Serenity approached the armored humans cautiously. They were probably working for Duke Lowpeak, but he couldn’t be sure; more than that, a single archer shooting at people in the distance was the worst choice no matter who they thought was coming. In fact, Serenity was beginning to think that it was pure happenstance that they’d been shot at. No one even seemed to be watching the direction he was coming from.

When Serenity got closer, he could see that there was a minimal camp of some sort on the opposite side of the fifty armored people; they seemed to be training. He didn’t see any guards at all, as though they were in friendly territory. That made it even more likely that they were Duke Lowpeak’s soldiers, but he had no idea why they’d be out here.

Serenity considered calling out to them from a distance. If they’d been on guard, he definitely would have; since they weren’t, the decision was harder. They might take approaching as threatening but they might also take staying away as a signal for unfriendliness. It all depended on what they were used to; it was rarely a bad idea to be cautious with seasoned mercenaries but ordinary city-dwellers didn’t think the same way unless they had a darker past.

He might as well flip a coin.

They were not on guard at all, so Serenity decided that approaching was probably the better call. He was about twenty feet from the nearest archer when one of the trainers noticed him. “Hey, what are you doing there? Get back to your position.”

Serenity blinked. He really wasn’t paying attention, was he? Serenity knew he looked very little like any of the trainees; first of all, he was wearing armor covered in dragonscales, not simple leather. Second, Serenity’s armor was a completely different set of colors. He was going to have to handle this carefully and the first thing that meant was getting their attention. “I’m not here to train.”

“Then you shouldn’t have signed…” The trainer’s loud voice softened as he actually got a good look at Serenity. “... up? Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Serenity grinned. That was the response he’d been looking for, slightly confused attention. “I’m Serenity, and I was about to ask you the same thing. I’m headed to Lowpeak.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you,” the trainer stated before he turned back to the archers.

Serenity shook his head. This was blatantly careless but he wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it without authority. Not easily, at least. “At least have your people not shoot at mine. We’re generally not very happy about that.”

The trainer turned back to Serenity. “Your people? What people?”

Serenity reached out to Rissa. The only people he could talk to at a distance right now were Rissa and Ita; he’d lost the ability to speak at a distance to Legion when he arrived on Zon and no longer had Aeon’s assistance. :Go ahead and get everyone moving this way. Seems to be a training camp for archers rather than an attack. They’re not worried about being attacked as far as I can tell.:

With that done, Serenity pointed at the now-moving set of dots close to the horizon. “That way about a mile. Do you see the people there?”

It took a little while for the trainer to see the group but when he did, he paled. “That’s the direction of the demons.”

Serenity sighed. That should have been obvious, and if he was worried about demons they shouldn’t be out here without keeping watch. “We’re not demons; there aren’t any for quite a ways that way. We’re just headed past you.” Serenity wanted to ask if the man knew where Kalo Lowpeak and Andarit were, but that seemed like a bad idea just then.

Serenity stayed by the side of the camp until the others arrived. Rissa led the way, which didn’t make Serenity entirely happy, but at least Kerr was with her in case something happened.

Rissa ran up to Serenity and hugged him. “Ready to move on, dear?”

Her question seemed to defuse the building tension among the trainers; the trainees were simply watching. They seemed to welcome the respite.

They moved past the training camp without answering any more questions, but also without having any more questions answered. Serenity was certain Rissa could have gotten more out of them if needed, but she didn’t seem to want to try and he wasn’t going to push. It wasn’t necessary.

They passed six more training camps before they reached the river. Serenity kept them at a distance, but he did make sure to get a good look at each camp. Less than half were for archery; instead, four of the six seemed to be training the recruits in the use of a sword while one taught spearwork. Serenity didn’t dig into any of them but it seemed like a relatively odd way to get an army. Perhaps it was designed to quickly get untrained people enough knowledge to get a related Path?

No matter what the reason for the training camps was, the fact that they were there made Serenity think that Duke Lowpeak intended to get involved in a conflict. The only one Serenity knew about was the issues in Zenith. Serenity more than half expected to end up helping liberate the capital, but that was part of the reason he’d brought Legion. The other option was to try to escort thousands of people through monster-infested land; retaking Zenith to end the teleportation band seemed far more reasonable.

The last training camp was close to the river crossing. Serenity left Ita with Legion for communication while he brought the rest to the crossing; he really wanted the Duke’s permission before going too far onto his lands with a small army. Sure, it was really only six people, but it didn’t look to anyone else like six people.

