The Land of Broken Roads

Callius listened to the story with patient good humor, and laughed along convincingly when Dirt mimicked the sound Socks made and how he jumped in the air. Dirt was unconvinced he found it as funny as he acted, but without Callius’ tree nearby to read his mind, there was no way to be sure.

After that, the trees sent him back to the schola while they resumed fixing the climate, which was perfect, because he had plans. First, he rummaged through the scrolls in the library until he found blank paper in usable condition. Then he sorted through the boxes in the main hall until he found a compass and ruler. After that, an ivory and brass quill, which he set on one of the ancient, questionable tables. He tested the chair just to make sure it wouldn’t collapse under him, and it didn’t.

With everything else in place, he went from table to table until he found the last thing he needed: an inkwell. Only when he found one did he finally realize the problem. The ink was dry. Of course it was. He checked several more, and obviously, they were all dry.

He took one out to the garden and put a few drops of water in from the basin, but the ink was beyond saving.

Dirt stood there for a moment, staring at nothing. How was he supposed to write down everything he’d just learned to make sure he remembered it? He’d probably remember most of it regardless, but still, he wanted to try drawing the sigils.

Should he use blood? No, probably not. He might need a lot and the trees would get mad at him. That, and Socks wasn’t around to lick his cuts, and it would hurt. So, what else could he use? Ferns? Mud?

Ferns would work. Dirt knew you could make ink from plants, like flowers and berries. He just didn’t know how. So then it was back to the library to see if he could find the method written down somewhere. And if not that, then maybe someone knew in Ogena, and he could go visit by root travel and ask around. It’d been several weeks since he’d left, so they might be happy to see him.

He didn’t find the answer, though, because he soon got distracted reading other things. Someone had left a text on history open to a part about a war, which quickly captured his interest.

It told of Emperor Hostilius and his battles against the horsemen of the vast western plains, the Ceremisian tribes. The Sunset Empire lost every battle because the horsemen never properly lined up to fight, preferring instead to ride by on their horses and shoot arrows with their clever bows. Twice, the losses were so bad the Empire had to leave and come back next year with fresh troops. The war lasted fifteen years and the most interesting thing was how it ended:

That was the last battle the Emperor fought against the plainsmen, for no further conflict was required despite it ending in a draw. For Hostilius had seen farther than they and planned more cleverly, with greater wisdom than all their elders possessed. Our armies never once truly bested theirs, but it was our preparations that brought about their defeat.

I told you of the fortifications he built at Quintus and Septus, at Terraco and Scalabis and Sorviodurum. He built many more walled towns besides, all the first settled places on these stretches of earth. Each town was given supplies sufficient to outlast any sieges until the armies could return, and their walls were high, proof against horsemen and arrows. I spoke also of the roads he laid down at great expense. Aqueducts were built, and irrigation dug.

Beside these, I told you of the groves of olive and grape, the fruits of which he let be sold very cheaply to the barbarians, even at a loss, to give them a taste of civilization. But for this foresight, the Gods would not have had opportunity to give us their blessing in the death of the first Khan, whose brother ordered the groves be untouched so he could gather their fruit for himself.

Hostilius decreed that despite ongoing bloodshed, the gates were open to any Ceremisians who came unarmed in small numbers, and instructed the citizens should welcome them with friendly hands and words of respect for their prowess in battle and virility. He let it be known that any barbarian who wished to become a citizen would be welcomed, with his wives and children retained as his own. By this, he led the barbarians to believe that our Empire was not worried about them, and that they were perhaps not truly a threat to us.

When the horsemen came to graze upon the land they previously held, even if they encircled the walls of a city, they were unmolested if they did no harm to the citizens. The Emperor provided gifts to be given out by free men, to make it seem to the barbarians that our people lived easily, surrounded by all the riches they themselves desired to take by force, with such abundance that every man could afford to give away a portion with no regard for repayment.

Should any hostility be shown, the citizens summoned men with bows and armor to drive them off, focusing on killing their horses and capturing the riders for sale as slaves. If no sufficient number of soldiers could be called, the citizens took their goods inside the walls and shut the gates. They were then made to be seen atop the walls, feasting and singing and laughing.

Those Ceremisians who knelt before our glorious Emperor were given education, particularly their children, at public expense. They were given shelter and food for their horses and praised for their husbandry. Thus they were made comfortable and pliable. They were made harmless by telling them they need never hunt again, in token of which they should give up their bows. Additionally, they were not allowed to live together in numbers greater than fifty, instead being quietly distributed throughout the Empire, some given lands, others not. In this manner, if a Ceremisian proved himself intractable or unsuited, he could be slain or enslaved without his kinsmen coming to know of it.

