All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 136: Pulling it Together

Bee felt a slight bit of panic set in as she looked at Susan and Tony from across the desk. They met her stare calmly and assuredly. "I don't think I can lead all of this. I can be in charge of doctrine and magic or something, but that's it."

"Of course, I think these things will fall to you for now, and doctrine will likely always be your domain. But magic and teaching will likely be delegated eventually," Susan said.

Before Bee could protest, Tony jumped in. "Besides, you're already doing it. This just makes it official."

"I'm not, though. I'm just taking care of problems as they pop up. Really, Void is the one running things."

"Yeah, but he can't be in charge of his own church; that would just be silly. Not to mention a hassle we don't want to bother him with. Of course, Void is in charge, but we can take care of the day-to-day ourselves." Tony shot back.

"Tony is right." Susan lent her support as well. "It's less about you being the absolute arbiter. That will always be Void. More like… you are the right hand of Void. The head priestess. Implementing the god's will through the organization."

That did help Bee feel a little better. "Hmm. I guess that sounds a little more reasonable… So there would be five members of the core leadership team, including myself. Is that enough?"

"I think we should consider adding someone who's dedicated to caring for and teaching the children." Tony piped up. "The mothers are still hands-on with most things, but everyone pitches in with the orphans. I think it's working for now, but I want to make sure that they all get a good education and have useful skills. Even if we aren't in a village, we still need things like blacksmiths. Right now, they're all training as warriors with Void. This should be fine, but not all of them can be soldiers."

"Most soldiers are militia members. Crafters and farmers drafted when they are needed." Susan pointed out. "These children will be greatly helped by knowing how to fight. It will be expensive, but if we always have a standing army in the form of our populace, we'll need fewer dedicated troops to prevent challenges to our power. Besides, we can have them do more basic labor to keep them humble. Most of the work isn't particularly skilled; we just need a few experts to keep things running smoothly."

"It'll have to depend a lot on what Void thinks of it. The kids are still a very long way away from anything like that." Bee argued. She wasn't sure of what to think of Susan's claims, but the children were a little young to be thought of as soldiers yet.

"Of course, of course," Susan conceded, waving her hands placatingly. "We still have a lot to figure out, but I think we can do more of that when everyone is present and has accepted their positions. For now, I think there are just a few more things to figure out. We need titles, and we should be thinking of how the religious organization fits in. So far, we have left that all on Bee and taken care of the practical concerns."

"I think we can leave it separate," Tony said. "Of course, not entirely, as the whole thing is dedicated to Void. But maybe once things are more settled, we can have a second council that's more on religious matters. When Bee's less busy, and we've found qualified people to take on her other duties, she can sit as Void's voice on each of them and lead them."

Bee ran her hand down her face. This sounded like she was going to have even more responsibilities. Not that she wanted to shirk them or anything, but she was afraid of letting Void down. "Before we go through with any of these, we need to see what Void thinks."

Both Susan and Tony nodded enthusiastically. After she received their agreement, Bee continued. "Well, we shall leave the religious organization aside for now, but we will need names. We can figure out the titles and stuff in a full meeting, but at least we can figure out what to call ourselves. I mean…. Are we a group, cult, society?"

—

The group of small children scrubbed the castle walls with brushes and buckets of water. As the adults walked by, I wasn't sure how to interpret the chuckles they seemed to be smothering. What was so funny about it? Was this yet another joke I was missing?

I had thought that I had started to understand humor somewhat. There were jokes, words that sounded like other words, or unexpected happenings. These were the categories that I found that would consistently make people laugh. Not everyone found the same things funny, but most people had a decent amount of overlap. Sometimes I would even find something funny too.

So why did most of the adults laugh at the kids scrubbing the castle walls? The kids didn't seem to find the same humor, at least. Perhaps it was something that would come with age, as I certainly didn't get it.

After a section of the wall had been scrubbed clean of any dirt or moss that had grown on it, I let the children go. Looking at the castle, though, I realized I may have made a mistake. Now one of the castle walls was quite clean, at least the parts under five feet tall. The rest of the castle, though… Well, the exterior now had quite the contrast.

I hadn't known if the outside of castles were even supposed to be washed, so I had just left it at first. Dirt and plants belonged outside, so perhaps they should have been left there. Still, I needed something for the kids to clean, and this was the best thing I could think of. I had taken care of almost everything else. Should I have tried harder to find them a different task? The clean wall certainly did look out of place. Maybe that was what the adults were laughing at?

