The Battle of Ashford Bridge was fought thirty-two miles from the capital's walls, the closest that a barbarian army had approached the kingdom's seat of government in the kingdom's recorded history.
The king positioned his remaining twenty-eight thousand soldiers at the bridge where the Ashford River crossed the capital road, the bridge's stone construction providing the chokepoint that the defensive position required and the river's width providing the obstacle that the barbarian advance had to cross to continue southward. The timber-framed earthworks that every Threian defensive position now employed were constructed on the bridge's southern bank, the earthworks' timber-and-stone construction bearing the campaign's accumulated engineering wisdom: the Horde's principles, adapted by Snowe, disseminated through the army, refined by each garrison commander who had fought the barbarians since Fort Harken.
