All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 211: Constructing an Alliance

Chapter 211: Constructing an Alliance

I followed Bradley Chadwick out of the castle grounds at a bit of a distance. The army had been here for a few weeks and was really starting to settle in. The "snow debacle" had eventually run its course, and we had figured out a compromise that we could all live with. Part of that included paved walkways running through the camps and connecting them to the castle.

It had taken a bit of convincing to get everyone on board with this priority, but I had managed it. Arthur had wanted to build the buildings first, but with the rapid changes in temperature, mud was getting everywhere. Not only was it making a mess, it was difficult to move the equipment and supplies being gathered to build a more permanent camp.

The other major changes, aside from building roads, included the construction of stone quarries. It required a bit of work, but I helped things get moving. This allowed the army access to much superior building materials than the wood they were originally planning on using.

I thoroughly approved of the change to stone as the main material. Processing wood was very messy. Also, it was easier to keep the polished stone clean, especially since we didn't have the ability to pressure-treat wood at the moment. Construction was a bit slower than we would've liked, but after a couple of weeks, we were ready for the first attempt at integration of the army and the castle's inhabitants.

Bradley led two others of the Nighty Knights along the road over to the camp. At the entrance, he was met by a pair of soldiers who were expecting him. Some awkward greetings took place, but eventually, they all made it inside the camp. The soldiers didn't seem to know how to react to the Nighty Knights. It was an inadequacy a lot of people shared.

People just had to remember they were children. Children were also elite warriors on a holy crusade against dirt, but children nonetheless. What was so complicated about that?

The small group walked through the camp, slowly getting used to each other. It was lucky that the children were easily impressed, at least. In particular, they loved to stop and watch the construction. In fact, at one point, they stopped the whole tour to spend half an hour watching a main beam be lowered into place for one of the large command buildings. The event seemed to make the soldiers even more confused.

I understood the children's amazement, though. The mess of pulleys and draft horses used to maneuver a beam weighing thousands of pounds into an extremely right space was quite fascinating. A few other times, the children wanted to stop and watch some other interesting thing, but the soldiers eventually lost patience and reminded them that Arthur was waiting to meet them. I was just glad that they hadn't tried to get in the way of the builders or tried to help them. That would have been dangerous.

Arthur wasn't really waiting for them too much. He was in his office trying to keep up with paperwork. That man never had enough time for everything he needed to do. Ever since the apology to Susan, he had twice as many scouting reports to deal with. While Beatrice tried to help offload the work to other people, Arthur insisted on doing a lot more of it himself than he probably should've.

If this kept up much longer, I would have to have a talk with him. He was a more capable commander than this, and he had taught me a lot about delegating, so I knew he could do it. My hypothesis was that this was his version of penance. I could tell from the whole ordeal that things still had a long way to go before they were fully repaired, but at least they were going in the right direction.

Eventually, the tour ended, and the Nighty Knights made it to the command center. Arthur stood to welcome the little representatives of the castle. "Hello, honored knights."

Bradley and his companions returned the greeting with a bow and equally formal speech. "Thank you for your hospitality, General."

"I heard that the three of you have a proposal on some activities we can do to further strengthen ties between my men and the castle," Arthur elucidated as he gestured for them to sit in the offered chairs.

Bradley nodded as seriously as his little face could manage. The effect was lessened somewhat as the Knights had to physically hop to reach the chairs. "We do. See, recently we celebrated High Priestess Bee's birthday with a series of events and competitions. Outstanding performances were awarded with prizes from Void himself. I was thinking that since we had so much fun with that, maybe we could do something similar here. However, I do not think we will be able to impose upon our Lord for the prizes. But the idea of day passes that you and High Priestess Beatrice have been considering would be a ton of fun!"

Bradley's brow was pinched from maintaining such formal and unnatural speech for someone his age for so long. He did slip up a little bit at the end, but I was proud of him. He had been repeating that set of words for almost two days, constantly muttering it under his breath, trying to make sure he sounded just like the adults that he would be talking to. I hadn't helped or corrected him in terms of what was necessary for his speech, as it seemed to mean so much to him. But it was nice to see.

