Chapter 67 - The Gate 7 assembly (1)

The morning of January 11th arrived with a cold that bit through even reinforced combat clothing, the kind of bitter chill that made exposed skin sting within seconds and turned breath into clouds of crystalline vapor. Zeph approached Northern Bastion's Gate 7 at exactly 0550 hours, giving himself a ten-minute buffer before the official assembly time. What greeted him was organized chaos on a scale he'd never witnessed before, a spectacle that made even the busiest market days in the city seem tranquil by comparison.