After Duke Thierry Cortot de Arceneaux failed to kidnap the Princess, he fled his estate in the capital and returned to his own land, which he mobilized in open rebellion. The Duke had a great many friends and control over some of the Atrein Kingdom’s most fertile and productive lands, and so his rebellion presented a serious threat. As a result, the king acted most decisively, dispatching the Royal Knights to apprehend the Duke before he could gather an army.
It was a disaster.
The Atrein Kingdom had not fought a serious war in centuries. Its army had not been mustered in nearly as long. The knights of the border realms still gained experience hunting bandits and monsters the adventurers missed or declined to fight, but the Royal Knights? The ones responsible for the safest and most peaceful lands in the heart of the realm?
Half of them had never seen combat outside of annual training expeditions to the nearest dungeon. Or stopping the occasional tavern brawl.
Still, there were some standards for the Royal Knights. The sheer weight of levels and powerful gear should have been enough to punch straight through the Duke’s equally meager forces.
That is, if they were properly supported and competently led.
They were not.
The quartermasters had not had to prepare for a full mustering of the Royal Knights in their entire careers and so were woefully under-stocked and disorganized for the task. The General of the Royal Army, having about as much experience as his men, rode off long before said quartermasters had sorted the situation. Time was of the essence, after all. And the foul Duke had dared to lay his hands on the beloved princess. What was mere hunger in the face of the honor and resolve of the Royal Knights?
As it turns out, mere hunger was a great foe indeed.
They made great progress on the first day. And then came the first night. Without adequate rations or even sufficient tents, the knights spent many a long hour hungry and cold. At first they hadn’t even set up camp, for time was of the essence and they were to resume after the bare minimum rest. It was only as the lack of tents became clear and the men shivered in the night that someone came up with the idea of starting a fire. But the sun had long since set and even the most foolish among them knew better than to stumble about the forest at night in search of firewood. So they huddled against their horses and one another, piling into what tents they had to escape from the bitter cold.
Needless to say, they did not match the speed of the first day when they set out the following morning.
Over time, their pace slowed to a crawl as the men simply lacked the stamina to continue. The General was forced to requisition rations from the nearest towns and villages, a move which took even longer as no preparation had been done and no warning had been given to the folks in question. Folks who were not particularly happy or cooperative as a result.
The Royal courier system had long been a mess that no one had gotten around to fixing, so the knights couldn’t even report on their status, nor request additional supplies either from the capital or the local nobles. What messages they did manage to send arrived far too late to do any good.
And without an adequate road infrastructure or scout system, the Royal Knights got lost on more than one occasion as well. The sign posts had long since faded, so they had hardly an idea of their own progress.
And half the bridges they intended to cross had long since collapsed, since no one had checked on them in decades. Had they coordinated with the merchants or the locals they could have easily adjusted their route to the better maintained civilian paths, but time was of the essence! So they had relied on old military routes described in ancient maps from the Royal Library instead of taking the time to scout and consult.
And half the forts and outposts they were to stay at turned out either partially or completely abandoned. Turns out guards who aren’t remembered, supplied, or paid don’t end up staying around. One was even occupied by a bandit group that the Royal Knights had an embarrassing amount of trouble dislodging. It turns out the knights had not only forgotten rations, but even some of their own gear. There were far less enchanted blades and suits of armor than had been promised in the reports.
All in all…
Duke Thierry had all the time in the world to prepare for their arrival. His knights were equipped and organized. His allies contacted and arrived. His levies mustered and trained. His lands fully entrenched and fortified. His mercenaries hired and paid.
And it turns out Duke Thierry’s notorious laziness was actually an advantage. For he was a master of delegation, of finding someone who could handle the job for him and then ignoring all the details. And so the Duke did not implement any of his own half-hearted ideas for the defense, instead entrusting everything to a mercenary of ill-repute. Someone more bandit than soldier.
And therefore someone who had actual experience dealing with knights.
Despite all this, the knights were not doomed to failure. They still had advantages in levels, equipment, and mobility, and the morale of the rebel army was not particularly high. If they took their time, rested their weary bodies and scouted the situation, and then conducted targeted raids with hit and run tactics, they could have leveraged their advantages and picked apart the rebel army over time, defeating it in detail.
They did not do this.
Instead, they immediately charged head-on into the rebel army the moment they arrived. The General assumed the unruly rebels would simply break when faced with the full force of the Royal Knights. And had he arrived on time, he may have been correct.
