prowess, but their equipment was utterly abysmal. Without heavy armor, engaging in conventional warfare on open terrain was suicidal. A single volley of heavy crossbow fire from the Blackstone Tribe or a direct charge from their wolf cavalry would result in irreversible casualties. That was exactly why he had been forced to rely on night raids and ambushes.

They simply lacked the capital for a head-on clash. Now, with this Blacksmith Forge blueprint, the mountains of salvaged black iron equipment piled up in his territory could finally be put to use. Once they returned to Greywater Village, he could place the forge and shove these eighty-plus goblins—creatures naturally accustomed to metalwork—straight into it. Within a matter of days, he could churn out standard-issue human plate armor weighing dozens of pounds.

Only then—wielding armor-piercing heavy halberds and clad in full-coverage black iron heavy armor—would his men truly be considered an elite force. The only drawback was the forge's currently low level; it could only smelt black iron, not higher-grade black steel. Then there were the Bog Tubers—crops that could actually grow in a swamp. Soren glanced at the massive direwolves below. These beasts possessed terrifying load-bearing strength.

Hitched to a plow, they would become the most vicious draft beasts in the mire. Paired with eighty goblins capable of wading barefoot through the bogs, these high-yield Bog Tubers would generate immense food reserves for Greywater Village. Not only would they comfortably survive the coming winter, but it would also provide the foundation for his next phase of military expansion.

"My Lord! Loading complete!" Ein roared, craning his neck from beside one of the wagons. Soren descended the wooden ladder.

"Move out! Back to the village!" The direwolves surged forward. Wooden wheels ground heavily against granite as the convoy rolled down the main road, pressing into the depths of the mist. They marched for five kilometers. The fog grew oppressively thick. The only sound in the eerie silence was the soft pop of bubbles bursting on the surface of the toxic bogs. Ahead, in a patch of withered reeds, a mound of mud was silently pushed aside. Gary emerged, completely caked in black muck.

He had been sent ahead to scout the route. He slithered across the ground like a snake, sliding to a halt in front of Soren.

"My Lord, we need to halt the convoy."

"Half a mile ahead, there's a large mass of living targets on the hard-packed road."

"Orc reinforcements?" Soren's eyes instantly turned ice-cold. His right hand reached back, gripping the Windwhisper Bow.

"No," Gary spat a wad of muddy saliva. His tone was laced with a complicated mix of shock and disbelief.

"Humans. A big group—over a hundred of them. Unarmed. Almost all of them dressed like civilians." Soren's brow slowly furrowed. Gary kept his voice to a whisper.

"They must be exiles from the Silvermoon Kingdom. Under Silvermoon law, those convicted of severe crimes are sentenced to banishment in the Misty Swamps. The Magistrates send Knights to march them to the border, then drive them straight into the bogs."

"My father was exiled here by the Silvermoon Kingdom years ago." He glanced back at the dense fog and let out a scoff.

"They're extremely lucky. If you hadn't wiped out Shattered Bone Pass before dawn and butchered that Kodo escort halfway here, this Blackstone Kingdom supply line would be crawling with wolf cavalry patrols."

"If they ran into the orcs, their bones would already be boiling in a stew pot." Soren didn't reply. He simply raised a clenched fist—a tactical hand signal to halt and hold position. Behind him, the halberdiers instantly chocked the wagon wheels and forced the goblins down into the ditches along the road. Not a single sound was made. Taking only Gary and Meyer, Soren crouched low, slipping through a thicket of toxic vines before scrambling up a massive slate boulder jutting out of the swamp water.

[Eagle Eye Perception] Activated. His vision pierced through the absolute limits of the gray fog, locking precisely onto the scene hundreds of paces away. It was a deeply harrowing procession. On the long granite road, over a hundred figures in ragged, torn clothing were slowly trudging forward. At the front of the line, two elderly men leaned heavily on broken tree branches. With every step, their bony knees trembled uncontrollably.

In the middle, a woman walked with a shredded shawl—a torn strip of unrecognizably stained silk clinging to her shoulder. The infant cradled in her arms lay completely still, its eyes wide open and entirely drained of color. Most of the men were walking barefoot over the rough ground. Without shoes, the jagged granite shards of the road had sliced their soles to ribbons. Every time they lifted a foot, they left behind a dark, sticky, crimson footprint. There was no crying in the convoy. Not even a single wail.

There was only the dead, ragged sound of breathing and the suffocating despair of those waiting to die. But Soren immediately noticed something abnormal.