All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 167: The Long March

Bee called an early halt the first day. They were little more than a few miles out of sight of Caleb, but most of her charges were grateful for the rest. Apparently, Captain Major's assessment of the pace had been a bit inaccurate.

As she walked through the caravan, she saw many people on the ground, slumped over in exhaustion. They passed water skins around. The soldiers standing guard helped where they could, for the most part, so at least that spoke well of them.

In the future, they would either have to stop earlier or move at a slower pace for longer. She wished there was someone else who could make those decisions for the caravan, preferably someone with more experience regarding what people were capable of. Yet the responsibility seemed to land on her now. Trying to rely on soldiers for estimates of the right pace was clearly not going to work.

She didn't exactly think that they meant any harm. Rather, they just didn't know any better.

Bee walked through the people, speaking briefly with several of them. Despite their rough shape, their spirits were high. Many of the younger ones were in particularly good shape and thanked her for taking them in. The ones still recovering did their best to smile and give her a bow. Evidently, stories of Bee's role in the conflict had already spread.

Eventually, she made it to the nominal leader of the refugee group. Gertrude was a withered old crone. By her own description, not Bee's. She stood at the back of the caravan, leaning on her cane heavily. From what Bee had seen, she had hobbled along the entire way with her gnarled stick supporting her weight. How she had managed to keep up, Bee wasn't entirely clear.

"There yer are, young mistress." She said with a toothless smile. "I was just aboutta come lookin' fer ya."

"Hello, Gertrude," Bee greeted her with a hint of nervousness. The old woman hadn't been anything but polite and kind to her, but somehow Bee still found her intimidating. It was probably because she had scanned her.

Name: Gertrude. Level: 43. Race: Human. Class: Baker. Age: 168. Highest Stat: Wisdom. Weakest Stat: Constitution.

Level 43. That was insanely high for someone of her station. Without all the resources of wealth or nobility, it would have taken a truly monumental effort to get that high, even for someone 168 years old. What was someone like this doing out here?

At her age, Bee imagined that even her stats wouldn't be enough to counteract her body's degradation, and she wouldn't be as strong as she was in her prime. But the intelligence stat didn't deteriorate with age at the same rate as the physical stats, and wisdom wasn't affected at all. The woman was still sharp as a knife.

"Tomorrow we won't be pushing as hard. This was too much." Bee said.

"Nonsense, we hafta move fast. We don't wanna be caught out if the weather turns." Gertrude said with a wave of her gnarled hand. Her voice came out in a wheeze, and Bee thought she was about to start coughing any second; somehow, she held it in though.

"The people won't be able to keep up this pace for another day," Bee protested. "If they start to get injured, we will fall even further behind schedule."

"We stopped early enough, they'll get the rest they need. I'll talk to 'em, but everyone understands the urgency. You won't hear any complainin'." Gertrude assured her. Bee wasn't convinced, though. Even if no one complained, that didn't mean that they wouldn't be in trouble, and that would inevitably slow them down in the long run.

Still, she just nodded. They would go slower tomorrow, and maybe as they went, people would get used to marching. Then they would be able to go for longer. Hopefully, they would build a bit of strength before they got worn out. That was what Captain Major said, at least; after the day's debacle, she wasn't sure how much to trust his advice.

The military was all young and fit; for the most part, some exercise would do them well. The elderly and new mothers didn't have the same reaction. Bee didn't want them to have to be hard to survive. Once they got to the castle, they should be able to relax.

Leaving the old matriarch to her own business, Bee went over to a nearby cook fire that had just sprung up. The soldiers were in the process of unloading kettles and bowls from the wagons.

Bee had worked out a meal plan with Major during their trip. For the first night, each squad of soldiers would cook for four times as many people as they would normally. That would ensure that the refugees were fed as well. After things got settled, then they would figure out a new system.

It appeared that the plan was already falling apart. Not that people weren't getting food. Rather, the soldiers had been ousted from the cookfires. Some of them were distracted from their duties by a mother asking for help with something or other. The more stubborn and dutiful ones were rebuffed more forcefully. Bee watched an older lady chasing off the soldier manning one pot with a wooden spoon and a scolding.

The one Bee walked up to was being manned by an older woman she had seen walking with Gertrude through the day. Thinking back, she remembered quite a lot of people walking with the old crone for a few minutes of quiet conversation before melding back into the crowd.

Looking around the camp, she realized that many of those same people had taken over the cooking. She checked up on a few of them to ensure no one was tapping too deeply into the food supply, but there was no such issue. They were simply fortifying the food with other ingredients that had been brought along from homes or foraged along the road by enterprising young children.

