All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 239: A Voice Like Smooth Molasses

As the waves of men and barely disguised demons crashed against the shattered wall, Bee dove forward into the breach. She dipped to the left, trying to give the dragon's companion space to continue his one-man stand without getting in his way, but her approach still distracted him. He snapped his head over to glance at her, though his sword never stopped moving, quickly assessing the newcomer and deciding whether she was a threat.

His evaluating gaze quickly turned to shock as he actually registered Bee's appearance. The champion's eyes darted between Bee's broom and her face, confusion growing by the second.

His mouth moved, but Bee couldn't make out the words over the screaming of defeated enemies that covered the ground around him like macabre rugs. At least he didn't attack her. Deciding that actions spoke louder than words, Bee just bared her teeth and lunged forward with her battle broom to skewer a demon. With a casual flick of her wrist, the demonic corpse flew to the side, smashing into a soldier sneaking up from the side.

Though all humanoid, a scan of the incoming enemies revealed a generous share of glowing red eyes, horns, jet-black fur, and sharp talon-tipped fingers. She wasn't sure how the enemy had convinced these men to fight alongside what were now clearly demons. Had the kingdom's men always known about this? It didn't quite make sense to her, as they had made so much effort to hide the presence of demons amongst their men before. But now that they were attacking, maybe stealth had gone out the window.

Whatever was going on with the enemy army, one thing was certain: she still had no idea how to change their minds about this war. If there was a way to convince the humans to stop or change sides, then she'd have tried it in a heartbeat. But she didn't have much hope of that. Judging from the aggression of the attackers, human soldiers included, she didn't think they were being 100% rational at the moment. Any efforts to do something about the misguided souls fighting against them might be in vain.

Bee quickly raised the bristled end of the broom and slashed it in an arc in front of her face, deflecting two of the three arrows coming at her. A simple side step and twirl allowed her to slip out of the final one's path while also bringing the bladed end of her broomstick to bear. It speared forward, stabbing through the helmet of a soldier who was flanking Archibald. The sight of the falling body made her squeamish. But she couldn't think about it. Not right now.

Her martial skills had certainly improved along with her levels, and she was doing a decent job holding back the tide with just her broom. But the hole in the wall was a wide one. Even with the champion acting as a wall of death on his side, she wasn't confident in holding her own like this forever. Letting go of the broom with her off-hand, she thrust it forward palm first and let loose a Scouring Strike. Sandblasted forward in a wide cone before her, and she averted her eyes as it stripped the flesh from the enemy's bones. The sight reminded her of what Void had done to those bandits in the mountains so long ago. The idea that she could do the same now… Well, there was no time to think about it right now.

After a few seconds, the skill petered out. She felt her energy reserves dip in response, but just grasped her broom and kept swinging.

With a thought, she extended her Holy Aura and her Repair skill over to Archibald as well. She could see the small wounds he had taken over time begin to close up as the energy of the aura washed over him, bolstering him. It didn't quite work as well as it did on Void's followers, but it still had a noticeable effect.

Quickly, she fell into a rhythm of using skills and her broom to hold her section of the wall. The dragon's champion hadn't actually moved from the center of the gap, so she was holding more like a quarter of the gap while he was single-handedly holding the rest. From the corner of her eye, she watched him fight and was surprised she didn't see a single magical skill manifest from him. It seemed to be pure blade work, endless grace in motion. He still didn't seem like he was moving faster than an average person. Still, every step he took, every small slide of the feet, left him in the perfect position to block the next invader and destroy them with simple thrusts and slashes.

Nothing seemed even close to touching him unless he was mobbed by huge amounts of force. When a particularly large push came, Bee would try to pull a few off of him onto her section of the gap. She knew he was level 69, but still. With how long he had been asleep in stasis, a performance like this blew past her expectations. Perhaps that explained why he wasn't using magical skills and his apparent slowness. But whatever it was, she was just grateful for the help. It was doubtful whether she could hold this herself.

As more and more forces challenged them, she Scanned the enemies and found that they were, on average, a fairly high level for soldiers. Perhaps these were the elite troops or just the ones that were willing to fight alongside demons, but all were above level 20, and several of them were in their mid-30s. The demons, though, were all at least level 35. Still, her 15 to 20-level advantage over them was monumental, and nothing truly challenged her except for sheer numbers. But the flood of forces took its toll after 15 minutes of constant fighting. She could feel fatigue entering her arms, and her broom seemed to triple in weight.

