The Land of Broken Roads

Dirt paused, unable to move for a moment as he stared at the fallen statue, but Gnese’s screams brought him back to full awareness.

There was no time to waste. He waved a hand in front of Fidelu’s face to get his attention and said, “There’s going to be a fight. Go help get ready.”

Then he ran out of the Aedes and the Principia, with the stray thought that he probably shouldn’t be calling it that anymore. It was not a Principia at all, just the skeleton of one.

Outside in the main concourse, the chaos was already starting. Monstrous shapes in the sky were seen imperfectly through the edges of the netting, and the tribe’s attention was rapidly turning upward. Cries of alarm rang out each time flashes of white flesh crossed the narrow gaps. The Eye, or whatever shape it had taken this time, swam through the air above the outpost, but it was impossible to get a good look at it. Some screamed and froze; others called out names and raced to find them. Men took up spears and gazed upward warily, hoping nothing would come through the ceiling.

It did. An arm with four joints and two pincer-like fingers at the end burst from a drooping snow-dip in the canopy, sending wet slush its same color flying everywhere in an explosive burst. It tore away a tent and grabbed two humans, a young man and a child, and began to raise them upward.

Dirt sprinted toward them and inhaled mana, then jumped to catch it. He was going so fast that he slammed into the two humans with a crushing thud and then almost failed to grab on. The smaller one screamed in pain, but Dirt hadn’t felt anything break, so hopefully it was fine. He climbed around like a squirrel until he got both hands around one of the giant fingers and pulled with all his might, opening the claw’s grip.

The two humans tumbled out, awkwardly, headfirst, and for an instant Dirt was sure they’d smash their skulls, but Socks caught them with his mind and set them down. Then the pup grabbed him and yanked him halfway across the fortress.

-We should go outside and fight it there,- was all Socks said, and Dirt agreed. But before they even turned to go, another monstrous arm ripped open the netting not far from where they stood and reached down to toss a tent aside. It clutched a woman holding a babe in her arms and lifted her up. In a desperate moment of good judgment, she tossed the little one to someone nearby.

-I can’t grab it!- said Socks, meaning the giant arm. It was certain, then—this was the same thing they’d fought outside Ogena. Socks hadn’t been able to grab that one with his mind either.

Dirt pulled out his knife and threw it forward for Socks, and the pup snatched it with his mind and sent it shooting forward faster than an arrow. It was too late, however, and the woman gave one desperate shriek of helplessness as she was pulled up through the hole in the netting. Socks returned the knife to Dirt.

“Pull it all down!” shouted Dirt in his mind, and Socks complied. The netting began to tear and collapse everywhere, burying hapless humans under piles of snow and fabric that proved near impossible to get out of.

Most of the children were clustered around Socks, hundreds of them, but not all. Dirt made sure that no one was caught beneath the falling ceiling who would be too small to survive, by pulling them to safety with his own mind. The rebounding momentum caused him to slide this way and that on the floor and he fell more than once, but soon enough, a good portion of the sky was exposed and with it, the Eye.

But it was more than just an eye this time, peeking through its rip in the sky. Other holes hung in the air through which long, gangly limbs emerged, waving as they looked for their next target. The captured woman was nowhere to be seen, but Dirt suspected that she and the corpse from the Aedes were inside a bulging mass hovering near the eye, one that added a shade of tumorous red to its sickly white flesh.

Everyone was screaming now, complete chaos having taken hold. Fortunately, nearly every child in the tribe was close to Socks, so none of them got crushed in the wild stampede for the exits.

Socks took his iron ball from its pocket in his harness and braced himself for a throw.

“Get the arms first so no one else gets grabbed,” said Dirt.

The iron ball flew like a lightning strike, with so much force that even Socks’ paws slipped on the bare stone, his claws scratching its surface. Above, a monstrous arm exploded in a spray of blood and flesh and fell with a wet thud onto a place that still had netting over it.

Dirt focused and called a few sparks up near the Eye itself, which he caused to burst into flame to serve as a distraction. The Eye gave no indication that it had been harmed, but it rotated in its slimy socket to find him and Socks standing below. It began to glide silently through the air toward them.

Socks obliterated another arm, then another, swinging the ball too fast to see as his giant body swayed from the rebounding momentum.

The Eye seemed to pay its injuries little heed. It stopped before it got to them and turned its gaze downward toward a cluster of humans.

Biandina. She was down there, arms spread protectively over several of her siblings, and it was looking right at her. Her father stood next to her pointing a spear upward, waving it back and forth like he was trying to shoo a bird. The mother was nowhere to be seen, fortunately, and Dirt hoped she was safe somewhere with the infant.

Having fixed on her, the Eye floated upward and withdrew the stubs of its ruined arms back into the sky.

The cluster of humans below broke apart and everyone ran in a different direction. Half of them fell, stumbling over collapsed tents or getting tangled in some of the cloth and rope from the netting. Anyone who fell was picked up, fortunately, and not stomped on. Antelmu, the oldest boy, had little Oraziu and Miliu under his arms and he was the first to successfully break from the crowd. He ran with greater strength than Dirt expected, darting nimbly between tents until he got far enough away and chose to hide. It didn’t help much; Dirt could hear Oraziu’s shrill screaming all the way from here, even over the cacophony of the crowd. Lavisa, the girl just younger than Biandina who’d mentioned dancing, was not too far behind.

