Dawnriders are drawn from the high families of the Great Nations, and their mounts from bloodlines older than some of Hysh's rivers — pale steeds so steeped in the realm's magic that they know neither fear nor forgetting. Riding knee to knee with sunmetal lances lowered, they strike with the sudden totality of daybreak, and a disordered enemy simply ceases to exist as a military proposition.
Between wars they serve as wardens of the roads and marches, carrying law, news and judgment between the nations at the gallop. Each lance bears the honour-record of every rider who has carried it before; none has ever been dropped, and that fact is very nearly the entire content of what Hysh means by nobility.
Order of battle
