Chainfire: Chainfire Trilogy Part 1

"If you are to be truly free, then you must fight to put a stop to those who seek to extinguish freedom. If you are to be truly free, then you must be part of the cause to rid the world of the Imperial Order. The D'Haran Empire, the land I rule, is all that now stands against the Order." Richard slowly shook his head. "But alone, they have no chance to win. Once the D'Haran Empire falls, Emperor Jagang will be freed up from the effort of that war and he will then bring his full force to bear on any pockets of resistance to the Order's beliefs.

"At the head of his list will be Altur'Rang. This is his home city. He will not allow the black mark of freedom to stand against his devout beliefs. He will turn loose on you his most vicious fighters-the sons of the Old World. You will be isolated and gutted by Jagang's army of your fellow countrymen. You will die to a man, your male children will be murdered, and your wives and sisters and daughters will be used as rewards for the brutes who enforce the Order's authority."

The crowd stood in rapt silence. They were now in the grip of fear. This was not the brave and boastful talk they had expected to hear on the eve of battle.

Victor cleared his throat. "You are trying to tell us something, Richard?"

Richard nodded as he gazed out over the mule throng watching him from below the landing where ho stood. "Yes. I'm trying to tell you that you must do more than stand and defend yourselves when these men come. You can't win that kind of war. You must strike out at the Imperial Order and help bring them down."

Ishaq lifted a hand. "Bring them down? In what way?"

"As you all well know, life under the Order offers nothing but decay and ruin. There is little work, little food, little to look forward to — except the promise of glory in some afterworld life-but only in exchange for your selfless service in this one. The priests of the Fellowship of Order have nothing to offer you but misery, so they proclaim suffering a virtue and in exchange generously grant you extravagant, eternal rewards in some other world. Rewards that cannot be examined beforehand, rewards in a world that is unknowable, except, they claim, to them. Not one of you would be gullible enough to trade a dog for such hollow promises, and yet legions have been swindled into eagerly offering up their own lives, the only life they will ever have, in the unfair exchange.

"Jagang invokes the cause of the Creator, the fight for mankind's future, and the elimination of those with the gift as the noble reasons for the Old World to invade the New World. He tells his subjects that the people far away to the north are immoral heathens and, as a duty to the Creator, they must be struck down.

"In reality, Jagang is doing nothing more than producing a diversion to cover the widespread poverty and unemployment created by the Imperial Order's doctrines. A failed Old World of crushing poverty and widespread death is thus blamed on traitors among the people-that would be you —and on their supposedly wicked brethren to the north. Jagang gives hopeless young men an object of hatred upon which to extract revenge for their misery.

"In so doing, out of the ranks of the young men of the Old World, Jagang has created an army of zealots. You know yourselves the throngs of such young men who have departed from Altur'Rang to join the 'noble' cause. These men have little in life to look forward to and have grasped eagerly at the Order's teachings. Jagang has given them someone to blame for all their woes: those who don't submit to the teachings of the Order. These men have been indoctrinated in a culture of death and turned loose on those who have liberty, prosperity, and the most hateful thing of all, happiness. Most are well beyond reason or redemption.

"Fighting far from home, Jagang allows these savages to pillage and loot their way across the land, hoping they will forget the miserable future awaiting them back home. In the name of the Creator and the Order they slaughter all opposition and take vast territory as their own. With their great numbers they vanquish all who go up against them. They terrorize everyone in their path. The panic of waiting for the murdering horde to arrive is too much for many, and in the hopes of being spared the worst of what Jagang's men would do, some places surrender and petition to join the cause of the Imperial Order."

"You are saying it is hopeless to fight them?" someone asked into the tense evening silence.

"I am telling you the true nature of what we all face," Richard said. "But it does not have to be hopeless if you understand the essence of the fight.