Only slowly did the independent Ceremisians come to understand how thoroughly they were defeated. Thousands defected each year for a better life, or what they were led to believe would be better. Great portions of their plains had already become ours, despite our inability to conquer them in battle. They allowed this to happen because they focused on what remained—not what they had lost—and measured it sufficient for their current needs.

Never again did a great Khan rise to gather them to war. Every further action against us was a raid of little significance. Now our Empire stretches across the entirety of the plains to the far coast. The Ceremisians have ceased to be a people, their language seldom heard.

Had they come at first in their full strength to the center of the Sunset Empire, with armies full of men and stomachs full of meat, they could have defeated us. Had they other neighbors to conquer first and thus overwhelm us with numbers, we might have been overrun. Indeed, had they focused their efforts on preventing resupply instead of capturing wealth, we might still be at war centuries later.

I suggest that the true cause of their downfall was not the greater appeal our culture held. Nor was it the decay of their martial prowess as the available grazing lands for their horses diminished. Nor was it their inability to push us thoroughly beyond their borders during those fifteen years of constant warfare.

It was this: They lost their conquering spirit, because they believed they had more to gain without it. Our lands remain vulnerable even now to a foe such as they were—mobile, with equal willingness to slaughter a defeated population as to subdue them, and no reliance on complex infrastructure.

For many centuries before these wars, our civilization paid them bribes to assuage their greed and bloodlust, even though they seldom united into anything truly formidable. The belief that a Khan might arise among them was sufficient to open the pockets of our rulers.

And it was never a false belief. Their outlook and practices remained unchanged since the Gods first led them into those grasslands and gave them their first horses, until Hostilius.

I shall demur rather than say more on this at this time. The reader has sufficient insight to shake out what further wisdom may be gleaned from these events.

Dirt quietly rolled two halves of the scroll together again, leaving it in the same spot so he could reread it later. He set it down and stared at it for a time, contemplating what there was to learn. It was certainly relevant, even if it wasn’t the same as what was happening now. But losing their conquering spirit? That sounded exactly like what Dirt had observed. If any remained, it was a fading ember. A few sparks drifting on the night air.

Sparks named Hèctor, Marina, and to a smaller degree, Ignasi. And the Duke, now that he’d ridden into battle himself. And Dirt, for what it was worth. Little Dirt, the spark, because a part of him still remembered what humans were capable of.

Perhaps a conquering spirit would match well with a wolf. Dirt wasn’t a predator—that was silly; he didn’t even have claws—but human greatness was something different. Socks, the great hunter, and Dirt, the conqueror. The spark.

Dirt slid off the chair and rummaged around until he found the basket of toy soldiers. There were nine of them, just shorter than his hand, and one charioteer with two horses. They were tin and brass, and if they’d even been used as toys, the boy had been wealthy. It was just as likely they were table decorations, but Dirt didn’t care.

He lined them up, giving the chariot to the Ceremisian side since they were horsemen, and staged a little battle. This one was the Emperor, and he stepped forward and gave a speech about giving up their warfare and becoming citizens. The one in the chariot was the Khan, who replied with a passionate speech of his own about respecting their lands and traditions.

Then they fought, and Dirt stepped through each swing of the sword for each pair of fighters, resolving them separately while considering how it affected the battle overall. The Ceremisians won, of course, but the Emperor got away and vowed to come back with another army. “Come back, then!” shouted Dirt, loud enough to echo in the hall. His voice startled him. He hadn’t realized he’d been talking out loud.

Well, it wasn’t like anyone was around to hear him. After that he reenacted each battle he could remember from the text, taking plenty of liberties. Some of which because he had almost no idea how either side actually waged war, having only the Camayan knights to draw on, and some of which because it was a game and he could do as he pleased.

The game was even more realistic when he stopped using his hands and started using his mind to move them around, such as sliding them on the ground and imagining them walking. It was hard to move two at once, no matter how easy Socks made it look, but he managed where necessary.

After that, he wasted the rest of the day. He spent some time playing with the toys he could find among the treasure, or reading things that weren’t magic and didn’t count as studying. Home was still sitting out in the schola’s immense garden, on the same stone bench, and he asked her for meals twice before the day ended.

He took another hot bath before bed that night, soaking long enough for his fingers to pickle, long enough the trees all went to sleep leaving him to crawl out and dry off in pitch-darkness. Dirt resolved to remember to ask them for a towel in the morning, since they knew how to make cloth now. Thank Grace, there were no nightmares. Just snippets of dreams that fled faster than the morning dew.

