The rugged dirt road plunged steeply into the shadow of the southern crags, leading toward a massive, soot-stained timber palisade that choked the entrance to the Sixth Region.
Known throughout the borderlands as the Ironwood Gate, the imposing fortification was flanked by weathered stone watchtowers and spiked barricades.
In the wide, unpaved registry square before the gates, a long, miserable queue of traveling peddlers, impoverished farmers, and weary refugees stretched across the churned mud.
Sullen mountain drizzle began to fall from the dark gray clouds, soaking through the threadbare cloaks of commoners who waited in line for hours.
To the left of the banded gates stood a large timber building that once served as a public apothecary, its clinic door secured with chains and rusted padlocks.
A weathered timber board nailed across the clinic door read: Property of Lord Garrow, emergency treatments fifty silver crowns per visit, strictly no charity.
