Halgard

The fortress in the pass — and Agilaz’s seat on the border.

Halgard is the strong place of the frontier: an ancient fortress city raised where the empire’s one great highway threads the single pass through the Spine. Whoever holds Halgard holds the throat of the whole region — every army, caravan, and courier between Talins and Severni Mars must come through its gates or take the long way around, and there is no good long way around.

Where Talinsthorpe is a port grown rich on trade, Halgard is a garrison grown old on war. Its walls are layered with the work of centuries; its lower town clings to the slopes beneath a citadel that has never been taken by storm. The people are hard, used to soldiers, and used to changing banners when the banners change.

On this frontier it is the seat of the Order of Agilaz and home to an Agilaz Order House, where the order arms its knights and stages the swift raids that are its trademark. From Halgard, Agilaz’s proxies press south and west into ground that Talins calls its own.

For a company, Halgard is the hinge of every highland campaign: take it, hold it, relieve it, or cut the road beneath it — and the war on the border turns.