The Order took on a great number of warriors after the Battle of Black Cross. Of these disparate and varied recruits, the knights who had fought in the northern campaigns against the Dark were first to join, and came in the strongest numbers. Former knights-warden, knights-errant and wandering hedge knights took on the mantle of the Order's greatest huntsmen, ranging north on great Hunts whilst the Black Order established itself within the ruins of the old Kingdom's northern border towns.
It is said that these men, these knights who held no lands, followed no lords and kept no retainers, were among the Order's most savage and brutal warriors. These were men who had spent their youths in the shadow of the Dark, and lived through the nights of terror in the North when the draugar of the pagan kingdoms encroached southward, and yet somehow lived to tell the tale.
In the years to come, when the Dark returned at last, these knights served in the Order's vanguard, bringing the wrath of the Black Order against the ancient enemy with a fury that was unmatched in history or legend.
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