"At first, many of the courtiers placed little hope on the second prince, whose ascension to crown prince was sudden and unexpected. The young prince had mostly been known to laze around, and did neither well nor badly on his studies, by all accounts a mediocre prince who just enjoyed life.

None, not even the old king and queen had expected his sudden transformation on the day he was named crown prince. Suddenly the lazy prince was no more, as he redoubled on and excelled at every subject he studied. The tutors who once decried him as mediocre ate their prior words right back when confronted with his later excellence." - Floren Jonqvist, Historian from Levain, circa 586 FP.

Reinhardt had not felt particularly comfortable, standing at attention alongside everyone else in two neat lines while they waited for the main force's arrival. Everybody had fallen into a parade rest in formation for ten minutes or so now, and they could all hear the sound of thousands of boots treading the earth approaching ever closer.

The armies present in the ruins of Fort Ascher had split evenly into two lines. The cavalry that saved them, the Brewers, and Reinhardt's own Free Lances on one side. The Graf's surviving regulars on the other side.

Lined up like that, his group's irregular nature stood out in particular, especially compared to the other, far more uniform units. Where the other groups looked like one unit that trained and lived together, his looked like a hodgepodge gathering of people of all shapes and sizes, from every sort of background. An appearance that had just become even more diversified with the inclusion of Mischka's people.

That was how the Free Lances had always been, though, so that was one thing Reinhardt refused to change.

Eventually, after what felt like forever to him, but in reality was probably no more than five to ten minutes of waiting, the main force reached them. Marching ahead of the pack were the cavalry.

Another thousand "light" cavalry mounted atop rams similar to the ones that had saved them led from the front. The idea that such cavalrymen were considered light cavalry was one that only made sense to dwarven sensibilities.

Each of those "light" cavalrymen wore heavy armor that rendered them nearly impervious to harm from all but the luckiest or hardest strikes. The black, wooly rams they rode on were huge, muscular beasts, each standing as tall as a dwarf at the shoulder, with dense, tough wool that would be difficult to cut through even with an axe and sturdy, curled horns atop their heads.

Another thousand of what the dwarves considered heavy cavalry followed behind. Each team of three dwarves were placed securely in a long, narrow seat that sloped higher towards the back, on top of the back of massive tri-horned rhinoceroses.

The beasts alone were fearsome, massive specimens, each easily five meters from snout to tail, and nearly as tall as Reinhardt was at the shoulder. Their thick skin were natural plates of armor in its own rights, while the three horns on their snout - a large one at the tip, and two smaller ones next to each other behind it - were capable of uprooting entire trees.

Each team of three dwarves atop the beasts were made up of three different roles. Up front was the driver, who held the beast's reins and wore the heaviest armor, one that only exposed his eyes behind a thick, transparent crystal visor. Behind him was a sweeper, who held a long polearm with which they swept the sides as they rode through enemy ranks. At the rear, on a freely swiveling seat, was a crossbowman armed with a repeating crossbow, whose task was to hold or finish off any enemies that the others missed on their pass.

Behind those cavalry, were a small group of around fifty war chariots, each pulled by three such rhinos. The dwarven idea of a war chariot was a boxy, spiky monstrosity on eight massive wheels, each with spiked rods extended from either side of the axles. Each chariot carried a team of ten dwarves, plus a driver up front in an extra armored compartment.

Out of the ten on each chariot, one was the commander, another their lieutenant, while of the rest, half were sweepers, and half were crossbowmen. On open plains like most of Knallzog territory those war chariots were horrifying killing machines. Sadly, in the dense tropical jungles of Theodinaz, they would not be nearly as usable.

Probably why the expedition had been light on them and heavy on infantry in the first place, Reinhardt thought. Behind the chariots were the infantry of the main force. Reinhardt couldn't get a precise count, but he estimated them to be at least twenty thousand in number, if not more. Around a quarter were dressed in heavy infantry gear, while the rest were dwarven "light" infantry.

Light by dwarven sensibilities, that is.

Upon approaching the lined up soldiers in the fort, the cavalry parted into two halves and lined up on the sides as well, a wide corridor between them. The chariots did the same, and only one chariot from their midst kept proceeding forward.

That one chariot attracted Reinhardt's attention not because it was lavishly decorated, but because it was plainer than the others, which often had carved decorations made by their respective crews.

Unlike the others, this one chariot looked to be covered in flawless, smooth, shiny black metal. It was the telltale sign of adamant - a rare and expensive metal only workable by master mage-smiths, known for its near indestructibility - plating, an excessive expense Reinhardt thought would be impossible to justify for a mere general.

Sure enough, when the chariot drew closer, Reinhardt spotted a rather young dwarf - probably not even two hundred yet - who looked at the assembled soldiers with a critical eye. While in most nations a commander was easily recognizable from their more decorated armor and the likes, Reinhardt grew up in dwarven territory, and was well aware of their idiosyncrasies. It was not the designs or decorations to be watched, but the material of the armor they wear.

Sure enough, the young dark-skinned dwarf with straw blonde hair and beard wore armor that looked far too thin for what a dwarf would wear, but also had the same glossy black sheen as the chariot he rode on.

If that was not his royal highness, the crown prince himself, Reinhardt would eat his tail.