The Land of Broken Roads

Two days later, Socks was truly starting to get bored. The other humans weren’t as fun as Dirt, since all they did was wander and argue. The pup even got tired of slashing that sword through the air, so he threw it back to them, and they thought it fell from the sky. That was fun.

But around midday, as Dirt was chewing up the bones of a squirrel for the marrow, Socks smelled water and left the humans’ trail at a full run. Dirt nearly rolled off backwards and had to drop what was left of his lunch so he could grab on.

The pup ran toward the mountains, following the breeze blowing down from the heights. He leaped over clumps of trees and shrubs and ran straight over the bushes with his long legs until they found it—a quick-moving stream, ten paces across at its widest and mostly shallow. The water rushed loudly down toward the valley below, splashing over boulders as it went.

Socks stepped into it and made his way upward. -Let’s go see where this comes from.-

Dirt perked up at that. It had never occurred to him that a stream had a source. “Where do streams come from?”

-I don’t know.-

The pup splashed loudly as he ran up the stream, making as much noise as possible and enjoying how the water flew everywhere. Even Socks’ sure steps slipped on the wet rocks every now and then, and each time Dirt had to hang on for dear life or get tossed in. If the water splashing up hadn’t been so cold, it would have been a lot more fun.

It turned out the stream was much longer than anticipated. Socks and Dirt hadn’t spent much time in the mountains, since getting around up there was harder and there was plenty to see down below. But the canyon just kept going and going and going, and eventually Socks got tired of all the splashing and extra work and decided to walk beside the stream instead.

Game trails wove all throughout the brush and trees alongside the stream, breaking away to head up the mountainside or around a cliff or into a side canyon. In narrower parts of the canyon, he had to leap from rock to rock, or creep precariously along an incline and try not to slide down, or some such thing.

And there was certainly plenty to look at. The plants down by the stream were soft and full, brighter green than grew anywhere else. Tall, thin trees alongside the water with needles instead of leaves sagged under the weight of moss. Vines crept into the edge of the water, where their leaves were too torn up to grow any farther.

In some places, the canyon floor widened and the stream slowed and spread, and in one spot a bunch of fallen trees and branches dammed the flow, creating a big pond. Dirt’s mind-sight told him there was some sort of critter hiding in the dam, where it seemed to live. Two of them, in fact.

Socks stopped there, finally resting after a long, tiring run. He lapped up some water to rejuvenate and Dirt slid off his back. But when Dirt leaned down for a drink, Socks gracefully put his big nose under Dirt’s backside and tossed him halfway across the pond.

Dirt screamed until he hit the water, face-first. Socks waded out, pleased with himself. The water only came up to his shoulders, but that was deep enough for Dirt to swim. After the initial surprise dunk, the water warmed up a bit and things got a lot more fun.

Socks pulled different fish out of the water with his mind and looked at them, curious about their different colors. He ate a couple of the big ones, but they were far too small to be a meal. Dirt swam in circles, trying out different ways of pulling himself through the water. He used only his arms, or only his legs, or turned over and over like a rolling snake. He turned sideways and flipped his feet like a fish, and all sorts of other methods. He even climbed up and jumped off Socks’ nose a few times, but the water wasn’t deep enough to get thrown very high.

After he tired out, he had Socks pull a fish out for him and they shared their sense of taste. Dirt took a bite and immediately decided he didn’t like the scales, since they stuck all over his mouth and in his teeth. But the meat was nice, so soft it came apart just by pushing it with his tongue.

­-I wonder if there are any fish big enough for me to eat that aren’t covered in tentacles,- said Socks.

“Probably somewhere. I bet we find some eventually. Maybe somewhere with a lot more water,” said Dirt. He ate the whole thing, since he found he could chew the bones enough to swallow. The eyes popped when he bit them, which was a surprise. He’d always thought eyes were solid, but they were full of fluid that had a lot of flavor. He’d never eaten one before.

Socks climbed out, shook the water off, and lay down to rest in the sun and dry out all the way. Dirt followed him but stopped at the edge of the water and did his best to scrub himself clean instead. After his bare hands proved inadequate, he found a flat stone with a sharp edge that scraped it off nicely. He did a thorough job, even between his toes. Socks had to lick his back clean where he couldn’t reach with the rock, up between his shoulder blades.

Dirt was only satisfied after he got a good look at himself through Socks’ eyes, turning in a slow circle to make sure he was all clean.

-Now you look like a proper human,- said Socks, probably teasing.

“Well, I hope so. I’ll have to let the humans see me before I get dirty again.”

-What are you going to do about clothing?-

“I don’t know. Do you think they’ll care as long as I’m clean?”

