Early the next morning, as Lushen was marshaling the troops for an assault, the heavy oak gates of the small stone keep slowly creaked open.
The elderly knight, accompanied by a few dozen exhausted, demoralized guards and over a hundred terrified refugees, walked out and threw their weapons into the dirt.
Under the strict, roaring commands of their officers, Solomon's soldiers formed up and marched into the castle. True to his word, there was no slaughter, no rape, and no senseless violence. As long as there was hard coin to be made, the men found that any primal urge could be entirely restrained.
They swarmed through the keep like a colony of highly trained, hyper-efficient army ants, silently and rapidly hauling absolutely everything of value out into the courtyard.
Outside the small castle, heavy wooden chests were pried open in front of the entire army. The soldiers panted heavily, standing on their tiptoes, their eyes wide and bloodshot as they tried to get a look at the haul.
Gold and silver coins, ornate silver platters, exquisite goblets, heavy woolen bedsheets, barrels of dark ale, and entire racks of smoked meats. Even the meager, hidden savings of the smallfolk who had taken refuge inside were ruthlessly confiscated and meticulously sorted into piles.
Solomon made good on his promise.
Olivier held the master ledger. Lushen and a squad of veterans stood by the chests, loudly converting the value of the physical goods into silver stags based on standard market prices.
Every single soldier who had participated in the three-day siege stepped forward to claim his registered share. Solomon even instituted a bizarre, brilliant new rule: he paid the soldiers a bounty of one silver stag for every civilian found alive inside the castle.
The officers received the largest cut, the veterans the second, and the fresh recruits the least.
But every man walked away with a face glowing with absolute, ecstatic joy.
They caressed the cold, hard silver and copper coins, tying the heavy, clinking pouches to their belts. The air in the camp was thick with an intoxicating, almost manic euphoria.
"Did you hear?! There's another knight's keep just a few miles south of here!"
"Is it bigger than this one?! They must have even more gold inside!"
"Do you think we'll get another cut?!"
"Fuck planting wheat! When has farming ever paid out like this?!"
"Gods, I hope this war never ends!"
The fragmented, feverish whispers drilled directly into Olivier's ears, each word a needle piercing his heart. When these men finally return home... will they ever be able to peacefully plow a field again?
He watched the scene with profound anxiety. The terrifying, militarized future he had predicted was already unfolding before his eyes.
Solomon stood alone on the battlements of the small keep, looking down at the chaotic, joyous distribution of wealth. The soldiers cheered wildly, raising their weapons and shouting his name. His expression remained entirely placid.
Storming a castle was a profound, agonizing psychological burden. The towering stone walls inspired deep, primal terror. The men forced to climb the ladders had to completely suppress their fear of death.
Because of this immense psychological pressure, the horrific, chaotic slaughter of civilians during a sack was traditionally viewed as an unavoidable, necessary release for a victorious army.
But Solomon intended to control that release.
Traditional lords hoarded the captured wealth of their defeated peers, refusing to share the gold with the common foot soldiers. Because they were denied the gold, the traumatized soldiers were forced to release their pent-up rage through senseless slaughter and the vicious robbery of the pitifully poor smallfolk.
Solomon simply offered his men a transaction. Restrain your blades, and in exchange, I will give you the wealth of the nobility.
It was a cold, calculated transaction—a system that quantified human lives and violent urges entirely in silver and gold. But it was flawlessly effective.
Only through this system would his soldiers hurl themselves at the next set of walls with absolute, fearless fanaticism. They knew that behind those walls lay their own personal fortunes, and they knew they could secure that fortune without resorting to butchery.
He could not afford to tarnish his carefully cultivated reputation as the "Protector of the Riverlands." That title would prove immensely valuable in the wars to come.
Solomon did not linger at the small keep, nor did he leave a garrison behind to hold it. His only objective was to completely strip every usable resource from the territories he currently controlled. Soon, the neighboring lords and Lege vassals would finish cannibalizing the periphery. Once they had eaten their fill, they would inevitably turn their greedy eyes toward the man who had claimed the biggest prize: him.
