Time slipped slowly by, and before anyone knew it, half a year had passed since Rex returned to Gilneas. The National Military Exercises were Gilneas's top priority. Once King Genn and the lords had approved them, neither Rex's absence nor his objections could bring them to a halt.
It was like a machine running at full speed, and Rex was no more than a bar that could not stop its workings. By the time Rex returned to Gilneas, after all the delays along the way, the National Military Exercises had already ended. Unsurprisingly, the Knights of the Round Table had taken first place.
How long had it been since Gilneas last experienced war? Ten years? Twenty? No, no, no!
Gilneas had not fought a large-scale war in decades. Neither the Battle of Southshore nor the Second Orc War, which had profoundly affected humanity, had much to do with Gilneas. For Gilneas, those had only been minor engagements, hardly major wars.
Gilneas's last large-scale war dated back several decades, before King Genn's reign, when Rex's grandfather, Archibald Greymane, had ruled.
Among the kings who could not be overlooked when speaking of Gilneas, one was its founder, and the other was Archibald Greymane. Even King Genn, who had built the Greymane Wall, did not qualify. Of those two outstanding figures, the first needed no explanation: he had founded Gilneas, making him impossible to overlook in any discussion of the kingdom. Archibald Greymane, meanwhile, had laid the foundations of its strength.
Gilneas had existed for a long time, but among humanity's Seven Kingdoms, it had been one of the weaker powers. For over a thousand years, it had been only slightly stronger than the Mountain Kingdom, the Kingdom of Alterac. It had held the position of second weakest among the Seven Kingdoms for