Llane waited in stoic silence for ten agonizing minutes. The moment he knew Duke had arrived, he strode into the meeting room, a grim determination etched on his face, and immediately kicked off the military meeting.
Those nobles who, just before the defense of Stormwind City began, had been loudly proclaiming, "Even if there are a million orcs, let them all die under Stormwind City's walls!" were now as quiet as church mice. Not a peep.
As expected, the topic of discussion had shifted dramatically, from how to utterly annihilate the orcs to the far more pressing (and less glorious) matter of how to evacuate.
Evacuation was no walk in the park. Even though women and children had been supposedly evacuated months ago, it wasn't for lack of trying; it was simply because there weren't enough boats to go around. It was a logistical nightmare of epic proportions.
No one, not even the most disgruntled noble, dared to blame Duke. Without Duke, the situation would have been a thousand times worse, a complete, unmitigated disaster. The simplest example? The new Stormwind Harbor, a colossal stone pier that stretched all the way out into the sea. Compared to the original, cramped military port and the humble fishermen's pier (which was basically just a glorified beach), the shipping capacity was more than ten times greater. It was like comparing a rowboat to a supertanker.
As for the shipping capacity itself, Duke's thinking was truly baffling, almost insane. Almost all the ships directly under Duke's command were typical large cargo ships, the kind that didn't even need to be modified. They could be pressed into service immediately, crammed with people and cargo. The spacious cabins and excellent ventilation meant you could pack people in like sardines in a can without any major problems. It was a human sardine factory, but a well-ventilated one.
Unfortunately, considering the sheer distance of the voyage, no matter how overloaded the ship was, it could only carry, on average, a measly five thousand people per day.
And at this very moment, there were still over three hundred thousand soldiers and civilians trapped in Stormwind City, staring down the barrel of an orcish invasion.
There were so many ships, it was no exaggeration to say that almost every single ship in the human world was currently crammed into Stormwind Harbor. Even if the shipyards in Stormwind Harbor and Kul Tiras worked overtime, day and night, building ships like mad, the capacity wouldn't increase significantly in the short term. It was a bottleneck of epic proportions.
The crippling shortage of transportation capacity was the biggest, most insurmountable problem standing in Llane's way.
In history, Stormwind had suffered a devastating blow for precisely this reason. After Lothar's ill-fated attack on Karazhan, the orcs advanced even faster than they had in this altered timeline, effectively blocking all escape routes. Lothar was unable to return to Stormwind City. By the time he finally made it back, Llane had already been brutally killed by Garona in a secret underground meeting room, right in front of the horrified eyes of the young Prince Varian.
With no leader, a garbage port, and a severe lack of ships, when Stormwind was finally captured by the Horde, over eighty percent of the people who hadn't managed to escape were mercilessly slaughtered. It was a bloodbath.
Lothar had only managed to bring less than twenty percent of Stormwind's citizens, along with the orphans and widows left behind by Llane, to Southshore. Without soldiers, without people, without weapons, and without supplies, Lothar, who was practically penniless, was at the end of his rope, completely out of options.
This was precisely why Lothar later made the agonizing decision to renounce the imperial power of Emperor Thoradin, a direct descendant of the ancient lineage. At the cost of recognizing the legitimacy of the royal powers of the other human kings, he brokered the establishment of an Alliance to jointly fight against the Horde invasion. It was a desperate, but necessary, move.
In this life, with the unexpected existence of Duke, the course of history had been dramatically altered, like a runaway train suddenly switching tracks.
At least Llane was still alive, and now, over three hundred thousand people had already been successfully transported to Southsea Town. Regardless of whether Stormwind ultimately fell as it did in history, it was clear that the kingdom had, at least, survived this particular life-or-death struggle. (Though, with so many people, and Duke having sent his own people there to prepare for large-scale construction, there were already grumblings of dissatisfaction in both Stromgarde and Alterac. They suspected the Stormwind refugees were there to stay, like very unwelcome, very permanent houseguests.)
King Llane knew that Duke had truly done his best, pulled out all the stops. But evacuation wasn't something that could be done on a whim, nor was it a simple math problem. Oh, three hundred thousand divided by five thousand, that would take exactly sixty days to evacuate, right?
