"Lord Marshal?" one of the four bladesingers came forward. "Where do you want us?"
Miro grinned. "As a bladesinger I always chafed at the restrictions the commanders gave me. Bladesingers need freedom of movement, and sticking to a post isn't our way. You are weapons, and you should fight wherever you feel you are needed most."
"Thank you, Lord Marshal," the bladesinger said.
"A tip, though," Miro said. "The colossus is central to our strategy. See that it makes it through."
"Of course." The bladesingers left, conferring among themselves.
"Are you going to address the men?" Beorn asked.
"Yes. Please form them up."
Miro was interrupted by a slim man in the raj hada of an Alturan courier running towards him, calling out. The courier carried a scroll, sealed with green wax and the seal of High Lord Rorelan.
"Lord Marshal," the courier panted, pulling up in front of Miro and Beorn. "The High Lord said it was urgent."
Miro swiftly broke the seal and read the contents.
His eyes opened wide as he read, his heart racing in his chest, and a thrill coursed up and down his spine. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes, tears that Miro didn't attempt to wipe away.
Miro rolled the scroll back up and turned to Marshal Beorn, who stared at him expectantly, waiting to hear the news. "Form the men up," Miro told him. "I'll speak to them now."
It wasn't the first time Miro had addressed an army this size, but it was the first time they hadn't been fighting a rearward action, pulling away from an enemy that could not be beaten.
This time, they were fighting back.
Miro knew how to speak to such a huge mass of men. He mounted the wooden podium, ascending until he was standing at its summit. Taking a great breath, Miro expanded his chest, projecting his voice, throwing it to the back of the field with all of his heart.
"Men! Defenders of the free world, Alturans, Halrana, and Loralayalanasa," Miro said. "You know why you fight here this day, and you know it better than I can explain it to you. You feel it deep in your hearts: that it's time to end the tyranny that has taken over the world, to break Altura free from the enemy's clutching fist, and to liberate Halaran from the darkness that has clouded over that fair land. You know why you fight, and so I won't try to tell it to you."
Miro paused, taking a breath and then resuming. "Instead I am here to answer the question that you are asking, but do not know the answer to. To put to rest any last vestiges of doubt, and to give you the courage and faith you will need to take you through this day, and the next, and to carry you forward, into the shining light that we can all see awaiting us at the end of these dark times."
Miro waited, feeling his heart thudding in his chest. This wasn't a speech he had rehearsed; he was simply speaking from the heart. Miro had fought alongside these men as a recruit and a soldier. They were his men, and he knew their fears, for they were his own.
"Will we win? That is what you ask, deep in your souls. You ask the same question now that you asked at Bald Ridge, when High Lord Rorelan and I held against a veteran army fifty thousand strong with less than five thousand. You ask the same question now that you asked when we faced an army infinitely greater than ours, here at the Bridge of Sutanesta. The answer is the same answer I gave you then. We will win!"
Amidst the cheers of the men as they held their swords in the air, Miro thrust the hand holding the scroll high so that all could see.
"And in the dark times that come, if you need heart, think of this. I have in my hand a missive from Rorelan, High Lord of Altura. A messenger arrived in the night. This messenger travelled through enemy-held lands, all the way from Ralanast, Halaran's capital, to bring us these words. He was captured but escaped, and when he arrived in Sarostar he was barely alive. Would you like to hear his news?"
"Yes!" It was a mighty roar, the sound of over fifteen thousand men, shouting with one voice. Miro didn't care now if his enemies across the Sarsen could hear. Let them tremble.
"There was a man who trained me, a man who trained every bladesinger. This man was the blademaster, the leader of all the bladesingers, and he fought at the Battle for Ralanast. You all know what happened there; it was the darkest day of the war.
"This man's name is Rogan Jarvish, and until now we thought he was dead, killed along with so many of our Alturan and Halrana countrymen. This is the news: Rogan Jarvish is alive, and he is in Ralanast. He is building an army there, under the very noses of the legionnaires and templars. There is no man I would trust more to see this thing through, and his message to me is thus. We are ready, he says. Do you hear me, men? We are ready!"