That left Biandina and three others unable to get away in time. The Eye filled with a hissing red liquid and blinked, dropping a single tear right on them. Babbu yanked Gnaziu back so hard he tumbled head over heels. Biandina shoved Lisea out of the way, but Eudossia clung to her legs and kept her from moving out of danger herself. With no time to spare, Biandina folded her arms over her sister and bowed protectively.

Dirt sprinted that direction as fast as his mana-infused legs could carry him, but he was too far. Socks tried grabbing the red drip, but his mind wouldn’t close around it. That left him only an instant, in which the pup flung a bundle of cloth—probably part of a tent—into the drip’s path.

The tent cloth caught most of the liquid, but not all. A splash made it past and fell across Biandina’s arm and shoulder, with a few drops on her back.

Everything the liquid touched was destroyed, evaporating into bitter, reeking smoke in an instant. The tent cloth became mere tangled strips, and the stone’s surface was pitted where the splash fell. But most important, Biandina’s arm severed completely at the shoulder, where it had taken the largest portion, and fell to the ground. The wounds in her back dug deep, exposing ribs and the things beneath them. Her clothing had been torn and ruined already, but now it was tatters, as ragged as the goddess wore.

It was no longer possible to tell who was or wasn’t screaming. Biandina fell to her knees, popping Eudossia out to the side. Babbu grabbed the smaller girl and carried her a safe distance away, eyeing the smoking pits in the floor.

Dirt reached her then, too late. She huddled, gasping, unable to handle the damage done to her body, to say nothing of the pain. Her injuries quickly welled with blood and Dirt wasted no time. He picked her up by her thigh and armpit, sparing not even an instant to worry about her comfort, and raced toward Socks.

All the ruined tents and clustered garbage made it impossible to move as fast as he wanted, but at least the few straggling people in the path jumped out of the way and fled elsewhere.

The Eye followed them. Dirt heard another drip only a few steps behind and felt a burning puncture wound on his calf from a splash, but it was not enough to stop him. He made it back to Socks before his eyes even started watering from the pain.

The crowd of children around Socks had broken, with most of them running off toward their homes, or at least hiding somewhere else. Socks gently swept the few remaining stragglers aside, most of them landing a bit roughly, but unharmed.

He tore away the tatters of Biandina’s ruined shirt and for the second time, licked her wounds to save her life. This time she was awake for it, and she wept and gasped and twisted in revulsion at how it felt, which made Dirt feel miserable himself.

But they had no time. Not even enough time to completely lick her wounds before the Eye was overhead and another drop rained down. Socks got everyone to safety, but only barely—one tiny girl ran out at the last instant and nearly took the full brunt of it. Socks and Dirt both pushed her to safety with their minds, so hard the sudden acceleration knocked her unconscious. No minds winked out, thank Grace.

Dirt looked up just in time to see a four-jointed arm press a flailing man into the bulging red mass of flesh hovering near the eye. He was absorbed into it almost instantly.

Socks said, -What do we do?- The pup sounded panicked.

“Fire! Burn the whole sky!” screamed Dirt mentally.

The blue sky filled with bright sparks, spread across as wide an area as Socks could handle. Dirt reached out with his mind and Socks grabbed on, pulling him into a mind meld. Dirt’s mind was nowhere near the size of Socks’, but every last bit of added focus helped.

Socks and Dirt flooded the sky with another wave of sparks, watching them with two sets of eyes to keep them burning, and then ignited them with a deafening roar. A blast wave of scalding heat ripped through the outpost, so hot the boy had to blink several times before they were sure his eyes weren’t burned.

Flames hotter and brighter than the sun filled the sky and the half-dead mind of the Eye quickly withdrew, closed, and disappeared.

Socks and Dirt kept the flames burning for a bit longer, a count of three, until even the wolf ran out of mana and couldn’t keep up with the demand. The flames died, the sky dimming as the blue returned.

Only a few steps away, the bulbous, squirming mass fell and burst open. Inside were the remains of four humans—the corpse from the Aedes, and three others who had been caught. They were halfway through the process of being reshaped into something else, something revolting and incomplete. Their heads were exposed, dead faces and eyes staring at nothing, but all their torsos were melting together. Half of their limbs had already been absorbed.

Socks and Dirt beheld the sight with such utter disgust in both halves of themselves that they covered it with a toppled tent. The wolf lifted the boy high into the air so they could scout for further danger, but there was nothing from horizon to horizon, nor could they find any dangerous minds. Just the minds of a crowd of humans in a state beyond terror, and the horses, who had somehow been insulated from the entire affair.

Still, they kept watch for a moment longer just to make sure before bringing the boy down and separating the mind meld.

There was no hush in the crowd once the danger was gone. Instead, the cries of terror turned to cries of anguish or pain or calls for help to rescue someone trapped. Dirt felt sick inside. He knew it wasn’t his fault, but also, that it was. He hadn’t intended for this, nor should he have seen it coming. But here it was, in response to something he’d done.

