All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 141: We Have Company

The report on the number of deserters was depressing. In all his time as a leader, Arthur had never had a problem with deserters en mass like this. Every commander had a few, of course. But this was well beyond the point where he could even pretend to find them all. And if they executed the ones they did catch, they would only be helping their enemies.

He took small comfort in the fact that the desertions were not coming from his own men and the army. Even Caleb's city guards were holding well; of course, they had every motivation to. Their families were here. This was their home they were defending. But the members of the local militias that had already lost their homes had much less reason not to just try sneaking out in the middle of the night. If they could get over the walls, of course.

No one could really guess how many made it through the undead, but Arthur hoped every single one of them did. He didn't want them adding to his problem.

Already every able-bodied man had been fitted for as much armor as they could find and were provisioned spears. At some point the “spears” had been substituted with sharpened sticks, but they worked with what they had. The untrained ones wouldn't be any help on the field. Some of his peers liked using the peasantry as shock troops, disposable bodies to throw at the enemy. Arthur never relied on such tactics. The logistics of it never made much sense; getting them to the battle and feeding them just to lose them in such large numbers usually made the implementation not worth it. Better to give them a week of spear wall training and use them for fencing the battle in.

Some got around the logistics by simply making the troops take care of any issues themselves. But then you either had starving troops, which made ineffective fodder, or a riot as they turned on the army before the battle even began. Bad for morale, that was.

Anyways, such tactics didn't work on the undead, so Arthur was glad he had other options.

No, his surprisingly enthusiastic conscripts were meant for the wall. Each three of them were assigned to a well-trained regular that patrolled with them and spent a little time drilling them in the basics. The longer this went on, the better they got. Another month or two more, and they would be able to hold the wall themselves without a portion of his veterans being tied up with them.

Arthur walked along the walls, now listening to the reports his aid read him. Deserters were no good, but scouts had reported a column of horse riders approaching. Finally, some reinforcements had come. It wasn't enough to break the siege based on the reports, but it was welcome nonetheless. It was long past time.

In the staging ground below, troops milled around, ready to charge forth and cut a path for the reinforcements to get in. They would likely get here late in the day. Hopefully, they could beat the sun.

---

Bee ran after her master, groaning internally. She had just gotten her break! What needed her attention now? She hoped no one was sick; it would have been surprising if that was the case though. So far, everyone had been suspiciously good on that front. She suspected that their proximity to Void had kept all of them fairly healthy somehow. Even the kids, who normally got should get sick constantly, didn't fall ill with so much as a sniffle.

Well, who knew if she was even interpreting Void's message correctly. Normally it was pretty clear, but this time she was pretty sure that she wasn't getting the whole story. Anyways, maybe her Improved Repair skill would finally get some use. So far she had been quite disappointed with her level thirty-five skill. As long as she was near Void, it didn't see any use. No one got hurt under its protection really, so she barely even knew what the skill did. She supposed if she got injured, it might help her patch up more quickly, but that had yet to be tested. She wasn't about to go around hurting herself just to find out either.

She hoped that her newest skill would be less disappointing. Between all the work around the castle, setting up the organization, and helping with the kids, she had reached level 40 just a day or two ago. Holy Aura seemed to already be working though. At first, she thought it would be something like a lesser effect of her master's domain. But instead, it seemed to be more of a magical skill that affected the people around her. It made the followers recognize her as a representative of their faith. It also seemed to increase her abilities in teaching about Void as well.

Since there were only the faithful in the castle, she hadn't gotten a chance to see how it worked on other people yet. Now that she was getting up there in levels, information on her skills was becoming less and less available. It used to be that most skills were at least mentioned in the library, though the more Void-specific ones were noticeably absent. But few enough people reached level forty that she wasn’t surprised at the drop off in records. Especially since the ones who did level this high weren't likely to share their skills with researchers.

So far, she had tested Holy Aura a bit with Tony. He said that he noticed a bit of an energizing feeling when she was nearby, but it was hard to confirm. So far, the pair were still the only ones with a Spot-related class. That would change soon, she hoped. He had taken a few days to go through everyone’s information and compiled a list of candidates that he thought would benefit from a change in class.

That would have to wait until later, it seemed. Void finally stopped by the front gate, and she slowed her pace. No one seemed to be severely hurt, so she had a chance to catch her breath. Instead, there were people gathered around the gate, staring suspiciously out at a group of newcomers outside. "What's going on here?"

