The 1st Warband came out of the depression at the double-pace, and what the Threian road column's advance guard saw was not what it had been told to expect.
The briefing had described a defensive position. An army of eight thousand in a depression between two ridgelines, organized to receive the assault of a larger force with the fortified-position advantages that terrain and preparation provided.
The advance guard had been trained and briefed and organized for the task of pushing forward, pressing the defensive line, identifying its weak points, reporting back to the main body.
What the advance guard encountered instead was a thousand-warrior shield wall advancing toward it at the controlled rapid pace that the 1st Warband used for assault approaches, shields locked, formation intact, their Roarers distributed through the ranks firing in the rolling volleys that maintained suppressive fire through the approach.
