Lead-gray clouds hung low, but the daylight was already enough to illuminate the snowfield. Bugle calls rising one after another and piercing the clouds, along with the heavy, rhythmic beating of War Drums, began sounding from the heart of each camp. They swiftly drowned out the shouted slogans, drawing the boiling fervor into a cold, disciplined military rhythm.
The order was issued, and the machine of steel began to turn.
Streams of blue began to "flow" out from the scattered camps.
Thousands upon thousands of soldiers, guided by their officers' commands and their flags, swiftly and orderly formed dense marching formations according to their battalion, company, and platoon structures, stepping onto the snow-covered wilderness before the camps.
The night before, engineers and advance officers had worked through the night, marking clear marching routes and assembly areas across the snow with lime and wooden stakes. At intervals, they had planted small triangular flags of different colors to represent each battalion.
Now, the great army moved forward in silence and determination along those invisible tracks like the components of a precision timepiece. Boots crunched over the snow with dull, sharp sounds that merged into a deep, heart-quaking rumble of thunder.
The cavalry serving as the army's vanguard had set out much earlier. By now, they had deployed two li away, forming an outpost screen to cover the army's advance. Their task was to drive off any Sauron cavalry that might harass the marching columns, watch the movements of Sauron's main force, and buy time and space for the main infantry force to form its lines.
Lyon sat astride his beloved black warhorse atop a gently rising hill. He wore the crisp uniform of a Dragon Cavalry officer beneath a snowproof dark-blue cloak, his sharp gaze sweeping over the mist-shrouded snowfield ahead and,