Word Sent Back

Five days later, the afterglow of the setting sun stained the sky a magnificent blood-red.

A silent and immense army marched resolutely northwest along a dirt road worn into the earth.

The Carnford army was only fifteen kilometers from Tyrol, the strategic target of this campaign.

Over the past few days, the cavalry units of Lyon and Thorsten had prowled the army's flanks and vanguard like two razor-sharp blades.

With tremendous efficiency and ruthless precision, they had once again swept through several small Sauron villages and outposts near the coast.

Their actions were swift and decisive: setting fires, killing, destroying, and leaving no survivors. They had forcibly sealed news of the Carnford army's northward advance within this bloodstained region for the time being.

The Sauron higher-ups might have made some guesses based on Harald's keen instinct for war, but the exact intelligence, movements, and intentions of the Carnford Army remained shrouded in fog to them.

Behind the main force, however, was an even more striking and solemn sight.

Two thousand frail, sallow-faced transport soldiers with exceptionally stubborn eyes were straining to push and pull heavy carts with their thin shoulders. The carts were piled high with grain-filled sacks, bundles of arrows, crates of gunpowder and lead bullets, and the soldiers' heavy spare armor and weapons.

These transport soldiers were not regular troops of Carnford. The vast majority of them were Broomflower slaves whom Lyon's cavalry had rescued not long ago from the border tribes in the northern mountains of Carnford, which were under Sauron control.

They had arrived too late and missed Carnford's spring land allotment. They were destined to harvest nothing this year and could only survive on the relief grain distributed by the Lord's Residence.

Steward Edgar had seen this labor force and understood the pain and hatred