The baby in the woman's arms suddenly burst into tears, and the fleeing group traveling through the forest froze instantly.
"Don't let your little brat make a sound! What if he attracts those hairy beasts?" A deep shout came from the crowd.
The woman trembled and quickly shook the child in her arms gently, soothing him softly.
"Ah—look!"
A startled cry startled everyone, who thought pursuers had come to capture them.
As they followed the exclamation of the person pointing and saw what was in the forest, their fear was replaced by anger.
A dozen or so corpses hung from tree branches, swaying in the wind; they were clearly the bodies of people who had fled earlier.
"You beasts!" the refugees cursed softly, but dared not raise their voices, each of them suppressing their anger.
Since the grassland orcs occupied the Yellow Earth Land in the northeast of Aldor, people have been leaving their homes and fleeing to the human lands to the west or south that have not yet fallen.
At first, there were only a few refugees. Most of the people living on this land did not know what the arrival of the foreign races meant, especially since the lord was Great Duke Bradley. The barbarians on the grasslands were invited by him to help resist the tyranny of the kingdom. There has long been a saying in Yellow Earth Land that the taxes collected by the Duke were supplied to the Kingdom Army stationed at Watchers Fortress. It was the Kingdom Army's insatiable demands that plunged the people here into poverty.
Although the orcs looked fierce and menacing, they still had to give the local lords some respect. Moreover, after driving the Kingdom Army out of Yellow Earth Land, they would return to the grasslands with the reward given by Great Duke Bradley.
However, reality quickly shattered their illusions. Instead of retreating to the grasslands, the orc army refused to leave.
Large tracts of fertile land were seized by these foreign tribes—often a few orcs would ride around the fields on horseback and declare the land within the circle theirs.
"This is the reward your lord paid us!" the aliens grinned, replying mockingly to the villagers who had come forward to argue.
What is particularly infuriating is that after seizing the land, the foreign tribes did not know how to manage it at all; they simply moved large herds of cattle and sheep in to eat the crops grown by the farmers.
The villagers were naturally unwilling to lose the land they depended on for their livelihood, but their refusal to give in resulted in sharp scimitars and pointed arrows. Many were killed, and those who were lucky enough to survive were captured and enslaved.
Without organization, the human farmers, who were busy dealing with the land all day, were no match for the Orc Cavalry, and tragic and terrible things happened one after another in Yellow Earth Land.
As conflicts with the natives increased, the orcs gradually tore off their masks and stopped pretending. When they lacked something, they would steal it; when they needed people to serve them, they would steal people.
The lord here, Great Duke Bradley, and his vassals, faced with the repeated complaints of their people, acted as if it were none of their business, taking no action whatsoever—perhaps they did take some action, but it certainly had no effect. In short, more and more people in this land gradually realized that their former human lords had become puppets of the orcs, unable to provide them with protection, and that they had become lambs to the slaughter under the blade of the alien race.
As a result, the number of people trying to escape Yellow Earth Land has inevitably increased.
The orcs responded with a brutal strategy: they sent troops to patrol the border, killing any fleeing people they encountered and leaving their bodies in prominent places by the roadside as a warning to those who came after them.
Just as the refugees were preparing to continue their journey, six enormous wolfhounds leaped out of the forest, baring their teeth at the human refugees.
Soon, the sound of chaotic hoofbeats filled the air as countless Orc Cavalry surrounded the fleeing humans from all sides.
"Split up and run!" someone shouted, and the refugees scattered, running wildly in what they thought was the right direction.
"Catch them! Don't let a single one escape!" The leading orc waved his hand, delivering a death sentence to the refugees.
The cavalrymen spurred their horses on, chasing the human refugees like prey, and screams echoed through the forest.
Until a loud bang made Orc Cavalry stop his horse.
That was the sound of firearm.
The sunlight shone down, making the metal armor gleam brightly. Thirty Orc Cavalry soldiers formed a battle formation, facing the Alda border patrol that had come after hearing the commotion.
The lead orc used a battle axe to decapitate a human refugee, thick blood dripping continuously from the axe blade onto the ground.
The Alda patrol was led by a lieutenant whose knuckles were white from gripping his sword hilt so tightly.
These hairy beasts are so brazen, slaughtering their own compatriots right before their eyes on the border!
"Load ammunition!" A deep, guttural roar burst from the lieutenant's clenched teeth.
Fifty flintlock musketeers stood in three rows, the snapping of their copper gunpowder flares echoing throughout the room.
As the first rank of soldiers poured black powder into their gun barrels, the orc werewolf riders began to pound their shields with the backs of their axes, their war cries echoing through the bushes, creating a suffocating roar.
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The moment the lead bullets were pushed into the chamber by the ramrod, the cavalrymen suddenly launched a charge.
The lieutenant saw the front row of orcs grinning, revealing their fangs, their reins twisting like snakes in the wind.
Three hundred yards, two hundred and fifty yards... The horses' hooves kicked up large amounts of dust, forming a moving sandstorm in front of the human soldiers.
"Ready—" The lieutenant raised his sword high, the tip hovering in the midday sun.
The orc chieftain's crimson pupils suddenly contracted. He finally noticed that these soldiers were very different from the human armies he had seen before—they were fearless in the face of the cavalry charge.
Not all orc armies participated in the war against Northwest Bay.
"Fire!" As the lieutenant's sword slashed down, the flintlock hammers clicked in unison, and the barrels of the first dozen or so guns spat out orange flames wrapped in white smoke. The lead bullets twisted into flattened death notices in the high temperature, and Orc Cavalry, who was at the front, was instantly blown open in the back with a bloody hole the size of a bowl. He was thrown into the air by inertia, looking just like a tin foil toy torn up by a child, while his companions around him also fell off their horses one after another.
When the second volley of gunfire rang out, the orcs tried to parry with their iron-clad oak shields, but the lead bullets shattered the shields, and the splattered wood chips embedded themselves in their faces, as if they were tattooed with terrifying totems.
The surviving Orc Cavalry began to scatter to both sides, just as the lieutenant had been waiting for—the third platoon of soldiers, specializing in dealing with the cunning ones who tried to flank, reaped the lives of those attempting to detour with lead bullets.
In just a few minutes, more than half of the original thirty Orc Cavalry members were lost.
"Retreat!" The previous orc commander was already dead, but his surviving deputy issued the order in a humiliating manner.
When the remaining orcs, numbering less than ten, finally retreated beyond the range of the firearms, several more corpses of their own kind lay behind them.