The Reserve Corps arrived on the fifth day, Lord-Commander Aldrath at its head.
He was a tall man, broad in the chest in the way of soldiers who had maintained physical training through decades of command, his armor decorated with the campaign ribbons that his service entitled him to in quantities that made clear he had been to difficult places and had come back from them.
He rode into Snowe's camp with the settled authority of a senior officer arriving to take command of a situation he had been fully briefed on and that he intended to have resolved efficiently.
Snowe briefed him in person for three hours. He used the operational maps, the casualty records, the action reports from every engagement of the campaign, and the two dispatches that he had sent to the Lord Marshal's office describing the orcish army's capabilities in terms that were now confirmed by the engagement record rather than predicted from intelligence assessments.
