Chương 44: 44：Blood, Bread, and Bone

Fifty-four soldiers wove through the piles of corpses. Wielding short knives, they severed the leather straps binding the orc corpses, forcefully prying off black-iron breastplates, greaves, and pauldrons. The discarded metal armor soon formed a small mountain on the flagstone grounds. Not far away, near the barracks, several soldiers worked together to haul out heavy burlap sacks, fine wheat bran sifting through the seams. Meyer emerged from the Thousand-Commander's wooden shack and jogged over to Soren.

In his hand, he gripped a rolled-up parchment of animal hide.

"My Lord, we found this on the Thousand-Commander's desk."

"Since we slipped in through the main gate, your arrows took out all their officers before they even had a chance to burn their military orders." Soren took the hide. His gaze swept over the twisted characters scrawled in dark, dried blood. Thanks to 【Orcish Proficiency】, the jagged, distorted symbols instantly translated into clear intelligence in his mind. Stamped at the bottom of the scroll was the military seal of Bloodfang Fortress. Soren's eyes locked onto a specific line: 【Heavy Kodo Supply Convoy.

08: 00 AM. Passing through Shattered Bone Pass. Ensure absolute protection. 】 Soren glanced up at the pale morning light breaking across the horizon.

"It's less than an hour until eight," Soren said, crumpling the hide and shoving it into his belt pouch. Returning to Graywater Village would have to wait. The compacted dirt-and-stone road was the main logistical artery constructed by Warchief Blackstone, and Kodos were massive beasts of burden capable of carrying immense loads. Whatever supplies this convoy was hauling, they were exactly what his territory desperately needed right now.

"Gary, Ein," Soren called out. The two captains immediately broke off from the cleanup details, stepping forward with their bloodstained weapons in hand.

"Pick twenty-seven men and head outside the inner keep."

"Move to the granite-paved main road on the perimeter. Gary, there are briar patches and poison vines on both sides of the road. Have the men chop down the vines, weave them into our hemp ropes, and set up tripwires across the downhill slope the convoy has to pass."

"The objective is to take out the Kodos' front legs."

"Ein, take your men to secure the high ground and provide overwatch. Do not engage the guards head-on. Aim your short spears strictly at the Kodos pulling the carts."

"Once the carts flip and the supplies tumble down the slope, the ambush is a success."

"Yes, Sir!" Gary and Ein didn't waste a single breath on questions. They spun on their heels, rounded up twenty-seven heavy halberdiers, slung gray-black short spears across their backs, and slipped into the dense morning mist outside the keep like a pack of ghosts. The remaining men inside the keep proceeded with Soren's second directive: rounding up the goblins. Huddled together in the northwest corner of the stone walls was a massive throng of runty, green-skinned creatures.

It was a group of nearly a hundred vassal goblins. The battle had erupted far too quickly. In Shattered Bone Pass, the orc Thousand-Commander, the Centurions, and even the low-ranking Decurions had all been systematically headshot by Soren's wind-rune-enchanted arrows. Without their whip-wielding overseers to force them into battle, these lowly goblins hadn't been shoved into the corridors to act as meat shields to drain the humans' stamina, as was the usual tactic.

By the time the human halberd phalanx swept through the inner keep and left the orcs dead on the ground, the goblins could do nothing but drop their crude wooden clubs, clutch their heads, and shiver in a terrified huddle. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Kyle stood guard on the perimeter, halberd in hand. Several soldiers were using coarse hemp rope to string the goblins together like a row of captured locusts.

The goblins' oversized, pointed ears were plastered flat against their bald heads. Wrapped in ragged burlap, their snouts flared and twitched with fear. Soren walked toward the trembling lineup of prisoners. He was calculating in his head. Graywater Village was severely lacking in labor. In a few days, the 【Blacksmith】 and the 【Swamp Potato Seeds】 would need to be officially established and planted. Relying solely on the village's malnourished, emaciated peasants to manage both was simply impossible.

There weren't enough hands. Humans struggled to endure the highly acidic muck of the swamplands, but goblins could wade right into the fields barefoot. While his humans lacked metallurgical ingenuity, goblins possessed an innate, almost instinctual understanding of bellows, furnace temperatures, and rudimentary alchemical mechanics. More importantly, the creatures were scavengers. They could survive on rotting vegetable scraps.

