All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 120: Growth and Decay, Life Cycle

Arthur watched the streams of undead pour away from the city like a mold growing outwards. This was the worst-case scenario in his mind. Not only were the undead able to spread out over the countryside, but he and his people were still pretty much trapped in the city for now.

They had done better than he could have hoped for, slowing the undead’s advance. They also were able to inflict heavy losses on their opponents. It had been enough to save the city that everyone had thought was lost for now. After the last engagement, his troops had barely made it behind the walls in time to repel the follow-up attack on the city. He simply didn’t have enough troops to continue this for much longer.

He had enough men to field a battlefield army or man the walls, not to do both. At full strength, they could manage to multitask, but that would mean even faster casualties, and no outfit was ever at full strength. Horses were beginning to become a problem as well. Many went lame, and most simply needed time to recover.

All these problems boiled down to a simple fact: Arthur needed help. He couldn’t be out in the field containing the undead threat without leaving the city to be consumed. But by staying here, the only real thing that Arthur was accomplishing was condemning the surrounding area and smaller cities. So far, he had no response from the capitol. He had sent his reports, and with each one, he tried to outline the dire nature of the problem and the need for more men.

Without reinforcements, there was little he could do but delay. So, delay, he would. It wasn’t time to bust out of the city, but if he had done his math right, the undead commander had made another mistake. Not a huge one, but it gave him just enough of a hold that he could get his fingernails in and cling to the cliff for a little longer.

“Get me the exact numbers the watchers are reporting and bring them to the command room.” Arthur sent one of his aides off. Watchers were one of the unofficial positions in his army that really only mattered for sieges. As far as he knew, most commanders didn’t have men filling the position and would rely on scout reports alone, but then most commanders were idiots.

The watcher's only job was to count the enemy troops. A careful count, continually updated, prevented more than one feint from drawing him out too early just because he always knew where the enemy was - or wasn’t. Sure, he might not be able to ride out now with his full strength. But in a few days… Well, then they would see if they might be able to do more than just break out of the circle.

---

The night started out peacefully enough. Bee and Tony had made a little fire just inside the treeline, so the light didn’t advertise their location to anyone in the large fields around the ruins of Greg. The city itself remained a silent, desolate mound from what they could make out.

This time, the city wasn’t their goal. They needed to get beyond the city as the farms and ranches were out in that direction. If they were to procure the sheep their master - no, lord - had demanded, they had longer to go.

After warming up some travel rations, they settled in for the night. One of the benefits of Bee’s higher levels was that she didn’t need to sleep nearly as much as she used to. So when splitting up the watch, she had no fear of not getting a full night's rest. Of course, that was before the problems started cropping up.

She was taking advantage of the full moon to read on a possibly heretical theory of alchemy, that randomness and chaos were required to find new solutions or recipes. Bee could feel her blood boiling even as she read. It went against everything Void had ever taught her. Order was far more important. A painfully documented, methodical series of tests, changing one variable at a time. This was how new things were discovered.

Though the author of the book might have some small points when it came to choosing which variable to change next. Or maybe in observing things for inspiration. But that didn’t count!

As a lively debate took place in her mind, Bee failed to notice the zombie stumbling across the plains. Not that the single zombie was much of a threat to her. Once it got close enough, she simply threw a rock at it as hard as she could. She scanned it first, of course. With a level under ten, the rock she flung went right through its skull like it was a watermelon hit with a stone flung from a sling.

This was just the first of such interruptions, though. After about an hour, Bee estimated that she had downed at least a dozen more wandering zombies. Not a single one posed any real harm to her, nor did they give her any meaningful experience. She didn’t even think that using her skills was very productive in dealing with them. But she couldn’t just ignore them. If enough gathered, it might have been a problem, and if she simply went to sleep and they came on them unawares, it would not be a pleasant thing to wake up to.

So, she stayed alert. It wasn’t a real burden. She had been planning on doing that the whole time. It was just that she couldn’t really sink her teeth into her book for more than a paragraph. Frustration bubbled under her skin as she kept an eye out for intruders, never letting her really get any meaningful work done.

Eventually, it was time for her to take her rest. It was Tony’s turn to take over the watch for the remainder of the night. Crawling over to the sleeping man, she gently shook his shoulder. “Hey, wake up. It's your turn to deal with the zombies.”

