Whitefall was very different from Goldenveil.
Considerably larger, the city had two thousand three hundred houses and a population that had swelled steadily throughout the winter, fueled by the forced integration of two vassal villages and the bloody spoils of dozens of raids on goblin camps.
Now, with so seven thousand souls cramd within its dark wooden walls, the winter had been, without a shadow of a doubt, brutal.
Unlike Goldenveil, where every citizen—man, woman, or child—had received a decent portion of food to get through the cold season, in Whitefall only n of fighting age and their families were entitled to regular als.
Won and children ate four tis a week, on minimal rations calculated to keep them alive and nothing more.
So elves, among the many rescued from the goblin camps Whitefall had purged, had even offered a form of nature magic capable of coaxing edible frost shoots from the frozen earth.
But they were ignored.
They were not recognized as citizens of Whitefall and, along with so dwarves, they themselves beca the al.
It was a terrible sight, and no one could protect them.
Alistair didn’t even care about the deaths of his human servants. Why would he care about the deaths of elves and dwarves?
So it was that the guard of Whitefall lived in perpetual war.
Even under blizzards that blinded the skies and froze the iron in their hands, they marched, attacked goblin camps, and died.
Over the winter, Whitefall had lost about a thousand soldiers. Only three hundred had fallen in battle. The rest had been claid by the cold.
The population would have exceeded ten thousand were it not for a leadership that literally treated its citizens as NPCs without minds of their own.
Alistair knew perfectly well that those people were not re ga NPCs. That simply didn’t bother him.
He filled the guards’ pockets with gold and made sure the soldiers’ families were well fed. As for those who had no mbers of fighting age, he simply didn’t give a damn.
He wanted to create a martial society where only the strong survived. That was his goal.
To him, those deaths rely cleared the weak from the board.
And so, with the end of winter, he found himself finally ready for war.
Whitefall had enough food to last the entire cold season, but Alistair had kept nearly all of it carefully sealed away.
At the first sign of the thaw, he could march on Goldenveil without wasting a single mont more to start his sumr campaigns.
With a steely gaze, he crossed the cold stone corridors of his mansion and stepped out into the courtyard beyond.
Behind him, mounted on tall stakes of dark wood, four skulls stood out against the pale sky.
The skulls of the other Golden Lords he had slain. Now little more than yellowed bones in the biting wind, hollow cavities where ambition once lay.
"From the day I arrived here," Alistair’s voice bood across the courtyard, his eyes sweeping over the soldiers lined up before him, "I have seen nothing but war, suffering, and blood. Today, every one of you—young warriors or hardened veterans—will march by my side. Not just for blood, death, or war."
He let the words hang for a heartbeat.
"Today, you march for glory!"
Four thousand n, ranging in age from fifteen to sixty, answered in unison with a thunderous battle cry.
Many were well-ard. But most were nothing more than peasants forced to wield spears for the guard, driven by little more than fear and, of course, religious fanaticism.
Alistair had always used his position as a Golden Lord to stoke the fervor of those dieval people, feeding them promises of eternal glory beneath the gaze of the god of war.
The first thing he had done upon arriving in Whitefall was build a church and find a priest willing to anoint him as envoy of the god of war.
As the soldiers cried out for the glory of Vaelor, Alistair smiled.
"Each of you will be entitled to a woman from Goldenveil. Don’t worry, those who fail to claim one for themselves will receive compensation in gold."
Stirring the greed of n already driven mad by religious fanaticism always worked. It didn’t take long for Alistair to see the excitent in those soldiers’ eyes burn even brighter.
Turning to one of his many third-stage warriors, Alistair ordered, "Get them ready to march. We leave in thirty minutes. The journey to Goldenveil should take a little less than two weeks, so we need to set out soon."
The third-stage warrior nodded in silence, then began barking orders. The n quickly fell into a disciplined formation on the muddy ground.
"Are you certain such a hasty attack is a good idea, my lord?" asked the captain of the Whitefall guard, a man at level one hundred and Alistair’s most loyal follower.
"It is necessary," Alistair replied without taking his eyes from the soldiers.
"My Master is already displeased with my delay in devouring more Golden Lords. We must reach Goldenveil as quickly as possible.
Besides, we have little to worry about. My mother has been reporting everything to from Goldenveil. She already has warriors under her command, and the gates have been sabotaged.
When we arrive, she’ll open them for us. Goldenveil’s guard is too small to hold out without the shelter of those walls."
Hearing this, the captain nodded gravely.
Passing him, Alistair fixed his gaze on one of the two mages who served him.
A thin man with deep-set eyes and a perpetually weary expression.
He stood at the peak of the third stage, with a high chance of becoming Whitefall’s first fourth-stage specialist.
Naturally, a subordinate of that caliber was extrely valuable to Alistair.
"Send a ssage to my mother. Tell her exactly which path we will take. She must use her influence over the Lord of Goldenveil to clear those roads and ensure we are not seen until it is too late for them to react," Alistair said, gripping the mage’s shoulders firmly.
"And don’t worry. When my mother returns, I’ll make sure she grants your request."
The mage flashed a wide, lust-filled smile at those words.
He had been promised one of the won of that damned Lord Goldenveil and, more importantly, a night with Alistair’s own mother.
Naturally, he was ecstatic, all the more eager now to reach Goldenveil.
Swearing loyalty to Alistair had been worth it.
He would give his all in that battle.
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