When she heard her name being yelled, she spared a quick glance behind. There was no need for them to hold the wall anymore. Everyone had retreated behind them, and all the defending forces were doing was shooting anyone who came up to the top of the wall to keep them from being flanked. She supposed it was a rather good strategy, just allowing the enemy to slowly throw themselves in the meat grinder one at a time for her and Archibald to finish off. Still, it probably was not going to last. Besides, there were better things to do with their stamina.

So she signaled the retreat. Turning over to her companion in arms, she yelled at the top of her lungs to be heard over the battlefield noise. "Hey! We can fall back, Archibald!"

For the first time since she had jumped up next to him, he turned fully to look at her, one hand holding his sword and his off-hand fending off two warriors at the same time. His hard eyes searched her expression for a moment as he casually dispatched another enemy. He drew in a breath and opened his mouth to speak. "WHAT? I can't hear you!"

For her part, Bee had no trouble hearing him. Still, his manner of speech left something to be desired. He spoke extremely slowly and clearly as if he was talking to some old man who was very, very deaf and didn't understand the language. Maybe this was just the best way to communicate over the battlefield, she thought, but something didn't sit right with her.

Instead of repeating herself, she pointed back to the wall and shouted, "Go!"

Archibald looked around and nodded. Together, the two of them dashed off. The line of archers just outside the gate for the first wall stopped the enemies from cresting it as they fell back. Bee shuddered to think of how many arrows in skulls it had taken to buy them time to hold the gap. But at least they made the enemy pay for taking this wall. The last wall they had would have to hold longer.

When she finally made it inside, she immediately leaned against the cool wall, panting and wiping her sweaty hair out of her face.

"That was a harrowing experience." She muttered to no one in particular. After catching her breath, she looked up to see Archibald standing in front of her. The man leaned against the wall casually, his sword back in its scabbard while one hand rested on its hilt. A frown graced his rugged face, tugging at the small amount of stubble growing on his cheeks.

"What?" He spoke again. Just as before, he enunciated each syllable and drew it out for an almost comedic length of time. Did he not understand the language that well? Or was he hard of hearing? Bee thought for a second before just shaking her head.

"Not important," she said, slowing her words down slightly. Hopefully, that would help him understand. He looked confused but nodded nonetheless.

"Are you the High Priestess?" He emphasized each word, putting what felt like a whole breath in between each as he drawled carefully.

"Yes, I am. You are Archibald, the companion. I'm sorry we weren't there to welcome you when we woke up, but we are understandably quite busy," She said between panting breaths.

"Huh?" Was Archibald's only response. Bee sighed and repeated herself, this time slowing down the words even further.

After she was done. Archibald nodded. "Yes. That's me. I appreciate the note. I assume that it was you who left it. Also, I don't understand why you are all speaking so fast and choppily."

Bee waited impatiently for him to take his sweet time finishing.

"I'm speaking normally. I don't know what you're talking about," she defended herself, slightly self-conscious now. She did think that she spoke a little more formally than most, but she never entirely got rid of the slightly middle-class accent she had picked up.

"Why are you speaking the high tongue so rushed-like? If you want to speak casually, why don't you just speak common?" Archibald asked in his weird vocal style.

"High tongue?"

"Yeah. For formal occasions? It was a bit of an odd choice to use for battlefield commands, but I guess I could see it."

Bee rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I think some things have changed since you were last awake, Mr. Smith. This is the common tongue, and as far as I know, there isn't any high tongue."

Archibald sighed, shoulders slumped in defeat. "I guess I better do some studying, then…" The declaration was followed by a string of totally incomprehensible words that she assumed were in his common tongue. "Also, don't call me Mr. Smith, thats my father."

"I am sure you'll get used to it. Now. Do you want to hear about what happened with your master?"

"Master?" The dragon's companion asked in complete bewilderment.

"Yeah. My master recently talked to yours and thought you would like to hear the latest updates." Bee clarified.

"What master?" For once, the question came out rushed enough that it almost sounded normal.