It wasn’t a particularly Paladin thing to do - running an unarmed man through. Still, Stephan felt little guilt about it. In his mind, if the baron’s men were willing to kidnap Grace just like that and bring her to him, heedless of the lives they might ruin, he had it coming.
I’m growing numb to killing. That’s bad.
At the eastern academy, the instructors had mentioned the need to retain mercy and not to kill unjustly. The best option was always to arrest and let the law handle it. It was the knightly thing to do. Not to mention that one of the twelve skills Paladin had was called Mercy.
There was no sign of that when we went after the Coalpit warlock.
He pulled his blade out of the baron’s abdomen, not looking at his face once. The natural course of action was to turn around and walk. To leave the brute to his fate. Stephan sighed and picked him up. He half-carried the man in one hand, his legs jerking as they dragged across the floor. Blood splattered, leaving a crimson trail as they left the room.
Ken stared in shock, but Stephan simply passed him and went towards the exit, where Grace awaited in the corner of the manor’s flower garden.
He dumped the baron at her feet.
“He wanted to harm you; now his life is in your hands. Do as you wish.” Then, after a breath of silence, he added, “Whatever you choose, whatever you do, I will support you.”
Grace nodded, then knelt before the baron, her hand glowing gold. As she touched him, a trickle of warmth entered Stephan’s chest. The baron’s wound closed. He gasped, then coughed before looking at them.
“Who are you people?”
Grace said nothing, so Stephan answered. “This is her eminence, Grace, the Saintess. Your soldiers tried to take her from her home and drove her to the wastes where she nearly perished to a wyvern.”
Stephan took out the oversized lizard’s stinger from his belt. “I am Stephan, the Saintess’s guardian, and I handled the wyvern. These are Miles and Alfred, her eminence’s Knights.”
The baron gulped, bobbing his head up and down, quickly grasping his situation. “This is a misunderstanding, sir. This is the first time I’ve seen either of you. I don’t control what my men do when they are out collecting taxes. They can do or say whatever they want, but if nobody reports it to me, I have no way of knowing.”
Stephan remained quiet, and after a lingering, heavy silence, he turned to Grace. “This is your decision to make.”
“No, no, no,” she shook her head. “I know nothing about this.”
Behind her, Muriel glared at him.
I guess I’m saddling her with more than she can bear.
“If we’re overthrowing the baron, we need to appoint a new leader for this region. But if he was a just ruler, he could even keep his position.” Stephan thought it would be silly—to start a rebellion, kill some of the baron’s men, only to leave him in charge, but if that was what Grace chose, he would support her.
“Ken, gather everyone in town; we have a proclamation to make.”
The man ran over to the rest of the enforcers gathered close to the gate, guarding their unconscious friends, then rang a bell, shouting for the townsfolk to gather. The scene was so normal, so familiar, it made Stephan’s skin crawl.
What is the right thing to do here? They are no different from folks back home.
A handful of minutes later, a crowd of roughly five hundred stood before the baron’s estate.
Stephan carried a table over from the manor and helped Grace climb it before getting up himself.
“A miracle has happened,” he started, having a better idea of how to approach people. “In the village of Thornsedge, the gods blessed a young woman with the Saintess class. Two young men received their classes too.”
“I just got a class,” someone shouted, followed by others.
“Me too.”
“Me too.”
“All of you who have just been blessed with your classes, please step forth.” Stephan had expected something similar while the townsfolk gaped at the impossible sight. “The Saintess shall bring prosperity to the lands of the south. The law and order that exists in my homeland shall reign here. You will enjoy the same blessings and classes we do. Magical healing will be available to all; no one shall be taken from their home without their consent, no one beaten or extorted while the lord ignores their plight.”
Stephan wanted to say more, to use the tide of disbelief and veneration, but he didn’t know what more to say.
“Grace the Saintess,” he shouted, then repeated the words again, and on the third shout, some from the crowd joined; by the fourth, everyone was chanting Grace’s name.
What now? He stared at the mass of people, without the faintest notion of what he should do next. Pointing out their shame and weakness was a mistake, but benefits and a promise of a bright future obviously worked.