“Huh?” came the bleary response. Tony looked around sleepily for a couple seconds and blinked. Bee sat back to let him collect his thoughts.

“My turn to sleep you lump.”

Without any further explanation, she trudged back to her blankets, where she slipped her book back into her pack and nestled down to sleep. After a long day of running and a night of frustration, it came easily.

***

When Bee awoke next, it wasn’t to the morning sun as she would have liked. No, it was Tony yelling. She jolted upright and scanned for the threat, but soon enough, her shoulders slumped. Tony’s uproar was just a battle cry as he charged at a zombie about twenty feet from their campsite. Groaning, Bee took stock of her body. The rest she had gotten so far wasn’t quite sufficient - she felt grumpy like she had only taken a short nap - so she rolled over and pulled part of her blanket over her head in a futile attempt to muffle the sound of battle. Come on, it's only level seven.

Not that Tony had any way of knowing that. Still, the fight was quick, and a few minutes later, she was drifting back to sleep. Only, the scene repeated itself. Grumbling, Bee once again checked on her companion; the stray zombie was a level 12. Surely that isn’t a real issue?

Still, as Tony returned from his battle, she chided him grumpily. “Could you keep it down? I didn’t wake you up every few minutes yelling, did I?”

“Bee, there are zombies attacking our camp. Thank Void you’re awake!” Tony said, a little out of breath.

“Yeah, they have been all night. That doesn’t mean you should be yelling about it. Just finish them off quietly.” Bee insisted.

Tony stared at her, then started gesturing wildly. “If I shouldn’t yell about zombies, what in the blazes am I keeping watch for?”

“Sure, watch for zombies, but don’t wake me up all the time.”

“You don’t want to be warned about zombies while you’re sleeping? Are you insane?”

“I didn’t warn you, now did I?” Bee snapped, feeling like this wasn’t the first time that she had made this point. “No, I just killed them quietly and let you sleep.”

Tony looked at her blankly before kicking the dirt. He muttered something that she couldn’t make out.

“What was that?”

“I said, we should have camped in the trees.” Tony lied, but she let it slide. “Fine, I’ll try to keep it down. But if anything other than zombies comes, I’m waking you up.”

“Fair enough,” Bee said, nestling deeper into her blankets.

---

I rolled along next to Felix and Trent as they walked to the edge of the oldest field the workers had cut. It looked like Trent was heading towards a large pile of dead grass a little ways off from the field. Was this what he meant when he mentioned “the pile”? It was the only thing that I could think of that made sense.

When we arrived, Trent stopped and turned to Felix and me. “So, this is a compost pile. Most dead parts of the plant can be stacked here. After the pile gets to an inconvenient height t’ stack things on, we just start a new one. Once the pile’s mostly turned into something like dirt, we mix it into the dirt of the soil, and it’ll help the plants grow.

“There might be a better way to do this, but this is what my father did and it worked well enough for him.” Trent finished. That was interesting. I scrutinized the pile with my scanner. Sure enough, it was mostly composed of plant matter. As I looked deeper into the pile, I could see the structures within slowly breaking apart. As they did, the nutrients I was worried about removing from the soil spilled out, so to speak.

As to how they broke apart… I shuddered slightly. The germs. This pile was teeming with bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms that were new to me. It was… disgusting. I was immediately tempted to flash the whole thing with my sanitation lamp, just on principle. However, I stopped myself. These particular germs seemed to be doing something useful. That was new and honestly unexpected. I’d have to observe them further to understand more. My sensors were already focused on feeding information on the different species to my processors just to compare them to what I had been cleaning within the castle.

As for the pile itself, I could see how this might be plant food. It solved most of the problems that I was worried about. The only thing was that Trent didn’t think that it all needed to be mixed back in the soil, just partially. Wouldn’t that mean the quality of the soil would still slowly degrade if that was the case? Felix communicated my concern to Trent.

Trent rubbed his chin in thought. “I suppose it might be normal if the only nutrients that entered the field were from fertilizer. But try as we might, insects, birds and other animals make it into the fields too. Their leavings also get mixed in over time, and that works well enough.”

Well, that made some sense. I had Felix communicate my next thoughts even if they weren’t really a question. “Well, humans need to take from the field when they get their food anyways, so it wouldn't be perfect without other help. What was that hay you were talking about before?”

Hey! That was an excellent translation, Felix. I gave the boy a beep of approval.