but the officers all carried well-made weapons forged of quality steel. When he realized the significance of their weapons, that they served as an indication of rank, he made sure everyone passing by got a good look at his war axe.
It took most of the morning to reach the outskirts of the army encampment. A few sentries tried to question them but they were dissuaded by Anatoly’s deliberate aggressiveness.
Rather than accept their challenge, he demanded to see their weapon or armor, inspecting it as a superior officer would, berating them for their lack of attention to detail and ordering them to repair whatever defects, imagined or real, that he happened to find.
He strode through the encampment like he was the commanding general and his demeanor was enough to cause most soldiers to look the other way or quickly attend to whatever task was at hand.
When they rounded a corner and caught their first glimpse of Whitehall, the enormous white marble fortress that stood in the center of the city, they came face to face with an officer dressed in polished white armor and armed with a spear of such craftsmanship that Anatoly was actually impressed.
To the officer’s right was a woman who didn’t look quite human. Her skin was tinged blue and almost looked scaled, her eyes were catlike and her fingernails had grown into talons.
To the officer’s left was a man armed with a finely crafted sword and a shield formed from a dragon’s scale.
“You there,” the officer said, pointing his spear at Anatoly. “What’s your name?”
Anatoly stepped forward, Magda began muttering under her breath. “Who are you to question me?” Anatoly barked, facing off with the man.
“I am General Kergen, commander of Lord Zuhl’s army, and I know all of my senior officers by name. You are not among them, yet you carry a weapon of rank … so I ask again, who are you?”
In a blink, Anatoly leveraged the axe off his shoulder and brought it down in a powerful stroke aimed at splitting Kergen’s head in half, but the general shifted sideways just enough that Anatoly’s axe came down on his shoulder plate instead, driving the man to the ground with the force of the blow but not even denting the armor protecting Zuhl’s commanding general. Anatoly kicked him full in the face, sending him toppling over backward, blood spraying across the ground.
The second officer raised his shield and drew his sword in one fluid motion, rushing Anatoly, slamming him with his shield and knocking him off balance. He pressed his advantage with a powerful sword thrust, driving his blade into Anatoly’s breastplate hard enough to penetrate even the most finely crafted steel armor, but the dragon-plate held.
Magda’s shield spell encircled her with protective force and she began casting another.
“Flee, Priestess!” the second officer shouted as he squared off with Anatoly, who had regained his balance and had raised his axe into a high guard.
The woman with blue-tinged skin released her spell. The air grew cold and still, then a thick wall of ice grew rapidly from the ground, completely encircling both General Kergen and the woman.
Magda released her spell, a simple force-push that sent the man facing Anatoly flying to the ground.
A dozen or so nearby soldiers had noticed the fight and were coming to assist their commander.
“Time to go,” Magda said.
Anatoly looked at the man sprawled on the ground, then at the onrushing soldiers and clenched his jaw as he nodded to Magda and turned toward the city.
They fled into the cover of the sprawling mass of poorly constructed homes and shops. The capital city of Zuhl was a study in contrasts. Most of the people lived in squalor, surviving just on the edge of desperation in the city’s outer slums. Their homes were inadequate to the climate, cobbled together from stone or scraps of wood, animal pelts filling the gaps and serving as doors. Yet in the center of the city stood Whitehall, a magnificent fortress castle fashioned from polished white marble, its soaring towers capped in gold leaf, each flying Zuhl’s banner, flapping in the wind.
Anatoly and Magda wove through the city evading their pursuers. Most of the people they encountered were women, children, or the elderly. Every man capable of wielding a weapon had been pressed into service, leaving the most vulnerable of their society to fend for themselves in the face of a harsh environment and a scarcity of food. The people of the city were cowed, dispirited, and afraid.