They had not been free. They had merely bowed their heads before different and darker gods. And there had been rulers then too, priests and kings. There would always be rulers and ruled, rich and poor. There always had been. There always would.

It is the way of the world, he thought. God likes order. He likes hierarchy. Only fools believed the Liberator would come and that men would be free. But there had been progress, another part of him argued. The Schism had ended most forms of serfdom in the Scarlet Realms. Men did have a voice in the councils of the great, albeit not a very loud one. The Queen had guaranteed the property rights of humans. Some humans had even become rich working in trade. Lickspittles and toadies, the lot of them, he thought sourly.

The signal to halt interrupted his reverie. The wyrms stopped. It seemed like they had arrived wherever they were supposed to go.

 

They stood to attention in the watery late afternoon sunlight and waited for the Lieutenant to explain the plan.

“Now, men,” Sardec said. Again, he made the word sound like it was the worst possible insult. “We have business.”

A bridgeback gave out a rumbling belch. Sardec glared at it as if he was going to order the beast flogged. Nobody laughed. The Lieutenant walked up and down the line, his hands behind his back. He paused in front of Rik and looked almost disappointed to see all the requisite buttons present on his tunic. The wizard looked on behind Sardec, his silver-masked head cocked to one side, conveying an air of patronising amusement.

Vosh, the mountain man, looked nervous as Rik supposed he had every reason to be. He would have a whole lot of upset kinfolk down on him if he were spotted with the Terrarch’s soldiery.

The Foragers were keen to hear exactly why they had been dragged up these God-benighted, freezing mountains. They were even keener to know when they would get the business over and get out again.

“We know bandits have based themselves up here. We know they have eluded you for some time,” Sardec said. That you was a nice touch, Rik thought. It showed that their Terrarch leaders had nothing to do with the failures of mere humans. It told them that things were going to go differently now one of the Lords of Creation had taken a hand. “We know also they have made a pact with a sorcerer of the darkest type.”

He paused to give that time to sink in. Rik saw several men go pale and not a few shudder.