He was aghast. A dozen irreplaceable paladins lost to the demons. He should have known Satan's minions tested faith and strength both. It had seemed so easy, so right to undo wrong when the charged in glory. When His warriors sang their faith to the lord and stopped the flying demons in their tracks he had jubilated. Then the paladins got caught in a hailstorm of outworlder weaponry, and he knew the true enemy used evil from hell as well as weapons made by man.

A disaster followed. A full third of their battlemages died after doing their holy duty but once, and after that the demons killed paladins and merely faithful soldiers indiscriminately as they fled into the forest.

Garnhalt ordered his outriders to be more careful as they advanced north. Hubris, he had been guilty of hubris, and God in his divine wisdom had slapped his fingers.

Cardinal Garnhalt bowed his head in shame where he rode. Thinking he could do God's work by himself. Had he fallen so low? Or was this merely a test to strengthen him for what lay ahead? Or, and this was a fear he had nursed for days since the horrors, had he been warned not to continue north. Could it be that God needed him to wait and gather his crusaders before thrusting deep into the lands of the godless, to ensure he had enough of God's warriors to ensue he could throw back the demons to the nothingness from whence they came?

All questions he alone had to answer with the help of prayers, and so he allowed his men to rest while he sought knowledge together with his priests.

Outriders and skirmishers alone continued north. He didn't even send more priests afraid that he would invoke God's wrath if he did.