Act Nineteen: Knight and Blacksmith II

Brando was dejected for a moment, then cheered up again. He suddenly realized that although Beru and this era's Tama could not be considered top-tier across Vonder, in Eluin they were still first-rate masters. In the past year, relying solely on the support of those two, he had armed the Wind Archers and White Lion Guard into two elite forces. Now, the military equipment of the little place called Tonigell had long since risen to the top tier of the kingdom—something no other lord in the past would ever have dared imagine.

Over the past six months, as refugees from all over flooded in during the Black Rose War, Brando had begun to acquire a large reserve of recruits at the training camps throughout Tonigell. If he wished, he could raise an army at any time that would be in no way inferior in size to the private armies of nobles under Jandernel or Duke Viero. But Brando came from a later age and had personally experienced that epic, magnificent Tablet War. He looked down on the so-called armies under the northern and southern nobles. In his view, an army below Tier Three could only be called a militia regiment, fit for maintaining local security but absolutely useless in war. For that reason, the issue of equipment had now become the main obstacle to expanding Tonigell's army. Only the officers of the White Lion Guard could wear inferior Magic Armor. Even the ordinary White Lion Armor of the next lower grade remained limited in production; even with Fir Territory working at full strength, it could produce only a little over a hundred sets each month. The situation was even worse for the Wind Archers. They needed matching Wind Archer chainmail and longbows, and due to production limits, the army's expansion