But he had not.
And so it was the Royal Knights who broke instead.
Riders delirious from fatigue crashed their mounts straight into trenches and palisades they would have easily avoided in peak condition. Low level spears and arrows a disciplined and focused knight would have known he could ignore were now treated like deadly obstacles. Frightened peasants that would have broken and ran now fell back on their countless drills and training and stood in formation, encouraged by hardened mercenaries standing at their fore. And so the charge of the Royal Knights came to a screeching halt, unable to break the lines.
And then the Duke’s own knights began a counter charge.
The Royal Knights could not hold. They broke, and were routed. The General himself was captured, having fallen from his horse after stumbling into a ditch.
The rebel army's momentum surged. A crushing defeat seemed inevitable.
It was Princess Aurélie and her own personal knights who averted disaster. Everyone had been against the princess riding off to war. But she gave an impassioned speech, stating that since she had been the trigger for the conflict, it was her duty to see how it ended. That she and her knights were some of the highest levels among the Royal Castle lent additional weight to her arguments, and the (over)confident General had guaranteed her safety. The king decided that there would be no harm allowing her to observe, so long as she and her knights remained far from the battle.
That decision saved the kingdom.
Seeing that they could not escape easily (and perhaps a bit too eager to be forced into battle), Princess Aurélie organized her knights into a holding action, leading a counter charge into the pursuing rebels. Though small in number, Princess Aurélie’s personal knights were some of the most disciplined and highest level in the kingdom, having had to follow and protect their charge every time she ran off to some deadly dungeon. And the rebel forces, assuming the battle had already been won, had become scattered and disorganized, rushing off to pursue the fleeing knights and earn loot and glory. So the charge of the Princess caught them entirely off guard and unprepared.
It was a small victory.
But an important one.
The rebel forces, encountering unexpected resistance, temporarily abandoned their pursuit to regroup. The Royal Knights, seeing their opponent falter, regained their nerve and rallied to the Princess’s banner. Thus, the princess gathered the scattered knights back into a single unit, and led an orderly retreat from the field. By the time the rebel forces had reformed their lines, the remnants of the Royal Knights were well away.
They had lost, but they had avoided complete annihilation.
And so Princess Aurélie returned at the head of the remains of the Royal Knights. With a rebel army on her tail. The rebels’ morale had surged from their lopsided victory, the Princess’s heroics notwithstanding, and had leveraged their momentum into a dramatic counter invasion. While the king and the court nobles were still processing their shock at this unthinkable turn of events, the princess set about regrouping the knights and preparing the defense, calling upon the expertise of the border nobles who had told her many tales of the wild frontiers during her youth. With their aid, she managed to forge the Royal Knights and the emergency levies into a competent force, and halted the rebels’ deadly counterattack.
By the time the king had regained his senses, the princess had become the de facto commander of the army, and the linchpin of the entire kingdom’s defense.
And then, Princess Aurélie Laffitte de Atrein revealed she had found the holy sword. The church itself received a divine revelation declaring the Princess as a worthy wielder of the holy blade. The morale of the Royalist forces surged while the rebel soldiers deserted in droves.
And that was before the Princess wielded the sword in battle.
Princess Aurélie became an unstoppable force on the battlefield, both as a commander and a warrior. Knights and soldiers and mercenaries and plucky young peasants with adventure in their hearts rallied to her cause. The Royal training regime was discarded, hardened border knights taking up the task of keeping the recruits alive. Highways and bridges were rebuilt, storehouses refilled, and forts reclaimed to keep the frontlines stocked and supplied.
The Royal Army was reforged into a potent and deadly force, with the Hero Princess at its heart.
And so the rebellion faltered, until victory was achieved, and the Princess rode into the capital with the captured Duke Thierry in tow. Long would the bards sing of her deeds and of her glorious march towards the palace, where her beaming father awaited.
Of course, her sheer popularity made a great many people nervous, not least of all the nobles supporting the Crown Prince. They talked in hushed whispers of reinstating her engagement to the Sheik of Jedria, now that the danger had passed.
But hushed whispers were all they had.
She was the heart of the Royal Army. She had the support of the church and the friendship of the border nobles. And the king had always doted upon her, and had only agreed to the engagement under the most dire of circumstances. And Duke Thierry himself demonstrated the risks of moving against her, before all this had occurred.
Oh and she was the chosen hero, ordained by divine decree to wield the holy sword.
She was untouchable.