The young man - Tai, she thought his name was - stepped forward. "We have some people demanding entry, High Priestess."

Before she had a chance to respond, a frustrated growl came from outside. "We aren't demanding entry. We just want to talk to someone in charge…."

Bee rubbed her forehead. This seemed like there was some misunderstanding going on. She stepped up to the gate and saw what looked to be five bedraggled soldiers standing in a loose formation out on the road. Their armor was that of professionals, but their demeanor was not. Their shoulders slumped like town guards rather than the military she had seen on parade before, and their equipment wasn't as well cared for as it could be.

Checking their levels, she found them all to be ranging from 17 to 19. The exception was the leader, who was 21. It was a little higher than she expected for their ages, though their leader seemed to be a bit older. Maybe forty.

"Well, you can talk to me." Bee said, stepping up to the gate. "What do you want?"

The leader of the guards looked her up and down, clearly surprised to see someone so young claiming to be a leader. However, he glanced over at Tai and seemed to remember his address to her. Keeping his words civil, he began. "Well miss, we have been traveling and we are wondering if you happened to have a roof-"

"Ah-hah! You did want entry!" Exclaimed Tai, pointing accusingly at the very frustrated-looking leader.

"Yes! But I'm not demanding anything!" The man nearly yelled. Turning to Bee, "Look, we have been traveling for some time. Can we come in for a meal and a night away from the undead? We don't have a lot of coin, but we might be able to pay or do some labor to work for it."

Bee looked the group over again. Their faces seemed gaunt and they were looking around nervously. They were low enough level that they wouldn't be a threat to her, let alone anyone else with Void present. Not that she didn't think they couldn't cause problems if they wanted to. But the only difference between them and other refugees was that they had weapons.

"If you are willing to leave your weapons with me, you can come in. We could always use some help." She said after a little thought.

One of the younger men sagged in relief, his spear holding him upright. Before anyone could move, Void let out a series of beeps. It took her a couple seconds to interpret it. "Oh, and I need to inspect you for disease as well."

"I can assure you that we haven't been infected." The leader insisted.

Bee just shrugged. "Can't be too careful."

"Fine. You can take a look at us. My name is Ruarch, what is yours?"

"Bee. Welcome to our castle." Bee greeted them as she waited for Tai to raise the portcullis.

---

I can't believe that Bee almost forgot to inspect our guests. That was the entire reason that I had asked her to come here in the first place! As we were talking, I had been inspecting the air with my purifier but still hadn't noticed any dangerous contaminants.

When Bee ducked under the gate to go outside, I joined her. I wasn't about to let her meet strangers by the castle gate alone. I still remembered how well that went last time. If it hadn't been for the large rodent, she might have even gotten more hurt.

Ruarch and his men laid down their weapons on the ground, but when I scanned them, I found that one of them still had several knives hidden on his body. Bee moved forward, but I stopped her with a beep.

She looked at me before repeating my message to the men. "All of them, please."

Ruarch twisted and glared at the man with many daggers. The recipient of the gaze flinched.

"I didn't think my belt knife counted." He muttered as he drew one of the knives and put it on the pile. Ruarch kept looking at him, and he grumbled and started pulling more knives out. Which one did he think was his belt knife? There were a lot there.

After several more knives were dropped to the floor, Ruarch turned away, satisfied, and the man stopped producing knives. I beeped at Bee once more and she glared at the man, "You still have three more on you."

Research turned back to the man with a withering look. He tried to act innocent, holding his hands up. "I- I don't-"

"Mat." Ruach bit out.

"Fine," He slumped. The three knives appeared, one from each boot and a small one hidden under his lapel. "I hate being separated from all my knives, though. Never know when you’re gonna need one."

"You will be perfectly safe here in Void's castle. We have not had an undead get inside since the beginning of the plague." Bee assured him. One at a time, the men approached her. She felt their foreheads and gave them a thorough inspection. "None of these men are infected. Are we good?"

I beeped my assent also, not having found anything wrong with them either. I moved forward and stored all the weapons in my dustbin for safekeeping. This produced gasps from all of them. "What… what is that thing?"

The whispers from the men didn't seem to be the only source of concern as Ruarch eventually worked up the courage to ask. "Miss Bee, uh, what- who is your friend there?"

Bee followed his finger to me and brightened. With a huge smile on her face, she introduced me. "Oh that’s Void, our god!"