The Land of Broken Roads

That night, Dirt and Antelmu each picked a house to tend, and as a result, neither of them got much rest. Even though Dirt could nudge the babies back to sleep, sometimes they were hungry and needed fed, especially the younger ones. A few of the older girls like Lila stayed with them in place of the adults, but that only got them so far.

Several times during the night, Dirt left the house to check on Antelmu’s and help get things back under control, since the older boy wasn’t skilled enough yet to put them to sleep on his own. And once Dirt was out in the cold, wandering under the sharply sparkling stars, he had to traipse all over the village to help the children having nightmares, which was most of them. All it took was a little jolt of wakefulness followed by a nudge back to sleep, but the numbers added up.

When first light finally turned the black sky into purple, Dirt fell so deeply asleep that he couldn’t be woken by all the crying in the world. He lay like a stone until Antelmu finally shook him awake, by which time the sun was shining brightly through the one window.

“Already?” complained Dirt, trying to blink some moisture into his eyes.

“You’re the very last person to wake up. The very last,” said Antelmu, kicking him playfully. “I was just making sure you weren’t dead.”

Dirt stretched and yawned and said, “Sorry, I’m dead.”

“You’re gonna be if you don’t wake up and start helping me,” said Antelmu.

Dirt sighed and sat up, wishing he’d slept another hour. The house was full of activity, with at least twenty children of various ages at work. Water had been warmed by the fires and was now being used to wash the infants before swapping their swaddling or clothing out for something cleaner and the house was a giant mess. Only one spot was untouched--a little island right where Dirt was sleeping in the middle of the room.

“We need more bottles,” said Antelmu, handing him a broken piece of wood. “I can’t keep up with just the ones you made yesterday. Lots of little mouths to feed and they’re all hollering.”

“How many do we need?” he asked.

“I don’t know, maybe twenty?” said Antelmu. “Thirty. At least. The sheep are already milked—I got some help. But we need more bottles as fast as you can make them.”

Dirt complied, and as he magically crafted bottles one after the other, most of the activity in the room slowed to a stop because everyone had to crowd around and watch. The children murmured quietly to each other as they stared with wide, yellow eyes, many of them packed in cheek to fuzzy cheek to get a closer view.

They only dispersed one at a time as Dirt tossed out bottles. As they left, they dragged their feet and kept glancing over their shoulders, especially the ones who were heading out to the other house.

“I’m going to have to make toys or something, aren’t I? Maybe after everyone is fed, we can do that,” said Dirt.

Dozens of little ears stood straight up when they heard that, just like Socks would have done. And as Dirt thought about it, he couldn’t see a single toy, even though half the babies in here were crawling already. He tried to remember if he’d seen anyone holding a doll or play sword when he’d gotten here with Socks, but he couldn’t. They knew what the word meant, so surely they had some.

Dirt kept the last bottle for himself and used it to feed a brown-furred little girl who wanted to sit up on his lap and hold it herself. He had to keep one hand on it to keep her from tipping it over, and she accepted his friendly smiles as no more than her due, which he found charming.

While he fed her, he took a moment to get a sense of the feel of the town. Everyone was busy, in here and elsewhere. So far, that was helping them all stay distracted, but underneath all that outward activity, they were still in grief. Many of the little minds he saw were deeply somber and stuck on the absence of the adults who had been here only yesterday. They walked around with lumps of burning coal in their chests that refused to relent.

Others seemed like leaves caught in a swirling wind now that all certainty had left their lives. Those ones were fearful of everything, some listening for threatening sounds, others peeking over the barbican every chance they got. They whispered to each other as they passed by and found no consolation.

That wasn’t all, though; some of Dirt’s hope still clung to many of them. It sat beside their grief or fear and helped them keep moving. He intended to nurture that every chance he got.

It was a start, at least. Dirt figured they had four to six days before the Devourer drew near, since that was the longest they’d stayed anywhere. It wouldn’t be longer than that, surely. Not with how often he was appearing in Dirt’s dreams lately.

