Chapter 169: Dancing with the Snow

When George stood up, the blizzard grew fiercer, and the sky seemed to freeze over. The howling cold wind made the leather nailed to the watchtower flap noisily. Fortunately, the workers who did this job did not slack off at all. The leather was nailed down tightly on all sides. Otherwise, in such strong cold wind, it would have all been blown away.

Even inside the pitstone house, George noticed that the guards’ noses and cheeks were frozen stiff, looking a sickly red. The biting air blew more frequently into their coarse wool coats, making the soldiers wrap their clothes tighter.

Far to the south of Brandenburg, in the middle of Markin Lordship, a supply convoy was slowly moving forward against the fierce wind and heavy snow.

“My Lord! Can we rest for a moment? The boys are almost done in,” a soldier said, curling up inside a large cloak that looked like a cotton quilt.

“No! If we stop now, few of the boys who came out with us will be able to walk anymore,” the leading officer said, pulling his greasy lamb-skin hat tighter on his head.

He looked back at the soldiers behind him, shivering as they walked. Their clothes did not match this cursed weather. Their outfits were not uniform, and the winter coats wrapped around them were tattered and could not stop the wind at all.

“This cursed weather! Why does the snow start falling so suddenly? It never did this early in previous years,” he muttered to himself for a few seconds, then turned around and shouted to the soldiers behind him, “Men! We cannot stop yet. If we stop, our current clothes cannot save our lives. When we reach the next town, let’s see if we can buy some old clothes for emergency winter use!”

As he spoke, a cold wind lifted his cloak, revealing a thin hunting outfit underneath. The soldiers who knew the situation said nothing more, just silently continued their journey in the line.

This was one of many supply convoys sent from Karada to transport supplies to Brandenburg. Unlike other groups, they were carrying arrows, and they had started their journey a bit later than the others.

During this time, the consumption of arrows in Brandenburg was surprisingly high. At the same time, the plea for help from Baron Abercrombie Cokele Garfield was sent to Karada one after another. The big shots in the capital certainly knew about the difficulties at the front, but some of these problems were easy to solve, while others were not so easy to handle.

Among them, the replenishment of arrows was a particularly headache-inducing problem. Because of this, Baron Baptiste Malcolmson Umphraville, the Minister of Internal Affairs, lost a lot of hair.

And Viscount Bolerum, serving as the Secretary, was also restless during this time. Because his beloved son was now on the front line of the battle. Of course, there were two other lords in the same situation.

After all, this group led by George could be said to have called friends and family to go to Brandenburg to fight. Except for Green, who was not the heir, and Ben, who stayed in Brandenburg every winter. The heads of the Kachipur family and the Coleman family also put in a lot of effort in the matter of supplies.

However, although the production cycle of arrows was not long, it was not short either. Starting from the rough blanks, even with ten days, a qualified arrow could not be completely finished in the workshop—this was to eliminate the stress in the newly made arrows. Of course, most importantly, the stock in the warehouses of Karada was only enough for two days of use in Brandenburg.

Although the Duchy of Nohan was still in an upward phase, it had not had any large-scale battles with others for a quite long time. And the shelf life of arrows, depending on the temperature and humidity of the storage location, could vary greatly. But generally, it would not exceed two years. After that, the trajectory of the arrows shot would have significant problems.

To prevent large amounts of money from being wasted due to expired arrows, the Duchy of Nohan calculated the arrows stored each year based on the consumption of the previous year. Although this practice helped the duchy save a lot of time and money, it seemed helpless when facing this unprecedented emergency situation.

The large batch of arrows stored earlier had already been transported to Brandenburg after the autumn harvest. What remained in Karada were only supplies for minimum defense. If it were any other time, these might have been used for emergencies. But this year, the strange environment and atmosphere made everyone dare not act rashly.

According to the news returned from Brandenburg, His Grace the Duke clearly understood that other countries had meddled in this barbarian invasion to the south. Therefore, not only could the arrow reserves in Karada not be used, but even the arrows held by garrisons in various places had to be kept locally to ensure the combat effectiveness of the army.

Similarly, the border defense troops and ordinary garrisons of the Duchy of Nohan had also entered a state of emergency. It was unlikely that they could provide too much manpower assistance to Brandenburg in a short time. In other words, according to the previous meaning, everyone in Brandenburg could only rely on themselves to fight against the numerous Barbarians for now.

