Rant: How Big are These Armies?
I don't understand the how the final battle made any sense.
Disclaimer: I have a really bad memory problem and ,may be missing key details
How fucking big was Hybern's collective army? I feel incredibly mislead after the end of that book. Either Az is the worst goddamn spy ever conceived and/or the terrible power of these GODS OF DEATH as severely overestimated. ONE of the gods was supposed to be the ace in the hole or at LEAST the "oh shit" card. TWO was unexpected until the near the very end and THREE was somehow not enough to call these a Deus ex Machina. I just....huhh?? Did I miss something?
Good guys: Summer, Fall, Winter. (Day?) Night (Hewn and Illyeria as well), Humans. Elite Units: Three so called Gods, four Cauldron Made including Amren the God and a Seer, 4ish high lords, air superiority
Bad guys: Hybern, Rask, Vallahan, Montessere Elite Units: The Cauldron, The King. The high ground. The King's spellbook.
I can totally accept that I don't remember some key detail about why Az coudln't find the exact number of troops. That's....fine. But one of the best spies in the history of forever doesn't know that Hybern outnumbers you AND ALL YOUR ALLIES 10 to 1? Really? Even if he cant get into the city proper to notice every fighting aged male is gone, An army of that scale can't be hidden by all the glamours in the world once they move from an area. Even if you say that they didn't eat by foraging because their army was too big, even if you say that they slaughtered an island's worth of game animals to salt the meat to bring with them, even if you say they can magically produce good food out of nowhere... an army like that is like a dent in the Earth. Unless you leave an area glamoured every time you move you' going to leave a mark. Also, with an increasing number of men comes a higher probability of malcontents and idiots. Not a single soul was stupid enough to get captured taking a piss or was pissy enough to turn spy?
And don't even get me STARTED on battle tactics. "Both teams put up a shield and try to hold the other off". Ok.
The sheer elemental power of the high lords could have made this battle a cakewalk. If you can't cause a hurricane, or a snowstorm, at least whisk up the tiniest of fogs SO YOU AREN'T PELTED BY ARROWS.
P.S.
if I remember right, Cassian's "legion" of men, which included some of the best Illyrians ever known, was only 1 or 2000 men? Did I read that right? I suppose they're an elite force but damn that feels small.