He led his six hundred veterans back onto the road. Like a pack of wolves tracking the scent of blood, they marched toward their next wounded prey.
Another small keep appeared on the horizon. This one belonged to a landed knight named Ser Gascyt, who had been captured during the initial fall of Willowbrook.
Though small, the keep's stone walls were sturdy, the watchtowers were high, and the garrison stood tense upon the battlements, gripping their spears tight as the massive army approached.
Solomon halted his warhorse. He did not order siege lines to be drawn. Instead, he gestured to a single soldier. "Go. Show them the letter."
The soldier raised a heavy wooden kite shield and walked alone across the killing ground to the edge of the raised drawbridge. He held up a piece of parchment sealed with heavy red wax. "Ser Gascyt surrendered to Lord Solomon at Willowbrook! This is his official letter of surrender, bearing his personal seal!"
A panicked commotion erupted on the walls. A veteran officer leaned over the crenellations, his voice shaking. "Lies! That is impossible!!"
The soldier simply placed the letter on the dirt path, backed away, and retreated behind his shield. "Lower a basket and read it for yourselves!"
A rope basket was hastily lowered from the battlements. A guard sprinted out, snatched the parchment, and was quickly hoisted back up.
Moments later, the walls of the keep fell into a dead, suffocating silence.
Solomon's soldiers stood in perfect, disciplined formation, waiting patiently. They didn't need to shout battle cries. The silent, heavy presence of six hundred heavily armed, blood-soaked veterans was a crushing psychological weight all on its own.
The heavy iron chains of the drawbridge shrieked in protest as it was slowly lowered.
The heavy wooden doors swung open. The garrison walked out, heads bowed in defeat, dropping their swords and spears into the dust.
Without a single drop of blood spilled, another castle changed hands, ready to be entirely stripped and hollowed out by Solomon's men.
Solomon's voice was as calm as still water. "Next."
The column moved forward, and the exact same scene played out again and again throughout the day.
The second keep. The third keep. The fourth...
Whenever the defending garrisons were presented with the irrefutable proof of their liege lord's surrender, combined with the terrifying sight of the Black Lion's army, their will to fight evaporated instantly.
Solomon's ironclad promise of no slaughter acted as the final straw, breaking whatever fragile loyalty they still held.
By the early hours of the morning, over a dozen minor keeps and holdfasts belonging to the captured Lege vassals had been entirely hollowed out.
It was a bloodless, terrifyingly rapid conquest. The martial resolve of an entire region had been completely dismantled by a stack of parchment letters.
At every stop, Solomon's command was ruthlessly simple: "Inventory! Strip it bare! Take absolutely everything!"
The soldiers charged into the keeps with eyes blazing with greed. They were no longer just an army; they were a highly organized, heavily armed logistics company.
The officers stood in the courtyards, screaming orders over the din.
"You lot! Box up all the silver and gold!"
"The granary! Scrape it down to the stone! Not a single grain of wheat gets left behind!"
"If it can be moved, put it on a wagon!!"
"The armory! Count every sword, every piece of mail! Log it all in the ledger!"
The accumulated, generational wealth of the minor nobility flowed out of the keeps like a river. Golden plates, silver chalices, ornate tapestries, and crystal wine decanters glittered under the morning sun.
Sacks of flour, barrels of salted beef, and heavy bolts of fine cloth were piled into literal mountains.
Individually, none of these knights possessed wealth that could rival Willowbrook. But the combined, centralized plunder of over a dozen keeps created a staggering, unimaginable hoard.
Staring at the endless line of overloaded supply wagons, the soldiers breathed heavily, their eyes burning with a feverish, crimson light.
Olivier trailed behind Solomon, watching the absolute, systematic dismantling of the local aristocracy with deeply conflicted eyes.
He felt like a miserly steward, forced to watch as a pack of ravenous bandits divided up his master's estate piece by piece.
And the cruelest irony of all was that the ruthless bandit king orchestrating the plunder was his master.
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