As the evening sun set, the battlefield between Forward Camp and the Border Fortress of Two Rivers County fell silent once more. The bloody fighting of the day seemed as though it had never existed upon this land.
Cooking fires and smoke filled Forward Camp, carrying the alluring scents of wheat porridge and mutton.
Such a sight was rare. Most of the people in Forward Camp were herders and laborers brought in to work.
The only ones who normally ate proper food such as wheat porridge were the three ten-thousand-man units of the Iron Bone Tribe assigned as guards and overseers.
Moreover, their quarters were usually separated from those of the other herders and laborers, so the scent of their food never drifted out.
The soldiers of those Iron Bone Tribe units normally had no meat or wine, but dairy products, wheat porridge, and similar staples were supplied in sufficient amounts.
The laborers, meanwhile, received at most some barley and rye mixed with grass seeds. They poured those grains into melted snowwater, gathered dry grass and branches scraped out of the snow, lit a fire, and cooked themselves a bowl of half-raw mixed-grain porridge.
It was barely enough to fill their stomachs, but flavor was out of the question.
Yet today, the sudden scent of wheat porridge and mutton drifting through the camp was indeed strange.
When the laborers and herders caught that scent, each swallowed hard and looked toward one corner of the camp with envy.
People there were continuously lining up to receive the enticing food, while many who had already collected theirs squatted nearby and began eating.
The common feature among these hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people was how bedraggled they looked. Many wore tattered clothes, and some even bore signs of bandaged wounds.
Yet they ignored