As with an uncoiling snake beginning to crawl, that head began to move before the tail. Rollant’s company was somewhere near the middle. He breathed the dust the men ahead of him kicked up marching along the dirt road, and his feet and his comrades’ raised more dust for the men behind them. His toes wiggled inside his stout marching boots. He’d rarely worn boots, or shoes of any kind, on Baron Ormerod’s estate near Karlsburg.

Through the haze of reddish dust, Sentry Peak punctuated the skyline to the northwest. Most of the countryside hereabouts was pretty flat; were it otherwise, Sentry Peak would have been named Sentry Knob or some such, or perhaps wouldn’t have been named at all. Rising Rock lay by the foot of the mountain. West of Rising Rock swelled the lower elevation of Proselytizers’ Rise, named after the bold souls who’d preached about their gods when Detina was first being colonized from the west. Rollant’s early relatives hadn’t cared to listen; they’d had gods of their own, and the proselytizers had got no farther than the rise.

Rollant knew the names of the gods his forefathers had worshiped, and some of their attributes. He believed in them, but didn’t worship them himself. The settlers’ gods had proved themselves stronger.

And so has our southron army, he thought. Most of the war had been fought in the traitors’ lands. They’d mounted a couple of invasions of the south, but had been beaten back each time. When Rising Rock fell, they’d be driven out of Franklin altogether. Rollant’s hands tightened on the crossbow he carried. He wanted the northern nobles to pay for everything they’d done.

Where was his own liege lord? Somewhere in one of Geoffrey’s armies-Rollant was sure of that. Baron Ormerod wouldn’t be a great marshal; he hadn’t owned estates wide enough for that, and he was no mighty mage. But he was convinced the gods said he had the right to keep serfs on the land whether they wanted to stay there or not.