All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 233: One Eternity Later

The retreat from the first wall went almost as smoothly as expected. Right about when the castle's forces ran out of arrows, the enemy soldiers had begun seriously making progress on scaling the wall. Bee heard the signal from Arthur's command position to fall back. The archers retreated first, making it most of the way back to the second wall. From there, they took their last remaining three arrows each. As the pike wielders fell back, they started to pick off anyone who made it to the top of the wall, preventing them from overrunning the rest of the retreating defenders.

All along the wall, people sprinted towards the gate in an orderly line, filing through as the archers fended off any pursuers. Then, the archers slung their bows over their shoulders and quickly retreated as well. Bee stood by the gate entrance, keeping watch to ensure everyone got through.

As soon as the Archers were unable to hold back the aggressors any longer, she tossed a vial as high as she could in the air. It exploded in a flash of bright purple light. A few moments later, a swarm of stones and other projectiles launched through the sky as the trebuchets and catapults flung their payloads high into the air. A handful of seconds later, the first wall disappeared. It went from being a vertical obstacle to being scaled to a mound of rubble that would break up any formation trying to pass it.

The redesign was well worth it. The enemy's vanguard had just started cresting the wall and coming down the other side when they were bombarded by dozens of stones the size of pigs. Some stones exploded. Some stones set fire to the wooden walls. Others just landed with heavy impacts. Immediately, the advance was halted.

The plan was to set up a situation where it would take hours for them to clear the rubble for another proper advance. That kind of time would give the defenders plenty of opportunity to set up and rest before the second wall was invaded.

All the while, when they tried to advance onto the next wall, the trebuchets and catapults would be extending their range and actively engaging in the battle to decimate any sort of ranks set up too close to the castle. This would mean that any attack would come with a much-extended charge or have to accept simply be bombarded continuously. And Bee didn't think any force would be able to sit under that for very long.

She celebrated internally. So far, so good, it seemed. Their initial attack had been extremely successful. But from what it looked like, the enemy general had plans of his own.

Immediately, the Army pulled back to just outside of the range of the catapults, and the catapults stopped firing. Then, the Kingdom's forces unveiled magic of their own. Originating from several points along the attacker's front, a wave of frost billowed out in a quickly creeping front. Bee couldn't tell how it was happening, but she had to push her curiosity to the back of her mind to deal with the immediate threat. The air crystallized as it advanced forward, smothering the lingering fires and burning walls and shifting rubble out of its path. Bee quickly lost sight of what was happening through the fog as the frost advanced steadily toward the second wall.

Dread suddenly seeped into Bee's heart. That wave seemed problematic. What if it could break through their defenses somehow? With an effort, she reined the fear in. If that was the case, they likely would have used it first instead of trying to sacrifice so many of their soldiers to take the first in what was going to be a long, grueling series of walls.

However, letting something like this approach the second wall uncontested didn't feel right. Defenders were already up on top of it, and the last of them were still moving through the gate. It wouldn't be pretty if it did anything remotely as dangerous to the people as it did to the ground. But how could she stop it?

Bee quickly thought through her abilities and didn't immediately see an option. Then she had an idea.

With a mental effort, she activated her Holy Aura and pushed it out to meet the frost. The golden light bloomed within her consciousness and expanded into reality. She felt her aura connect with the invasive magical particles swirling towards her. The advancing field of ice and cold seemed to recoil as though burned, melting back into nothing as it met the glow. It took a little bit of her energy, but it halted the creeping wave. Stretching out her hands, she formed her aura and pushed it out as wide as she could, trying to cover the entire path toward the second wall. She couldn't cover the entire wall but could protect enough of the road to keep the soldiers safe.

As she focused, she closed her eyes and tried to visualize the distance. She used the feeling of the aura and the sensory inputs it provided her to guide her skill forward. The golden light seemed to morph and shift, halting the attack in its tracks. This went on for several seconds, a brief span that stretched into an eternity as she waged war against the enemy's magic.

Eventually, Bee felt more than saw the wave peter out. With a huge exhale of breath, she reached up and wiped a thick sheen of sweat from her eyes. Her clothes felt as though they had become drenched in a matter of seconds. A hand grabbed her shoulder and kept her steady, but it only took her a couple of moments to regain her footing. She was just tired, not an invalid.

Looking around, she saw that the soldiers had bunched up behind her, cramming together exactly at the edges of the aura shield she had projected. Apparently, they hadn't liked the look of that magic any more than she had. Where the frost had touched the trees, their bark had split and ruptured as the sap inside flash froze. Little tinkling sounds reached her ears as small twigs fell to the ground and shattered, like someone emptying a glassware cabinet onto the floor.

Blinking, she realized that she could actually see her aura. Before, she'd only been able to sense it, but now? Based on the soldiers' reactions, they could obviously see it too. It was fading as she'd stopped trying to project it, but the golden glow must not have been her imagination. It must have projected a real visual barrier for everyone to hide behind it. That sort of magic was not common, as far as she knew.

She looked over to see the source of the hand still steadying her, only to see Tony. Apparently, he had run out from behind the wall to keep her aloft. She smiled tiredly at him as he spoke. "I think you overdid it a little bit, Bee. Here, hide behind the walls for a spell, yeah?"