Fortunately, the situation suddenly took a turn. It should be said that through the unremitting efforts of several lords, they finally raised the arrows that the soldiers just now were transporting. Although it was only the supply for three days at the maximum scale of use by the Brandenburg defenders in this battle, it was still a small help to the fight. Most importantly, these supplies from Karada could greatly boost the morale of the defenders.

In fact, in the matter of raising arrows, a bureaucrat in Bolerum Territory who misunderstood George’s intentions played a quite large role. Before George left, he had issued orders to the territory to stockpile strategic materials. George’s original intention was to stockpile resources like food, steel, and ore to deal with possible wars and the soaring prices that would follow.

But the thoughts of these officials now were absolutely different from George, who came from another world. After stockpiling a large amount of daily necessities, they turned their attention to weapons and equipment. That large batch of arrows was part of the result, besides which there were also helmets, shields, and various weapons. Afterward, when Viscount Bolerum got the news, the arrows in this batch of supplies were immediately sold to His Grace the Duke.

Of course, a small profit was made from the price difference, after all, the transaction was a transaction! Of course, as an important member of the duchy, Bolerum Territory did not take much advantage of His Grace the Duke in this transaction. After all, unlike those merchants who raised prices on the spot, nobles had many things to consider.

Then this small team started their journey. It must be said that the specially built Northern Road was indeed much more convenient than the journey George and his group had taken before. Over the same distance, George and his group had wandered through the hills for ten days. But through this road, it only took four days.

According to the situation in recent years, the temperature of the Duchy of Nohan should not have dropped so suddenly. So when the convoy transporting arrows set out, they uniformly wore the autumn uniforms of the army. Besides the canvas cover on the carts carrying arrows, there were also tents and marching quilts for warmth.

So this sudden drop in temperature and the following blizzard brought considerable trouble to these supply transport soldiers. Fortunately, at that time they were staying in a small village next to the Northern Road. If they had camped in the wild, these guys might not have seen the sun of the next morning. Although the sun could not be seen even in the blizzard.

After all, that sudden drop in temperature could easily freeze those soldiers who had just entered the Gray Rock Rank to death in their sleep. The following blizzard could easily blow down or collapse simple tents. Even if someone kept watch, it could not guarantee that everyone would be safe. If someone happened to have bad luck at this time, they would really never wake up.

Of course, there was one more thing that was most critical for the entire supply team. That was if they camped in the wild, they would not be able to get warm clothes in a short time. Just wearing autumn uniforms and walking in the wilderness in a blizzard. Except for the officer and a few people in the team, the vast majority of the soldiers would be left here forever.

In that village, the soldiers did not suffer casualties at the first time because of the relatively sturdy houses. Later, they even bought some temporarily usable old winter clothes from these villagers. These winter clothes were goods that the villagers had already stopped using. One can imagine how poor the quality was. In fact, when these things were collected from various households, some of them could not even be worn. It took a long time for the women in the village to repair them before they could be put on.

Even so, it could not satisfy all the personnel. After a relatively fair distribution, they could only ensure that the soldiers would not freeze to death. As for ensuring mobility and combat effectiveness, that was all nonsense. The only good thing was that this batch of winter clothes, which were originally considered waste in the village, cost no more than two meals per person when purchased in full.

And now what they had to do was to rush to the next village by the road as soon as possible. While resting, they would buy old clothes again to ensure the safety of the next journey. After all, the existing ones were too much of an impact on movement.

These villages and small towns on the Northern Road had a special significance. They belonged to the direct territory of His Grace the Duke. Every year, besides cultivating the surrounding fields and grazing, providing services for passing armies and caravans was also a very important source of income. Of course, the price they had to pay was that they must maintain this road within their area. Because there were quite a few people coming and going throughout the year, it was not easy to cut corners in this regard.

If it were not for this, even if the soldiers of the Duchy of Nohan had the best military discipline, they would definitely requisition all the winter clothes in that village to meet their needs under these circumstances. After all, compared to the supply soldiers who had to move forward in the wilderness against the blizzard. Those villagers who were comfortably hiding in the houses and warming themselves by the fire in such weather did not need too many clothes.

No matter how much was said, it could not change the current situation of these soldiers. The soldiers in the front row made deep footprints in the snow. The ones behind followed, stepping and stepping, melting the originally loose snow. But under such extremely low temperatures, the snow water quickly froze, turning into a thin layer of ice. And under such circumstances, the wheels of the carts inevitably slipped. Someone had to watch them carefully before they could move forward. Later, rows of ice spikes like garlic cloves were formed, and the soldiers at the rear made a clanging metal sound when they stepped on them.

