Chapter 101

　　We had left the Court of Light with fifteen hundred volunteers, many of them non-combatants. As we had travelled through the enchanted forest and Fae lands to Diyet Noyr, our numbers had swollen to just over three thousand, mostly brethren who had kin in Uyan Taesil. How battle ready the brethren were, Ruelke was still determining.

　　There was a lot more to an army than recruiting large numbers willing to bear arms, my dragon had been right about that, as usual.

　　Rivyn had outfitted our initial volunteers well, providing weaponry, wagons of supplies, and the canvas tents like the one we currently shivered within. But not all the volunteers that had joined us since came well supplied, some arrived with no more than the clothing on their backs. Some came with weaponry, armour, and experience, but many were younglings, raised on stories of the heroics of past wars, who barely knew the hilt from the blade of a sword, let alone had one to wield.