When three days had passed without a single panicked survivor arriving from the south Cardinal Garnhalt admitted he had run into trouble. When, after another two days, he routed a supply column and replenished his baggage train he knew disaster brewed south of him. The sheer amount of food they had taken told him much more about the size of the enemy army he had left behind than he wanted to accept.

Mintosa was safe, but whatever troops landed there and tried to push north would be hammered into the ground. They would emerge victorious in the end. His presence here guaranteed that, but he would receive no reinforcements for the better part of summer, and without additional soldiers he doubted the wisdom in pushing north.

Still, the thought of returning south grated in him, and when they burned a farwriter erected far, far further south than any should have stood he knew he was committed.

Now the godless enemy knew where he was. The deadly game of hide and seek was over.

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The last uncertainty of if he was truly following a path laid out by God himself vanished when he a few skirmishers returned with the message that they'd been chewed up by a full regiment or more of infantry on their way south. That part of the message wasn't what made his mind up, but the part where outworlder demons searched the field with unholy creations that flew like birds made his mind up once and for all.

For years they had hoped the outworlders were angels returning, but they never visited any but the godless, and slowly the hope that they were bringing the word of God to those who needed it most died. It had been a day of horror and sorrow when His Holiness himself had to declare that Eden had been taken by Satan. No angels but demons came from there, and holy mother church's last outpost was here.

This was the world of the last battle. God had imbued his holy warrior in preparation for the war of all wars, and Cardinal Garnhalt led an army into the heart of darkness.