To deter the dirty hands lurking in the shadows, Danyla immediately ordered the seizure of every caravan backing those involved in the incident.
Ser Roxton led two thousand men from the Eagle's Nest City Garrison to confiscate all the caravans' supplies. Any merchants who dared resist were beheaded as a warning to the others.
Every caravan member, whether involved or not, was reduced to a laborer and sent to work in the iron mine near Eyriehold. Last month, Danyla had discovered a sizable deposit of high-grade iron a few kilometers northeast of Eyriehold, and mining was now underway.
They had been short of workers, so these several hundred people neatly resolved Eyriehold's pressing need.
Ser Jon Rookton also led his men in inspecting each of the remaining caravans. Any caravan whose members had questionable identities or engaged in illegal dealings had all its property confiscated. Its core members were enslaved, while the rest were sent to the valley east of Eagle's Nest City to clear land and farm.
Danyla did not spare the merchants and brothers who had seized the opportunity to peddle talismans of the Seven, nor the sellers of fake medicine. Sometimes, swindlers who profited from war were more hateful than the enemy. Soldiers often paid for their greed with their lives.
By the time Danyla's crackdown was over, more than half the caravans had been swept away. A full four or five thousand people were implicated, including over three thousand men and women sent away as serfs. The confiscated supplies were worth more than a hundred thousand gold dragons, enough to cover one or two months of the western army's expenses.
Furthermore, in an effort to save themselves, the merchants named some of their noble patrons, implicating quite a few nobles from the Reach.
Danyla showed them