All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 218: Shoot for the Moon

Chapter 218: Shoot for the Moon

The loud snip of scissors echoed over the camp. Bee held them aloft before the cheering crowd as the red ribbon stretching across the entryway fluttered to the side. Feet pounded on the newly cobbled streets throughout the camp as citizens of the castle and soldiers all rushed to be the first into the stands.

This was the first major project completed by the army since the construction on the camp had settled down. While the simple, rough longhouses for the men were certainly important, they weren’t nearly as exciting as a colosseum.

Bee was grateful for Void's wisdom in requiring good roads. She was also grateful that he’d agreed to Arthur’s suggestion for a formal training area. But its reasoning for building a massive structure like this was far beyond her. Still, they had built it nonetheless.

Void had provided a very detailed set of plans involving stacked, curving arches, forming the base of the building and nesting upwards into smaller and smaller arches until each arch was only a dozen feet wide. Each level of the circle on the inside sloped further and further down into a massive round arena. The building was huge, and that was even after they’d scaled down the plans a bit.

Construction hadn’t taken nearly as long as she’d feared. With how quickly everyone was leveling, their average person had many times the strength they should have. That, plus some help from Void and those blessed with helpful skills, meant that such an impressive project was done before the end of winter.

The whole thing was filled with stands and stone bleachers where people could sit, bring some padding, and lounge back to watch the arena below. There were even special boxes part of the way up where food could be served, and the announcer’s box at one end was somehow designed to project words all throughout the arena without any enchantments. Void had told her that was her box, and Bee couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed and grateful at the same time.

The first spectacle was planned for tonight. A Nighty Knight-led tournament was going to take place, but instead of the traditional one-on-one tournament they had at her birthday party, they had something different planned. The kids had apparently been branching out when she'd asked Felix about it. Apparently, both Void and Arthur had insisted that learning how to fight was not enough. They learn teamwork and cooperation. They were broken into small squads of four, but could be combined into larger ones of 8 or even 80. The Nighty Knights didn't even number 80, not yet.

It wasn't exactly mimicking the composition of the army, but it was close enough that the children had been going to the sergeants they knew to learn about marching in step and group tactics. Bee was sad to see that the childish games had only been able to take the Nighty Knights so far. Now, they would be learning something closer to actual war.But at the same time, she was glad Void was preparing them. Even if it seemed grim.

She admittedly had limited experience in battle herself, with a few exceptions. However, she had seen others who did fight, and they did face their enemies like her or Void. The vast majority of people fought in ranks as in war. They had to learn how to not injure the people next to them and how to hold the line, certainly valuable skills. It was only people like her and maybe Arthur or the champion buried under the castle who fought as individuals on a battlefield of thousands. Normally, for anyone of an average level, that would be a death sentence. But for someone who was double the enemy's average level, it seemed natural to be able to fight as a solo unit. She had no illusions that most people could do that.

Several of the Nighty Knights were certainly on track to be such fighters, but depending on when conflict came to their doorstep, they might not be there yet. Even then, even if they managed to become an army unto their own, who knew what their opponents would be like? Maybe their opponents would be just as strong. Or maybe they would be split up to work with other armies. In either case, it would be useful for them to know tactics and be able to read the flow of the battle so that they could position themselves as needed.

It wasn't the only change that Void had made when it had come back from its strange disappearance a little while ago. It came back in a particularly productive mood. Some would say it was concerned about something, but that wasn't anything anyone wanted to voice out loud about Void.

Even the soldiers were working on practicing ambushes and other slightly atypical tactics, like constructing forts from nothing but their surroundings after a long day of marching. Bee joined Arthur in one of the viewing platforms nearby hers so they could speak without being overheard. As they watched the stands, nearly every seat was soon full. However, there was still time before the event, so many streamed back toward the concession booths.

"How is the integration going?" She asked Arthur.

He grumbled. "I think we're going to have to give up on completely integrating the forces," he said. "The scouts are just too different. They've been trained with completely different goals and skill sets. I think it's better if we maintain the two forces separately. They do things differently enough that I think we can leave more traditional scouting to my men and leave the more clandestine work to Susan."

Bee nodded. "Makes sense. I know she really wanted to just be better at everything, but she was trained to do a pretty specific job, whether she likes it or not. And she trained her men to work like her rather than a traditional military scout."

Arthur agreed with a distracted grunt. "Yeah, the woman's a terror, but a normal military scout doesn't need to know how to infiltrate a city or mix with the nobility. But we're not just an army anymore, are we? We need to get the support that we would have received from the intelligence operatives the King employed. We need to have their equivalent. So I've been working with her.

