The Paladin Order Reformed 39 Arrived

Jake and I walked into the small cluttered office, McClellan was hunched over a weathered desk scanning over a mound of parchment. Jake and I sat in a pair of mismatched chairs in front of him.

With a tired expression, McClellan stopped scanning to look up at us.

"So get to jaw'n, I want to know about the rest of the Order. Tell me, whats happened."

I gave him the general synopsis of the events that's taken place, I tell him about the Forsaken Order's hostile take over and the demon armies recent advances. His tired expression grows wearier with every word, when I finished his expression was a somber one.

"So we're f.e.c.ked? Great, b.l.o.o.d.y great. We had a good run I suppose, I figur'd it would be the demons that did us in. I never expected those fanatic loonies to be the end of us, maybe we shouldn't have had that much pow'r over the other kingdoms. Fix one problem and make two others I suppose." He states seemingly defeated.

I a.s.sume he's referring to the Paladin Order being the intermediary between the kingdoms to keep them from more civil wars. I guess he's right, we held too much power without someone to regulate us. Now that the Forsaken Order has forcibly replaced the Paladin Order and now we don't have any way to stop them. The kingdoms won't be able to help us.

That's an a.s.sumption of course, I don't have enough information about the rest of the kingdoms, but I don't have any other explanation. Think, what would you do if I were to enact a coup?

I guess I would first slowly integrate loyal troops within whatever I'm trying to overthrow, done.

Second I would strike simultaneously to create confusion, then I would prioritize keeping information limited by controlling the headquarters or the information hubs, again, they have that one covered.

The next thing I would do is.... well probably expand my sphere of influence. If you only took over the Paladin Order, then what's there to stop the other countries from coming together to eliminate you entirely?

So I would probably have at least one or two countries as my ally to discourage the other ones from intervening.

As we know, the demon army is already allied with the Forsaken Order, but what have they offered them in order to gain that support? I guess it wouldn't take much to get the demon army to fight against the Paladin Order, but still, there has to be a reason for them to be fighting someone else's battle for them.

They could always be offering land, but I doubt a power-hungry organization like the Forsaken Order would peacefully coexist with demons. I'm drawing blanks, I don't know enough information to take a guess at their motives, but back to the kingdoms.

Right now the Lord's Union is under demonic occupation, so I imagine that its king isn't allied with the Forsaken Order. I don't think he's able to do much against them anyway, or the demons since their armies are commanded by ex Paladin Order Knights. I don't know if there are any more battalions being led by a Knight of the Paladin Order, but I imagine that the higher commanding officers were the first to be recruited or replaced.

All of this meaning, that even if a kingdom wants to retaliate, they probably lack the resources and authority to do so. I imagine that if a country were able to regain some of its military, then they would still have to contend with the Forsaken, the Demon army, and any other country possibly subjugated by or allied with the Forsaken Order. That's mostly speculation, but it seems to be the most likely reason for there not to be a retaliation yet.

I run my speculations by McClellan, his dark expression barely changes as I elaborate, but he does listen intently.

"So yer say'n that we're seriously on our own? There's no one go'n to help us, at all?" I shook my head, but said skeptically.

"I don't know if that's true, it's just what I thought would be most likely given their moves so far. I could be completely wrong, but for right now we have to a.s.sume that no one is coming to our rescue."

McClellan slumps deeper into his chair, gazing into nothing with hopeless eyes. I try and give him some hope by proposing a plan I developed when I failed to sleep last night.

"It's not yet over, we have over a thousand troops protecting whats left of Hampton, hopefully, with more on the way. It's probably the most protected Paladin stronghold in the Union right now, I was thinking of collecting the remaining Paladin Knights, if we can create a large enough force, then we'll be able to establish ourselves apart from the Forsaken Order. We can then spread the word of our opposition and inspire surviving Paladin Knights to gather under our banner." I exclaim that puts some fire back into McClellan's eyes.

McClellan slams his fist on the table and jumps out of his seat yelling excitedly. "Yes! Sone you've done it now, you've gone and give'n me hope again. You've got my men, that's b.l.o.o.d.y right! Were going ta show those Forsaken Order b.a.s.t.a.r.ds why you don't f.e.c.k with Paladin Knights!"

McClellan jumps excitedly around the room, while kicking his feet in some kind of dance. I smile at his enthusiasm, then explain the rest of the plan.

"I'm going to visit all Paladin Order strongholds on the way to the capital, I want you to stay here. If I find anyone at the strongholds, then I'll try and persuade them to come here. Once you have a sizable force, or enough people to travel safely, then I want you to travel to Hampton to reinforce them. If you can, try and send men to any other strongholds not on the route to the capital. We need to ama.s.s as many people as we can, we're making an army."

I hammer out the rest of the details with McClellan before Jake and I continue on our journey to the capital. We make several deviations that add more time to our trip, but the farther north we go, the more standing Paladin strongholds we find. Some of them declined my offers, but many of them understood the Forsaken don't just threaten their towns but the existence of the Paladin Order itself.

Many strongholds were abandoned, many towns were turned into ghost towns, but a force that opposed the Forsaken was growing. I'd say there were at least 1000 Paladin Knights that answered our call, that's not counting the droves of citizens that accompanied them. I told the last caravan of Paladin Knights we encountered before we arrived at the capital to tell McClellan to travel if he hasn't already.

I understand this will make most of the north more vulnerable, but if we defeat the demons before they can push any further, then that won't really matter. Anyway, a two-sided war is a hard war to win.

After more than a month of traveling, recruiting, and camping under the open stars, we crested a small hill before we were awestruck by the beautiful scenery awaiting us. The setting sun gleamed across the rivers surrounding its outer walls. Wheat planted by alongside the tributaries ran in every direction, the setting sun cast a golden light over the endless wheat fields surrounding a sprawling city with marble castles, contained only by its impenetrable walls.

I glanced over at Jake and said with exhaustion, but enthusiasm. "We made it."