Chapter 26 - The Introduction of Mops
The High Passes of The Empire of Man was not a particularly dangerous place. Relatively speaking. For a given value of ‘safe’.
The region known as the High Passes lay along the slopes of the Five Sisters or Five Peaks as the mountains which split the continent were called. Which wouldn’t have meant much except that the Imperial Eagle Riders, the order of Knights who rode giant sentient ice eagles, made their Aerie below the glacier atop the central mountain.
Their regular patrols of the large trade road that linked the Northern and Southern ends of the continent kept the one route North-South safe for travelers and clear of monsters. The barren upper reaches of the pass, where the forests stopped growing were also well-hunted by the eagles and thereby ‘patrolled’. So, the rocky slopes and ridges between were ‘safe’ for a given value of safe, wherever there were no trees.