She nodded and worked her mouth to muster the moisture to speak. It seemed like it had all sweated out of her during that exchange.

"How long?" She croaked out eventually. Had it really been just a few seconds, or the eternity it seemed like?

"A minute or two," Tony said. "Just enough time for everyone to get up into positions, though. You look like you just ran a marathon."

She tried to chuckle but ended up coughing. "Yeah, I feel like it too."

Tony turned her around by the shoulder and started to lead her into the castle, but her feet refused to cooperate. They repeatedly sought out small rocks and uneven patches to stumble over. Eventually, Tony gave up and crouched down, grabbing beneath her knees and pulling her into a princess carry.

Bee wanted to protest. Especially as she felt her sopping clothes leave a huge wet spot along his front. She muttered something as she vainly pushed at his arms, forcing Tony to shift a little bit. But soon, her head was lolling back in exhaustion as she watched the silhouettes of the soldiers go by.

"I'm fine," she muttered up in the general direction of Tony's swimming face. "Really, I can walk."

"Of course you can. You're walking right now," Tony soothed her in a blatant lie.

This made Bee quite frustrated, but she couldn't quite put words to why. "Just… need to rest a little..."

"Sure, sure," Tony reassured her. "I think you probably want to drink some water, huh? We'll get you inside and draw up a nice bath for you. How does that sound?"

"That… sounds nice." Bee mumbled as her consciousness started to slowly drift. She began to dream of Void, a strange dream. Her master was far off, among ice and snow like the stuff she'd just fended off, fighting some great evil of its own.

What was her master doing? Did her master need her help? Was it coming home? Questions swirled in her mind until even the dreams started to fade.

---

Archibald blinked. The last thing he remembered was stabbing a demon Lieutenant in the chest, rather heroically at that. But in a flash, it was gone. Surrounding him instead was a completely vast whiteness, emitting nothing but blinding light in all directions.

His first thought was that he was clearly dead. That made sense, given the situation. He blinked a few times. Slowly, the feeling started to spread from his eyes down to the rest of his face. He could feel his nose as air began rushing through his nostrils. He tried to breathe in more deeply, but his chest wouldn't move. Still, it might only be a matter of time. The sensation kept creeping lower and lower.

Suddenly, the tongue in his mouth was able to move, and he wiggled it around. All he tasted was stale, musty air. Not at all fitting for the blinding whiteness that surrounded him. Once his neck was able to move, he was able to look around. Finally, he noticed something besides the blank white void.

Archibald looked down and saw himself, though he was in a funny pose. He was holding his sword but in an awfully proper and grandiose way. Not at all like himself. After that, he looked around the rest of the space. He couldn't completely turn around yet, but upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a dome with a uniformly colored floor and walls.

Toward one corner of his vision, he saw an archway. Still, it was too far in his peripherals to make out entirely. As his sensation returned lower, he took a deep breath of air for the first time. He could feel his chest expand, and he exhaled slowly, relaxing his shoulders and rolling his head around. A moment later, Archibald stretched up towards the sky. His spine protested with a rippling set of pops as everything came back to life, shaking his arms out.

He felt his wrists and fingers flex and pop as he stretched them and manipulated them. He started to wiggle his hips and could soon fully turn around and see behind him. There was a single entrance over there, and it appeared to have a small object in the corner. He couldn't quite make out what it was, as anything that wasn't right in front of him was a bit blurry. It always had been. But it was something he had long since learned to live with. Eventually, as his toes finally softened up, he wiggled them carefully. Then Archibald took a step forward.

Apparently, not carefully enough. His foot wasn't 100% awake. As he landed, he landed on the side of his foot, rolled his ankle, and stumbled forward. And then, too late, he realized he had been standing on a dais several feet above the ground. The miscalculation sent him painfully crashing onto the floor, shoulder first. Archibald attempted to continue his roll to disperse his momentum. Unfortunately, he ended up just flopping on his back, his head colliding with the stone. He simply sat there for a moment, head ringing and wind knocked out of him. He panted, attempting to get his lungs to work again.

At that moment, Archibald was simply grateful no one had been around to notice his acrobatic feat. Mentally, he reached out and felt the connections of his bond. Relief washed over him as he noted that Daedalus was still alive, that big, scaly boy. Even if he was far away.

It seemed as though some time had passed since Archibald's sealing away. The real question was, what had he missed? Slowly levering himself up to his feet, he worked his way forward one step at a time. Carefully, he approached the object near the archway. As he drew near, it resolved into a small wicker basket.

He went down to one knee and started to dig through it. It was filled with food. A few loaves of bread wrapped in paper, some dried fruit, and a pair of wineskins. The sight made his stomach growl loudly.

He also found a folded piece of paper on top of the whole ensemble, scrawled in high Elvish of all things. He blinked, struggling to interpret the words. "What the heck does this mean? Champion? Companion? Hm. I assume this is for me… I don't see anyone else here, at least."

Archibald unfolded the piece of paper to reveal a text wall that didn't mean much to him. He put it aside and decided to decipher it later. His mouth was parched, and those wineskins seemed like a far more pressing matter at the moment. Unstopping one, he lifted it up and squeezed. A stream of tepidly warm and flat water dripped into his mouth. Still, it was the most heavenly sensation he could ever remember.