My eyes drifted to the northeast to see that General Santaran's army had materialized from hiding and was quickly approaching the battle. He had his ten thousand strong cavalry contingent aligned along his left flank, probably to offer quick support to the militia brigades should they have need of it.
The field of battle was set and the trap sprung with the enemy caught in the middle. Now all that remained was to see if the Attorgron slave warriors were convinced enough to join in with us, if not it would be them that General Santaran's warriors encountered first, as the Attorgrons were aligned along the left side of the enemies formation before us at the Shrine.
There was a flurry of action within the enemy ranks and it soon became clear that taking the Shrine had fallen to the bottom of the list of priorities. The Zoarinians had never overly favored the use of cavalry in their military strategy rather the use of heavy infantry instead. They had but forty thousand of their own cavalry, most of which were lancers.
Lancers were good for charges on ground units, but not so good in the pressed confines of a melee fight with other cavalry. All of the Zoarinian cavalry sheeted off to form a long line facing General Nadero's cavalry that had drawn up in the sands of the western shore and was now busy forming their own line of formation.
I called down to Nadalarkin, who looked up at my call, "Bring the horses up from the beach and mount the remainder of our men on them. When the battle is joined we will ride towards the western shore and attack the enemy cavalry from the rear after they've engaged with General Nadero's cavalry."
"Yes Roric!" Nadalarkin said quickly making his way off the mound calling out to the Valley Lander warriors to join him.
A group of sea captains had formed around me and I turned to them now, "When the battle is joined and only after it has been joined, take your men and attack the enemy's flank. Do not attack too early, as it is unclear yet whether the Attorgrons are friend or foe!"
They saluted as one and I left them with, "Godspeed my friends!" before I made my way towards the western side of the fortification line watching the field of battle take shape as I did so.
The militia was moving up quickly from the south and General Santaran's more rested warriors were moving even more quickly towards the front lines of the Attorgrons, while his cavalry had drawn into a support position for the militia in the south. General Nadero seemed content to let the enemy make the first move and sat waiting with his cavalry aligned along the beach at almost equal numbers with the opposing cavalry force that was arrayed against him.