Paladin 4: Chapter 19 (Patreon)

Darren spent the rest of the day rushing around the various castles and preparing. The regular soldiers needed to be updated in person. Getting those within his sigil network was far easier. All he had to do was send out a quest.

New Quest Available!

Invade Whiteguard (Unknown difficulty)

Join the offensive force at the rallying points along the Northern and Eastern borders!

The only thing Darren regretted was that the quest he sent would be the first notification Thalia got that her armies were headed to war. He needed to return to the capital to fill her in.

“It’s your empire too, Darren,” Thalia shrugged. “And while I’ve been running civil matters, I’ll be the first to admit our military wouldn’t even exist without you. I leave it all in your capable hands. If you think a preemptive strike is the way to go, then that is what we will do.”

“It is the only path left to us.” Sasha nodded. “They’ve closed their borders to us and, by all intents, have turned extremely hostile, taking no effort to reassure or make diplomatic overtures. Our spies failed, and now our special operations have failed as well. We can only assume the worst. Whiteguard may be summoning a world-ending catastrophe that will destroy the entity of the Sacred Seas. Perhaps they’re calling up the Lady of Darkness from the depths of the Seventh Hell.”

Darren doubted that since he’d met Laura in person. Even if she wasn’t bound by treaty to stay where she was, he doubted she’d muster the energy to leave her home. She seemed content to spend her days napping and fooling around in her workshop.

“And don’t think you can conquer and pillage without us!” Morgana grinned. “I’m coming with you.”

“We all are,” Cassandra said. “I noticed you sent that quest out as soon as Callum failed to return. He’s your friend, but he’s my nephew. I’ve got to look after him.”

“If Kalaziel shows himself--“ Darren began, but Cassandra wrapped her arms around his waist.

“If Kalaziel shows himself, then we know only you can hope to fight him. But that doesn’t mean we can’t help you fight him! You’ll have every boost in my arsenal.”

“And we’ll make sure none of his goons gets in your way!” Asuriel placed her hands on her hips. “I remember you fought Captain <Note: Look up the captain seraph guy from book 2> to a standstill! Now that I’m at the fifth order, I bet I can fight him too!”

Darren smiled. “Thank you all. I’ll be counting on you.”

News of the war with Whiteguard was met with enthusiastic approval from most of the populace. It was common knowledge by now that Whiteguard had killed the emperor and paraded his corpse through the palace as their puppet.

Then, they’d used that position to send in Sinful Servants around the countryside, rounding up entire villages and dragging them to Hell as trade goods to be sold to demons. Half the riots Thalia had spent so much time quelling had been demanding war with Whiteguard already. The people’s rage hadn’t quelled until she started recruiting the most rambunctious of the rioters into the army.

In short, the Blackwind Empire already had all the justification they needed to enter a state of total war. And with Limedeep, the Northern Trade Union, and now the remnants of the Eastwood Kingdom all backing them, Darren had put together what was likely the greatest army the Sacred Seas had seen in generations.

Four grand armies amassed along the borders of Whiteguard, along with a fleet of warships lining their coast. Quite a few of the ships in Cassandra’s merchant fleet were equipped for battle, and those ships were now on the front lines.

Thalia couldn’t fly, so she stayed behind in the capital to manage things in Darren’s absence and direct maintenance and supply for what was likely to be a long and grueling campaign. The fortresses of Whiteguard were famous for being impregnable, and their armies were nearly as vast as Blackwind’s, despite being a much smaller kingdom compared to their imperial neighbor.

But Darren and his warriors were prepared for a tough campaign. They would not break, and they would not yield. This war might take years of fighting, but when the Sacred Seas could never know peace so long as Whiteguard was under the thumb of the Order of the Rod and a puppet to Kalaziel’s schemes.

At Cassandra’s insistence, Darren gave a speech. She had something long-winded prepared for him, but Darren stuck to the main point of it all. This was a time for action, not words.

