Alpheo's heart hammered against his ribs, pumping a double-measured pulse of adrenaline through his veins as he stepped into the biting Oizenian wind. There, laid out before him, was the terrible machinery of his ambition: the army that had laid half the South low, the force that stood as Yarzat's only hope and the most waking nightmare of his enemy.
An exhilarated chill, sharper than the November frost, swept through him as he beheld the host. Rank upon rank they stood, encased in the grey plate that had blossomed red across dozens of battlefields. They were fully armored and bristling with steel, looking less like men who had spent the night feasting on victory and more like a legion poised to start a second war before the first had even cooled.