Socks huffed in amusement. -Now they can’t smell everywhere you’ve been. It makes you more of a stranger than before. Humans are silly.-

“I did save them from that gryphon, so they should be nice to me next time.”

-How much of you has to be covered to be considered clothed? Could you just tie some vines together?-

Dirt sat down and leaned into Socks’ fur while he thought about that. Prisca had worn a dress of gold, as had the dead human named Callius. And Prisca’s memories did include views of the grand cities, with people filling the streets; but they wore such a wild variety of things there was no way for the eye to take it all in. Not only that, but her memory was ancient and she hadn’t been looking all that carefully in the first place. Nothing he’d taken from her told him clearly what a human was supposed to wear, especially a young boy. However, it didn’t seem like what the humans had on—thick pants and shirts of heavy cloth and leather—matched anything Prisca remembered, or that all those buried skeletons had been wearing.

-These humans don’t speak the same language so I bet they don’t have the same ideas about clothing anyway. Those memories won’t do you any good,- said Socks. -Maybe you should just ask them and then make friends with the next ones we find instead.-

“Yeah. But after watching their thoughts for a couple days, I almost feel like we’re friends. I feel like I know them.”

-They don’t know you, though.-

“I know. I wonder if I should keep it a secret that I can see their minds. Didn’t Mother say most humans can’t do that?”

-Maybe you can ask these ones about that, too. That and clothing. And then if it goes poorly, it will be okay because you’ll know for the next ones.-

“I guess that works. Then maybe I can wood-shape some clothing. Actually, I think I’ll try that now just to see.”

-Give it a try. I want to sit here for a while anyway.-

Dirt picked up the Home-staff and inhaled a bit of mana, then tried shaping a thin sheet of material out of it. It worked, but not very well. The material he got wasn’t flexible enough, and after creating a section a few hand-spans in length, he broke it off and poked at it, turning and flexing it to see if it would work. The more he played with it, the more it cracked and creased and came apart.

He tossed that aside. It needed to be more flexible. With that in mind, he shaped another length, a big flat square that was thinner, lighter, and greener. It was flexible like he wanted, but when he pressed it over his knee to see how it’d behave, it split apart.

Well, that wouldn’t work. He made some viny threads next, thinner than his pinky fingernail, and tried to weave them together. The first attempt resulted in a huge clumpy knot, and the second attempt just kept coming apart. There must be some trick to it, but he couldn’t figure it out. Not on the first couple tries.

-Little Dirt, look at the minds. There are a bunch of things sleeping somewhere nearby,- said Socks, perking up.

Dirt opened his mind to Socks, preparing for a full mind meld. Realizing what Dirt had in mind, Socks opened his as well and their thoughts slid together and became one.

Socks and Dirt said, -“Okay, let’s see what Socks was looking at and where they are.”-

-“Yes, let’s.”-

Dirt’s body stood up and moved a few steps away and they opened their mind-sights to see what was around. Dozens of lights appeared in a clump, all seeming bigger and more complicated than typical beasts. But they were all sleeping, which made it hard to judge what they were.

With two mental perspectives instead of one, Socks and Dirt could easily point out the direction, and it turned out these were all underground. Not under the pond, but off inside the mountain to the right.

Dirt’s body climbed back onto Sock’s body’s back and they padded uphill to see if there was a big cave, or maybe a deep hollow. There wasn’t. Just rocks. Socks’ nose couldn’t find any unusual scent trails, or even any air that smelled like it was blowing up from underground.

-“They look too bright to be regular beasts. Even asleep, we can tell that much.”-

Socks and Dirt made their way over the peak, which was farther up than it looked, and down the other side. Only then did Socks’ nose pick up a new scent—the wind blew it down the mountain, away from where they’d been, but it was a humanoid scent. Not human, though. Not goblin, either, but something similar.

They followed the scent carefully down a rockslide and into some dry brush, which Socks gracefully stepped through. A trail came into view, much like a game trail except a little wider. The scent was much stronger on it and Socks picked up notes of hunger, eagerness, weariness, and many more such things. It wasn’t just a few creatures here—there were too many to tell the individual scents apart.

Socks and Dirt looked at the minds again and many more came into view. Perhaps hundreds of them, down inside the mountain, mostly clumped together. Most of them were sleeping, but not all. Some restless infants stirred and tired mothers fed them, but all were so weary and inattentive that Dirt and Socks still couldn’t tell what they were.

The scented trail led them to an opening, a dark entry into the mountain dug right next to a boulder bigger than Socks. A warm wind blew out from inside, rich with a thousand new scents.

