The morning light of early September had already shed the cruelty of high summer. Carrying a trace of early autumn freshness, it spilled over the broad square paved with bluestone slabs before the Herwenham Governor's Office.
Yet the atmosphere in the square today was utterly different from its usual dull, deathly stillness. The air was filled with irrepressible excitement, anticipation, and the grim killing chill of clashing metal!
At the center of the square, twenty-five hundred cavalrymen from Eagle's Nest Camp stood solemnly in formation according to their hundred-man companies.
Men and warhorses alike wore armor that, though stained with the dust of the road, still flashed with a cold gleam. Long spears stood like a forest, and banners snapped in the wind.
After a long trek and a brief rest, and having just learned that the military pay owed to them for half a year would soon be issued in full, these veterans of a hundred battles no longer had the scrutiny and doubt in their eyes from when they had first arrived. Instead, they were filled with recognition for their commander and yearning for the future.
They stood there quietly. Only the warhorses, now and then impatient, pawed the ground with their iron-shod hooves, making crisp clopping sounds that threw the solemnity of the entire scene into even sharper relief.
Around the square, great numbers of the Governor's personal guards and townspeople who had rushed over after hearing the news packed the area so tightly that not even water could get through.
People whispered to one another, gazing with complicated eyes at this well-equipped, murderous "Guest Army" in the square. Curiosity, awe, expectation, and a faint, almost imperceptible fear were woven across every face.
The auspicious hour had arrived. The heavy gates of the Governor's Office slowly opened