The bridge had a single person waiting on this side; Serenity seemed to remember that there were more than that the last time he went by, but with a bunch of people on the other side of the river it made sense to cut back on the people watching the area. If there were monsters, they’d almost certainly be noticed by the training camps first.

Even, or perhaps especially, since none of the training camps had a proper guard posted. Serenity knew he was probably more bothered by that than it warranted, but it still bugged him. Yes, this was Lowpeak land, but it was unguarded land with a physical connection to a dangerous area. You shouldn’t treat it like the safe walled lands!

“Hey there! You’re Serenity, aren’t you?” The voice knocked Serenity out of his introspection. It came from the person waiting at the end of the bridge. She looked vaguely familiar to Serenity, but that could simply have been the armor; he’d noticed that most of the armor in Lowpeak was styled similarly. It wasn’t quite the same as the armor he’d seen elsewhere on Zon.

Serenity nodded. “Yes, I am. Word reached you quickly.” He’d thought that they were outpacing any word from the training camps; it was good to know that someone had sent a quick messenger. That made him feel more hopeful about their level of preparation.

The soldier chuckled. “We pay attention when the Duke sends a message. He only does that when it’s something he thinks we need to deal with. He said he thought it was going to be you and included a description, so I’m glad to see he was right. Is this all of you? He said he wasn’t sure how many you had with you.”

Serenity’s opinion of the training camps immediately reversed. They must be depending on the Duke’s land-sense. No matter how sensitive it was, it wouldn’t stop a low-Tier monster from crossing and attacking sooner than he could get word across the river. As convenient as it was that none had really challenged him, it wasn’t a good policy.

“There are more of us. Quite a few more.” Serenity pointed back towards where Ita and Legion waited. They were only two people but Legion’s presence meant that whoever was preparing for them would need to prepare as if there were a couple hundred more humans instead of two.

Actually, that made Serenity wonder. If all of Legion’s bodies were human, did that make Legion human or not? Legion could subsume creatures that weren’t human, so probably not. Legion probably wasn’t any more human than Ita, though Serenity himself might be a better comparison.

The guard followed Serenity’s gesture and squinted. A moment passed before she relaxed. “More than a few indeed, I don’t think we’re ready for all of you but I’ll pass word along. The Duke’s message said to let you through and send you up towards the peak.”

That was good news for certain. :Ita? Come on over, they’re going to let us through.:

:Yes, my Lord.: Ita flip-flopped between her trained formality and the informality Serenity preferred. She was clearly having a formal moment. For a moment, Serenity wondered what triggered it before he dismissed the thought as irrelevant.

The trip to the Duke’s mansion was just as uneventful as the rest of the time in Lowpeak, despite passing through several small towns on the way. Unfortunately, nowhere was set up to accommodate Legion. They were able to buy food, which everyone appreciated after the weeks of making do with what they could gather and prepare on the way out of the demon-infested landscape; food just took time. Serenity was easily able to pay for it and Lowpeak didn’t have a food shortage.

Shelter, on the other hand, was a problem. Serenity wasn’t willing to simply cut down trees the way they had in the forest for shelter; instead, they had to find somewhere they could sleep in a building or in the open. Serenity had his tent, but it couldn’t accommodate Legion and while Legion had several tents, they weren’t enough. They only had to spend two nights on the way to the peak, but it took a lot of time to find enough places for Legion to sleep.

Without Legion, they’d probably have been an entire day faster; Serenity seemed to remember that it hadn’t taken that long to go down the mountain the last time. He made notes on what was missing for Legion; he was pretty certain that so were several other people, including Legion.

On the other hand, without Legion they wouldn’t be here at all. Serenity knew he was relatively powerful, but he didn’t have the capacity to free a city or protect thousands of people on his own. With Legion’s help, it might be possible; without it, he was better off waiting until the Zon natives either dealt with the problem or didn’t. By then, Ekari would hopefully have enough control over the remnants of the Eternal Church to achieve something.

Serenity was glad they didn’t have to wait that long. Instead, he was probably only a few weeks, at the most a few months, from solving the problem for good. At least, he was if the people he’d hired to rescue his people from slavery had succeeded.

When they arrived at the Lowpeak Manor, Duke Kalo Lichbane met Serenity at the door. “I wasn’t expecting you back so quickly, certainly not with an army following you. Should I be worried?” He spoke with a grin, which told Serenity that despite his words, Kalo had no worries about the “army”.

Serenity grinned back. “If this is an army, it’s a very small army. Why, it probably couldn’t take on more than, oh, a Duchy!”