The Aegis Vanguard had arrived while the field burned.
Thirty men and women in storm-grey plate moved in disciplined columns across the southern approach, their boots striking the earth in unison, followed by five hundred elite soldiers who didn't quite make the cut of joining the illustrious Aegis unit, but were respected warriors themselves.
At their head walked the Stormlord.
He was enormous. Seven feet of armored fury with a warhammer slung across one shoulder that bled arcs of lightning so dense the air around the weapon's head was permanently ionized and the storm rolling off his frame bent the smoke around him in spiraling columns.
Every step he took left a scorch mark on the ground.
The Aegis Vanguard were the crown's answer to every threat that outgrew the scope of other war departments.
They hit the elven elites on the western flank, who arrived together with their Queen.
