I called the lancers of Rachiswater, the longbow men of Micawater, the swords of Peregrine. I called the famed cavalry of Eske. I called the Cathee axe men, the spears of Brandoch, the Litanee pikemen and Awndyn halberdiers. The brave Fescue shield fyrd I called, the Hacilith crossbow men, the horse archers of Ghallain. I called the General and Select Fyrd of every manor. The governors heard the emphasis in my voice and saw the panic in my eye, and took up their arms.
By the time I returned from Carniss, the Select of Awia was already packed on the roads, marching under the manors’ colours. Ahead of them, great trebuchets and espringals were trundling from Lowespass Fortress, escorted by the hard-bitten troops of the garrison. The roads from the Avernwater workshops were clogged with flamethrower carts, and barrels of tar were en route from the Lacksheen tar pits. Every troop-carrying caravel in Diw and Cobalt weighed her anchor and stretched her sails.
It was a full mobilisation. Two people from each family, male or female, from the ages of sixteen to fifty, must answer the call. I spoke to the governors, who spoke to their stewards, who spoke to their reeves; who spoke to farmhands and cottars, so that by the day following my visit, everyone had heard my news.
In the city, desks were set up in factory halls and under awnings in the market place. People of every walk of life soaked from the streets towards them, frightened by the urgency of Aver-Falconet’s announcements. He sent couriers galloping out across Morenzia to the townships at the coast.
As I glided over the Plains I saw queues of men mustering to the General Fyrd in manor hall courtyards, the porches of reeves’ houses and the village greens. Every man realised there was nothing for it but to join the queue and, at the front, sign your name and pick up a shield and sword or poleaxe from the mounds unloaded from the carts from Wrought. Or if you’re Select Fyrd, take down your heirloom breastplate and broadsword from the bedroom cupboard. A night’s work with sand and oil will restore it to service.
The sheer number of people moving took my breath away. The storehouses of Wrought were turning out crates of weapons by the neat ten thousand into a seemingly endless coming-and-going of covered wagons. Horses and carts appeared singly from scattered farms, convened by the thousand to fill whole fields, then each rank decanted out onto the road. Anything could happen. Everything was happening! The scale of the effort astounded me. Carnival girls turned entrepreneurs walked up and down the long queues of traffic dammed up outside Shivel, selling food and drink.
I have put all these people in motion myself! The power of my words filled me with exhilaration. I dropped from the sky onto a different manor each day, and people upwelled in my wake and channelled out to fill the highways all the way to Slake Cross.