One day, Sabithe woke up and realised there were more templars wearing swords. It was a right that templars — not priests — had, but with the exception of templar guards and soldiers, few rarely exercised. Sabithe looked on as the people of Salvation's respect for the Assembly turned from awe to fear. The sermons of Melovar Aspen, Primate of the Assembly of Templars, changed.

Before, the Primate had preached the maintenance of peace, even at the detriment of those such as the people of Petrya, who lived under oppressive leaders, or Tingara, who valued wealth too much, and life too little.

At the time, Sabithe had understood the Primate's argument. Change came about with time, and in this troubled age the inhabitants of the Tingaran Empire were still living better than their fathers. It might take time, but the world would get there. Picking up a sword could be justified, but only the most extreme of circumstances called for war. An uneasy peace was better than no peace at all. This was logic Sabithe could agree with.

Then the Primate's words changed.

Melovar Aspen began to speak out more against the great wealth divide in Tingara, particularly in Seranthia, where the poor were rounded up and cast out of the city, sometimes from the towering heights of the Wall, the bodies forming little holes in the dust when they hit the ground.

He raved at the terrible weapons the Alturan enchanters made, fit only for war, and the exploding devices of the Louan artificers. He spoke of an eventual end to the houses, of a new world of unity, without lore, without borders, without tyrannical High Lords and an economy based on essence. At first, Sabithe agreed, such problems needed to be spoken out against, but then he saw the meaning inside the Primate's words.

The Primate wanted to change the world, and he didn't mean to wait. He wanted to change it now.

Sabithe knew what the words meant. There was only one way to bring about such wholesale change.

War.

When he heard about the absorption of Raj Torakon into Raj Tingara, Sabithe knew it had begun. The lightning fast attack through Loua Louna only confirmed it. He heard about the depredations of the Black Army in Halaran, and the butchery at the Battle for Ralanast that the templars were calling a great victory.

All in the name of the Evermen.

When he heard about the intentional destruction of the Bridge of Sutanesta, the only escape route to Altura, and the Black Army's pinning of the refugees against the Sarsen, Sabithe wept.

Many escaped that day, thank the Evermen, but there were many who didn't: helpless people, ordinary people, not only from Halaran but from Torakon and from Loua Louna. Children with their mothers, husbands with their wives, the elderly and the infantile; they all died together.

Sabithe decided it was time to pick up a sword.