The Battle of Harken Valley taught King Aldric III that the weapons he remembered from his military academy's instruction manuals now belonged to the enemy.
The king's thirty thousand soldiers advanced into the valley in the formation that the Lord Marshal's campaign doctrine prescribed, the infantry in three lines, the cavalry on the flanks, the thundermaker batteries on elevated platforms. The formation was professional. The formation was the formation that the Threian military had used successfully for three generations when the Threian military had possessed the weapons advantage that made the formation effective.
The barbarians met the formation with identical weapons and superior ammunition.
The first barbarian volley struck the king's center at eight hundred paces, the dwarven-forged iron balls smashing into the advancing infantry with the downhill velocity that the barbarians' elevated positions provided. A soldier in the front rank took a ball through his breastplate.
