"It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!" Lord Duke Edmund, the King of the Sea, the Archmage, and the Deputy Commander of the Alliance, was recovering from his injuries in the cabin.
"You are too self-respecting. There is no need to accommodate the wild woman from Quel'thalas. As a powerful mage who should be protected by the most perfect, as a magistrate of the Stormwind Kingdom and one of the most important figures in the league, you should consider finding a suitable noble woman to get married. Instead of running to the wild woman who jumps around the woods all day long and get beaten."
Gavinrad is using holy light to heal Duke's wounds.
Duke bared his teeth, but did not refute Gavinrad's words. This did not mean that Duke agreed, but because it would be useless to say it.
Gavinrad the Dire, as the most capable of the new generation of Stormwind nobles, was forced by Lothar to attend Archbishop Faol's opening ceremony and became one of the first seven paladins. Unfortunately, among the seven paladins, Gavinrad's strength was only above the weakest Windsor, and even below Bolvar, who was forced in by Duke.
As one of the first five paladins in history, Gavinrad was the least noticeable. In the later Battle of Andorhal, Gavinrad died at the hands of Arthas who became a death knight.
It's not that Gavinrad is too weak. In terms of strength, if Uther, the most powerful one, is defined as 100, then Gavinrad is about 82. Probably an excellent level. It's mainly because the other first-generation paladins are too awesome.
His natural martial arts ability was not off the charts, and coupled with a lot of aristocratic thinking and his not-so-high devotion to the Holy Light, his performance in history was not outstanding.
As a guard, his performance was enough to reassure Duke.
Even though I know Gavinrad is doing this for Duke's own good, sometimes some of his words are very harsh, such as:
"Lord Edmund, if you need to vent, I would actually suggest you..." Gavinrad glanced at Vanessa, then said seriously: "Find a maid, such as Vanessa. After all, she is one of us, and..."
Vanessa attacked in anger, using a Shadow Step to flash behind Gavinrad and then Backstab him.
But the Paladin is an indestructible cockroach, not to mention that Vanessa's training is far from complete. Gavinrad turned half a turn, raised his fist shining with holy light, and knocked Vanessa and her dagger away.
"Oh, if Vanessa doesn't want to, forget it. But my enlightenment teacher back then was my maid. Even though I am not married today, she is still my lover. My lord, you should understand that marriages among nobles are very cautious."
Over there, little Vanessa bared her teeth and roared, "Asshole, I won't let you go."
"Hey, Vanessa is my maid."
"Of course, sir, I will be very careful not to hurt her." As he spoke, Gavinrad knocked Vanessa away with another punch.
"Okay, okay, I know which family to look for for marriage and so on. Don't talk about this anymore."
"Understood, my Lord."
In addition to his aristocratic mindset, Gavinrad was essentially an excellent paladin. But that was all. Duke would feel comfortable sending Windsor to help him control the private soldiers of the Edmund family, but he would not let Gavinrad go.
In the days that followed, Duke and Alleria's relationship... how should I put it? It should be normal. It was what it should be. They were neither too close nor too distant. The two of them got along naturally. The only problem was that Alleria still often treated Duke like a child.
Lothar would tease Duke from time to time, saying that he had monopolized the two most beautiful elf rangers but could not eat either of them.
The time has come to November 11th.
Lothar found that nothing could make him laugh.
The Griffin Sentinels deployed near the wetlands and the mountains around Ironforge returned, almost dead. The Horde sent a large number of search parties to ambush them.
Proudmoore's ship also returned.
And Duke's Naga Scout.
They all brought the same bad news.
The Horde has seized more than 90% of the land in the dwarven kingdom of Khaz Modan, and has begun using the dwarven mines to build their own ships - unlike the previous wooden transport ships, they are large and crude iron ships with very clumsy steering, but they can carry thousands of orcs in the cabin.
These boats will carry the Horde across the water quickly, and their goal is obviously to go straight to Southshore, or to be more precise, the west coast west of Southshore. Because in the past few days, there have been countless small tribal reconnaissance boats trying to intercept the Naga and the fishmen and explore the movements on the west coast.
There was not a single tribal reconnaissance ship in Southshore, which looked like an abandoned target.
It seems that if the Horde successfully lands or even establishes a position on the west coast of Hillsbrad, it will be at the midpoint between here and Gilneas, not far from the territories of Gilneas, Dalaran, and Alterac.
Then the Horde will take the initiative and the orcs can attack in any direction.
If the Alliance could move quickly, they could wait for the Horde to arrive and engage in a counter-attack.
"Gather the troops." Lothar roared, "Abandon everything that is not needed - if we survive, we can send people back later! Now, we just need to ensure speed. Go! Go!"
As his other lieutenants were about to walk out of the command post to gather their own troops, Lothar turned and looked at Duke, with the kings standing nearby: "I'm sorry, but your Southshore defense line seems to be useless. the Horde has a new chieftain, and he seems to be much smarter."
Lothar comforted the young Duke. Not only Lothar, but many others also gave Duke a comforting look. Everyone knew that Duke had spent an unimaginable amount of effort to build the defense line of Southshore.
As a representative of the elves, Alleria also attended the meeting. She almost wanted to go up and comfort Duke.
Just then, Duke suddenly spoke.
"Captain Lothar, are we going to let the few elite troops of the Alliance fight the Horde in the open wilderness?"
Lothar looked unhappy. "What else can we do? We can't control the landing site of the Horde. It's impossible to set up a long defense line along the entire Hillsbrad coastline at this time. If the Horde lands on the west coast, it will directly bypass your defense line against the sea in Southshore, and all the Alliance troops will be surrounded and annihilated in Southshore."
Lothar explained it to Duke in a half-explanatory and half-commanding manner almost as a senior tactician.
At this moment, he and Alleria both saw Duke's mouth curled up.
"Why don't we just let the Horde come to Southshore to die?" Duke snapped his fingers, and Windesel next to him immediately understood. He walked out of the command post and waved two red flags high.
Then, in the next moment, countless fortresses suddenly appeared on the distant hills that were originally covered with green grass...
Lothar and others were stunned.