Bee couldn't be upset about it. Honestly, it was better this way, but she couldn't help but think that it would have been good to work this out together with the soldiers. That would have avoided a lot of confusion.

The camp was starting to order itself, and everywhere she went, she found that she wasn't needed. It was a huge relief. Eventually, she found a very confused Captain Major sitting on a rock by himself a little way out of the camp, just in sight of the guards.

"Captain, anything wrong?" Bee asked, coming to a stop in front of him.

Major looked up at her before blinking. "Bee. How's everything going?"

"It's working itself out. Shouldn't you know that? What are you doing all the way out here?"

He nodded to himself absently. "That it is. That it is."

"Uh, Captain?" Bee was starting to get concerned. Maybe he had received a head wound recently? Before she could kneel down the check, he continued.

"I've never seen a camp like this before. Everyone seems to have a place, everything's so organized… Is this your god's work?"

Bee stopped to consider. "Maybe? I don't think so, though it might be having some effect through me. I think it's Gertrude mostly."

"Gertrude? I don't know what that is."

"Not what, who. She's one of the older refugees. A leader among them in a way. I think she planned this, uh, coup-d'etat during the march." At the mention of a coup, the Captain's eyes lit up, and he looked around before processing what she said.

With a sigh, Major relaxed. He let out a short laugh as he shook his head like he was trying to clear it of cobwebs. "You know this was supposed to be my first big command?"

"Really? I would have thought to make Captain, you would need some experience?' Bee said, hoping that she wasn't about to offend the officer in charge of her protection.

"Sure, I had commanded smaller outfits, but they were always part of a larger force. The true independent commands went to nobles. Competent officers were always put under them to keep them in check. I didn't have the connections to secure a bunch of experienced sergeants to get an independent mission approved by command.

"But here I am, and I don't even need to do anything. Everything is being taken care of and any order I think about giving would undermine an already working outfit. It just feels so… pointless. Not only are the troops doing well, but the civilians we are protecting are almost more organized in their own way…." Major finished with a sardonic chuckle.

During his little rant, Bee had taken a place on the rock next to him. They just shared the silence for a little bit. Eventually, it stretched long, though, and she decided to break it. "I think not doing anything is the hardest move sometimes."

Major looked at her with a bit of a doubtful expression. She considered how that advice must look from his perspective. It was easy to forget that she was almost 14. "I mean, look at me. I shouldn't be commanding anything or anyone, honestly. But Void chose me to be its high priestess, and I had to learn as I went.

"When the castle first started getting new residents I was trying to do everything myself and it was just too much. Eventually I found people who I could trust to take care of things. This has been the first time I h've been away for any period of time and I'm worried about them all the time. But I need to trust that they will be okay. That they know what they're doing, and that I don't have to personally be there to oversee every little thing," Bee said. As she spoke, she felt a little foolish. Still, she hoped it helped Major understand her.

He gave her a slight smile in return. "I suppose it must have been a lot from someone so young. That must be quite the story."

—

I slotted the last block into place around midday. The whole building thing had been an excellent training program for a couple of my skills. By the time I was done, I had decreased the average rate of blocks set from one per 30 seconds to one per 20. The only thing that was left was the gates.

I noticed that the missing mortar - the foreman told me what the sticky paste was called when he asked why I wasn't using any - was causing the walls to be an inch or so shorter than they were supposed to be. This made it so that the fittings were just a little off.

I had been focusing my domain on removing the last of the warp from the gate and also removing impurities from the metal. So while it was at it, I started directing it to move the fittings into the proper place. By the time the last block was in place, it was ready to go.

Despite all my training, I wasn't confident in my Air Manipulation to lift such a heavy piece of metal. Moving half-ton blocks was one thing, but the gate weight might have been thirty times that. That the humans had managed to slot it into place the first time was honestly impressive.

Looking around, I realized that there was nothing else left that needed doing, at least not in rebuilding the gate. The rest of the humans were all going about their business in the city. Many of them were rebuilding after the significant damage done to the houses.

Returning my attention to the large gates, I focused on my Air Manipulation. But I wasn't able to get a good grip on them, and even trying to lift only the left gate, I wasn't able to get it to budge. Seriously, how had the humans been able to move it in the first place? I watched them move blocks that were much too heavy for them before.

I could just brute force toss them around, but they couldn't, yet they still moved them. Thinking back, I saw they were using long rods as levers and pulleys; could I do the same?