All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 234: Grounded in Faith

Arthur felt the blood drain from his face as Tony carried Bee's limp body through the gate.

"Mr. Arthur, the enemy is-"

He immediately motioned for Felix to silence the constant stream of information he was recounting and dashed toward the girl. This needed his full attention. However, the people weren't reacting as though Bee had been severely hurt. Instead, they were cheering as Tony kept walking on. When Arthur reached for Tony's side, he laid his hand on Bee's brow. She was feverish but clearly breathing heavily.

"What happened to her?" He demanded. He had almost asked for a report on reflex, but the farm boy wasn't a soldier.

"The enemy deployed some sort of big magical frost attack. Bee used a skill to stop it. It took a lot out of her though. I have no idea how long she'll be out for, but she needs to rest badly." Tony summarized the situation well enough. "They took the outer wall, but they definitely paid every bit we could make 'em."

Arthur nodded. The last part wasn't news to him, but Bee's condition certainly was. At least she was exhausted, not wounded. With the situation under control, the commander headed back to Felix.

"Archers on the left wall 're runnin' out of arrows," Felix reported in a strangely monotone voice, his eyes closed. Arthur nodded and signaled to one of the Quartermaster's assistants nearby, and they went off running to take care of the issue. It had never been so simple to control a battlefield as it was now. Information flowed almost instantaneously, no matter where his forces were. He could make decisions and take advantage of openings so quickly that it might feel as though he was predicting the enemy's moves.

Unfortunately, he wasn't sure how long Felix could keep this up. It had already been some time since the kid's skin had taken on a pale sheen. They would need to find an easily defensible lull in the battle for Felix to take a quick nap, but Arthur wasn't sure how quickly they could bring one on. It could be some ways off. He continued to make small adjustments to the forces arrayed on the wall, sending reinforcements to places that were at risk of being overrun based on reports.

All the while, the catapults and trebuchets and ballistas kept firing into the mass of enemies. The enemy had decided to immediately push forward for the second wall, not even slowing after the first. The Kingdom's armies just kept pushing through the rubble of the first wall and racking up casualties. But as they made it through the no man's land, the continued bombardment meant that reinforcements found it harder and harder to reach their destinations, especially once they entered the range of the second wall defenders and were absolutely unloaded upon.

That was when the trebuchets shifted their ammunition from single-target, heavy, destructive weapons to the specialty items that Miss Bee and Maranda had cooked up. Judging from reports, they worked just as intended. The stones split apart before they hit the ground. Instead of leaving a crater, they left a shredded pile of soldiers in a large radius. Arthur had waited until the enemy had reached the absolute most people packed into the killing field before changing ammunition, and this new threat made it nearly impossible for the back of the army to reinforce the front or for the front of the army to retreat. They'd separated off a large chunk of the force, pinning them between the wall in front and a field of razor death behind them, making easy targets for archers and pikes to finish off.

Arthur shuddered a little at how effective those exploding rocks had been. Those two girls were somehow more terrifying than he'd given them credit for.

So far, everything had been going according to plan, but he wasn't sure if it would be enough. The enemy vastly outnumbered their own forces, and if they were throwing their people at the wall like this, they clearly believed they could spare them. It could've been that the demons amongst them were in control and didn't view the humans as particularly valuable. But he suspected they were more likely conscripts or just poorly trained fodder, little more than shock troops. While they were still important for them to be defeated, it wouldn't make the enemy commanders lose any sleep. Usually.

Arthur was more surprised that he hadn't seen any demons yet. No one had, based on the information the other Nighty Knights fed to Felix. But with this strong of a showing, he wouldn't be surprised if they made an appearance soon. The second wall was constructed significantly better than the outermost wall, and they intended to hold it for much longer. So perhaps it would allow them to draw out their true enemy.

Once the enemy was defeated, he signaled for the Trebuchets to stop wasting their limited supply of extremely potent anti-personnel munitions. They had agreed upon this earlier and set up a manual signal from the front lines to the back lines. And they even had backups in case Miss Bee wasn't able to perform her duties, like right now. They would let the trebuchets know when to fire a stone in case the no man's land was encroached upon. But for now, that was the only information they needed. And Felix could get some rest.

Arthur steadied the young boy with a hand on his shoulder as he walked him over to the series of cots set near the command tent. The boy was still a boy, but Arthur could tell that somehow he had already mastered the soldier's skill of sleeping whenever he needed to. If only his own kids had learned that one - it would have made his wife's job a lot easier. As if to prove his point, Felix began snoring before he was even halfway onto the cot. Arthur had to help lower the boy down into the rest of the way so he didn't fall off as he slept.

