Nothing changed immediately when the secondary route was marked on the map.
That, more than anything else, was the most dangerous sign.
Because fully formed operations never begin at the moment they are discovered.
Nathan Carter was ordered to remain in the area, but the language of his instructions grew deliberately vague—observe, confirm, do not interfere.
He understood exactly what that meant.
Command had recognized the problem, but was not yet prepared to shoulder the risk of acting too early.
They returned to the vicinity of the crossroads.
This time, Nathan dispersed his unit even further.
Not to cover more ground.
But to ensure they could not be identified as a single force.
Elias Moore operated alone along the deeper woodland routes.Thomas Reed took two men to watch the hill approach.
Nathan positioned himself closer to the civilian paths.
That, he knew, was where the real danger lay.
At midday on the second day, a merchant caravan appeared.
Nothing remarkable at first glance.
A handful of wagons. A modest number of men.Barrels, sacks, and several crates without visible markings.
They moved neither hurriedly nor hesitantly.
Not fleeing.Not advancing.
More like people who knew they would not be stopped.
Nathan did not order contact.
He watched.
As the caravan passed the crossroads, one wagon slowed slightly.
Not because of the terrain.
But because someone was scanning the surroundings.
Nathan remembered the man's face.
It wasn't a soldier's vigilance.
It was the look of someone who had survived too long in the gray spaces.
That night, Elias returned with a detail.
"The brush on the hill route has been cut back," he reported. "Cleared for wagons."
Which meant one thing.
This route was no longer just for messengers.It was becoming a transport line.
And what it carried was unlikely to be grain.
On the third day, the orders changed.
Not from Greene.
From higher coordination.
The message was brief:
Confirm whether this route can be used by the British for sustained supply.
The responsibility now rested squarely with Nathan.
If he judged incorrectly, the route would either be ignored—or cut too early.
Both outcomes carried consequences.
Nathan did not rush to a conclusion.
Instead, he chose a more dangerous approach.
Proximity.
Not ambush.Not interception.
But drawing close, as someone who belonged on the road.
At dusk, Thomas Reed brought back a man.
Not a prisoner.
A young traveler knocked down by a wagon, lightly injured.
Plain clothes. Mixed accent. Carefully evasive speech.
Nathan did not interrogate him.
He offered a bowl of hot broth instead.
"This road isn't easy," Nathan said casually.
The young man nodded. "But it's shorter."
"Short doesn't mean safe," Nathan replied.
The man was quiet for a moment.
"Safe roads," he said finally, "already have people watching them."
The words were soft.
But they stripped away all illusion.
Nathan asked nothing more.
He had the man escorted to the nearest village.
No detention.No record.
But the information was sufficient.
This route had become the unwatched road.
And in war, unwatched roads were the most valuable of all.
That night, Nathan submitted his conclusion.
Not must be sealed.
But this:
Without intervention, the route will become a stable supply corridor within two weeks.
It was not a warning.
It was a timeline.
The response came quickly.
Still restrained.
Limited interference authorized.No escalation to open conflict.
They were giving him room.
They were also handing him the risk.
What followed was not dramatic.
There were no battles.
Only sustained, unsettling interruptions.
A wagon forced to detour.A night movement quietly aborted.A temporary cache exposed just early enough.
Each incident was minor.
Together, they became unpredictability.
On the fourth day, the caravans stopped coming.
On the fifth, messenger traffic shifted.
By the sixth, the crossroads fell silent.
As if abandoned.
Nathan did not relax.
Because silence meant recalculation.
On the seventh morning, a new report arrived.
British forces were testing a similar route elsewhere—more remote, smaller in scale, faster to establish.
A response.
And a probe.
Nathan studied the map without speaking.
This was no longer about a single road.
It was about a method.
The British were probing for channels that could be overlooked.
If addressed piecemeal, they would never run out.
He closed the map and looked at Elias and Thomas.
"We're not guarding roads," he said.
"We're making them stop trusting roads like this."
That was a longer, more complex undertaking.
That night, the camp was briefly quiet.
Abigail Warren approached and set a cup of hot drink beside him.
"You look more tired than before," she said.
Nathan took the cup but didn't drink.
"It isn't finished," he replied.
She nodded, without asking for more.
"Then the walk," she said, "can wait until you're done talking."
No disappointment.
No pressure.
Just time shifted slightly forward.
The wind moved through the camp.
The secondary route had vanished into darkness.
But the method it revealed was already reappearing elsewhere.
Nathan knew—
This would not end in a single chapter.
And he had already reached the point where he would have to see it through.
All the way.