The next day passed much like that one, talking to the wind in the morning and learning a bit more, then wandering the ruins and looking at the murals and sculptures, then reading in the schola, then taking another long bath.

The following day was much the same, and Dirt was starting to itch from too much time alone. He kept thinking about Socks, too, hoping he was all right. The lack of news bothered him, even though it shouldn’t.

But the day after that, the trees all woke with him in the morning, filling his garden and the road in front of it with their dryads before he even rolled out of bed. He wasn’t expecting their faces peering in the doorway and startled when he saw them, then grinned.

“Hi, everyone! Looks like you fixed all the weather?” he said, arms outstretched to welcome them.

Home stood taller than the rest and stepped forward to gather him to her bosom in a motherly way. She hugged him gently and said, “Our work is complete. The oncoming winter will pass us by. We hope you do not feel too neglected. Are you still in good spirits, dear Dirt?”

She was putting a lot of effort into her dryad at the moment, even mimicking the layer of fat under the skin of her back when Dirt returned her hug. Only the fact that she was the same temperature as the ground gave it away.

“I’m fine. I had a lot to do and I know you were busy. I’d hate to visit in the winter and find the ground frozen and all the ferns dead. And the grubs. Whatever happened to them? I haven’t seen them in a while,” said Dirt.

“You’ll find out in the spring. We don’t want to ruin the surprise,” said Callius.

“What’s surprising about a grub?” asked Dirt. But he got no answer. Home released him and then it was Sunset’s turn, then Dawn’s, then Chaser’s, and after that, Dirt got passed around for quite a while, since he had to hug everybody and every last one of them was here. By the end, Dirt wished he’d thought to count so he’d know how many there were.

They played hide and hunt after that, dodging in and out of the buildings and ducking beneath the ferns alongside the roads or in gardens. When it was their turn to hunt, they all hunted, and when it was his, he had to find ten of them, which wasn’t easy. The only advantage he had was that not all of them understood perspective and didn’t realize when part of them was still visible. Jumping from stone to stone and roof to roof made it hard to track him by the ferns, but they often did the same thing. They even caught him lying flat on a roof, and Dirt had to wonder if someone had put eyes on their tree trunk to find him from above.

As fun as that was, by the time Dirt got hungry he was also growing restless. He kept thinking about Socks, hoping he was all right. When was he going to hear something?

He ate while sitting in an area that had been a circular park once, not far from his villa. The dryads sat around him in crowded rings, all trying to act leisurely while still watching everything he did.

Dirt ate quickly, not that it would help. What was Socks doing, he wondered? Was he having fun with his family? This was already the longest they’d been apart.

“Hey, Home, is Socks by your staff we left behind? Do you know what he’s up to?”

“I have not seen him since the first day. The pack left the area and I have not tracked them. The Father of Wolves will return him when it is time to reunite you.”

“Yeah. I was just thinking about him. We’re going to travel south soon, where there’s a desert. So that’s exciting. I hope we find more humans there, and fewer monsters,” said Dirt.

The dryads nodded politely, and Dirt wondered if they’d known. Father spoke directly to his mind, and Home’s staff couldn’t read that.

“Father gave Socks the choice to go north for the winter, or south, and he picked south so I could come. Winter in the north is too cold and I’d probably freeze, so I wouldn’t have been able to go. Hopefully after winter, we’ll be allowed to go wherever we want again, because I think we were getting close to the Camayan kingdom’s capital before we had to go meet Father.” Dirt took another bite, which he chewed more slowly, trying not to feel worried without a good reason. “We weren’t really hurrying, though.”

Even so, he felt increasingly uneasy the longer he sat. It wasn’t restlessness anymore. Something was wrong, and there was no telling what it was. He could simply feel it. “Are you sure Socks isn’t there? Is he okay?”

“I am sure that I do not know, dear Dirt. I will let—” said Home, pausing. She went inert, all the life vanishing and turning her dryad back into a puppet. She was thinking, Dirt knew. Focusing harder than usual.

She came back to life and put a worried look on her face. “Socks has found my staff and he looks frantic. I will send you to him. How did you know?”

Dirt nodded, steeling himself. “I just knew somehow. Send me now.”

The world vanished and he shot forward at impossible speed. A moment later a blast of cold air hit him as hard as the lumpy ground did. He groaned, dazed, and opened his eyes. It was darker than last time, overcast with low, heavy clouds. Which Dirt appreciated, since sudden bright light would have given him a headache.

Socks stepped back and forth, indeed frantic. His siblings were nowhere to be seen. As soon as he smelled Dirt he practically leaped on him, stopping with his nose inches from his face. His mental voice came scared and small, full of worry. -Help!-