Andarit was fine. From what Blaze said when Serenity was finally able to get away from Andarit’s chatter, she might well not have been without healing. Blaze noted that although no permanent damage was done, she was still bleeding internally when he got to her. Blaze wasn’t entirely happy with Serenity for waiting to get information from Entherys before he pulled Andarit out of the dungeon, but even he had to admit that a few minutes probably didn’t hurt things after as long as she’d been a captive in the dungeon.
Blaze was still amazed that she wasn’t suffering from the days of enforced idleness. From what Andarit’s escort said, she’d been missing for almost two days; she was late heading back to Lowpeak even before Entherys got involved. At this point, Serenity was just glad it worked out well, even if Andarit did seem to want to talk his ear off.
He made sure that Legion passed the message on to Duke Lowpeak; with the normal City Node messages nonfunctional, Legion’s ability to pass messages was going to be huge. Realistically, it would be huge even if the City Nodes were fully functional; being able to quickly and accurately pass messages on a battlefield could be the difference between success and failure. There were spells that could do the same thing, but they could be interfered with, while that didn’t seem to be a problem for Legion. It was a good thing that Legion seemed amenable to being used as a radio for now.
Duke Lowpeak was glad to hear that his daughter was fine, but apparently he immediately changed the topic once he was assured that she was fully healed, her attacker was dead, and she was not planning to return to Lowpeak immediately.
The only other important news Legion had from the Duke was that he’d already recalled the soldiers from the training camps, but it would be about another day before the first soldiers reached Iron Mountain. The others would follow as quickly as he could send them; it was time to take the fight to Zenith.
From the timing, Serenity didn’t think the Duke had recalled them because of Zenith. He must have sent word to the training camps right around the time Entherys kidnapped Andarit. Serenity still remembered that the Duke had mentioned that he could tell Andarit’s health from a distance.
The trip to Celestials’ Rest was uneventful. Unlike the previous trip, where they cut cross-country to save time, they were on foot. It was faster to take the road and use the caravan waypoints as campgrounds than to stop and build each night, even though the distance was longer.
This was especially important since they weren’t alone; they were accompanied by a sixty-person levy from the Mounta’s Crest Estate and twenty-three people from the Iron Mountain Sect. Serenity had the feeling that the Sect members were there because of him, but he didn’t know how to confirm that or even if he should try.
Serenity enjoyed watching the road enchantments as they traveled. It wasn’t something he’d studied in depth in as Vengeance, but he could tell that these were old and worn but still holding. Unfortunately, their anchors were far apart and he couldn’t take the time to study each milestone, so he gathered a less than complete picture of the enchantment.
Oddly, these weren’t rune-based like the waypoint protections. They also had a different feel to them, almost like a completely different magical tradition. They were based on different principles than the ones he’d seen elsewhere; they traded away a lot of the ease of setup and simplicity to repair for a more gradual failure mode.
If anything, it reminded Serenity of the difference between his custom-built rituals and a Skill-based “ritual”. Rituals done with Skills worked, but like any Skill they did exactly one thing. They did it well, but that one thing was all they did. They were also always identical. If the road were built using a ritualistic Skill, each milestone would be identical. Instead, there was an extremely similar core spell and a great number of variations for the actual area the waystone covered, including its overlap with the neighboring milestones.
Serenity did take the time to more closely examine the milestone when they came to a spot where another protected road intersected the one they were using, but all he was able to discover was that it had additional ‘hooks’ in the spell to tie into the other road’s protection. It wasn’t really a new idea, but it was a nice implementation.
When they reached Heavenfall, Serenity could only marvel at how absolutely literal the name had to be. The city was situated in a depression that reminded Serenity of Meteor Crater, only smaller; it wasn’t the only large hole in the ground nearby, either. Something impressive must have happened in the past. If anything, he was surprised people had survived close enough to describe what happened.
The fact that the protected road ended well before they reached the city with a milestone that was clearly intended to connect to another section of protected road made Serenity suspect that whatever happened wasn’t purely natural. The odds of a meteor swarm hitting a city were low and this was very old, even if it wasn’t old enough to predate the roadbuilding. It was enough to make Serenity wonder if the method of building and repairing the roads’ protection was lost when the city that predated Heavenfall was destroyed.
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Andarit couldn’t explain it. As far as she knew, Heavenfall had been there for hundreds of years, longer than Lowpeak had been a part of Zenith.
Heavenfall was a longer stop than Serenity wanted, but he couldn’t argue with the necessity. Fortunately, he was able to hand off dealing with Baron Heavenfall to Andarit. She was better at that sort of thing anyway.
