The wind and snow grew fiercer. Gale-force winds swept up goose-feather snowflakes and howled as they lashed against the icy city bricks and the frost-stiffened faces of the garrison soldiers, producing a heart-chilling whimper.
The world was a vast expanse of white, visibility pitifully low; beyond ten paces, nothing could be clearly seen.
The oil lamps hanging from the walls swayed violently in the gale, their light twisting and flickering, stretching the patrolling soldiers' shadows into grotesque, shifting specters and lending the scene an added air of ill omen.
The garrison soldiers hunched their necks and cursed this damned weather, along with the rebel army outside the city that was like a fishbone stuck in their throats.
Only a very few could catch, amid this clamorous, freezing, seemingly ordinary snowy night, a trace of something unusual—a heart-stirring scent of rust and blood.
Inside the west gate tower, Garrison Commander Blaise sat on pins and needles.
He was around forty, with dark, rough skin and a powerfully built frame. He wore a heavy suit of standard iron armor crusted with frost, and a Broad-bladed Longsword hung at his waist.
He was not a local, but came from the Northern Province. He had served on the border in his early years, and because of his fierce courage in battle, he had caught the eye of Fatis, who had still been a mid-ranking officer at the time. Fatis had taken him in as a confidant and promoted him step by step to this position.
At that moment, he paced restlessly through the narrow gate tower, where charcoal burned but the cold still cut to the bone. His boots struck the icy flagstones with heavy, monotonous echoes, stirring the tension frozen in the air.
Several times, he walked to the embrasure and peered out