The valley had been lying to them.
That was the only way to describe it afterward — the way it had held them in the first hour of the battle with the illusion that the thing was manageable, that strategy and will and the combined force of everyone who had shown up that morning was going to be enough. Kaelis's formations had held. Valaghar's people had pushed the eastern flank back twice. The Queen of Thalorien had moved through the battle with the systematic efficiency of someone executing a very detailed plan and finding the plan mostly accurate.
And then Westmar adjusted.