Too many things were hunting him. The Eye, the Devourer, probably Caeso, and the Gods knew what else. Apkallu, maybe.

Regardless, that meant they had very limited time to make sure the village was going to be fine. That everyone had recovered enough to go about their lives, and that everything that needed doing was getting done. That the children were ready for new parents. Dirt had no idea how that would go, but what other options did he have?

He idly wondered if Socks’s same-age sister had found herself a human yet, because it would be delightfully convenient if she showed up and said she’d adopt the tribe herself. No, that wouldn’t work—she was from Socks’s same litter and would have to keep moving, too. Maybe one of the older siblings? He didn’t recall any of them showing any interest.

Another thing that would have been convenient, was if they were in range for the trees to pull them all to the forest with root travel. That was unlikely, though, since Home’s brace on his arm seldom did more than vibrate gently from time to time. Just to be sure, he asked it, “Home, are you close enough to make sap yet?”

The little girl on his lap gave him an unimpressed side-eyed look, mostly out of annoyance that he wasn’t giving her his full attention. She sucked louder on the bottle just to prove the point. The brace shuddered slightly, but no sap emerged.

After that he went to check on the egg and the other house was just as busy as the first one. Furry children were everywhere, tails swishing against him as he walked. It seemed that half the tribe was in either place, or right outside. Some of them were taking bundles of dirty cloth to go wash somewhere, making a little caravan to the edge of town. Others were helping a group of freshly-bathed toddlers dry off with towels, all of whom complained loudly about the cold and wanted to go back inside. There wasn’t enough room, though, so they couldn’t until they were dressed.

The egg was fine, so Dirt left them to it and explored the town, wondering what everyone was up to. He greeted anyone he passed with a smile, and most returned it, if a bit hesitantly. Not insincerely, though. Just shy and uncertain.

He had been right about how busy everyone was. Every chore was minded and every child was occupied with something or other. Tidying up and cleaning, beating the dust out of bedding, herding smaller children from place to place like noisy, stubborn cattle, gathering this and that.

During his few days in Ogena, all the children he’d seen had been released from their duties to go play with the giant wolf while the adults watched; not much had gotten done the whole time they were there. That had been a special occasion, so now he wondered what they did normally. Màxim hadn’t talked much about his regular schedule, but he could read and write and manipulate numbers. He also knew a startling number of secret places to get into, which made Dirt think the boy had a lot of time to himself.

Not these children, though. They had too much to do. And now that he saw it in action, maybe they needed him less than he thought. Maybe three or four days of preparation was plenty of time.

After they wrapped up the morning chores, it was everyone else’s turn for a meal and they gathered in a giant crowd in front of the baking house, one of the few other wooden structures.

Antelmu had already gone in and started working on it and word was getting around. The children stood in one very, very long line, just like last night, bustling nervously and hardly speaking while they waited. Dirt suspected they weren’t sure how much leeway they had with no one around to punish them. Tomorrow morning might be a lot less organized.

Dirt made his way to the door and found the same group of boys waiting, the ones who had helped with the cooking last night. “Can we help?”

Dirt said, “Of course! Saves me the trouble of trying to find you.” Then, deciding it was time he started learning to tell all these people apart, he said, “What are your names?”

“Moru,” said the black one.

“Lope,” said a tawny orangish boy.

“Rovi.”

“Muru.”

“Good. I’m Dirt.”

“We know,” said Moru, completely serious.

In they went, and a few others who were close by stepped out of line to peek inside. Antelmu was up past his elbows in a giant pile of dough, kneading it with all his might. He pushed the dough with his good arm while he added handfuls of flour with his injured one, and it looked tiring. “There you are! I know Dirt wanders like a cat but why didn’t you boys come in?”

Rovi said, “If we come in here we get punished.”

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“Punished how?”

“We get strapped until the fur starts coming off,” said Rovi. Somehow, he looked like he went pale even though no facial skin was visible.

“Well, that’s horrible. I promise to leave your fur intact if I decide you need smacked. Come on, boys, let’s get started.”

