Gellingen

Lazar said, his voice given a metallic quality by his helmet nevertheless carrying far. These men were conscripts, vigorous rabble that got hot headed because they got clad from head to toe in full plate just like Lazar and his Brothers. They were little more controllable than the fires they set. Still, they did their job well enough and that was all he could ask for. The grass was burning, and the wind was just about pushing the flames Northwards. They had to do this fast, the demands put to them growing ever larger. Aqueducts were to be built as irrigating shackles for a land to be enslaved for farming and proper civilization. The burnt grassland with a bit of effortful ploughing and the eventual water access and perhaps arcane aid make decent if not quite exceptionally fertile fields. But for this to work certain obstacles had to be removed, some very much alive obstacles. Between the time the Audrians heard of this land and got to it that infamous Khan fellow had pushed centaurs among other nomads very far south. This was intolerable, but the Khan was far too mighty to take on. Thus, the Knights of the Order simply settled with dealing with the ramifications of his actions.

The burning fields thus served another very important purpose. They would mean no grazing for the animals the people fleeing from the Khan hunted, and it meant that with each burning patch of grass they got closer to starvation. But of course, the Knights helped this process along in other ways too. In fact, Lazar just now went over the spit where some Markhor were roasting. They hunted the animals of the land, and they hunted them all rather than leaving enough for the population to remain stable. Once more these hunts served a dual purpose: it meant less food for the savages, but it also meant a tasty meal.