Leaving him be, Arthur quickly approached the scouting post where Susan and Captain Major coordinated their efforts. A lot of their duties had been subsumed into Felix's abilities, but Arthur wasn't about to entirely trust the Nighty Knights to watch for everything that was needed. After a quick rundown, he confirmed that Felix had been giving him good information this time, and they had acted accordingly. They had orders to step in if they were getting massively conflicting results reports, but they hadn't needed to so far.

"Okay. And what of the flankers in the forest? Have we seen any attempts to bypass the walls by going around the densely wooded areas?" Arthur asked.

Susan and Captain Major both shrugged. Captain Major spoke first, "We've caught a few of their scouts, but so far, there has been no concerted effort."

Arthur nodded. "Good. Good. Let me know if that changes."

He turned to move away, but Susan called out, "Sir. There's another concern. I'm worried about them trying to burn the forest down around us."

A messenger ran up, interrupting their conversation. He gave a crisp salute, turned to Arthur, and only glanced at his immediate superiors. "Sir, they've started advancing again."

Arthur heard a slight boom as another heavy stone landed. He winced. He didn't expect them to try to push through the bombardment as quickly as they had. They only had so many enchanted stones. While they had proven to be some of their most effective weapons, they had been an experiment. A gamble that took time to prepare. Between that and other necessary preparations, they didn't make as many as they should have. Now, it was too late. Maranda wasn't skilled enough to produce them herself yet, and Bee was indisposed. Even if she started producing them nonstop, it wouldn't be enough to extend the bombardment for more than a minute or so.

He hoped they had enough to push back another assault. Fortunately, they also had plenty of magical concoctions to use if they needed to collapse the walls. Surprisingly, the immediate single target stones that Bee had made were more effective against a wall of stone than they were in a large area. Arthur turned to Susan and Captain Major once more.

"I want to know the second they start sending something that can actually get through the bombardment. And I want to know if we can risk not using the specialty ammo and just use regular stones for now to prevent them from getting too far ahead. They shouldn't be willing to trap as many of their soldiers against the wall this time if they've learned anything from last time.

"Actually, belay that. Just tell the catapults to switch to standard stones now." He turned to the messenger waiting, and the man ran off to instruct the catapult operators.

"It would be better if they did push through. We will hold them at the wall, and we'll do the same thing again, destroying another large section of the force," Arthur explained. "Still, I want to know the second they change their tactics."

Susan and Captain Major both saluted, and Arthur walked away as they prepared their scouts. He went to climb an observation platform that some of the farmers had built in their spare time. It wasn't going to give the best vantage point of what was going on, but he could at least see the ebbs and flows of the battle.

Half an hour later, one of Susan's messengers ran up to inform Arthur that their plan had worked again. The enemy had just thrown more soldiers into the meat grinder of the anti-personnel rocks. But things were changing. Apparently, sand golems - or earth demons disguised as sand golems - were being sent ahead of the army. Why they hadn't been used earlier, Arthur had no idea. But he supposed that if his opponents were playing some hidden cards, he might have to see personally what was happening.

He quickly descended from the tower and took a pair of soldiers as guards with him towards the second defensive wall. It was time for him to see what was going on with his own eyes. When he arrived, he saw four mounds of living dirt shot full of arrows. The projectiles showed no signs of impeding their progress at all. The standard troops had halted since they weren't able to get past the trebuchets for fear of the anti-personnel rounds. But these elementals had no such issues.

Occasionally, one of the trebuchets would increase their range a little bit and attempt to hit farther back in the enemy camp. But the enemies had wised up about this and pulled their forces even farther back. The four earth demons carried a massive log between them. The log was at least 30 feet long and several feet across. It had a metal cap on one end, narrowing it down from three feet to only a few inches. The handles on each side were sturdy enough that they would be able to put significant force into each strike of the incoming battering ram.

Arthur looked around and saw panic on the faces around him. There were ways to deal with demons, and they had magical countermeasures, of course. But he didn't think that that would cut it for these men. They looked worn out. Most were his soldiers and war veterans in the campaign. But this was different.

At least with the undead, they were able to do harm. Earth demons were notoriously difficult to deal with, especially with a soldier's standard repertoire of stabbing and slashing. And with Miss Bee having fallen so early in the battle, Arthur thought they might need a little pick-me-up.

Drawing his sword, he motioned for his guards to stay behind. With a yell that reminded him what it was like to be a younger man, he leaped off the wall and met the demons with a charge.