-“Socks is too big to fit in there. Should we send Dirt in?”-

-“Dirt might be too weak. Look along the entryway—those look like claw marks. It looks like they can dig right through stone when they want to.”-

-“Perhaps, but they are asleep. He should be fine if he hurries. He is not completely helpless. Let him bring the Home-staff and his knife, and fill up with mana.”-

-“Dirt cannot see in the dark without making a light.”-

-“Then let us make a light. They are asleep.”-

-“We will make a light and go in, then. We do want to see what they are.”-

Keeping the mind-meld strong, Dirt’s hand raised and snapped his fingers. A small ball of flame appeared over his head, almost invisible in the bright midday sun. He stepped up to the entrance and they shifted their focus from primarily centered in Socks to being primarily centered in Dirt.

Dirt held the Home-staff in front of himself as he walked in. Dirt and Socks made sure not to move too quickly, lest Dirt’s eyes be too slow to adjust and he step on something noisy. Each step took them farther into darkness and after twenty paces, Socks’ body closed his eyes, since there would be nothing to watch from that point.

Socks and Dirt sniffed the air, wishing human noses were more effective; but there was no thick water in the air, or anything to smell other than rank humanoid. It was making Dirt’s eyes water, so they wiped them and plugged his nose with their fingers. The firelight bobbled behind, just overhead, and when Dirt finally descended into true darkness, it lit up the interior of the cave bright as a torch.

The cave was mostly natural, with an uneven ceiling and walls. But anytime it grew too constrained for something the size of an adult human to walk through unhindered, it was clawed away to make room. There was no dirt down here, either—all the digging happened through solid stone. Dirt and Socks wondered if they could find a claw to keep, since they must be impressive.

-“Something occurs to us. Are the creatures digging, or do they herd some sort of beast that does it?”-

Dirt stopped walking forward and they took another look at the minds around them. Down much deeper, they found smaller minds, but those were awake and it didn’t take long to figure out they were something else. Those were probably being herded. Those didn’t seem to have eyes at all, sensing the world with sound and smell instead. Their minds seemed more insectoid than animal.

-“Those must be herds kept for food.”-

Dirt crept carefully down the tunnel as Dirt and Socks kept watch with mind-sight. Nothing stirred or registered their intrusion. They knew they were getting closer to the first clump of the mysterious creatures and when Dirt’s body got within a stone’s throw, the tunnel opened into a cavern of decent size. Smaller than the interior of Prisca’s schola, but big enough not to feel cramped. No part of it was flat, with the floor curving up or downhill with the natural flow of the rock, but every inch of ground was occupied. Mats of woven grass, small baskets and pottery, trinkets of every shape and variety.

Lumps of furry, sleeping bodies. They looked like nothing Dirt and Socks had ever seen, with long, muscular arms and ugly faces. Each was bigger than the three humans, both in height and thickness. They wore clothing of a sort—simple loincloths of tightly woven plant fibers, held in place by thin belts of some sort of twined rope.

Between the dim light and the fur hiding much of their appearance, Dirt’s human eyes had a hard time gathering enough detail to get a thorough picture of them. They had him creep closer, slow and silent, until he was only three paces away from one.

Dirt and Socks couldn’t even tell what sex it was because of the loincloth. It had nipples that might have been long enough for suckling, but if they were female breasts, they weren’t pronounced enough to have any milk. It had a wide mouth, open and dripping drool. Its deep-set eyes twitched with dreams and its round, narrow head made it look both dangerous and stupid. The creature’s heavy breathing had a rasp in it, one that Dirt and Socks were sure would cause it to cough and wake at any moment.

There were more. Dozens more, just in this clump, all distributed haphazardly throughout the cavern. Some were noticeably smaller than others, but this group had none of the waking infants that Dirt and Socks had spotted elsewhere.

The sheer stench of them was enough to get Dirt and Socks to think it was time to leave, but before they did, they had Dirt check some of the baskets for cloth, which they hoped to steal. Having a sample would make it much, much easier for Dirt to figure out later, and that would solve the clothing problem. And perhaps some food, if they had any, just to see what it was.

Dirt and Socks kept an eye on them the whole time, carefully stepping on the quietest things they could find. The first basket was full of shells, which was curious. Where had those come from? Another basket had long, thin bones, all the same size, and likely useful for something they couldn’t guess. The next had a few dried fruits in the bottom, but they didn’t look appealing enough to steal. Finally, Dirt’s gaze fell on a length of their rough cloth, a knee-high pile of it. Dirt picked it up and immediately turned to go, hurrying this time.

He danced back across the cavern floor like a spider, trying not to drop anything. The staff was awkward and the cloth kept wanting to sag or dip everywhere as different places came out of order.

