Fifty-eight days after the mobilization order, everything was ready. Or close enough to ready that the difference was academic.
Zephyr reviewed the Iron Covenant's war footing with the detached precision of someone reading a spreadsheet that happened to describe the survival or destruction of four thousand lives.
Eighteen hundred soldiers in the standing army — expanded from twelve hundred over the past two months. Six hundred militia activated, trained and garrison-assigned. Twenty-four hundred total combat strength. Full stonesteel kit on every one of them: blade, shield, plate, helm. Multi-race combined-arms formations drilled to cohesion — Lizardman core, minotaur heavy infantry, Gnoll skirmish elements, Human support. Twenty-four officers, half combat-tested, half field-promoted. The field promotions were a risk. Necessary, but a risk.
