Aaron's recruitment went exceptionally smoothly. His influence in the Sunset Lands, and even throughout Cormyr, was astonishing. Once he announced the campaign, for every adventurer or farmer he sought to recruit, ten volunteered; for every ten, a hundred came forward.
Brusnan, the leader of the Dragonborn family that had just moved to the Sunset Lands, even led his entire clan into the northern expeditionary army. He declared that his clan did not seek an independent community like the Snow Elf autonomous district. They merely hoped to follow Aaron and show what their Dragonborn family could do.
The Sunset Lands soon mustered an army of twenty-eight hundred. Apart from the fifteen hundred soldiers of the Shepherd Legion, the remaining thirteen hundred were what Aaron had kept after trimming the recruits again and again.
The Church of Selûne, the most influential church in the Sunset Lands, also formed a powerful church army-the Silver Hand-which joined under the leadership of Miss Cleric Eleanor and Lady Aylin, the female Aasimar known as Song of Night.
Meanwhile, when Tymora's great temple in Arabel heard the news, its bishop broke with his usual practice and immediately announced that they, too, would join the northern expedition to Tifanton. Lady Luck's clerics rubbed their hands eagerly, itching to show their strength.
At the same time, reports from spies spread the news throughout Cormyr and all the surrounding regions: Aaron had suddenly produced more than a thousand elite, heavily armored warriors and a hundred knights riding monsters from the Sunset Lands.
From Thay, the Dalelands, Cormanthor, Zambia, Tifanton, and the Rocklands to the Sword Coast in the west, news of Aaron's military review spread. Several surging political forces within and beyond Cormyr immediately rose to the surface.
Whether it was the "Battle of Baldur's Gate" or the "Destruction of