Chapter 985: Volume 32: Dark Clouds Gather, - 3: Despicable Scheme
It wasn’t much of a surprise that, after receiving assurances from Dragumo, Manite finally led the besieged Knossos Soldiers inside the castle to lay down their weapons and come out from inside the castle. Continuing to resist had no meaning, apart from sacrificing the lives of his soldiers. For the moment, Manite did not wish to trade his life for honor, an honor which was far too heavy for him.
Once the three castles had fallen into the hands of the Caucasus Army, Dragumo immediately began recruiting artisans and laborers throughout Livonia to comprehensively start refurbishing the defensive systems of the three castles. At the same time, he also quickly dispatched scouts, striving to discover the whereabouts of the Knossos Army coming from the Northern Black Forest as swiftly as possible. He did not know how much time he had left—maybe three days, perhaps five, but certainly no more than a week.
Livonia evidently was not prepared for war. Dragumo had spent an enormous effort to scrape together dozens of crossbows, almost forcibly dismantled from the battlements of those nobles’ citadels. Fortunately, the nobles all understood the ferocious nature of the Half-Beast Army and provided their privately hoarded military supplies without complaints, contributing their share to the imminent war.
After all, the great name of Lord Komer was known to everyone in Nicosia, and these nobles had no good feelings towards those Northern Alliance fellows. After the loss of the leader of the Romanov family, they were more inclined to let a noble house of Nicosia lead the entire Nicosia.
Without catapults, with very few strong crossbows, and the arrow castles and Dark Castles being more for show, such was the current state of the three castles. It was impossible to make any substantial improvements in just a few days, but Dragumo had no choice but to cope. Enhancing their defenses even slightly provided a little more hope, and Dragumo could only hope to buy more time for the reinforcements to catch up.
Dragumo wasn’t just troubled by the problem of the castles’ defensive capabilities, but also by the over a thousand prisoners. Keeping these prisoners not only consumed supplies but also required a considerable number of soldiers for surveillance, especially with war looming. This was even more dangerous because once the enemy forces arrived, these prisoners, confined within the castle, could potentially revolt, posing a greater threat.
"Is there a good way to handle these fellows?" Dragumo had a headache, letting them go was regrettable, and they could possibly rejoin the war against him later; selling them into slavery was a good idea, but there was no time now, and no slave merchant would engage in such business under these circumstances, especially not in such large numbers.
"It’s really a bit troublesome," Meloni scratched his head, he was already entering the mindset of being Dragumo’s assistant and thinking about the problem, "If we release them, they might just join the Knossos Army and enter the battlefield, absolutely not. If they swear not to engage in hostile actions against us with martial power,"
"No, no, I don’t believe these things. These mortals are too cunning and have no sense of credibility," Dragumo thought about how Lord Komer dealt with enemies and shook his head repeatedly, "It might work if they were Half-Beasts or Barbarians."