The Paladin's Oath

As usual, the power of Slaanesh within Aaron wanted him to stir up trouble in a place like this.

For Chaos, conflict and strife were sources of power, while uncertainty and randomness were its very nature.

If Aaron always wanted to follow the rules and take things one step at a time, he ought to be a faithful believer in that piece of dried, salted meat sitting on a Golden Throne, fond of dabbling in sorcery—not a Child of Chaos.

Yet Aaron still retained a measure of his lawful nature and his kindness.

That had to do with who he had been in his previous life, and with what he had experienced in this one. Salian's misfortune, the misfortune of being transported here, and the misfortune of his awakening had all fallen on him, but he had not been abandoned by the world or betrayed by everyone, as some people had.

He still had family. His aunt and uncle's family might not be much help with his grand plans, but they had given him the warmth of a home.

He also had the connections his father had left behind. Lucian, Ian, Duke Kenness, and the other friends who had personal ties to his family had readily offered help once they saw his talent. Even the Princess Regent and the royal family gave him eight hundred Golden Lions a year.

He had the young Cleric, Lady Silverstar, and Lady of Silver Selûne. When he had needed help most, they had rescued him, helped him, and answered him.

He was not that fellow who had sworn to slaughter every creature of Chaos and wipe out all Chaos corruption, only to discover in a book that he himself was the Everchosen. After being declared a heretic, the poor man had gone weeping to the capital's grand cathedral to beg his god for help. The Deity he admired above all others had ignored him, and the archbishop had come out in person to proclaim, "Aha! Just as the prophecy said! The heretic has delivered himself to us to die!"

Am I right, brother? You know, the one driven to the top of the Chaos Wastes?

Here, in his chest, it was warm. A gentle power protected Aaron's heart.

That was why Aaron could resist the negative effects of the powers of Chaos. He knew he had to control his emotions and his strength. Those powers were immensely strong, but they were also corrupt and evil. They would grow alongside him: the stronger Aaron became, the stronger they would become. He needed their power, yet he also had to keep fighting them until he could ascend to godhood with "Chaos" as his divine portfolio and absorb all four powers completely.

Aaron resisted the urge to cause trouble. Instead, he simply raised his hand to show that he had got it.

The Viscount's gesture immediately drew every recruit's attention.

A slight lead inspired envy; a substantial one bred jealousy. But when someone was so far ahead that no one could even see his taillights, all that remained was admiration.

Aaron had always found it easy to win people over. He was handsome and approachable, with an alluring face and eyes a person could lose themselves in if they stared too long. Most of the recruits felt little hostility toward him.

"I know this isn't hard for you, recruit." Sure enough, the Knight instructor turned his attention to Aaron. Simoni thought for a moment, signaled for the others to continue, then said, "You're different from them. You're a Sorcerer. Magic flows through your blood, and you've at least learned to follow your instincts."

"But that isn't enough, Aaron Salian. You must understand that your power is for fighting for your country, and against evil and injustice. You're training to become a qualified Knight, not to use your strength against your brother Knights. I'm warning you: no private sparring matches while you're here."

"Yes, sir." That was the consequence of stirring up trouble the other day. Aaron understood.

"Norrington Wilson!" the Knight instructor roared toward the side. "We have a late arrival who wants to see what you can do. The two of you will spar, and I'll see just how many bad habits you've each picked up!"

"Yes, sir!" A recruit who had been sitting nearby to rest rose to his feet.

Aaron turned his gaze on the recruit who had joined at the same time as him.

This fellow was Norrington Wilson, the son of a noble Knight from Arabel. All thirteen members of his family had died in the Battle of Arabel, slain by Hobgoblins under the Orc Great Khan Tugin.

Hatred had hung over him ever since. He spoke little and trained like a man possessed.

He was a Paladin, one who had only recently sworn the Oath of Vengeance.

He was the one Simoni had mentioned who had "slain an Owlbear." By combining the Vow of Enmity granted by his oath with a perfectly executed Divine Smite, he had cut an Owlbear that had been terrorizing a village in two.

After Paladins had spent some time at the apprentice rank, honing their martial skills and strengthening their faith, they would swear an oath.

The three most common were the Oath of Devotion, the Oath of the Ancients, and the Oath of Vengeance.

The Oath of Devotion meant a Paladin dedicated everything to justice, virtue, and order across the multiverse. These Paladins embodied honesty, courage, compassion, duty, and honor. Known as white Knights, they often adorned themselves with angel wings.

The Oath of the Ancients meant a Paladin considered protecting the light against darkness the most important duty in life. These Paladins cared more about doing what was right than enforcing justice, more about protection than order, and more about redemption than punishment. Known as green Knights, they often decorated themselves with leaves, antlers, flowers, and the like.

