March

Under Abbendis and the others' full mobilization, the Scarlet Crusade deployed an elite force of as many as fifteen hundred men.

At Roderick's request, they organized a large number of battle priests to carry high-concentration holy water, while more than half the Scarlet Crusade knights joined the expedition as well.

The main force marched to the camp at Chillwind Camp and joined up with the Silver Dawn troops led by Maxwell. After a brief rest, they continued toward the western Plaguelands.

This time, the Silver Dawn knight order led by Maxwell Tyrosus was much smaller, consisting of just over a hundred knights. Eglier Dawnbringer, the strongest paladin in the camp at the time, accompanied them as well.

The Crown Guard Tower, urgently reinforced by the Scarlet Crusade, was their last supply point in the Eastern Plaguelands. During the previous Undead tide, Crusade lord Sir Valdelmar had held off the Undead attack here.

Now, he needed to return to Tyr's Hand to stand guard. More than half of the Scarlet Crusade's elite had set out alongside their High General, leaving the somewhat depleted Tyr's Hand in need of a powerful leader to defend it.

The elite human force of more than a thousand advanced swiftly. After crushing the large numbers of low-level Undead soldiers gathered at Marris Stead, they crossed the flowing Thondroril River and entered the Western Plaguelands.

This had once been the most agriculturally developed region in the Kingdom of Lordaeron. Its level, fertile land; several broad, slow-flowing rivers winding through it; its temperate climate; its hardworking citizens; and its relatively lenient lords had created a vast farming region unlike any other, one that fed the entire Kingdom of Lordaeron on its own.

In the farms of old, every autumn saw farmers harvesting amid endless golden waves of wheat.