“Keep your shield up!” Matis shouted as he battered at the peasant with a length of fencing post. The wood clattered against the shield like slamming door as the wiry with hunter hammered his opponent with surprising force. The instruction might have been more helpful if he had remembered to speak Brettonian but the blow he delivered across the man's head when he dropped the shield was eloquent enough. Around him two double lines of peasants stood wailing away with their own wooden weapons while Leofric shouted at them to keep their shields tight.

Camilla sat upon a fallen statue watching the proceedings with a slightly pained expression. In the week since the Grail Knight had appeared word had spread of her alleged elevation as a religious figure, her small band of peasants had grown from a score to well over a hundred. There were enough of them now that she had felt some sort of training was necessary if they were to be effective. The decision hadn’t been popular with Beaumont and his men, who viewed the situation with growing alarm. What at first had been few homeless peasants was fast becoming an army and teaching them to use Imperial tactics was almost as bad as leading a rebellion in their eyes. Two more of the knights had deserted over the past week, uncomfortable with the perceived heresy or her arming and training of peasants. Even those who had stayed seemed uncomfortable and unhappy, though as yet their loyalty to Beaumont outweighed their disquiet towards her. 

To make matters worse they had not encountered any of the undead in the few days since the battle by the ruins. A battle would have been good to pull everyone together, and it would have eased Camilla’s mind that she was on the right path. A gnawing sense of doubt had begun to grow that maybe she was on the wrong track, a discomfort that Renard’s blind faith that she knew what she was doing, made worse.

“They have a long way to go,” Matis griped as he climbed the hill to where Camilla watched, Leofric making up in invictive for the absence of the Imperial’s skill.  Camilla did not answer immediately, if only Cydric were here, she was certain he would be able to whip these men into order far faster than Matis could. Try as he might the Witch Hunter just wasn't a man to lead others, except maybe by fear.

“Well we may not have to much more time,” Camilla said finally, the silence compelling her to say something.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t send to Bourdeaux for handguns?” Matis asked.

“Absolutely not! Bad enough you are training this rabble rather than trusting the Knights too…” Beaumont exploded. Camilla gave a weary sigh which cut of the night more effectively than a slap to the face might have done. She didn’t bother to point out that the gallant Knights of Brettonia were yet to do much more than squabble amongst themselves.

“This isn’t the Empire Matis,” Camilla pointed out, as she had the previous times he had raised the notion.

“The don’t sell powder at every trading post, we wouldn’t be able to keep them firing.” That was nothing but the truth. It was becoming hard enough to feed the men now that their numbers had grown to the point they couldn’t easily forage. The local lords had refused to allow trade with them but the outlying villages, perhaps encouraged by the nobles dislike for ‘Mademoiselle Aqua’ had showered them with gifts of grain and wine as well as offering her fresh recruits. Camilla needed more horses, more wagons, more things than she had ever imagined worrying about. Part of her felt she owed a great many quartermasters an apology for the complaints she had leveled against them.

“Riders!” a shout came from one of the lookouts. Everyone reached for their weapons but a moment later a second shout followed.

“Scouts returning!” 

Everyone relaxed as their fears of a column of Knights bent on teaching peasants a lesson faded. The scouts, lean pinch faced men on wiry mounts cantered down the road, their horses heads drooped with exhaustion from the unusual exertion. The leader of the small group a hatchet faced man named Gaston whom Camilla suspected had been a bandit rather than a peasant, leaped from his horse and jogged up the hill to her, falling to his knees in the elaborate deference that all the peasants had adopted.

“Mademoiselle, it is as you say,” he gasped. Camilla passed a waterskin to the man who unstoppered it and drank deeply.

“At ze old Chantry on ze island in the river, we saw movement and strange lights,” Gaston confided in his heavily accented Brettonian. Camilla felt herself relax even though she knew that this meant they were in serious danger, at least she had not lead them off on a wild goose chase.

“Zere is more Mademoiselle, as we were creeping up, we met… an elf,” he breathed looking around as though speaking the words allowed would bring ill fortune.

“An elf?” almost everyone asked at once. Gaston nodded energetically.

“He came out of no where, said he had something to tell you and that you should meet him on the path to the chantry after dark,” Gaston explained.