All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 244: Fighting Dirty

I was livid.

As I finally flew over the mountains that ringed the castle, I took a look at the grounds below. Of the three walls that had stood when I left, only one still remained. The rest had been reduced to rubble and ashes. Even the last wall hadn't made it through unscathed. Its surface was marked with scratches, chips, dings, and scorch marks. Buildings and carefully laid paths had been replaced with a wasteland and piles of smoldering wood. Even the surrounding forest hadn't made it out unscathed, as I could see trees still burning in the distance.

The only bright spot was that the city and castle seemed to have remained mostly unharmed. Only the occasional impact crater marred the roads inside the innermost walls from what looked to be large rocks falling from the sky.

What had happened? Concern pushed me to accelerate even faster until the castle was better resolved in my sensors.

In the sky, I spotted a massive red dragon flying about. A human held onto his tail, yelling at him. Even as I watched, another gout of flame left the dragon's mouth and hammered down into the forest.

No, it couldn't be. I had trusted Daedalus. He was my friend. A good guy. He even appreciated the cleanliness I brought to his lair, even if he hadn't seen fit to organize himself. Never in my worst dreams would I have thought that he would destroy my so carefully tended to the valley like this.

It was hard for me to believe, but he was the only massive fire-breathing lizard in the vicinity. A quick analysis of the scorch marks of the walls didn't seem to match his patterns, so perhaps he hadn't attacked the walls directly and simply limited himself to the attacking army. But still, this was unacceptable. There were far more proper ways of dealing with an issue like this. Ways that didn't involve wanton destruction, much less filling the sky with soot and smoke. He wasn't even being organized about it!

My mind went back to his tales of dragons losing their perspective and rampaging through battlefields in the days of old. I suppose I hadn't taken it seriously enough then, but I didn't like suspecting something so awful of my friend. But was he really capable of doing such a thing?

Without hesitation, I veered towards him, decelerating my speed so I was no longer breaking the sound barrier. I raced up in front of him and began spritzing his face with water. He shook his head and roared with irritation as the water sprayed across his massive maw. He plummeted to the earth like a meteor as he chased after me, but I guided him to a flattened, slightly burned meadow. I pulled up at the last second and drifted to a gentle stop. He did not, slamming down to the ground and sending the human attached to his tail flying off into the forest.

I winced as the man crashed through a tree. I sensed that he was still alive, thankfully. But did he really have to break that tree? Eventually, when the dragon went down, he shook his head and blinked. I saw something in his eyes shift slightly.

"Wha-- what?" His gaze focused on me after a moment. "Oh. Welcome back Spot, I--" he said in a completely dazed tone. I cut him off with a sharp beep. With my Grabby Arm, I gestured around to the destruction.

Daedalus's head dipped in embarrassment. "Well, I might have gone a little bit overboard, but–"

I bopped him in the nose with my claw. A bit. A bit?! So this was his fault! I laid into the dragon with an angry tirade of beeping and emphatic gestures.

I went on and on, venting my own frustration while also making sure the dragon knew exactly how badly he'd messed up. The dragons dipped lower and lower until his posture closely mirrored that of Cliff when Tanu had found her sneaking food off of the Nighty Knights' plates during dinner. It seemed only right. Daedalus had definitely messed up. I had felt comfortable leaving because I could trust the castle's inhabitants to take care of themselves. In particular, I had faith that Beatrice could keep things under control. I'd have to talk to her later, as clearly something had happened to get something this bad.

I ignored that for the moment and focused on Daedalus. He had to understand how horrible this was. All this work the humans had done was gone in an instant. And the mess left behind? Well. It would take me days to clean this up. Days!

I continued scolding him for a while until I noticed Beatrice running out of the wall towards the dragon. I drew my rant to a close as she approached, but to my surprise, she didn't run straight to me. Instead, she ran over to where the human that was holding onto Daedalus's tail lay.

After talking with him for a few moments, she helped the man to his feet. He was a bit shaky and had to lean on. Beatrice as they walked over. I actually recognized the man as they got closer. I projected up a message. "It's nice to meet you, Archibald. I've heard good things." With a little smiley face at the end to make sure he knew I was friendly. Shortly after, I projected another note. "Thanks for trying to keep your lizard companion in check. I didn't think he would get this out of hand."

Archibald threw back his head and roared with laughter. "I've never heard someone give Daedalus such a dressing down - at least, I assume that's what all those screeches were about!"

