The massive black iron gate was slowly lifted, snow fragments sliding down the threshold and falling into darkness.
A moment later, a metallic roar that shook the chest resounded.
The iron hooves of the Seventeenth Legion stepped out from the shadows.
No horns, no drums, no ceremony, only the deafening sound of trampling.
Thousands of heavily armored knights poured out from within the gates, as if the darkness itself had been cast into form.
They were clad in black steel plate armor, riveted with cold iron, with storm-branded swirls engraved on the shoulder guards.
Every knight seemed like a weapon forged from steel and fury, and the warhorses beneath them wore heavy half-body armor, exhaling white mist like ferocious wolves.
Ground shook beneath their feet, snow was torn, crushed, and splinters of ice were ground into powder under their heavy hooves.
On the vast snowfield, they were not a formation, but an entire moving wall of black iron.
Oppressive, cold, merciless.
