The cold autumn rain turned the Riverbend flood plain into an ocean of black, thick, sticky mud.
From the watching small roof-dome of The Iron Bastion, five miles of sodden marshland stretched toward the southern horizon.
The armored battle-train idled on the raised granite embankment of Riverbend Junction, its twin dynamos humming softly. It sent a thin feather of clean white steam into the gray drizzle.
Giles Croft stood on the steel platform of the small roof-dome, adjusting the leveling screws of his brass transit sighting scope. Through the multi-element glass lenses, the distant lines of the royal invasion force resolved with crystal clarity.
Twenty thousand men.
Grand Duke Val-Khorne had mobilized the entire military strength of the southern marches. Three dense columns of heavy infantry marched shoulder-to-shoulder, their iron-banded tall body-shield shields forming a dull gray wall across the valley floor.
At the center of the host rode three thousand elite royal cataphracts. Their barded warhorses wore gold-trimmed iron headstalls and chainmail bards that dragged through the swamp reeds.
Behind the cavalry came the royal siege park. Fifty huge balance weight trebuchets, framed from massive hewn oak baulks, their iron-rimmed wagon wheels sinking six inches into the sodden soil with every revolution.