It turned out not to be enough. He let the barest end of the cloth drag across the face of the first creature he’d examined, the one closest to the door. It snorted and stirred and Dirt gave up sneaking to race back up the tunnel as fast as he could go. His bare feet slapped the stone far too often, letting the sound echo in both directions. The cloth unraveled more as he ran, nearly causing him to trip.

Their mind-meld slid apart and half of Dirt’s world disappeared. The overwhelming scent of creature instantly became a wretched stench, so thick on the air he was sure he felt it burning his lungs.

-They’re waking up. Hurry, little Dirt.-

“I’m hurrying!” He reached a spot that had been much easier to slide down than it was to climb up, especially holding a staff and a bunch of loose cloth. He inhaled mana and jumped, but in his haste he went too far and cracked his skull on the stone ceiling above where he wanted to land. The surprise pain made him drop the staff, which clattered all the way down and out of sight.

Dirt dropped the cloth and ran down after it. It didn’t tumble all the way back into the cavern, thank Grace, but it still cost him precious time. He spared a glance at the minds and at least two were now awake, hearing him in the tunnel and getting angry about it. Very angry. Dirt was an intruder. They could smell him and he was not making their sounds.

With the staff in hand, he ran using mana and went so fast his eyes had trouble following the turns of the tunnel. He picked up the cloth as he went, but let it drag in a long trail behind him instead of trying to keep it bundled up.

The sunlight was blinding when he burst out of the cave and Socks had to pick Dirt up with his mind and put him on his back. The pup stepped back from the entrance but didn’t run.

“They’re mad, Socks. Like wasps, and I went in their nest.”

-I know. I want to see them. Maybe they will want to fight and it will be fun.-

“I don’t know. There might be a lot of them coming out of there,” said Dirt, nervously trying to roll up the cloth to make it easier to carry.

­-If too many come then we will just run away. But I want to see them in the light. And they are big to you but small to me.-

Dirt sighed and braced himself, filling with mana just in case.

The screams came out of the entrance before the creatures did, shrill and long and piercing. Socks’ hackles rose underneath Dirt, which just made him more nervous. At least Socks was preparing to take it seriously.

Socks grabbed the first creature that came out of the tunnel with his mind, pulled it into the air, twisted in half, then threw back down the tunnel. Its halves didn’t go far, slamming into the tunnel wall with two heavy thuds and splashes of blood and viscera. The second one came out injured but still enraged, screaming with a high-pitched voice that didn’t match its furry, bulky body.

The pup lifted that one in the air and brought it closer to examine. He rotated it in every direction like Mother had done with Dirt that first time, and it screamed the whole time. The thing’s arms reached down past its knees, in part because the legs were short. Instead of hands, its arms ended in long, thick claws that didn’t look like they could move independently. There was nothing to see in its mind but white fury and an underlying vicious cunning as it tried to think of a way to get to Socks’ eyes and rip them out with its claws.

In the few heartbeats it took for Socks to look the creature over once or twice, four more came out, then six. Socks created a web of sparks between himself and the beasts, which erupted into a wall of flame. He pushed the flame over them, igniting their fur and searing their tiny eyes and lungs. Their screams of anger turned into helpless agony.

Socks twisted the head off the one he was holding up and threw the parts away. He called up another wave of sparks and sent them into the tunnel. When he ignited them, the flames caused a deafening explosion and flame shot thirty paces out from the tunnel. The exit was angled up and away, which was good because he and Dirt would never have dodged in time.

-I didn’t know it would do that! Plug your ears. I’m going to do it again.-

Dirt had to hold the staff in the crook of a knee, but once his ears were plugged, Socks created another explosion inside the tunnel. It was loud even with ears plugged, and Dirt felt it slap his insides. It made him feel nauseous.

“Okay, no more of that, please,” said Dirt.

-Fine. I think they stopped coming out.-

The pup was right. The area was quiet again, all screaming ceased. Dirt breathed a sigh of relief and settled in a bit more comfortably.

-Wait. I think I woke the rest up.-

Dirt looked with his mind, and although he couldn’t tell direction by himself, he could still see hundreds of them waking. Some were confused, but most were simply angry. They didn’t seem to have any fear at all. None.

Socks turned and started back up over the peak, toward the little pond from before. Behind him, a crowd of the beasts rushed out of the tunnel, so quickly Dirt thought they must be organized. Up ahead, though, the ground burst open and more sprang out into the sunlight, their dark fur glistening. Then from somewhere else, another erupting shower of earth and rock and a new tunnel spat out twenty more.

Now there were fifty, all racing forward on their stumpy legs and strong, vicious arms, screaming with high-pitched voices. More minds came into view and new tunnels burst open all over the mountainside, and then there were a hundred. Two hundred. Five hundred.

Socks and Dirt were surrounded.