Chapter 65: One Month of Conquest
The first week after Grand Marshal Rakhar Veyr ordered the countryside operation confirmed nearly every assumption behind his strategy.
Viridian columns continued moving away from the main concentration around Eastwatch, dividing into smaller formations as they followed roads, rivers, and farming districts through the province.
Several hundred goblins might enter one district while another column advanced along a parallel road only a few miles away, and smaller occupation detachments followed behind to secure whatever the larger forces passed through. The humans simply did not possess enough soldiers outside their fortified cities to oppose all of them simultaneously. Whenever one village attempted resistance, several others surrendered, emptied, or watched helplessly as Viridian troops marched through without enough defenders to stop them.
At Rakhar’s command headquarters, the provincial map changed every morning.
Green markers that had once formed an irregular patch around Brackenford spread farther north, south, and west until individual advances began connecting. Reports arrived describing abandoned watch posts, surrendered villages, captured bridges, and local garrisons withdrawing before the goblins arrived.
A commander responsible for one northern sector reported taking six villages and two crossroads in three days without losing more than a handful of soldiers. Another column encountered a fortified manor where a local noble had gathered militia and refused to surrender.
Rather than sacrifice troops against the stone buildings, the goblins surrounded the estate, blocked the wells and road, and waited until the defenders realized nobody was coming to relieve them. The gates opened two days later.
Rakhar treated these minor victories as pieces of a larger occupation rather than accomplishments worthy of celebration.
He repeatedly reminded his officers that planting a Viridian banner meant little if soldiers could not move safely between one captured settlement and the next.
Roads therefore became the foundation of everything. Patrol sectors were assigned. Bridges received permanent guards.
Abandoned Caldris road stations became goblin barracks. Engineers repaired damaged crossings and widened sections of road where captured wagons struggled to pass.
A settlement located far from any useful route might be left alone for days, while a crossroads serving four districts could receive several times the garrison of a much larger village.
The army was not attempting to color every piece of land on the map equally. It was building a network that allowed Viridian to control movement across the province.
By the end of the first week, the Reclamation Corps had expanded into the newly occupied districts behind the advancing columns. Grain from provincial storehouses was counted and redistributed.
Captured wagons began carrying Viridian supplies rather than Caldris goods. Livestock was gathered into controlled herds instead of being slaughtered indiscriminately by hungry soldiers.
Mills continued operating wherever workers remained, and local granaries were placed under guard. Rakhar’s earlier prohibition against unnecessary destruction proved increasingly valuable.
Every intact barn and mill reduced the amount of food that had to travel from the portal. Every captured cart meant one fewer wagon that Viridian engineers needed to produce or transport from their own world.
The second week changed the approach of the campaign. Caldris commanders outside the large fortified cities had begun understanding that the countryside could no longer be held through scattered garrisons.
A company stationed at an isolated fort might learn that the road east had fallen, the nearest bridge was controlled by goblins, and two villages behind them already contained Viridian troops.
Remaining in place meant eventual encirclement without any realistic chance of relief. Many commanders therefore withdrew before the goblins arrived, taking whatever professional soldiers they could gather toward Eastwatch or the nearest fortified city.
Rakhar allowed most of them to leave. Some of his younger officers argued that retreating soldiers should be pursued and destroyed, but he refused unless the opportunity required little effort.
A garrison abandoning its fort had already surrendered the fort, the road, the nearby farms, and the surrounding population.
Chasing a hundred men across twenty miles of countryside could consume more time than occupying five additional settlements. Once those soldiers entered a walled city, they became another mouth consuming stored food and another defender trapped where Viridian could virtually imprison them.
This withdrawal produced exactly the concentration Rakhar wanted. Small human forts went silent. Caldris banners disappeared from roadside stations.
Local officials fled with military escorts, leaving administrative buildings behind for Viridian occupation troops. In several districts, goblin scouts entered communities only hours after the last human soldiers departed. There was no battle because there was nobody left willing to fight one.
The major cities responded differently. Their gates remained closed or heavily controlled, their walls manned, and their garrisons swollen by soldiers retreating from the countryside.
Whenever a Viridian column reached one of these cities, it stopped outside effective range and spread into the surrounding territory rather than assaulting the defenses.
Roads were occupied, nearby villages taken, and watch posts established where the gates could be observed. The city itself remained Caldris territory, but every road outside gradually became Viridian territory.
By the middle of the second week, three fortified cities other than Eastwatch had effectively become isolated islands surrounded by goblin-controlled countryside.
Eastwatch remained the largest island of all. Six thousand Viridian soldiers continued containing the provincial capital without launching the assault its defenders expected.
During the first few days, refugees entered almost continuously. Wagons loaded with families, grain, furniture, livestock, and wounded soldiers crowded the gates.
Later, the flow began thinning because the roads leading toward the city were increasingly controlled by goblin patrols. Viridian troops did not hunt civilians deliberately, but movement toward Eastwatch became difficult simply because the countryside between the remaining Caldris settlements no longer belonged to Caldris.