“Nothing changes in your lives for the worse, only for the better,” he continued. “Go home and rejoice! Soon every town in the south will have a Priest or a Healer and several Sentries to maintain order.”
The crowd didn’t disperse even as Stephan helped Grace down from the table. He was still thinking about everything, realizing he should have planned the speech, not just told whatever came to mind in the spur of the moment, the way he had. But it wasn’t bad. They didn’t glare; they didn’t hate him.
“Sorry, did you want to say anything?” he asked Grace, who shook her head.
“Are you mad?” she asked. “I was terrified with all those people staring at me. I’ve never seen that many people in one place.”
Stephan had. A hundred times their number once rushed towards Cliffort to kill him and his comrades.
“You’ll have to get used to it. If we’re going to make things better here, you will be seeing a lot more people.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why do we have to be the ones to fix it?”
Why indeed? A bit of moisture tinged the corners of Stephan’s eyes. “Who’s gonna do it if we don’t?”
Grace held his gaze and nodded sharply. She understood. For her people, for her country, it was now or never. And if she wanted it to happen, she had to be the driving force.
Stephan felt proud of her, and another trickle of warmth entered his chest, making it comfortably warm.
Are you giving me a hint about what I should be doing? What’s happening here? He glanced up. Say something!
“M’lord.” The young men and women found their way to him through the crowd, one of them bowing, then the rest mimicked him.
“Stop, don’t bow to me. I’m Steve. This is her eminence, Grace the Saintess. While you should genuflect to her, don’t do it. You acting overly formal will make her even more uncomfortable than it makes me.” Stephan chuckled, trying to dismiss his frustration, but he was the only one laughing. The youths stared at him with awe while Grace’s face was red with embarrassment.
Stephan resisted the urge to say, “See,” and instead continued more seriously. “We need to figure out which classes the gods have blessed you with. Does anyone here know how to read? Raise your hands.”
Stephan was disappointed when only three hands went up, then a tentative fourth hand rose slowly. “I know numbers, but I can only write down the names of the goods we have for sale. We don’t need more.”
Stephan nodded. “Does anyone know what classes they have?”
“I’m a Priest,” the only girl among the literate ones said while the rest shook their heads.
“You will heal the sick and the wounded and teach everyone who wants to learn how to read. Writing is something none of you will need right now, but reading is important. I’ve only ever written a single letter so far, but I’ve learned how to read years ago. And you being a Priest is excellent. One of the Priest’s talents is to heal, another to channel holy magic widely known as blessings, and also to see which class others have. I can explain the basic blessings to you and Grace later.”
While he couldn’t demonstrate them without revealing his true class, he could teach them the words and how it felt to move spirit through their body to obey their will.
“As for the rest, follow me into the baron’s estate; we’re going to see which of you know how to handle a sword.”
Stephan gave them real weapons as the baron lacked sparring swords. He could tell at a glance who had a proper stance and who was lost. The excited expressions on some faces also helped, with fifteen of the youths looking like they had found their missing limbs.
Still, around twenty of them obviously didn’t know how to handle themselves.
What other classes could have the gods bestowed them with?
“All right, you,” he pointed at the proficient ones. “You’ ae going to start slashing the swords with ten feet between you, so you can’t hurt each other accidentally. The rest of you, if you’re apprentices, go to your masters and see whether any of your skills has improved, if not—”
Then what? Run around doing whatever, hoping you chance into what your class grants you? This is going to be tougher than I thought.
“Stephan,” Grace approached him. “I received a level after healing the baron.”
He nodded, that was good news.
“I have learned a new skill.”
That also made sense, as far as he knew, unique classes got a lot of skills.
When Stephan failed to react, Grace continued.
“See.”
AN: It's been a rough week, potty training my absolutely unwilling two-year-old twins. The oldest kids picked it up right away, on the first day, while these guys... I feel like sobbing. Anyway, the torture is over, and with some spare time, I actually managed this chapter on time! Hope you liked it! xD