“What we do now, we do for the good of all men and women of the Sacred Seas!” Darren shouted, raising Melancholy high.

“War!”

“Crush the Order of the Rod!”

“Justice for the slain!”

“For the Emperor!”

The shouts echoed up and down the coast, and the cacophony might have been audible from all the way back home in Limedeep.

Darren pointed Melancholy forward. “March!”

Those who had reached the fourth order took to the air, scouring the skies for incoming threats from the heavens. The scouts had left by horseback an hour ago and would report back as soon as they saw signs of Whiteguard’s forces. Cassandra had used her Psychic Link ability so she, Darren, Asuriel, and Sasha were all connected and could relay information the instant they learned of it. That would keep all four armies up to date, and the instant one of them was attacked, all of them would know.

With that, the army marched. The scouts didn’t report back, which had Darren worried enough that his generals sent out a second batch of scouts.

Those scouts did return, and they told him what had happened to the first batch of scouts.

Absolutely nothing. Their orders were to turn back and report the moment they saw nothing. And so far, they’d run into nothing worth noting.

Soon, Darren’s army came across the first of Whiteguard’s fortresses. This one was a small border outpost built centuries ago when Whiteguard was worried about the growing Blackwind Empire trying to add them to their fledgling empire.

The two nations had fought a few hectic border skirmishes, during which Blackwind learned the paladins of Whiteguard were good for more than just slaying demons. Immense strength made them useful not only as killing machines that dominated the battlefield, but as a labor force that could assemble castles in weeks instead of years.

But now, this outpost stood empty, as did all its sisters. Not a soul stood on their ramparts. The weapons were gone, but the larders were still full, as though the people in them had left in a hurry and taken only what they could carry.

[What is going on here?] Darren wondered, sending his thoughts to Cassandra and Sasha. They both sent back similarly confused feelings in reply. None of the four armies had encountered any resistance at all. It was like the Order of the Rod wasn’t even planning on defending Whiteguard at all, just like Eastwood and the Northern Trade Union.

But that couldn’t be true. Why would they surrender the nation they had the strongest hold over without a fight? It made little sense.

Darren had to know, and so he pressed on. The trip would have taken him a few minutes on his own at most, but he was still wary of an ambush from Kalaziel. He hid among the paladins of his army, unremarkable, under cover of his Cloak of the Mysterious Hero.

“Shall we seize control of the castles? They would make good forward bases,” the general asked Darren. Darren had intentionally excluded him from the effects of his cloak so he could still get orders out.

Darren nodded to the general, and soon the Blackwind Empire’s men were swarming over the abandoned castles. Darren wasn’t the only one suspicious of such a ripe and vulnerable offering, so they were being extremely careful. There were a few boobie traps left behind, like a pitfall here or a precariously dangling sword suspended on a string there. But they seemed disorganized, like they were a few artifacts of spite. The Order of the Rod had prepared no large-scale surprises for them, just a few angry individuals unwilling to yield their fortress without a fight.

[Nobody’s here, Darren! This is weird...] Asuriel thought through Cassandra’s Psychic link.

[It’s the same here as well,] Darren replied.

Sasha and Cassandra made their confusion known as well. Not one of them had encountered any appreciable resistance so far.

They soon came across the farming and ranching villages closest to the border. The villages seemed oddly empty, like half their number were left behind. Animals wandered the fields unattended, and a few heard dogs mewling at empty rocking chairs.

Darren could stand this mystery no longer. It took his army a few minutes to restore order to the village. They’d been caught completely unaware. Being civilians, they didn’t spot the army headed for their village until Blackwind boots were already stomping through their streets. A few tried to run, and Darren let them go. They captured this village without a fight, so they planned to make it a bloodless victory.

When the villagers calmed down, Darren grabbed one of them. She was a woman with her hair tied back, and while the others struggled and tried to put up a futile fight against the army that outnumbered them ten to one, she merely continued churning her butter. She seemed calm enough to answer a few questions.

