V3: Invasion Corridor

	While the Outfit gathered its strength in the slow build towards summer and the raiding season, preparations were made for an route upon which to release it. Warriors could hold their contests all season long and boast to each other of imagined triumphs, but there would be no victory for those who succumbed to the rigors of travelling through the Spill. Thus it was left to that strata of Lakelander society bearing the epithet ‘sodbuster’ to plow and dig and lay stone upon stone; their perennial lot in life.

	Steadholds across the green lands between Shylo and the Spillway provided gravel and fieldstone, a resource that was generally stockpiled through the simple expedient of piling it up at the edge of a turra where it wouldn’t get in the way. With organized cultivation of the fertile region nearing saturation under the Outfit’s policies, there was more in each hold than any could practically use for their own projects; many clans were just glad to see the detritus hauled away for free.

	Originating in Shylo, the broad strip of earth rammed by the everyday passage of gargants and foot traffic was first bordered on each side by sunken posts. These were simple markers to lay out the planned breadth of the entire system, including the main way itself, footpaths to either side, and grassy dog-runs to the outermost. Alterations were made to the haphazard route when necessary, but for the most part it lay along good strategic lines, with travelers taking the most sensible route over generations for ease and security.

	Gargant-drawn plows and gangs of workers cut deep into the earth and cast it to either side, filling the bottom with a layer of gravel, and another of fist-sized stones atop that. Larger chunks of rubble were laid on next, the gaps filled by a thick slurry of fire clay and limestone, crushed to a powder and mixed with water. This was scraped flat and overlain before it could dry by flat stones, picked or cut for shape, which provided the main surface of the road. Crude but effective methods, growing more refined through practice as the path progressed.

	This process continued until the workers reached the edge of that marshy land known as the Spill. Mushy earth threatened to suck the boots from passing feet if it did not draw a whole man or dog down, and fauna fierce and venomous by turns lurked in the slow-moving water. If those threats were not enough, the local Lakelander population was violently xenophobic even to their own kind, permitting passage through their lands only under the strictest time constraints; failure to exit their waterlogged territories in a timely fashion was answered by lethally poisoned arrows fired from ambush.

	However, one factor had decided the matter of ‘snake-eater’ territorialism: they had failed to stop interlopers from crossing into the Outfit’s lands. With the sacking and capture of an entire steadhold’s worth of Lakelanders, along with their supplies and equipment, the Spill clans as a whole had lost their vaunted reputation as the northern gatekeepers.

	Herdbosses and sodbuster chiefs stood on the rising ground just south of the Spill and looked at the broad expanse of tangled foliage and wet earth before them, concealing manifold dangers. They turned to look at the rumbling convoy of stone-laden wagons drawn by gargant teams, and the many hundreds of workers laying out their camps and palisades according to whim and available space. They considered the separate but equally numerous column of dog-mounted Wolf Tribe warriors preparing their own private fortification in pride of place on the peak of the hill, taking over the remnants of previous warcamps piled one atop the other into forgotten generations.

	Their eyes turned back to the marshes before them, and saw nothing of value to be saved. With their goals fixed firmly in mind, they began the process of extending what had become “their road” into the Spillway. Through the simple expedient of dumping stone upon earth upon stone, cutting whatever brush or tree was deemed to impede the way, a sufficiently broad causeway was raised. Some minds were rather boggled at the idea of “building ground to dig into” but when all was said and done they could not argue with the results. Slowed by caution and terrain, they crept inexorably onward.

	Of course, the snake-eaters reacted poorly to this unsanctioned and disgustingly progressive course of action. When night-time raids failed to drive the invaders away, they turned to sabotage and murder. Work crews took to keeping wood and wicker mantlets between themselves and the treeline at all times, lest they be struck down in a flurry of arrows. Grim Lanni’s Bann, recently expanded and itching for violence, took care of the rest.

	It was a good blooding for the new recruits, teaching any who had not already learned the valuable lessons. Lessons like “life ain’t fair” and “death don’t wait” and “the filthy muck-suckers can’t shoot you with three feet of steel sticking out of them, so stick ‘em before they stick you”. Those who failed to internalize these valuable pieces of wisdom died, usually in excruciating pain as concentrated venoms wracked their bodies, an equally educational experience for those of their fellows forced to watch.

	For their own part, the snake-eaters learned that their long-time security relied far more on their reputation for secrecy than their actual ability at camouflaging their homes. Most people failed to find snake-eater holds by actively avoiding them. Thus, when a thousand veteran Alistairs made it their business to search out and destroy those encampments, their efforts were shockingly effective. Outright massacres were uncommon, but not unheard of, with most snake-eaters simply being driven out or captured for transport back to Shylo in chains. Any local clan which desired to avoid such reprisals did so by allowing no evidence that they had participated in obstruction of the Outfit’s project, or by vacating the area.

	Finally, at long last, the road reached firm ground once more. With a secure line of supply to their rear, and much experience shaping the terrain to suit their needs, the final stretches to Glockenbaltz’s south gate took only half the time which the original length from Shylo to the Spill had required. Of course, no one had bothered to tell the Glockmen they were coming, and with summer on the approach the city-dwellers were understandably perturbed at the arrival of a very large, well organized train of Lakelanders approaching their city.

	Cooler heads among the controlling merchants observed that these Lakelanders had not paused to loot and rape the outlying villages, as they usually did on their way north. They also appeared to have rather more wagons, and great many more gargants than the average force of raiders. There was, of course, the matter of… how many dog-riding savages? Great Lady Commerce… perhaps just letting them build the road was a better idea. Yes, no doubt they intended to do business. Opening up a new market was surely more profitable than starting a fight where there apparently wasn’t one. Profits which could be used to hire more Watchmen and cast more cannons for the south wall...