Wishful thinking. Pure, unadulterated fantasy. Hundreds of thousands of orcs were waiting outside, baying for blood. Once the city walls were breached, all the remaining people would be instantly trapped, like rats in a maze, and no one would be able to escape. The only people who were truly safe were those who had evacuated in the first few days. The longer you waited, the greater the danger, a grim, escalating scale of risk.
Now, if they counted every single militia member and city guard, they had ninety thousand people at most. It sounded like a lot on paper, but once the decisive battle came, it would take only half a day for the orcs to slaughter every last one of them.
"Stormwind City can no longer be defended. For the continuation and future of the kingdom, we unanimously suggest that the noble Queen and His Highness Varian should evacuate first." Several dukes, looking pale and nervous, stood up together, making their solemn admonition.
When Lothar heard this, he let out a cold snort, a sound of utter disdain.
Why let the queen and the prince retreat first? Wasn't it because they didn't want to retreat, so these lily-livered, death-fearing nobles didn't dare to violate the unspoken taboo and retreat first themselves? It was a classic case of the top brass being crooked, making the lower ranks squirm.
If the upper beam isn't straight, the lower beams will be crooked.
But if the upper beam is perfectly upright, then the lower beams will at least have to ask the upper beam's permission before they even think about going crooked.
With the queen and the prince standing firm, the nobles didn't even dare to bring up the matter of evacuating their own offspring. Now, the fact that Stormwind Fortress had almost fallen gave them the perfect, ironclad excuse.
Llane glanced at these nobles, his gaze burning. Not a single one dared to meet his eyes, their gazes skittering away like cockroaches caught in a spotlight.
After a pause, Llane spoke, his voice clear and resolute: "Yes, all noble women, first-in-line heirs, those who do not hold military positions, or underage noble children can evacuate with the queen and the prince. Don't worry, when fighting to the death is meaningless, I will not ask you to fight to the death with me."
Llane's answer left the nobles with a mixed bag of emotions, a truly bizarre cocktail of relief and resentment.
The good news? Llane had finally caved, giving their offspring a golden ticket to slip away.
What made them furious? Llane still hadn't given anyone permission to desert the battlefield. Stormwind had been established for a thousand years, and military merit was the golden key to securing titles and advancing ranks. This was precisely why the nobles had tried their darndest to secure sinecures for their children in the army, just to make their offspring look good and get ahead. Even that little brat from the Brando family, who'd had a beef with Duke before, had tried to claim credit for something he hadn't done.
Now, Llane had effectively blocked the escape route for these self-serving individuals. Except for a select few who had a genuinely ironclad reason to escape, the rest would die with the king.
Those who had already arranged for their offspring to escape in advance were no doubt secretly patting themselves on the back, stifling their triumphant giggles.
Those who hadn't been so clever now looked like they'd just eaten arsenic for a snack, their faces a sickly green.
Ignoring these squirming figures, Llane focused on another crucial question: "Lothar, if I put the entire city's combat power at your disposal, how many days can you defend Stormwind City?"
Lothar pondered for a moment, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Just relying on that sixteen-foot (five-meter) high wall? If the orcs use that as a breakthrough point... ten days, no more. And at least thirty thousand people will be needed to cover the rear, a batch of troops that will definitely be wiped out, Your Majesty."
As soon as the words left his lips, a fresh wave of commotion rippled through the nobles, and almost everyone was lost in their own selfish little thoughts, calculating their personal losses.
Llane turned his head to Edwin VanCleef, who was sitting next to Duke, looking a little uneasy, shifting in his seat. "VanCleef, if I ask your people to urgently build fifty arrow towers and catapult towers, over twenty feet high, on the east wall, can you do it? If you can, how many days will it take?"
It was VanCleef's first time attending such an important military meeting, and he was clearly on pins and needles, his back drenched in cold sweat. At this moment, he heard Duke's calm, reassuring voice, a lifeline in the storm: "Don't be nervous, VanCleef. Answer truthfully. His wise Majesty won't take his anger out on you casually."