Socks resumed licking Biandina while Dirt took in the devastation all around them. In the few short moments the conflict had lasted, the tribe had lost its cloth-net ceiling and half or more of their tents had been destroyed. The entire area was laid waste, leaving everything in soggy heaps. Mothers raced around desperately looking for their children and men stood ready with spears to stab the sky, unable to believe it was already over.

And maybe it wasn’t over. The Eye had focused on Biandina, so did that mean it was keeping track of her somehow? Maybe she’d been right all along. Maybe she was cursed, or at least, its functional equivalent.

The gouge in his calf really needed licking, and Dirt could feel the blood dripping down into his shoe. But he wasn’t ready to be rid of the pain, not yet.

He felt a chill where he wasn’t expecting it and peeked back to find that his pants really had been too tight, and the seam was torn open on the rear. Further inspection showed similar damage to both shoulders. He scowled. Looking around, it seemed unlikely that anyone would be interested in giving him a new set of clothes anymore. They had their own messes to deal with. It was going to be a long, cold winter, but he supposed he deserved it.

-What do we do with her now?- asked Socks. -If we leave her, they will throw her out again, and now she only has one arm. Oh, I forgot your calf. Roll up your pant leg and do not argue.-

Dirt thought about it while Socks healed him, but ultimately, it wasn’t his decision to make, was it? Biandina was kneeling now, covering her breasts with her remaining arm. Her wounds were clean, but the skin had only barely begun to regrow and they looked like ground meat. Her head was bowed, but she kept glancing all around, unable to keep her eyes off the destruction.

He glanced at her thoughts and found what he expected. Bitter, painful emotion that sparked sharply amongst every thought. Thoughts that rang with self-pity and guilt over the poor state of her tribe. She’d only wanted to help, even at a high cost.

In fact, she was already planning on how to leave. She’d tell the boy she had to pee, tell the wolf not to follow her, and then run away and never come back. Better to fall in the snow and die out there than to let this happen to her people again. Here she was, in the state she was in, and her primary thought was her tribe.

“Biandina, let me ask you something,” said Dirt. “You sacrificed that rabbit for revenge for your brother, right? Because he was taken by rucche? Why did you think it was up to you to get revenge, instead of someone else?”

She looked up at him, then looked away, and Dirt noticed that she was indeed beautiful in her way. She had a rounder face than Dirt’s people or the Camayans, but it had a gentle liveliness that he found more and more pleasing, and even if her paler brown hair was an odd companion to her tanned skin, now that he’d seen her tribe, he decided it worked.

“Come on,” he prodded. “You can tell me.”

“No one else was doing anything. Everyone just accepts the misfortune and I think that’s stupid. We shouldn’t have to live like that and if people would just do what they all thought of but didn’t dare, we wouldn’t have to,” she said, a bit of fire in her voice.

Dirt grinned. “So, you thought maybe humans should be fighting back instead of just dying out?”

“Don’t make fun of me,” she said.

“I’m not. I’m smiling because I’m happy. You know who you remind me of? Marina. She was just like you, except she had a different problem and a different solution. But it was the same thing, sort of. She found a man named Hèctor and another one named Ignasi, and they were the first humans I ever saw. They were trying to save their town, too, for the same reason. Because if no one did anything, then their humans were all just going to die out,” said Dirt. He wondered if he should sit next to her, or squat so he wasn’t talking down at her, but she didn’t seem to mind so he stayed standing, hoping his torn seat would stay together.

-You are going to bring her with us, aren’t you?- asked Socks.

“Only if that’s okay with you.”

-I suppose I’m fine with what you have in mind,- said the pup, adding a mental sigh to his words that he didn’t truly feel. He couldn’t quite hide the protective feelings he was developing for the poor little human whose blood he could still taste on his tongue.

Biandina hadn’t replied, so Dirt said, “So, wanna come with us?”

“To where?”

“To meet Marina.”

“I’m useless now,” said Biandina, but in her mind, she didn’t believe her own words. She was already thinking of how she’d tie a knot with one hand, and other things. She’d lost her right arm, and she was right-handed, but she could still manage. She’d have to.

“You were useless before. Wasn’t that your problem? But I think some of my friends might be able to grow you a new arm,” said Dirt. “And I really want you to meet them. And my other human friends. Maybe together we can think of a way to save humanity.”

She nodded and Dirt watched in her mind as her resolve grew and settled. She could feel the need, and she’d been able to for a long time. The world was wrong, and someone had to do something. They had called her silly and childish, said it was the whims of a youthful girl who didn’t know the world yet. But she had known, even so, deep in her heart. She dwelled on that feeling, savoring it, and turned it into hope instead of regret or fear. The wolf was strong, and so was the boy. Startlingly so. Perhaps, maybe…

Biandina stood, careful to keep her breasts covered. “Let me get another shirt,” she said shyly, growing embarrassed now that she was up where everyone could see her, only half dressed. “And help clean up a little, if they’ll let me. And say goodbye properly this time.”