Somehow, Arthur was able to maintain his composure despite the overwhelming cuteness radiating off the very serious child soldiers. I had to repress a slight squeal to make sure that my presence stayed unnoticed as I watched from above.

I technically wasn't supposed to be here. Probably. The Knights were proud of having a real responsibility for themselves, and my presence might make it seem like I didn't trust them. Still, I worried about my charges, and I wasn't going to let them enter an unfamiliar camp alone without some experience. But as long as no one knew I was here, I was sure it wouldn't affect the outcome either way.

Arthur took half a second to compose himself and ensure he maintained his mask of seriousness before responding. "Excellent. Sounds like an interesting proposal. So you propose a fighting tournament involving some group, maybe a squad or platoon, in which the winners receive day passes. I do like that. It rewards the competence and effort men put into learning how to fight.

"My concern is that it would be the same people winning each time. How do you think we should make it so that while the best are rewarded, it's not always the same victors? Otherwise, you might as well just give them permanent passes, and that wouldn't achieve the main goal of getting the people familiarized with everyone else."

Bradley took a minute to think about this and looked over at his companions to see if they had any advice. Luckily, the little girl sitting to his left did. "Well, that's easy. We just have different games."

—

Bee drew up a list of events that she had tucked behind one of her stacks of paper. It was something that a lot of the Nighty Knights had helped her brainstorm, and she had also taken some input from Captain Major. The proposal she had sent to Bradley with Arthur had gone fairly well, and so he had asked for specifics.

She was sure that Arthur had already decided on the events he actually wanted, but this was more of an exercise for the Nighty Knights and everyone else to contribute to.

After reviewing the list, she took care of one more quick task. Pulling out some pieces of paper, she designed what a day pass would look like and drew up a quick 50 of them.

It only took her a few minutes, but she was relatively certain that no one would be able to match the precision and detail she put into creating each of these without significant hours' worth of forgery. Just to be safe, she also made a registry for the passes. That would hopefully help the guards to make sure that only people who were allowed to come in did. It was probably overkill, but according to Arthur, little traditions and things like this were built into the culture of a military or any group of people. Susan begrudgingly agreed.

While the castle had their own culture, they'd have to integrate with a force much larger than their own and somehow not get swept away. Controlling things like this, where her culture at the castle and the refugees would not get overwhelmed, was a great way to ensure this assimilation went smoothly. The soldiers would end up at least open to the idea of following Void rather than the castle becoming just like any other support base.

She was glad that Arthur had thought of this idea first. On her own, she certainly wouldn't have known how to carry it out. To be fair, Arthur didn't either, but he had enough experience with worse solutions that the commander had a few ideas of how to improve on them. Personally, she was looking forward to seeing some of the soldiers' tournaments.

While the Nighty Knights' duels had certainly been exciting, professional soldiers were bound to have more experience under their belt, and it would be interesting to see how differently they fought. Even though she outleveled them, she had no illusions that there was nothing to learn from people who'd been doing this as a career for so long.

The idea, though, that some soldiers would choose to challenge some of the Nighty Knights for slots was very interesting. The Nighty Knights hosted a few afternoons of open challenges where soldiers interested in earning a day pass from them could come and try their hands. Then, based on votes, the Nighty Knights would pick the five most worthy candidates to have access to the castle for the next weekend.

However, the Nighty Knights had some of the wildest ideas of what constituted a challenge. What's more, they had apparently taken Arthur's point about ensuring different victors to heart. So, the variety of challenges they had planned was quite impressive. Bee thought that many of the soldiers would come more for the show of watching their comrades make a fool of themselves rather than actually participating.

Still, it would be good. As it was, the castle was a bit tense, worrying about the soldiers and the changes they stood for. A few people had left the castle to spend some time in the camp for a few hours at a time, but it had always been a little weird. They weren't fully comfortable in the camp. Not to mention that everyone was too busy for ideal conversation; it was all hands on deck to get everything built before the next snow. No one wanted a repeat of that event.

They had made significant inroads with the families and the camp followers who were not professional soldiers but still accompanied the army. They also weren't allowed in the castle freely, as there were just far too many of them. But she could feel some lines of faith connecting out to them already.

Bee leaned back in her chair with a sigh. Things were coming together. She just needed more time.