Annika followed in Orion's wake as the approached the city. The ranks swelled as neighbors ran ahead to warn their kin and friends until the column of civilians stretched out and was lost to sight in the trees behind them. The forrest grew thinner and more cultivated as they walked 
 and the rough trail grew into a true road.  At length the gleaming walls of Tolth came into view and many of the peasants, having never traveled so far gasped at the size and beauty of the place. The walls of Tolth were of a white material that resembled marble. It wasn't truely a stone, but rather a ceramic that had been cast by the Engineers of the Second Republic. Despite years of war and weather they remained as pristine and unmarked as they day they had been cast. Annika wondered what it must be like for the peasants following them, to know that the slim margin of their existence was, probably even now, being ransacked and destroyed by Vuldrock raiders. What wasnt consumed would be carried off or torched, and they would return to land stripped bare of generations of work. She glanced sidelong at Ragnar who seemed perfectly at ease with the situation. Perhaps such things were natural and proper within his world view.

"Hold!" shouted a guard as they came insight of the walls, his voice tinny and distorted through a loud hailer. Orion halted and the colum slowed to a stop also. Minutes rolled by in silence save for the muttering of peasants and the clink of metal on the walls. Annika could well imagine the captain of the watch being roused, and then consulting his superiors in turn. At last one of the vast gates began to grind open and a file of soldiers tramped out, each wearing the livery of Rochfort and carrying automatic rifles at high port. In the middle of the group was a nobleman of indifferent merit who looked as though he had just been roused from his bed.

"What is the meaning of this," he called more or less in Orion's direction.