The treemen are older than the pact, older than the asrai, old as the forest's first dreaming. They are Athel Loren's great spirits clothed in its mightiest timber: towers of iron-hard heartwood and armouring bark, with limbs that swat armoured knights into ruin and roots that burst from the earth to drag whole ranks under. In ages of peace a treeman may stand for a century in a single glade, indistinguishable from the trees he shepherds; and some, like grim Durthu, have watched their charges burned and despoiled so many times that grief has fermented into a patient, permanent rage.
The elves command none of this — they petition. When a treeman consents to walk, it means the slow deliberating heart of the forest has reached its verdict, and what follows is less a battle than a sentence carried out: shield-walls unmade in single blows, cavalry swept aside like leaf-litter, siege engines picked apart as a gardener pulls weeds. The asrai gauge how grave a war has become by one sign alone. When the treemen walk, the kindreds fall silent, for it means the forest no longer trusts its wardens to settle the matter with arrows.
Order of battle