The Oath of Vengeance was a solemn promise to punish those guilty of grave crimes. For these Paladins, the purpose of life was to punish evil, uphold what was right, and bring the world's evildoers to justice. To that end, they would sacrifice their own purity and stain their hands with blood. They were known as black Knights.

Norrington Wilson was just such a black Knight. His hatred of Orcs outweighed everything else in his life. He had sworn to kill every Orc in Arabel to put his family's souls to rest.

Besides those three classic Paladin oaths, Aaron vaguely remembered several others.

The Oath of Conquest meant swearing to conquer a region and set its people on the "right path." Violent conquest, harsh laws, and even ruthless dictatorship were therefore permissible—if the Paladin deemed them necessary.

The Oath of Honor meant swearing to reach the pinnacle of a chosen path or ability.

The Oath of the Crown meant devoting one's life to a civilization, a country, or perhaps a people.

There was also an unusual oath called the Oath of Love. Those who swore it were Paladins of Lady Firehair Sune, also known as Shuna. All were of a chaotic good alignment, and everything they did centered on protecting, praising, and spreading love. They cared nothing for order, justice, or punishment. If a romance moved them, they would support it wholeheartedly and lend their aid.

Yes, Paladins did not have to be lawful good. Every alignment could have Paladins. The word "holy" meant pursuing the utmost, striving for the highest ideal.

The nature of the calling simply favored lawful good. The more chaotic and evil a Paladin was, the easier it became to break their oath and lose the divine power it granted. Paladins drew strength from their powerful faith and from the resonance between their sacred oath and the laws of the world. A chaotic or evil alignment implied a self-indulgent, unrestrained, or selfish way of acting, which was at odds with being a Paladin to some extent.

"Stop, recruits. You have a duel to watch." The Knight instructor's words brought everyone to a halt and broke Aaron's train of thought.

Come on, then! Aaron gave the black Knight Norrington Wilson a Knight's salute. Norrington returned it, and they both took their stances.

"Norrington, you've done well. You protected your village, but that's nowhere near enough to achieve your goal."

"Aaron, show us what you can do. Let's see if you wield a sword as well as your father did."

"And don't hold back. At your current level, as long as you aren't fighting in full armor, the worst you'll get is a bloody nose. You aren't noble ladies; you're recruits! If you don't bleed on the training ground, you'll bleed on the battlefield!"

"Begin!"

At the Knight instructor's shout, Aaron and Norrington both assumed the same Purple Dragon stance. They circled each other, watching carefully for an opening.

More than a dozen recruits watched the duel, eagerness in every eye.

Norrington, the black Knight, attacked first. Gripping his wooden sword with both hands, he raised it skyward and set the hilt against his shoulder. Then he lunged, bringing the blade down toward Aaron!

Sword technique—Heavy Strike!

An apprentice Paladin has mastered that basic sword technique this well? Aaron was secretly startled.

But the Viscount, who had trained under his family's tutelage, was no weakling.

He drew back his sword and stepped aside. By the time the blade fell, Aaron was already outside Norrington's reach. His sword tip swept through a circle in the air and darted straight for Norrington's face!

"Tsk!" Sure enough, the Knight instructor clicked his tongue in displeasure nearby. He seemed disappointed that Aaron had not been defeated in a single blow. Instead, Norrington, his momentum spent, barely managed to pull back his sword and evade Aaron's thrust.

The Paladin's footwork had fallen apart!

Now it was Aaron's turn to attack. He lunged forward with lightning speed, aiming his wooden sword at Norrington's thigh. Forced even further off balance, the Paladin retreated again and again, lowering his guard to block.

Just as the two swords were about to meet, Aaron changed his thrust into an upward strike aimed at the Paladin's chest.

Sword technique—Heavy Strike!

Norrington used the technique again. The desperate, heavy blow forced Aaron to abandon his attack and retreat. The Viscount stumbled back a few steps, then narrowed his eyes at the Paladin. A confident smile had already appeared on his lips.

As Ferrara had said, in a low-level fight, one should never go all out without an excellent opening or a chance to end the battle at once. Doing so was an easy way to exhaust oneself.

Aaron had one weakness against Norrington: he was certain the Paladin's strength was a grade or two above his own. Matching brute force with him would be foolish.

"Son, remember: find a way to control the pace of a fight. Make your opponent move to your rhythm. That's how you win." Recalling his father's lesson, Aaron gestured for Norrington to continue.

