The few small towns they passed along the way had low, crumbling walls, bleak markets, and shops that were nine parts empty out of ten.
Now and then, a well-dressed tax collector or noble's butler would hurry past on horseback with escorts in tow, turning a blind eye to the starving people by the road.
The enormous gulf between rich and poor was like a split-open abyss, stretching across this land.
Most of the wealth had likely flowed to "safer" places along with the Sauron plundering, or with those sharp-nosed bureaucrats, nobles, and merchants so skilled at currying advantage, or else been buried deep within heavily guarded manors and castles.
On the road, they even encountered two small groups of Bandits trying to rob lone Supply Carts or attack remote village houses.
Most of them wore ragged clothes, wielded crude farm tools or rusted swords, their faces sallow with hunger, their fierce eyes tinged with madness.
But when they glimpsed from afar the orderly ranks of the Carnford Army, their gleaming weapons, and their grim, murderous aura, they scattered in an instant like startled rabbits and fleeing birds and beasts, vanishing into the wasteland and forests.
Karl did not order a pursuit. Wiping out these poor wretches who could no longer survive would do nothing for the larger situation, and would instead waste precious strength and time.
He merely tightened their vigilance and ordered the troops to pass quickly through these dangerous areas.
"The wine and meat behind vermilion gates stink, while frozen bones lie by the roadside." Karl silently recited this line of poetry from distant memory, feeling it could not have been more apt.
This was the kingdom he was supposed to protect? This was the condition of the "people" he was supposed to save? A sense of