[@Sigurd][@ethanjory][@Stormborn][@Dusty][@HeySeuss]


The raven had circled the field below the overcast layer of cloud several times already, descending lower and lower with each sphere, mass blocks of men, horses, and likely a few women shifting themselves into battle-ready formations in preparation for the inevitable clash that all knew was coming. Of course the raven was just an avian creature, intelligent yes, but unaware of what was progressing between the ant-like figures beneath it. All it knew was that, at some point, they would meet, death would follow, and there would be more than enough flesh for the buzzards and itself to gorge upon...

Meanwhile, from a more ground-based view of the proceeding events, Jago Flowers - who men openly referred to as 'the Mad Maester' even within hearing distance - wet his lips in anticipation of the carnage about to unfold in this rather arid region of the Disputed Lands; indeed, rain clouds whirled overhead, and the usually blinding Essos sun cast its rays sporadically over the lowlands, but of moisture there was no sign this day.

At his side the Reachland bastard tabbed his pouch, writing implements already arrayed about him on the dry soil of the hillock on which he sat. He was to have no part in the battle this day, save as an observer - though even at the age of seven-and-fifty he was still capable of it - for the 'commander' of the Meereenese Knots had made it clear he wished to have his victory recorded for posterity. The thin lips of Jago's gaunt face had peeled back at this, revealing a set of oddly pointed teeth, but he had bobbed and nodded in agreement with the foolish man...and now he was here, his emaciated body swaddled in his black hooded robes, his perplexingly clear eyes watching all as his steady hands made note of all-and-sundry.

After taking a brief glance into the air to see where his black-feathered companion had gotten to, he put quill to scroll and began to scribble.

The field, as it contained in the way of terrain, was almost perfect for a pitched battle. There were no woodlands to conceal ones enemy, not for miles around at least, no rivers or bridges or mountains to use as chokepoints either, only several small knolls and hummocks - such as the one upon which Jago sat - where each army had encamped, but which would make for rather useless strongpoints.

The Reachlander knew this because he was not a stranger to conflict, the mace that hanged from his rope-belt still encrusted with the dried blood of men, women and even children, things having been done during his youth that even now made the toes of other men curl to hear them.

Anyway...

Both armies, made up of Sellswords and not a single militiaman from the three city-states employing them standing among them, would need to challenge one another over the flat ground that made up the mid-part of the field; this ground was relatively solid, moistureless and hard-packed brown dirt, with dry grass being the only thing 'growing' there, but soon to be watered with blood.

What of the armies themselves?

On the one side were those Companies hired by the alliance of Tyrosh and Lys, a Grand Company of several smaller ones that formed to somewhere around a thousand cavalry and ten-thousand men-at-arms at least. 

Therein were men from all over; Westerosi bastards, criminals and runaways of all stripes - forming a solid backbone of heavy infantry and the majority of the mounted contingent - savage clansmen from beyond the wall and the mountain clans come together as lighter but more fierce combatants, volunteers from the Free Cities and even a handful of slaves forced into a skirmish they had no place waging.

Their adversaries were not much different it had to be said, the Knots a majority Westerosi formation of some three-hundred heavy cavalry and five-hundred infantry including two-hundred archers - most hardened individuals but not yet a coherent fighting force - given the centre of the line to protect.

On their flanks were such esteemed bands as the black-clad pike-wielding Sons of the Goat out of Qohor, or the infamous Blade-Dancers of Leng far to the east known for using their twin blades to deadly effect, a body of some two-thousand Dothraki, known simply as The Khal's Men, being their primary reserve of horsemen.

Altogether, Jago guessed at his best count, some thousand cavalry and ten-thousand infantry stood against near three-thousand horse of varying types and four-to-five-thousand infantry; it truly was a test of a larger force fighting one with more experience, the Tyroshi magisters clearly thinking that one would outdo the other.

Peering on, sat as he was well away from harm, the Bastard of Old Oak could only imagine and empathise with those now striding reluctantly or otherwise to fight for their pay.

Of the Knots he wrote in particular, the way that their infantry formed in front of the archers (a notable addition to their ranks, being longbowmen all), how their cavalry - heavily armoured knights from Westeros to a man - assembled into the famous lance, and how Alon Peckledon, the man responsible for their presence here today, had surrounded himself with the hundred or so men he had named his 'Guard of Valour'.

Well, what did one expect from a former brothel owner anyway?

So the stage was set, sunlight briefly bursting through the clouds, and the buzzards prepared for a feast.