No…
She was Atrien, in all but name. She had held the shattered kingdom together by force of will and strength of arm. She forged a mighty army, restored lost glory and crumbling infrastructure, and brought grand victories. She had the support of the ruling powers, the loyalty of the army, and the love of the people.
It was at this time that the Dark Lord finally invaded. Word had reached him of Atrien’s discord, of the humiliating failure of the Royal Knights. Of the failed alliance with Jedria, of Atrien’s isolation. His opponent had grown weak, and ripe for the taking. So he accelerated his plans.
A fell host, filled with all manner of beast and monster and evil races crashed down upon the border provinces like an ocean tide against stone dikes.
And was promptly halted.
The Royal Army had set off immediately, forewarning of the invasion reaching the capital quickly on the reorganized courier system. They made great pace on the rebuilt network of highways and forts, well supplied and in comfort despite their haste. It was not long before they arrived and gave battle to the Dark Lord’s hordes.
The fell host found themselves facing a disciplined and confident force, utilizing all available tactics to leverage their advantages, and led by nothing less than a mighty Hero who slew all who opposed her.
Their advance faltered. Atrien was not the helpless prey they were promised.
And the world took notice…
The elves marched from their forests. The dwarves from their mountains. Trading partners, estranged allies, even the rival Empire put aside its disputes with Atrien to lend assistance. Knights, nobles, adventurers and fortune-seekers, all manner of warrior righteous and brave began to march towards Atrien. Now that the fight was winnable, that it seemed Atrien might hold, could the nations of the world turn from their own defense and join in a Grand Alliance.
With the power of the hero and the reinforcements from abroad, Atrien could hold the line.
But just that.
The power of the Dark Lord was not to be underestimated. The Fell Host had been stopped but not routed. The Eight Generals had not yet been committed. The Dark Lord himself had not made his appearance. The war was far from over, and the Grand Alliance could not march upon his lands until they had dealt a mortal blow to his host.
And time was on the Dark Lord’s side.
His side was a monolithic dictatorship, responding only to his will, and the monstrous elements of his horde needed little in terms of supplies. The Grand Alliance, in contrast, was a splintered camp of many diverse views, all of which required their own logistics and support. Logistically Atrien could not support such a host indefinitely on its own, which meant money draining from the coffers of their allies every moment their armies were deployed. Diplomatically keeping such a coalition together was difficult even in the short term, much less getting it to act cohesively and decisively over time.
So the Dark Lord settled into a long war of attrition, keeping up low but constant pressure, refusing to give them the grand battle they sought.
And grand gestures of friendship and solidarity began to give way to grumbles and disputes…
It was then that the jealous and threatened nobles saw their opportunity.
They put forth a proposal. Why risk facing the Dark Lord’s host in open battle when they could defeat him in honorable duel? Why not send forth the Hero Princess and a band of the strongest warriors they could assemble to take down the Dark Lord, once and for all? After all, a small group could simply evade the Fell Host and sneak through the Dark Lord’s lands unopposed. And if they struck down the Dark Lord, all his host and his realm would disintegrate, as it was only his might that held it together.
They were ridiculed at first, until Princess Aurélie agreed, to everyone’s surprise. For the prophecy of the Hero described a journey much as they proposed, and so the princess believed that this must be the case. Nevermind the fact that she wasn’t supposed to be the hero to begin with but that’s besides the point.
And so Hero Princess Aurélie gathered a band of powerful and close companions, and set off on a dangerous and epic quest.
Meanwhile, in Ione’s realm…
Miniel held her face and groaned as she read the report.
It seems…they could have just made Princess Aurélie the hero all along. They didn’t have to bother with the other world at all. They could have just gone with someone from their own world. Like she had proposed. Many times. Many times.
For a brief moment, Miniel had a traitorous thought involving a literal minion of the Dark Lord being better at choosing heroes than Most Holy Ione. But it passed quickly. After all, Ione had summoned him herself, had he not? This is all part of the plan. So all was well.
Yes.
Definitely.
This was fine.
At that moment, Ione was busy with her new interdimensional gaming console…err most important affairs and so did not notice Miniel’s ponderings.
Meanwhile, in the Dark Lord’s realm…
Bob was simply smirking as he laid out the intel report on the table, describing the improvements in Atrien's army and the success of the Hero Princess. Adoel refused to look at him or the report.
“...don’t say it…”
“Told you so.”
“...I hate you. I hate you so much.”
