The capture of Fort Drakon sent a shockwave of jubilation and awe through the Army of the Wastes. They had met a royal garrison in its own fortress and had utterly crushed it. Their belief in me, and in themselves, was now absolute. But victory can be as dangerous as defeat if not managed correctly.
My objective was never to hold this fortress. To do so would be to fall into the very trap I had accused the kingdom of: fighting a static, defensive war on their territory. We were a scorpion, not a bulldog. Our power was in our mobility, our ability to strike and disappear.
"We are not occupiers," I announced to my assembled commanders in the fortress's captured great hall. "We are liberators. And the first thing we shall liberate is every single thing of value from these walls."
The 'Great Scourge of Fort Drakon', as it would later be called in the panicked whispers of the kingdom, began. It was a systematic, three-day-long operation of logistical genius. Every weapon, every suit of armor, every horseshoe, every nail, every sack of flour, every barrel of salted pork, was loaded onto our Freighters and the fortress's own supply wagons. We stripped the fortress bare, leaving not so much as a single copper pot behind. The wealth we acquired was enough to arm and feed our Confederacy for a full year of war.
While the fortress was being looted, I turned my attention to the two hundred surviving members of the garrison. They were herded into the main courtyard, disarmed and terrified, expecting a summary execution.
I walked among them, my face grim. "You fought for your King," I said, my voice carrying to every corner of the yard. "You have lost. Your fortress is ours. Your lives are mine to command." I let the fear hang in the air for a long moment. "But we have not come here for a harvest of skulls. We have come to deliver a message."
I ordered ten of them to be separated from the rest—the highest-ranking officer, a few sergeants, and some common soldiers. The rest, I declared, were now prisoners of the Confederacy, to be marched back to Oakhaven to work, under the same laws that governed our previous prisoners. This was a crucial point: we were not just raiders, we were a state with a legal process, even for our enemies.
To the ten I had selected, I gave a different fate. "You are free," I told the stunned officer. "You will be given water and a day's worth of food. You will walk back to the capital. You will tell my father what you saw here. You will tell him how an army of 'desert savages' tore down his fortress in less than an hour. You will tell him that this was not a raid for plunder. This was a demonstration."
I leaned in closer. "Tell him that the next time, we will not stop at his frontier fortresses. Tell him the desert is coming for him."
On the fourth day, with the fortress stripped bare and our wagons groaning under the weight of plunder, the final phase of my plan commenced. My knowledge of siegecraft was not just for destruction, but for controlled demolition. Using the garrison's own stores of black powder (a substance they used for mining), my engineers placed precise charges at the base of the load-bearing walls and the key arches of the gatehouse.
As our army pulled back to a safe distance, I gave the signal. A series of deep, rumbling explosions echoed through the pass. The proud stone walls of Fort Drakon, which had stood for a century, groaned, buckled, and then collapsed inwards in a colossal cloud of dust and debris. We did more than just destroy it; we engineered the collapse to completely block the Dragon's Tooth Pass, turning a strategic artery into an impassable mountain of rubble that would take the kingdom years to clear.
We had not just pulled the dragon's teeth; we had collapsed its throat.
As we began our triumphant march back to the wastes, the system erupted with notifications, the most significant rewards I had ever received.
[PRIMARY QUEST SUB-QUEST 1: 'SURVIVE THE ROYAL RETALIATION' - COMPLETE (PREEMPTIVELY).][ANALYSIS: Enemy offensive capability crippled. Strategic initiative seized. Political and military victory of overwhelming significance achieved.][REWARD: +30 SYSTEM POINTS. All Confederacy military units gain +1 Veterancy Level. New technology branch unlocked: 'Military Doctrine'.]
Thirty System Points. My mind reeled at the possibilities. And the new 'Military Doctrine' branch promised ways to customize and specialize my army beyond simple unit types.
I looked at my victorious army marching home, their ranks swelled with plunder, their morale sky-high. I looked at the pillar of dust behind us that had once been a royal fortress. We had left our cage. We had marched into the world and proven that we were not just a band of survivors, but a power to be reckoned with.
The war was far from over. The King's rage would be biblical. His response would be massive. But we had bought ourselves the one thing more valuable than iron or grain: time. Time to train, time to build, and time to prepare for the true storm that was now gathering in the east. The scorpion had stung, and the lion was wounded and roaring. The real war was about to begin.