As long as they could swing a hammer and slog through the mud, they would be the perfect workforce. Soren stopped in front of the captive mob. He opened his mouth and spoke in a flawless Orcish dialect:"Drop your hands! Heads up! Look at me!" Hearing such authentic Orcish barked from the mouth of a black-haired human struck the goblin horde like a physical hammer blow. Over a hundred goblins ceased their shivering all at once.

In sheer disbelief, they lowered the green claws shielding their heads, their beady eyes locking onto the human before them. Soren rested one hand casually on the hilt of his steel longsword.

"Last night, this pass was guarded by five hundred black-iron heavy infantrymen. And I brought only sixty-five men." Sixty-five humans shattered a defense line of five hundred black-iron orcs?! A collective, stifled gasp rippled through the goblin ranks. A few elder goblins stared at the arrow-riddled orc corpses scattered around them. They gulped hard, pure terror and awe seizing their hearts. The killing efficiency of this human surpassed even the most brutal Warlords of the Orc Alliance.

Soren spoke with chilling calmness.

"I know exactly how you've lived. They exterminated your tribes and dragged you here in chains."

"Every day, you hammer out armor, haul raw ore, and shovel shit for the orcs."

"On the battlefield, they jam their tower shields into your spines, shoving you forward to fill human moats with your bodies."

"And when the harsh winter hits and rations run dry, you end up stewing in the very pots you cook from." The deadened, numb look in the goblins' eyes began to crack. A few scrawny younger goblins clutched their mangled, missing fingers. Within the orc strongholds, they weren't even treated as living creatures. To the orcs, they were lesser than pigs or dogs. Soren raised his voice.

"I am giving you a choice."

"Path one: I cut your ropes and let you walk out of this pass."

"But there are no roads out there. There is only poisonous miasma and starving two-headed dire-crocs hiding in the mist. If the remnants of the Blackstone Tribe catch you, they will chop you to pieces just to vent their frustrations." A restless stir ripped through the goblin mob as panic tightened its grip on them. Leaving the pass meant certain death in the wilderness.

"Path two." Soren's voice carried over the howling wind.

"Kneel before me. Follow me back to my territory. Pick up your forging hammers, grab your pickaxes, and build my walls, till my fields, and construct my furnaces."

"In exchange for your labor, you will be given a full ration of rye bread. Every single day. Rain or shine."

"You will drink boiled, clean water. I will designate a secure camp for you to live in. There will be no orc whips. No flayings. You will work for me as commoners." Bread. Clean water. A shelter free from beatings. As commoners. These words struck the very core of the goblins' deepest desires. The desperate will to survive, mixed with extreme, gnawing hunger, burned through their lingering terror like a wildfire. Dead silence followed. Five seconds later—thud.

Half a dozen elderly goblin craftsmen, their chins sporting scraggly gray beards and their hands covered in forge burns, dropped to their knees and prostrated themselves. Scrambling on all fours, they ignored the confused tugs of their kin and crawled straight to Soren's feet. They pressed their lips directly against his leather boots, which were still stained with fresh orc blood.

"Great Master! Cook, Craftsman of the Stone-Crusher Clan, will hammer iron for you! I will strike the anvil until my arms shatter!" The old goblin shrieked his oath of loyalty in a raspy, grating Orcish dialect. With the dam broken, a cascade of thuds echoed through the courtyard. Over eighty goblins flattened themselves against the flagstones, their voices forming a chaotic, desperate chorus of submission in Orcish. It was a fundamental trait of the goblin race—an absolute, instinctual reverence for the strong.

Only a handful of goblins remained squatting in place. Their eyes darted shiftily; they neither kneeled nor spoke. These were the camp lackeys, used to running errands for the orcs and slacking off whenever possible. They had no desire to do hard labor. Additionally, a few goblin overseers were hiding at the back of the mob. Around the necks of these five overseers hung necklaces strung with polished human finger bones.

Soren's gaze locked onto those bone necklaces, and then drifted to the stragglers who refused to kneel.

"I keep my word. Those unwilling to pledge themselves: untie them and let them walk out the gate." Soren waved his hand casually. Kyle drew his dagger and sliced the bindings of the dissenting goblins. Seven or eight goblins immediately hunched over and bolted madly toward the perimeter fog, disappearing into the poisonous miasma without a backward glance. A spark of glee flashed in the eyes of the five bone-wearing overseers.

They promptly stood, dusted off their rears, and prepared to slip out alongside the others. Relying on their privileged status as overseers in the orc camp, these runts had spent their days capturing human refugees who wandered into the swamp. They would eat their flesh raw and extract their bones to fashion trophies of their cruelty.