### 2

You look upon the city of Tahou from the balcony of a tall tower, the spire of the Thalis Temple, situated at the heart of the Rainbow Park. It is noon, but there is no brightness in this day, for a grey blanket of smoke covers the sky. Below you lies a shattered city, its once proud buildings now seething infernos, its streets and squares choked with rubble. Hasty defences have been constructed where the city wall is holed or fallen, and the battlements to the north and east are covered with unburied dead.

Beyond the wall, the flats lie shrouded in a mist that curls like the smoke of a thousand campfires. Its thickness is unnatural and you sense at once that it has been conjured to hide the enemy. You leave the tower and make your own way through the burning streets towards the West District, where the fighting at the wall is fiercest. You pass the smouldering ruins of the Anarium and take a fire-swept street that leads to the West Gate. A building at the end of this street is being used as a shelter for the wounded. The roof has caught fire and a handful of soldiers are trying desperately to evacuate the wounded before it collapses.

If you wish to help these soldiers, turn to 342.

If you wish to continue towards the West Gate, turn to 179.