All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 184: Military Discipline

Bee watched everyone file into the castle. The line seemed endless, yet they continued disappearing through the entrance without slowing. She knew that the castle was a massive, ancient structure, but sometimes it was easy to forget. Though the place was used as a mage’s college, she had read somewhere that it had existed for far longer. Between the carvings in the catacombs and the strange construction of the place, she could believe it. The castle’s size simply dwarfed any other structure that she had ever seen in her limited travels.

With that in mind, fitting in a few towns worth of residents was no issue. Well, it was an issue, but it was also doable. There were families confined to small rooms, and people had to share beds, tables, and living areas. She was sure that no one was going to be exactly comfortable. But it wasn't that big of a deal yet.

Of course, not everyone filed through in an orderly line. There were many children, especially young children, walking alongside the adults. For the most part, their mothers had been worn down, meaning they eventually were given near free reign of the caravan. As long as they didn't stray too far, of course.

They usually played and did a pretty good job of dodging wagon wheels and horse hooves. Still, as they entered the castle grounds, the mothers were maybe a little out of practice. The more enterprising youths soon ducked the line to sneak into the castle. Well, some of them did.

Some were very eager to explore their castle, but the rest wanted to run around the open grounds. The idea of vast open fields for playing and running about was simply too tempting after so long in the forest. Considering there was a wall, keeping them in and only a single gate leading out, the mothers were relatively okay with letting them loose. Even better, the Nighty Knights were already there, and they welcomed their new challengers with gusto.

Bee was fairly worried at first. She wasn't sure if the hard-working culture that the citizens of the castle had established recently would be overrun by the massive flux of unfamiliar people. Or perhaps there would be conflict as two groups of children clashed.

While she wasn't worried about anyone getting hurt in a normal childish argument, but there was a real threat here. With the Nighty Knights having earned levels so early, this was more of a concern than she would have thought. Especially considering their skills. But for the most part, the Nighty Knights were actually standing guard or drilling rather than running off to make new friends. The other kids were fascinated with the wooden swords they held and how they used them.

Mostly they just gathered around and watched, but as a critical mass of built up along the side of the practice field, a few brave ones went up and began talking. Bee watched over the various interactions of the kids and the adults both. Most of the adults were busy setting up and unloading any wagons or gear they brought. Soon, several of the mothers she recognized as having older kids came up to her worriedly.

The concerned expressions on their faces set her alert slightly, and she was worried that something was wrong. Had someone gotten hurt already? But when they began asking questions, she soon realized what was going on.

"So. The children with the practice swords, what's going on with them?" The oldest mother asked. She had quickly become a ringleader of the group with a force of presence that only was matched by Gertrude.

For the most part, she only bothered to make sure that the children were well cared for. With the attitudes of the leaders of the caravan, she hadn't had to do even that very much. But now Bee understood why others deferred to her.

Bee took a second to consider the question, not wanting to give the wrong impression. But there was really nothing to it. "They are the Nighty Knights. It's more of a group the children have formed themselves. They wanted to work on their skills, when they were first traveling to the castle, and Void was willing to teach them. However, when a god took to teaching the children as Void did, certain… things… happened..."

The mothers' faces didn't look any less concerned, but Bee pushed on anyways. "So when teaching, Void commands quite an exemplary level of discipline. The only problem is, though well behaved, the children had trouble getting rid of their excess energy.”

Some of the mothers were nodding along now. Bee even picked up a few whispering about how even their best-behaved children were still full of energy.

"So Void's solution to this was to get their energy out in a productive way. And that’s how they started practicing sword forms. Our god personally created each one of those weapons for the children so they could use them safely and has been training them for months now." She paused. She wanted to continue, but wasn't quite sure how to turn this around into the reassuring speech she had been planning. That’s when Gertrude hobbled up.

"Ah, I see you're training them young. This is good. There's going to be troubled times ahead. Every man should know how to fight, and most women should, too." The young mothers looked quite nervously at Gertrude. "Oh, don't give me that look. We'll have your children training soon, too, and they'll be able to protect everyone. Don't you worry. They'll know how to fight."