“This village seems empty,” Darren began.

“Aye. That would be the pilgrimage. A visiting priest stopped by our branch of the Golden Temple and told everyone that all true believers needed to head to Watershed, the nearest town. All the paladins were going too. Looks like they left the castles completely empty while they were at it if you folks are here,” the woman shook her head in distaste. “Whatcha’ going to do with us? Pillage and enslave the lot of us?”

“No. Continue your lives as normal. Whiteguard or Blackwind, you will feel little difference,” Darren replied.

Other villagers gave a similar story. The villages had emptied out sometime over the past few weeks. Yesterday’s holiday had been a muted affair, with all the zealots making a pilgrimage into town. No wonder Darren had seen so little activity from Whiteguard.

Sasha, Asuriel, and Cassandra reported similar results, so this wasn’t something confined to one region of Whiteguard. Half the nation’s population had headed to the nearest large town. But why?

He didn’t know, but he suspected he would soon find out.

Darren diverted his army, weaving deeper into Whiteguard. Still, they encountered no resistance. Soon, they came across the first real settlement. The town of Watershed was large enough that it would have been considered a city in any other nation. Only in Whiteguard would the locals call it a town, for their true cities were each urban metropolis that rivaled the Blackwind Empire’s capital.

There was no one on the walls, just like in the castles. Darren went ahead with a squadron of paladins, appearing unremarkable beneath his cloak and hidden in their midst. The moment they entered, they froze with horror.

There was no ambush. No battle to be fought. But Darren wished there had been.

The streets were lined with bodies. They sagged against windows or lay in the middle of the cobblestones as though they’d collapsed as one right where they stood. The women wore flowers in their hair and elegant gowns, and the men wore neat white suits. Everyone was dressed their best for the festival the previous day, and from the looks of things, they’d died midway through the party.

“By the heavens, what happened here?” A paladin off to Darren’s left gasped.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Darren replied.

There were a few murmurs of agreement.

“We should investigate,” Darren ordered. He wasn’t disguised as someone in command, but the others saw sense in this and heeded his words.

Grim as the sight was, the paladins with him were fighting men and women. Many of them had spent time as captives in Hell, and those who hadn’t had certainly seen action there freeing the rest. Everyone present was a blooded veteran, and they didn’t shy at the sight of a few bodies.

“They must have drunk some kind of poison.” The paladin Darren had been speaking to shook his head in sadness as he ran his hands along the cold and clammy body of a young woman. “There isn’t a wound anywhere on her.”

“But I see plenty of ale mugs. Perhaps the poison was mixed with the drinks?” Another suggested.

Darren found the drinks, and when he targeted them with his identification skill, he found that, sure enough, the drinks were poisoned.

Heavenly Soulflight Poison (Rare)

This poison loosens the bonds between the mortal body and the soul, setting the soul free and consigning the mortal body to decay. The poison injects the soul with a modest quantity of Divine Aura, improving soul stability after death.

Everyone around him must have drunk the poison. Men, women, children, all of them lay dead around him. Now that he knew what to look for, he realized there was something strange about the area. With this many humans dead, the Divine and Demonic Aura in the area should have been running rampant. It should feel as thick as ink on his body.

The Demonic Aura was there, sure enough. With this many dead and no Divine Aura to counter it, Darren wouldn’t be surprised if imps, felbeasts, and other minor demons began manifesting right out of the air. But that the Divine Aura was gone could only mean one thing. He stood abruptly, eyes looking toward the sky.

“What? You figured something out. I sense it!” One of the other paladins asked Darren.

“I know what happened here,” Darren said.

The others turned toward him, listening with rapt attention.

Darren turned to them, voice grim. “They were harvested.”


<Note>

Looks like Kalaziel gave up on the mortal world completely! He must need the manpower for something really important up in the heavens!