This is the first chapter of the novel. Above the mountains shone a brilliant sun, casting its rays across an azure sky. There is considerable trade up and down the road, for the Iscabalian Way is the most direct route from Urf Durfal to Ishkabibble, and the Biddleburg Pass, toward which it rises, the most convenient traverse across the Dzorzian Range. And the riders, diverse lot though they were, were clad as merchants might be clad. Oh, not the bare-chested barbarian, to be sure, but it was usual for merchants to hire guards of one kind or another, in these unhappy times.
Merchants habitually travel with armed guardians.
It would have taken close inspection to shake the initial impression. It is well, therefore, that our observers, whatever their other characteristics, were neither as keen-eyed nor as questioning as they might have been. Fleecy clouds floated lazily across an azure sky. Mighty firs rose from either side of the road, limbs stretching outward as if to catch the benison of the sun. The air was cool, the breeze a gentle one.