Sure enough, after using two techniques in succession, Norrington could feel a slight strain in his shoulder and fatigue in his body. Even so, he launched another fierce attack, planning to take Aaron down before his stamina ran out. This time he charged straight up the middle, hoping to win through strength—or at least force Aaron into a clash of swords.

Instead, the shameless Aaron dropped into a roll and put distance between himself and the Paladin. As Norrington's wooden sword came down beside him, Aaron sprang up and threw his own sword away. He trapped the Paladin's wrist under one arm, grabbed his shoulder with the other hand, and threw his whole body into the takedown. They fell together and rolled twice in the struggle before Aaron pinned Norrington firmly beneath him, pressing the hand that held the wooden sword behind his back and driving a knee into him.

"Beautifully done, Last Salian!" The Knight instructor clapped his hands. "I declare Aaron Salian the winner of this duel! Son of Manuel, you'll get half a roast chicken for lunch today!"

At the instructor's announcement, Aaron released Norrington and rose, accepting the crowd's applause with shameless flair.

Norrington the Paladin was still lying on the ground.

"Get up, Norrington. You did well too, but you still made plenty of mistakes," the Knight instructor said coldly. "Relying on brute force alone won't win you a duel..."

"..." Norrington muttered under his breath.

"What was that, recruit? What did you say?" Simoni's tone hardened at once. "Speak up!"

"Instructor, I thought this was a swordsmanship match between Knights, not a wrestling match in a tavern!" Norrington finally lost his patience. "A proper Knight shouldn't throw away his sword like that!"

"Did I say this was a swordsmanship match?" Simoni laughed. The Knight instructor turned to the surrounding recruits. "Did any of you hear me say it was a swordsmanship match?"

They all shook their heads.

"Think about it, Norrington. Was this a swordsmanship match?"

Norrington thought back over what had happened. The Paladin realized that no one had called it a swordsmanship match from beginning to end.

"A match is a match. You can—and must—learn to use every part of your body as a weapon, Recruit Norrington. A battlefield isn't a training ground, and your enemies won't be your brother Knights. Imagine your opponent is a Hobgoblin, a Bugbear, or a Troll. While you're crossing weapons, it bares its teeth and bites your throat open. Would you protest, 'Oh, sir, I thought this was a swordsmanship match'?"

"If a treacherous Gnoll fired a poisoned dart from its bracer, would you protest, 'Sir, I thought this was a swordsmanship match'?"

Knight instructor Simoni's cutting words left Norrington red-faced. Just then, Aaron walked over and offered him a hand. "We need to fight with everything we have, brother. When cunning enemies try to use tricks against us, the only thing we can do is be more cunning than they are."

"You're right, mate." Norrington took Aaron's hand and got to his feet. The Paladin accepted his defeat. "You've got good technique, Last Salian. You're no weakling."

"Your Divine Smite is impressive too, Mr. Wilson." Aaron smiled. "If we get the chance, I'd like to hear how you dealt with that Owlbear."

"Of course!" Looking at Aaron's smile, Norrington felt as though a spring breeze had swept over his weary soul.

Charm successful!

And so Aaron began his recruit training. For an entire week, he trained with the Knight order every day.

In his first week, Aaron showed how different he was from the others. As a Sorcerer who also trained as a fighter, he could use Second Wind and Action Surge one more time than an ordinary fighter between sufficient rests.

A fighter could use Second Wind and Action Surge only once before a long rest. Fighters were not spellcasters; they could wield only minute amounts of magical energy, relying on their bodies to react instinctively. Until enough rest had calmed the magical energy beginning to run wild within them, they could not use either ability again.

Aaron could use each twice—he was a Sorcerer, after all, and a spellcaster.

Curiously, Disma, as his senior, appeared at dinnertime every day, always somewhere Aaron could see him.

Naturally, Aaron would invite him to dinner, and Disma never refused.

But Disma never invited Aaron himself. Once, when Aaron trained late and did not come out for a long time, Disma stood beside the training ground, leaning against a clothes-drying rack. He stayed there until Aaron finished and greeted him. Without saying a word, Disma turned and headed for the great hall that served as the dining hall.

This senior of mine is an interesting fellow, Aaron thought.

That Saturday evening, they sat down to dinner together again. Aaron brought something up. "Senior, may I ask you something?"

"..." Disma did not answer, but he tapped the table with his spoon, signaling Aaron to go on.

"Sir Reynard... where did he go?"

"Reynard? He went to face the final test that stinking old man gave him." Disma sounded impatient as he stirred the meat broth in his bowl. "That's how the stinking old man is. The order's official requirements are one thing, but if he thinks you don't qualify, you'll be a trainee Knight forever."

"Kid, you'd better watch out too. The stinking old man's tests aren't easy to pass."