Bee quickly left the suddenly chaotic scene. At least it was Gertrude’s problem now. They could figure that out for themselves.

—-

I stayed high in the air as I watched the troops progress along the road. The scouts had made it to the edges of the forest that surrounded the city well enough, and I could see lines of communication being opened up between them and their commanders. They then, in turn, made it to Arthur. I didn't have to interfere once.

Mostly I just stayed high and watched the progression. The military tightened up their straps and began marching in a slightly more organized manner with much more efficiency. They would be there any minute now at this rate. So far, I had seen them break into units, then scouts came to lead various people into different positions. It was interesting to watch from above as I saw a strategy starting to come together. Arthur had a plan to completely wipe out the undead army besieging the city. When everyone was in place.

I stayed in the air to watch, but I could hear trumpet blasts signaling the start of the events. The infantry marched in from many directions, but even as they did so, cavalry thundered past, slamming into the hordes of undead. Just after, arrows fell from the sky like rain, softening up their targets. The cavalry trampled through at slightly oblique angles, always giving themselves a chance to wheel around and avoid being pulled out of their saddles and dragged into the fray.

The mounted soldiers managed a couple of passes before the infantry formed a shield wall. The undead left the city behind and attempted to swarm the infantry, But with the double-layered shields and the constantly stabbing short swords and pikes, they weren't able to get a hold. As they concentrated on the nearly impenetrable defense of the soldiers, the cavalry kept hitting their flanks while arrows rained down into their rear. The city was slower to react, but did manage to muster up some assistance.

Flags waved, and trumpets sounded as they worked out what was going on. Slowly but surely, more and more people appeared on the wall. Additional waves of arrows were loosed and took down zombie after zombie.

I noticed the commander of the army was a decent ways back from the fighting, but there was a near-constant stream of messengers running back and forth from him. They darted toward each section of the line in each company of cavalry and artillery. Usually, soon after, they would reposition slightly into a slightly more effective position. Sometimes they would move to support another side or just simply get a little closer. But the strange mastery of the field was inspiring indeed. Even if this seemed to be an extremely inefficient way to send messages. Beatrice was far faster.

True to his word. Arthur didn't call for my assistance. We had arranged a signal, a certain number of trumpet blasts to indicate that my assistance was needed, followed by a set of signals to work out a location for me to assist to. But it wasn't even close to necessary.

Soon enough, the undead were finished. It was an anticlimactic ending to the smallish force, but they all just died. There was no bang or heroic charge or attempt to retreat. Just one minute, they were fighting fiercely, and then the next, there were a few left. And then the moment after that, they were all dead. Truly, this time

As promised, I was left in charge of clean up after the medics had pulled every injured person away from the field. They were apparently treating them with their limited supply of anti-undead medicines. I trundled around, putting things back in order. I started off by removing all the undead and just storing them in my dustbin for later use. I had a decent amount of items in my voidlike dustbin at this point, and I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do with them, but I would need to figure that out soon. Otherwise it would get too cluttered for my liking.

It took me some time as the undead force, while smaller than I would have expected, was still made up of several thousand corpses. After that, I started to smooth out the field. Turns out that hooves and boots really destroyed the ground. Any bits of grass that had been here were now completely trampled and destroyed. I wasn't able to return it to its more natural aesthetic, but a packed dirt field would have to do for now. While I was doing this and consuming all the undead, I finally had a chance to think.

Through Arthur, the humans had shown remarkable capability. During this little skirmish, I realized it was the first time that I had seen them work together with such unity and efficiency. Normally they were in a lot of trouble or making a lot of messes. And while they did make a mess here, they prevented a larger mess from being made.

That was something I couldn't help but feel good about. My respect for Arthur and his organizational abilities grew further. Truly a difficult task was accomplished here.

As I scanned about for Arthur to continue our conversation about the best methods of cleaning in a military context, I found him just as another human did. Seeing the urgency in the other human's face, I let him speak first. "Sir, the Northeastern Division calls for aid. We have met heavy resistance. The enemy is buoyed by casters and skeletons along with the normal rabble. There seems to be a giant rat leading the army with its dark magic."

Silence met this pronouncement before chaos exploded among the watching officers.