It took Archibald several moments to catch his breath and stop chuckling. Eventually, Beatrice spoke up. "I think you should take it easy on the dragon, Master. Without his assistance, I'm not sure there would have been much of the castle left to come back to."

"Oh?" I beeped inquisitively. Then, Bee launched into a terrifying tale about how a massive army had invaded the valley and attacked right as I had left. Well. I guess I did need to be grateful that the castle was still standing.

---

When Bee saw Void appear in the sky in front of the dragon, she immediately started running. She wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen, but something told her that Void was not going to be happy at all about the state of the valley. But as she got close to where her master and the dragon had landed, she saw Archibald lying on the ground. One of his arms was resting on his face, covering his eyes, as he groaned.

She ignored the two incredibly powerful beings talking over to the side and ran over to her friend, pushing her repair skills out over him. To her relief, he seemed to be relatively okay, just stunned. After a few moments of intense focus on her skills, she was able to help him to a sitting position.

"So," he said and coughed and spit out some blood. "That's your god, huh?"

Bee smiled and nodded. "Yes. Its name is Void."

"It seems a little bit touchy. Can you guys understand what he's saying? It's all just noise to me."

"It takes a little bit of time to get used to it, but he's very articulate.."

"Well, what's it saying? I've never seen Daedalus act like this."

"Oh, it's mad about the mess."

Archibald looked around. "Mess? It's a battlefield. Of course, it's going to be messy. Why, you should've seen it back in my day."

Bee rolled her eyes and helped him to his feet. "Yeah, yeah. I know it's a battlefield. I'm sure that Void was mostly just worried about us. But it doesn't see things the same as us. We've fought undead hordes, and after my god was done with them, there was nothing but a pristine field left behind."

He looked down at her and blinked. She wasn't sure if he was concussed or just surprised, but she slung his arm over her shoulder and supported him as they walked over to the still-quarreling god and dragon. Bee felt that she probably should intercede on the dragon's behalf, but that felt a bit intimidating, to be honest. After all, who was she to come between a literal god and an ancient red dragon? Even if the dragon did look thoroughly chastised at the moment. She had to admit it looked a bit silly.

Still, she worked up the courage to step forward. She told Void the whole story. Starting with the Nighty Knights' impromptu raid, she reported to her god all of the developments that had occurred in its absence. She ended with Daedalus's appearance and how he had arrived just in time to fend off a Lieutenant.

Void listened patiently and eventually asked some clarifying questions. When it got around to asking about the location of the Lieutenant. The dragon simply shrugged. "I wasn't aware there was a Lieutenant here, honestly."

To which Bee had to interrupt. "You bit the Lieutenant in half. How were you not aware of it?"

"I uh, wasn't exactly in my right mind back there." Daedalus lowered his head in embarrassment. "Those things regenerate like mad. I'm sure it's not really damaged for good, though they do tend to run whenever they fight a dragon one one-on-one. I wouldn't be surprised if it had already left back to where it came from."

"That's not good." Bee muttered, and Void indicated its agreement. Void emitted a few more of its strange noises, and Bee interpreted the beeps for Daedalus and Archibald. "It seems like Void has more bad news."

Void began showing a moving picture, projecting the illusion above itself. It was of him and a lesser dragon fighting some sort of living flame. Archibald looked confused as the beasts soared, but Daedalus was starting to grumble. She could feel the air and ground underneath her shake as he growled his displeasure.

Eventually, when it showed the dragon being injured, he let out a roar that shook the clouds in the skies. Void cut him off by tapping him on his talon with his little arm.

"Right, sorry." Daedalus paid more attention and watched as Void chased off the living flame but came back to help the dragon back to a resting spot.

"Thucydides was not ready for that fight." Daedalus growled. Bee was obviously missing some context, but the picture was clear enough. The dragon Void showed was powerful but nowhere near as powerful as the dragon sitting in front of her right now.

"I think that we have bigger things to worry about than just that," Archibald said. "I'm not 100% sure what's going on in the world right now, but from what I can tell, this isn't an isolated thing. If the Lieutenant escaped, I'm sure they'll be going back to their base of power to regroup. And next time, they won't underestimate us."

The other three in the group looked towards him.

"Yeah. I'm sure you are right." Bee said, thinking back to what Arthur said. "We've gotten reports of the King acting strangely. Could that be related?"

Void let out a string of noises, and Bee nodded. "Yeah, I think you're right, Master. We're going to need to go pay the capital a visit and clean some things up."