From the walls, the defenders could see evidence of what was happening. Smoke rose from goblin camps where friendly road stations once stood. Familiar villages stopped sending wagons. Mounted patrols sent east sometimes returned without completing their routes, while others never returned at all.
Yet the expected grand assault against the walls still did not come. The enemy remained outside, visible enough to threaten the city but disciplined enough not to waste itself.
During the third week, the isolated zones of Viridian control finally began merging on a provincial scale. A northern column advancing along a river met occupation troops moving west from Brackenford.
Southern formations secured an agricultural belt large enough to support thousands of soldiers and established protected wagon routes linking several captured mills and granaries.
Patrols could now travel for dozens of miles through territory where every important bridge and crossroads was guarded by goblins.
Supplies captured in one district could be transferred directly to another without returning east.
The countryside was no longer a collection of conquered settlements. It had become connected Viridian territory.
Caldris attempted several limited counteractions, but each revealed how difficult the new situation had become.
One fortified city sent nearly three hundred soldiers to reopen a road leading toward nearby grain stores. Scouts spotted them before they traveled half the distance.
A nearby Viridian column moved toward their flank while occupation troops blocked the road ahead. The human commander recognized the developing trap and withdrew behind the walls before a major engagement could occur.
Another force attempted to escort wagons between two surrounded towns, only to turn back after discovering goblin patrols controlling both available crossings.
Rakhar was pleased that such operations often ended without battle. The purpose of the occupation was not to deal casualtiesto the enemy.
It was to make Caldris incapable of operating outside its walls caging the defenders. If a commander looked at the surrounding countryside and decided movement was too dangerous, Viridian had already achieved the desired result.
By the fourth week, the operation became less about advancing and more about closing remaining gaps. Remote hamlets hidden in forests or distant hills were considered irrelevant unless they supported military activity.
Rakhar instead demanded reports on every strategically important road, bridge, grain-producing district, market town, supply center, and fortified post. One after another, the remaining gaps disappeared. Occupation garrisons settled into regular duties.
Farmers who had remained began returning to fields under supervision. Markets cautiously reopened in several towns because soldiers and civilians alike needed food exchanged locally. The inhabitants did not suddenly accept Viridian rule, but open resistance had become rare outside the fortified cities.
Exactly one month after Rakhar issued the order to take the countryside, his senior commanders gathered again around the provincial map.
The difference from the original map was remarkable. Green markers covered almost every important route. The fortified cities remained marked separately, each surrounded by Viridian positions.
Eastwatch sat at the center of the largest concentration of remaining Caldris soldiers, but there was no longer any significant connected countryside under its authority.
Rakhar looked around the table before asking, "How much important territory remains outside our control?"
Varek answered after consulting the compiled reports. "There are remote villages we have not entered and scattered areas where patrol coverage remains incomplete. Strategically, none of them connect the cities or threaten our roads. Every major crossing, agricultural district, and military route outside the surrounded cities is either occupied or under regular patrol."
"The countryside operation is complete, then."
No officer disagreed.
Rakhar studied the map for another moment before beginning the next stage. The twelve thousand soldiers who had spent the month spreading across the province were no longer all necessary for active expansion.
District commanders were ordered to calculate the minimum strength required to hold what had been taken. Villages would retain small garrisons. Important crossroads and bridges would receive stronger detachments.
Captured forts would remain manned, while agricultural centers and supply depots kept enough troops to prevent sabotage or sudden local uprisings. The surrounded cities would retain dedicated containment forces.
Everyone beyond those requirements would move.
Rakhar placed his hand over Eastwatch.
"For a month, we made them watch us take everything around them. Now we stop spreading thin."
Varek understood first. "The countryside columns return to the capital."
"The occupation stays where it is. The mobile troops assemble around Eastwatch."
Orders left the command headquarters before the meeting ended. Northern formations were instructed to leave permanent garrisons behind and begin marching south.
Southern columns turned north. Mobile troops west of Eastwatch started moving toward the capital’s approaches. The central reserve was ordered forward, and the roads Viridian had spent a month securing now became channels carrying thousands of goblin soldiers toward one destination.
Across the province, banners changed direction. Columns that had spent weeks flowing outward through villages and farmland began marching back toward the center while occupation troops watched from bridges, forts, and captured settlements.
Eastwatch still stood behind its stone walls, and its soldiers still held the towers, but the province that once supported those walls had been taken away from them.
Rakhar remained beside the map as the first redeployment reports arrived. Green markers that had spread outward for an entire month were now beginning to gather around the provincial capital.
He had waited until the roads belonged to Viridian, the farms fed Viridian soldiers, and the other major cities were trapped behind their own defenses. The conditions he wanted had finally been created.
"The land is ours," Rakhar told his commanders. "Bring the legions to Eastwatch."
Across the occupied province, thousands of goblin soldiers began marching toward the capital, and the green tide that had spent one month swallowing the countryside finally turned inward.
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