Unfortunately, not dealing with the baron meant that Serenity ended up getting stuck coordinating the integration of the unit from Heavenfall with the rest that were traveling with them. Serenity wished Sillon were still with them; he’d probably laugh at Serenity and refuse to take over, but he’d at least know what a unit of living people needed for travel!
Unlike Iron Mountain, Heavenfall wasn’t sending only fighters. There were actually more support personnel than combat-trained troops in the group from Heavenfall, even though they were all part of Heavenfall’s army. Serenity had always heard that the logistical tail of an army was huge, but this was something else. It made him wonder if Heavenfall was sending expeditionary forces somewhere; that kind of support didn’t seem like something that would exist if it wasn’t needed.
Despite Serenity’s feelings of inadequacy as an army leader, they were still on the road a week after they initially reached Heavenfall. Serenity knew that was an excellent amount of time; it meant the units Heavenfall was sending were already prepared to go.
The first few miles out of Heavenfall were on protected roads, but after that they were simply paved, not enchanted. Serenity wondered if they had once been part of a larger network of safe roads, but he couldn’t find any evidence of destroyed milestones. If they ever existed, they were long gone now.
The fields surrounding Celestials’ Rest were far larger than those surrounding Lowpeak, Iron Mountain, or Heavenfall. That only made sense; Celestials’ Rest didn’t just feed itself, it also fed Zenith. Serenity couldn’t tell how much was stored, but he strongly hoped there wouldn’t be any fighting here; he knew what it was like when a city’s food supply was damaged. Vengeance had lived through that more than once.
When they actually reached the city itself, Andarit headed off to the baron’s spire while Serenity headed to Innat’s place. He knew that she wasn’t the one directly working to free his people, but she’d know what was going on. In fact, there was a good chance that she was doing a lot of the coordinating of where they were staying while they waited on transportation off Zon.
Serenity didn’t have any trouble getting in to see Innat. Her receptionist, who introduced himself as Ekt, actually recognized Serenity and greeted him with a giant smile. He brought Serenity in to see Innat immediately, who was also very happy to see him.
Serenity couldn’t help but think that some of that had to be how much money he’d spent on the task, but some of it seemed to be genuine as well. Innat couldn’t seem to resist telling the story of how she’d found out that the two lawyers he’d hired, Maerite and Alanok, were secretly a couple. Serenity had to admit that it didn’t surprise him; he didn’t think they’d hidden it all that well, though perhaps that was because he didn’t know them previously.
When Innat called in Maerite to tell him how things were going, she insisted on showing Serenity the quarters she’d set up for the Earthlings. They were basic by Earth standards, but they were still far better than what most slaves had.
Naturally, that was how Serenity ended up spending the next two weeks organizing a good tenth of the rescued earthlings into temporary units to help assault Zenith. Most were quite willing to wait for rescue; more than a few thought they were owed something for the experience and certainly weren’t about to put their life on the line for slavers.
The ones who did want to fight had a number of different reasons. Some simply wanted to advance their Paths while others wanted to get home faster. Many of those who volunteered to fight had listened to Serenity’s story about why they were abducted and simply wanted revenge on the Eternal Church. Serenity didn’t try too hard to talk them out of it, regardless of the reason; after all, their motives were exactly the same as Legion’s. Legion was harder to kill, but that didn’t mean Legion wouldn’t suffer.
During that two weeks, the Lowpeak forces caught up with them. They moved on, along with the Mountain’s Crest Estate and Heavenfall troops, to a gathering point closer to Zenith. Several other detachments passed through Celestials’ Rest as well.
The fighters from the Iron Mountain Sect refused to move on; instead, they offered their services as teachers for Serenity’s forces. That made it blatantly obvious that they were indeed watching him rather than worried about Zenith, but he still couldn’t turn down the offer. It was simply too good, especially since he didn’t care if they watched him. They didn’t seem inclined to harm his people; that was enough. They could try to recruit if they wanted to.
Serenity didn’t know the plans for the liberation of Zenith until he was invited to the leaders’ council. He tried to convince Andarit that she should go in his place, but she said that he needed to be there to look after his Earthlings; she was there to command her father’s troops, not his.
Serenity grumbled but couldn’t refute her argument.
The plan to retake Zenith was simple and straightforward. Unfortunately, it was also likely to cost a lot of lives. Serenity didn’t like it at all, especially since they’d completely ignored or perhaps not known about an important factor: Prince Ora was still alive inside Zenith. Contacting him wouldn’t be easy, but it might give them some information they were sorely lacking.
It didn’t make Serenity feel any better when he found out that none of the army’s leaders knew where Princess Ceney was. She’d brought messages to their leaders and headed back to Celestials’ Rest, but no one knew if she’d even arrived.
When he heard that, Serenity knew he had to visit a particular inn.