"Target, Eastern Border Hills! Advance!"
Early December, the eastbound official road through the Northern Wilderness.
The north was colder than the northwest. The north wind whipped up fine grains of snow like icy lashes, beating against the long column of marching soldiers.
Banners snapped in the bitter wind, yet seemed limp and spiritless.
It had been a full ten days since they left Fran City, yet this allied army that called itself "elite troops serving the King" advanced so slowly it made one's heart burn with impatience.
They marched barely twenty-odd li each day before making camp early, setting up their cooking pots and preparing meals, as if they were not heading to relieve a city under siege with flames licking at its brows, but going on a leisurely winter training march.
The main force personally led by Earl Rochefort, more than twenty thousand men strong, moved southeast along the main road toward the Royal Capital at an unhurried crawl.
Their formation was strict, their armor bright, and their supply cart train stretched on without end, displaying the deep foundations of the foremost family of the Northern Border—yet it also carried a deliberately crafted, deeply unsettling "composure."
Scouts were sent far ahead, the camps were built solidly, and everything conformed to the military books and the Drill Manual. The only thing missing was the urgency of speed that made soldiers precious.
On the flank of this vast army, a much smaller force of around three thousand men silently broke away from the main body in the thick fog of that morning, turned south, and took a fork in the road.
This was the Carnford Army led by Karl. At the head of the column were five hundred elite light cavalry under Lyon, each man with two horses, light armor, and