All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 104: Old Haunts

Chapter 104: Old Haunts

Bee trudged back to the castle, a bit disheartened. Still, she carefully watched the side of the road and checked over her shoulder regularly. She was aware that this plan had been partly her idea, but that didn't stop her from feeling down.

She regretted being so harsh on Tony before leaving. When they got back, she would probably have to apologize to him. Now that she had enough distance from the problem, she might be able to admit to a certain amount of jealousy. It really didn't matter to her that he would be getting all the experience for a little bit. That was a good thing. No, it was that she was Void’s disciple first.

Intellectually, she knew it wasn't entirely rational, but this was the first time Tony and Void would spend time together. It was hard not to feel cast aside for a more promising disciple. What if he got the priest class soon, too? Then would she even be special anymore? Tony could already understand Void, even if not quite as well as she could.

Shaking her head, she tried to drive the doubt from her mind, though it ate at her relentlessly. Watching the undergrowth pass slowly by, Bee started wishing for a small zombie attack. Just a small one, to give her something to do.

Silas had been right. At this pace, they would make it to the castle just before sunset. If she was on her own, it would have only been a couple hours of running. But concern for her companions kept her at a slow, plodding pace. One thing that concerned her was that there would likely be at least a crowd of undead waiting for them, if not a more devious trap. If they sensed the life force of the family in the castle, that would be more than enough to draw them around, especially if there were some already in the area.

Bee kicked a rock and sent it flying into the trees. This sucks, she thought. Her foot pulled back to kick another stone, then she paused. She hadn’t heard the first rock fall to the ground. Instantly, Bee reached for her broom. Something was wrong. She queried her pathing skill for the nearest undead. It was an action taken on a whim. The skill had been growing recently with her use of it in combat, and she wasn't sure what else it could do.

Before she even felt the results, she wanted to smack herself. Setting up a whole symbol system with Void wasn't necessary at all. She could find her master and Tony anytime that she wanted with this.

The response of her skill completely derailed her thoughts. Holding up her hand, she halted her small party, "Wait."

Picking up a second rock, Bee hurled it with a lot more strength at a particular point in the trees. She heard a squelch and a thud as a zombie fell out in front of them, its head caved in by the rock. Silas's wife screamed.

This set off a whole chain of events. A dozen yards in front of them, two ghouls poked their hands through the ground where they had buried themselves under the road. From the sides, a few zombies broke through the treeline. Three from each side, though her rock had dealt with one on the left already. One of the other two zombies had a rock partially embedded in its gut.

---

I chirped happily from Tony's arms. We were making decent time toward the city as we trotted along. I asked Tony how many more farms there were. He wasn't able to tell me right away but counted on his fingers as he went through his memory. "At least five, I think."

That wasn't the most helpful answer. I preferred precise numbers, but it was better than nothing. We had been able to get to two or three farms a day while we were all in a group, and I didn't think we would be any faster without Beatrice. So it would be two to three days before we finished searching the valley. Our success rate wasn't great so far; maybe we would find one more family, but the longer we took, the less likely it would be.

Greg sat a little out of the mouth of the valley, so we wouldn't be able to offer everyone a place that we might encounter, but those closer to the city might be able to find safety there instead. Tony seemed really excited to get to the city.

As we turned down the next offshoot, I asked to be put down, and I carved the symbol Beatrice and had I agreed upon into the ground. Then we continued on to explore the .

The clearing itself wasn’t much different from what I expected at this point. However, the amount of carbon in the air was higher than normal. It wasn't until we saw the blackened husks of the buildings that I realized what had happened. Tony broke into a run until we reached the structure. He set me down to dig through the cold ashes of the houses that had been here before.

I scanned the ground, looking for signs of people. My models estimated that several people had come here maybe a week or more ago. Then, that number and more left around the same time. I beeped a question at Tony.

"I'm not sure how many people lived here," Tony said in a choked voice. "Two or three families."

I saw eleven extra sets of steps leaving the place and told him as much. With a sigh, he sank to his heels and put his face in his hands.

