Cirion emerged from his tent.  A light ground fog caressed the rolling plain lit pale by the moon setting tiredly in the west.  To the east a line of ruddy grey pressed back the night, dawn now just an hour over the horizon.  He was dressed for battle.  A shining silver helm sat over his dark brown hair.  His chain mail hauberk was polished to a gleam.  Greaves and vambraces with the insignia of the white tree protected his legs and forearms. 

Cirion would not be wielding a sword today.  General Vorandur would lead the battle, send in the wing commanders, position the reserves.  Cirion was for the men, visible in helm and mail, that their leader was with them.  He would also make necessary decisions not physically immersed in the battle, the fog of war. 

The sound of hooves muffled in mist and tall grass caught his attention.  He walked over to a half dozen men leading horses.  He would once again probe to his south.  The failure of the other scouts to return was suspect to him.  If there were forces to his south they could be no more than three leagues away if they were to participate meaningfully in the battle today.

Cirion addressed the scouts.

“We likely go to battle today.  The host before us may not be all we face.  Last night’s scouts to the south have not returned.  The six of you must survey the land up to three leagues from this spot.  Two will go southeast, two due south and two southwest.  Ride in a loop so you overlap the route of your neighbors.  Do not tarry.  Our fate may ride on your reports.  Now go!”

The men vaulted onto their horses and rode off into the grey early dawn.  If they were not back by mid-morning, that alone would tell him there was peril to his south.

Now as to his east, the enemy was already in motion.  Though is was not light enough to see that far, his ears picked up the sound of distant drums.  The Balchoth were on the march.

“We have three hours to get into position, Lord” General Vorandur advised in his gravelly voice.

Cirion was slightly startled. The General was skilled at quietly appearing by his side when the time was ripe.  Even as the words left the General’s mouth,  he heard the sounds of men on the morn of battle.  The muffled clatter of plates and cups as they fortified themselves with what would be a final breakfast for some. 

They would check the fit of their helms, the release of swords from scabbards, the edge on their axes, the points of their spears.  Shields would get a final look for any weak spots.  Conversation was subdued as most of the discussion was being held inside the heads and hearts of each man.

There had not been war in Gondor for several hundred years.  Though their training had been thorough and realistic, few had direct combat experience.  Those who did, had found it skirmishing on Gondor’s far borders with rogue bands of outlaws from Harad. 

Cirion knew they would be vulnerable to the changing tides of battle.  The intense discipline of their training would be tested.  The Balchoth had spent years fighting their way across Rhovanian, looting, pillaging, killing, burning.  They were no strangers to death.

Night had now been chased to a grey smudge on the western horizon.  The pale blue of imminent dawn was clear and unmarked by cloud.  The folds of the land were revealing themselves to the east.  The drums were getting louder.

General Vorandur was shouting orders to his three wing commanders and the captains of the archers.  The sounds of ten thousand feet tramping across the grassy plain drowned out the distant drums. 

Cirion was in the saddle of his war horse now, visible to the men taking their positions.  His archers were in the rear, five hundred bowmen on the left, five hundred on the right, each in block formation.  In front of them the forward units on the left, right and center, fifteen hundred men on the line in each of those wings with another fifteen hundred behind each one in reserve.  A total of nine thousand well-armed men and a thousand archers to meet sixteen thousand.  

Now they waited, wondering what tactics the Balchoth would use.  A wild massed charge against the center?  A broad front, making siege against his entire line?  Splitting their forces and trying to flank him to the north and south in encirclement?

A center thrust would push him back but allow his right and left wings to close on the enemy’s flanks.  A broad frontal attack would be a bloody grind where they would indeed have to take two of them for every one of his men lost.  Encirclement would be thwarted by deploying the reserves to extend their lines.

All well and good, Cirion thought to himself.  But after an hour’s rain of arrows and sword blows, the clarity of lines on a map blurs to mud and screams. He looked to the east again.  Across the shallow valley he could now see them marching, less than a league away.  Like a distant roar of wind, he could hear their massed voices raging.  In an hour they would be marching up the slope in front of him, death in their hearts.

It was time for a final review of the men on the line.  Cirion pivoted his horse away at a canter towards the left wing. 

General Vorandur watched him pause at various points in the line, engaging the men, shouting encouragement.  Cirion was not some distant lord high up on a marble throne, far from the cares of his subjects.  This lord would have to be restrained from joining the front line to do his duty which was to stay alive and lead.

By the time Cirion had reached the southern end of the right wing, the inchoate mass of men to the east began to take shape as two thrusts forming, one towards his center, the other to his left flank. Vorandur watched the Steward turn his horse east and pause.  Then he wheeled around and galloped north, to the rear of the lines, heading towards the center where the General waited.

He arrived in thunder of hooves and flying dirt.  His face was grim and set with determination.

“They are less than a quarter hour away and look to test our northern lines.”

Vorandur gazed east into the morning sun.  They were less than a mile off now, clearly split into two streams of eight thousand.  The roar of their battle lust was louder now, eclipsing all other sounds.  At the rear of their formations they had lit bonfires.  Great gouts of black smoke rose sluggishly, a rising blot on the clear morning air.

“They outnumber us better than two to one on the line even with the southern reserves drawn up.  But they make a smaller target for the archers so focused.  Now I must be off, my lord, to my wing commanders and archery captains.”

The General flipped down the faceplate on his helmet and galloped off to manage the battle first hand.  Cirion stayed behind, his chain mail gleaming in the cool morning sun, visible to the men about to lay their lives on the line. 

The wind was picking up now, out of the south, washing through the plains swirling amidst the flowing grasses.  Not strong enough to carry away the noise of the Balchoth which had devolved into a rhythmic roaring chant in a language strange to him.  They were but five hundred yards away, marching up the gradual slope towards his lines, where his phalanx of shields closed together.

There was nothing subtle about war, he thought.  In the end just brute force. 

To his south, the right flank reserves were marching quick time in their heavy steel mail to positions behind the left and central wings.  The right wing to the south was now thin but yet unopposed. 

He turned in the saddle towards the gentle upslope behind him.  The two archery battalions had moved to the rear of the left and central flanks.  They would wait until the barbarians were a mere fifty yards from the line before unleashing a fierce volley of a thousand steel tipped arrows. 

Or so was the plan.  In minutes the first blows would fall, and the vanity of such tactics and strategy would shrink to a screaming space where men killed men and plans were forgotten ghosts of neat lines on paper.

Then the hours, years of training had to take over, become part of the instinct to survive.