“Earlier this morning, I think we agreed that we need to send out individual scouts to the castle. From the castle to various cities around the kingdom, along with other countries, if possible. It's going to take a while for her to train up replacements enough, but I think we can count on my scouts to watch the valley for now while they're short-staffed."

Bee bobbed her agreement. The idea of running a spy network was something that Susan vehemently denied they were doing, but there was no other way to describe it. The amount of influence she would be able to hold in any city, and the amount of information that her network would be able to provide back, was nothing short of masterful.

“That new message system should help your men out a bit,” Bee added.

Arthur nodded. “Right. That. I’m not even going to ask how Void came up with that.”

The message system that Void had created gave Bee a bit of a headache. It was quite simple, really. Void had somehow enchanted sheets of paper so that, when folded in the proper manner and thrown from a high enough point, they would glide straight toward their labeled destination. The odd triangles quickly replaced the more unreliable and commonly used pigeon method.

The trickiest part was learning the folds for it to work. These pieces of paper had very low tolerances, and even a slightly imprecise fold could cause the enchantments to fail. But really, Bee’s problem was that she couldn’t understand how it worked at all. There weren't any enchantments inscribed in the paper that she could tell, unless they were inscribed so finely that she couldn't see them with the naked eye. The paper itself shouldn’t even have magical properties, not with the materials it seemed to be made of. They were plain wood, not even fairywood or wyrmheart oak. Yet, somehow, these sheets did.

Void had tried to explain it, trying for several minutes to detail how it took wood scraps and arranged them in particular patterns in a very, very dark place. She just couldn’t grasp the meaning. It must have been more godly magic in his domain or system shenanigans.

"Still, we do need to set up a traditional pigeon station because we won't always have access to high towers in the field," Arthur said. "And we have a limited amount of paper."

Bee nodded. "Yeah. The castle had some, but a lot of the pigeons were lost when the mages' college left. I've put a couple people on figuring out how to raise more, but it will probably be some months before they manage it, even with artificial conditions. Birds still have seasonal mating rituals and stuff."

Arthur nodded. “To be honest, I don't know anything about pigeons or bird rearing, so I'll leave it in their hands."

Bee laughed. "I don't either, but I hope they do."

"Speaking of animal handling, your boy Tanu is quite impressive. I'm not sure how he managed to control that wolf, but could you please ask him to stop scaring my sentries with it?"

Bee chuckled and shook her head. "I've asked about it before, but I can try again."

Arthur smiled. "Well, at least he keeps them on their toes. But if any of his new recruits start doing this the same, I swear we're going to have to start giving pensions for heart attacks."

“His new recruits?”

"Oh, yes. Some of her litter has found friends amongst my men, as well. I think two soldiers and two other Nighty Knights have started to bond with the growing beasts. At least, I found them sneaking through the camp with them.”

Bee’s eyes widened. She had almost forgotten about the other wolves. How big were they now?

Arthur continued. “One sergeant asked my opinion on punishment for finding a wolf sleeping under a soldier’s bed. Apparently, he had been buying extra rations for the pup and feeding it against orders. It was only when he had been late to a training session one too many times that anyone noticed. I told them that the man probably should just be transferred out of the unit and trained on his beast handling, but I wasn't sure what your thoughts were on that.”

Bee shrugged. It wasn't really her issue. "Whatever you think is best. We never really trained Tanu. He just figured this out himself. So if he's going to help other people, that would be great. I’m not sure if they would fit in better with Susan's scouts or with your unit in your army."

Arthur shrugged. "They're kind of their own thing, I think."

"Yeah. Well, whatever you think is best." Bee said. She spotted a messenger waiting for her at the door and said her goodbyes quickly.

"Okay, we're ready to begin." Bee nodded in acknowledgment and stepped to the front of her box, clapping once.

The sound echoed throughout the entire arena. Slowly, the chatter died as everyone turned to look at her. "Ladies and gentlemen,” she shouted in her best performative voice. “We have for you the spectacle of the ages as our opening ceremonies begin. Please welcome: the Nighty Knights!"

The crowd went wild as one of the gates on the side of the arena opened, and the children filed out in a double column. At this point, they barely gawked about at the cheering crowd, though there were a few suppressed grins among them. It made Bee proud. to stand at the center of the arena facing her. They knelt as one looking not at her, but above her. She followed their gazes to see Void hovering over her shoulder. As one, they shouted. "Hail Void!"