Four days ago, within the same hour of the assassination, the Lords and Ladies whose domains bordered Askari, Almar, and parts of Fonn had each received a note through messenger birds. It was from the company of soldiers under the Prince's command who had not been with him during the ambush, and they were asking for aid.
The exact nature of this "aid" had not been specified. It was therefore free for anyone to "misinterpret." Thus, the rulers had mobilized their private garrisons to "practice drills" with the border troops stationed nearest their domain.
This was all to work around the fact that neither an order nor an express permission to act how they will have reached any of them from the Queen in faraway Oste. If the soldiers in their "drills" had happened to come across northerners