The whole team carved a road mixed with white and brown on the snow, like a snowplow opening a way to the distance. But the quickly falling snow buried the road that had just appeared again, as if it had never existed.

Because of the snow accumulation, the original road could not be seen. Led by the officer, everyone moved like migrating birds, relying on experience to travel.

In this wilderness, the wind stubbornly blew everything in one direction. Right, left, everywhere was white and gray. The soldiers’ eyes wanted to find something fresh, but they could not: no signpost, no pile of dry grass, no fence, nothing could be seen, everywhere was a sheet of white snow. Plus the influence of the heavy snowflakes flying like Quill Pens, no one could see the reference points for movement—except for the comrades by their side.

The village in the distance looked like a white snow mound, like an uncommon hill appearing on this plain. “Sha! Sha! Sha!” The uneven sound from under the soldiers’ feet ran through the entire journey. It played a rhyme for them, accompanied by heartbeats and breathing, like a hymn of loyal souls.

Moving forward in such cold weather, the soldiers’ bodies needed extra heat to keep warm. Especially in this situation where there was a lack of warm clothing. And human body heat comes from food. So the body’s need for warmth would cause a significant increase in appetite. Before half of the journey was done, the soldiers’ stomachs had already started to rumble.

And moving forward against the wind and snow in this ghostly weather was not an easy thing. Cold, hunger, and fatigue came in waves towards the soldiers. It was like a rope, tightening around their bodies again and again. But all this could not stop their steps to continue moving forward, because the warriors in front needed their help.

This arduous journey continued, and soldiers kept falling to the ground. Then the comrades beside them would immediately help them up. Falling in such weather was not a good sign. The warriors of the Duchy of Nohan would never abandon their comrades without reason.

Under the cooperation of light and shadow in this vast wilderness. It seemed as if a strong light was shining on the white plain, the horizon was greatly widened, and the low and black sky suddenly disappeared. There was only the strong visual impact of seeing white diagonal lines formed by falling snow in all directions.

Here, the wind was constantly changing its direction; sometimes it blew from the front, blowing snowflakes into everyone’s eyes; sometimes it annoyingly blew the cloaks worn high from the side, mockingly wiping the warriors’ faces with it; sometimes it blew through some holes from behind.

When the officer felt he should wrap his body more tightly, the snow falling on his collar and hat slid into his neck, making him shiver with cold. In this situation, even an iron man or a tough guy could not avoid such a natural physiological reaction.

Until a sled rolled over the fluffy snow, compacting it, the officer knew that their temporary next stop was almost here.

He turned around and said to the soldiers behind him: “Do you see the sled in front? This is the tool for local residents to travel in winter. In this kind of weather, they usually do not leave the village too far. Soon we will have the chance to drink something hot.”

The “Woo! Woo!” sound was much more powerful than before. It seemed that after having a target, the morale had indeed improved a lot.

And in the wilderness north of Brandenburg, the storm raged like a million roaring lions galloping. It lifted thousands of white dragons made of snowflakes into the sky. The whole space was filled with white powder, like smoke, like fog, but without the softness of smoke and fog. It hit people’s faces like needles. The Barbarian camp under the fierce wind could be said to be in complete chaos. The neighing of war horses rose and fell, and fallen tents were everywhere. Among them, the slave cannon fodder, lacking clothes and food, shivered in the cold wind.

“It looks like the Barbarians won’t be able to launch a proper attack today,” George said, letting snowflakes fall continuously on his body, looking at the distant Barbarian camp.

Green, while holding his longbow, said: “Maybe! If there is no good fight today, won’t we have to blow in this cursed place for a whole day?”

“Unless we go back to the rooms blocked tightly with tapestries. Otherwise, whether in the watchtower or inside the pit, such wind is always everywhere,” Aldred’s words were more like complaining than persuading.

In this freezing weather, to avoid filling their mouths with wind, the words of the few people were relatively few compared to before.

By noon, the wind stopped, but the snow fell even harder. On this windless day, Brandenburg felt extremely quiet. One could only hear the soft rustling of the continuous goose-feather snow falling on the ground and the crunching sound of pedestrians stepping on the snow. Under the contrast of these sounds, it seemed even more quiet.

The gloomy dark clouds in the sky moved heavily and slowly in the sky. Small patches of cold clear sky, as if in deep thought, peered down from time to time through the cracks in the dark clouds. But there was never any sign of clearing up.

The entire northern land was submerged in this muddy and humid air. The towns, villages, river valleys, distant forests, and high mountains, where the mist spread everywhere, looked pale like dead people, appearing very desolate.