"That would be about everyone I would expect," came the muffled reply. Well, that was sad. I spun slowly in a circle looking for something to do. Not finding anything, I made my way over to the crouching Tony. Nudging his foot, I asked him what he would like to do.

"I don't know. It feels wrong to just leave it like this. But there are no bodies to bury." Tony explained.

My kind was not very sentimental about burial rites. Other appliances like me usually were tossed in the trash and sent to a landfill. Once we stopped working and couldn't be repaired, our bodies just became trash. However, I knew humans didn't hold the same views, but I also had no experience with human deaths either. I do remember seeing one movie where they piled rocks on a body, but as Tony said, we didn't have a body.

Well, maybe the gesture would help. With my claw, I started to pile rocks in a heap at the foot of the largest burned-out house. The stones were easy to find, if not always easy to move. Not that they were too heavy for me to lift, of course. But because of the awkward weight, I would need something to brace myself with to avoid tipping over. I tried to use Air Manipulation to lift them, but I couldn't lift anything too heavy.

Air Manipulation was really good at shifting dirt off the rocks to get at them, though. After 14.1 minutes of quiet work, Tony saw what I was doing and started to help. Soon it was obvious that, in terms of lifting heavy things out of a hole and transporting them, he was vastly superior. Soon I was uncovering the rocks and just pointing him to the next largest one I had uncovered.

In another hour and a half, we had a stack about waist-high stretching nine feet long, made of rocks around my size. At the head, we stuck the least burned beam and set it upright in the rocks. Standing back, Tony solemnly bowed his head while I lit the end of the torch on fire with my Sanitation Lamp.

The fire was instantly put out by the wind. I tried again with no luck, I was able to sustain it a while longer using Air Manipulation to shield it, but that wasn't a sustainable solution. Running my lamp along the beam’s entire length, the whole thing went up in a blaze. Tony looked up at the noise and, seeing the blazing pillar marking the fallen, he nodded.

I had to agree, it was quite a sight. I hoped it made Tony feel better. Though I didn't know if anyone else would ever see it.

***

The next farm we visited was the same. We built another cairn and lit another torch, then moved on. We found two more farms like this. Tony had stopped talking after the third one, and by the fourth, his face was entirely blank.

It was late at that point, as Tony had insisted on pushing on to check one last farm. However, there was no way we were going to make the next settlement today. As it was, I had already watched Tony fall on his face on three different occasions. I found it funny, but I wasn't quite able to pin down why.

As Tony settled down to sleep, I once again started to ponder the meaning of humor.

—

Bee ran to intercept the two zombies on the right, hoping to finish them off before the three on the left reached her wards. The ghouls weren't really something she was worried about. They were so slow it would take them a while to get to her. Once their trap had failed, the two weren't much of a threat.

Broom in hand, she angled the knife and speared right into the eye of the one with the rock in it. Immediately dropping it. It was only level 22, so she didn't expect it to be difficult, but she was half surprised that it fell so quickly.

Because of her surprise, she over-extended slightly, and her pathing skill urged her to roll forward to avoid the arms of the other zombie. She hesitated too long, as she was worried about leaving Silas and Lily exposed.

The only way to avoid the grasping hands of the much higher-level zombie was to fall backward. With her high agility, she was able to turn it into a backward somersault and end up on her feet, but it had already taken too long. She wasn't going to be able to finish this zombie and intercept the three coming from the other side.

She backpedaled, throwing a glance over her shoulder to see the old couple running away as fast as they could. Good, she had a few more steps to work with.

As she moved backward to keep the four zombies in front of her, she started making probing attacks to bait them into overextending. Maybe she could take one out before they could get past her. Two of them were above level 30, and they seemed to have a slight bit of intelligence, at least enough to tell a feint from a real attack.

The other two were not as clever. One she was able to trip with her broom end, and the other three tried to grab her when she was relatively close. The tripped zombie didn't fall completely, but it was as good as she was going to get.

This time when she lunged, she didn't over-extend and pierced the other lower-level zombie just enough to drop it before getting back into her defensive position. With only three zombies left, this shouldn't be much of a problem, she thought.

Though, somehow, the slight bit of cunning in the higher-level zombies told her otherwise.