But still, I didn't really have a lot of other options. When I was looking for something to have them do, it was the only thing that wasn't clean that they might be able to take on at their current skill level. Plus, it wouldn't be that big of a deal if they didn't do a good job on it, either. They weren't ready for some of the nicer floors yet, and I kept the inside of the castle plenty clean anyways.

The real question was, what should I do with the rest of the castle walls? I wanted to just clean them, but that also felt wrong. If I left them, it would help serve as a reminder to follow the rules and also give me something I could set them on if or when they misbehaved again. But could I bear looking at it?

I supposed I would have to. Their misbehavior was almost as much my fault as it was the children's. I supposed I could have been more clear in explaining the rules. Or done a better job making sure they were too exhausted to cause trouble. There was always something I could have done.

Still feeling uncertain about my choice, I decided to leave things be for now. Instead, I started back inside to find a spot where I could consider the bit of sheep fiber that I collected.

I had been making progress, but it was slow. Mostly I had been focusing on making small threads by linking the short strands of fiber together. Once I made those threads, I found it much easier to turn the material into something resembling things I had seen before. I wished I had been able to dedicate more time to this, but things had been popping up a lot lately.

As it was, I had only just figured out my first pattern. It was very simple and only had a couple of variables, but it was good practice for now, and I figured I could get more ideas later. As it was, I could only control how long each row was and how many rows I added to it. Maneuvering the material in my dustbin was tricky. It was quite a detailed and delicate process, one that required me to hold a lot of things in place at once.

Still, after a lot of false starts and aborted attempts, I was pretty sure that I was finally going to finish this with no mistakes. I wasn't sure what the piece of fabric was that I was making, but I had seen a few humans wind something like it around their necks. Its eight-inch width by fifty-six-inch length didn't make it useful for much else. Not that I could think of anyways. Still, I didn't have enough material for a proper blanket, so this would have to do.

Yes, I thought. This one would work out.

—

Roscoe lashed his tail in frustration. Another small raiding party made it back behind the walls. He wasn't sure how the humans managed to keep sneaking out and nipping at his army when they were unprepared. It shouldn't have been possible. The undead were untiring and ever-vigilant. It wasn't like they could fall asleep on the watch or anything like that.

Yet still, the humans managed to sneak out and negate the slow trickle of new troops adding to his army. The recruitment had been painfully slow with how many troops he had to keep near the city to prevent another breakout. He had thought that the army would just have to grow slowly, and eventually, they would be able to crush the city. Even if it was slower than he would have liked, it would still get done.

Now though, it wasn't certain. They had devastated the countryside and the nearby settlements, there wasn't a huge influx of new soldiers to be had from nearby, and recruiting en mass from a distance was hard when he and his elites needed to stay close.

Snapping a few orders to the surrounding troops, Roscoe turned back towards the forest. This situation would change soon. His skills with necromantic rituals were growing. Soon, the shades he summoned would rage through the city. This should provide enough of a distraction to allow a more direct attack and a far better chance of success than if they just tried now.

The issue was that shades were too chaotic for him to control directly. The few he had summoned seemed like they would be scary enough to be effective. They had no effect on the undead, of course. But when he had tried to release them from the city, they had just scattered in every direction. He could direct them without a dozen or so feet of himself, but once they got further, then they would slip out of his control.

To fix that problem, he would need to raise a wraith. A wraith was much more powerful than the shades, but it was also much more intelligent. To humans, this posed a greater risk. But for Roscoe, it only meant a better ally. Once he could raise a wraith, he would start amassing shades to serve it, and then the walls would finally fall.

Deep within the forest, Roscoe emerged into his clearing. The symbols dug into the ground were filled with a mysterious dark liquid, and small green fires burned in the corners of the clearing. A few of the elite skeletons were disposing of a few of the final materials. They greeted him with chattering teeth.

Roscoe helped move the last pieces in place, and then they started the ritual. The skeletal chanting rattled around the trees as dark energies congealed into the center of the symbols. The shadows around the clearing seemed to stretch and deepen unnaturally. If Roscoe could feel warmth, he might have noted its sudden disappearance. Finally, as the chanting reached its crescendo, the energies seemed to condense and solidify. After a long moment of tense silence, a light blue figure collapsed from the air.

"It is… so cold." A distinguished voice noted calmly.