Dirt said, “I got their names, by the way. We should start learning them, so this is Moru, Rovi, Lope—”

“No, that’s Lope. I’m Muru,” said Muru.

“Muru, and Lope.”

Antelmu said, “I don’t remember names until you tell me five times. Anyway, get over here.”

He divided the bread into six hefty portions and handed them out for the boys to knead. It was a task they’d done exactly one time before, but there wasn’t much to it.

“All right, last night I wasn’t as careful, but today we’re going to do it right. Roll it into balls this size. Exactly this size! Here’s one… for… each… of… you. Compare each one you make. I want them all exactly right,” said Antelmu. He stepped away from his own dough to watch over their shoulders. “Also, try to keep any hair out. No one wants to eat that.” He reached over Moru’s shoulder and removed a thin, black hair from his spot on the table.

“We don’t mind,” said Moru sheepishly. “There was always hair in everything the parents made.”

“Well, I mind! Keep it out!” scolded Antelmu.

Moru flinched hard at the older boy’s voice and looked down as if bracing himself to receive a blow. Antelmu noticed and said, “What? No, come on, I’m not going to hit you.” After a short pause, he quietly added, “Sorry. I’m just trying to hurry.”

The black-furred boy slowly unfroze, glancing up sideways at Antelmu, who looked rather embarrassed as he began splitting his dough into balls. Soon enough, Moru followed his example and started pulling it apart and rolled it between his palms.

Antelmu said, “Okay, Dirt, you have the bread song. Start singing.”

“Huh?”

“The bread song!” said Antelmu.

“I don’t know a bread song. I don’t think I even know a song in your language,” said Dirt.

“Doesn’t matter. Hurry and start singing before I pick someone else,” said Antelmu.

“I’ll sing one that sounds like your language did, before I learned it. Ready?” said Dirt. The four beast boys slowed, ears and eyes slyly flitting his way. “Bar, bar bar bar, bar bar bar, bar, bar bar bar…” The tune was one he’d learned in Ogena, and if they’d gotten the joke, it would have been hilarious. No one did, though, and Dirt’s huge grin fell. Antelmu wasn’t sure how to react, and the other boys were simply confused.

“Just kidding. Here it is for real.” He sang the same song again, but with the words about the woman dancing this time. At least the ones he remembered, which was only the first two verses and the chorus. After that he repeated them, but the song was still too short.

When he faltered, Antelmu jumped in and made up a completely new verse on the spot, and after Dirt sang the chorus, he made up a second verse. This time Rovi and Moru joined in the chorus, eyes bright and voices unsteady. After that, Antelmu made up a new verse each time, and half of them were gibberish and the story made no sense, but it didn’t matter. All four beast boys were singing along by the end.

They continued like that until Antelmu stopped to check on everyone’s dough. He reformed at least a quarter of the balls, and in Muru’s case, ended up with enough extra dough for six more. The boys nervously shrank away as he corrected their work, but he noticed that too and patted them on their heads. The way he did it made Dirt think Antelmu was seriously struggling not to just pet them all like animals. “Not bad. Not good, either. You still need practice,” he said.

After that, Antelmu flattened all the balls by himself because there was only one rolling pin, but he could do them several at a time and it only took a few minutes. Once all the bread was stacked and ready to cook, he checked the stove again and pushed the damper a little farther open.

Then, with a serious demeanor that was only partially feigned, he said, “All right, time to start cooking. Yellow and gray, you two are with me. Dirt and the other two, you are handing out the toppings. Be ready, because we’re handing out the bread hot off the oven. That means it goes from griddle to paw as fast as we can move it. I want it even faster than last night. Everyone understand?”

Muru and Rovi followed Antelmu, each holding a big stack of flatbread dough. Antelmu flipped the copper spatula in the air, caught it, and said, “Go! Start tossing them on here!”

Cooking and distributing the mid-morning meal went remarkably well. Hundreds of flatbreads, along with servings of dried meat and fruit, made their way into eager little hands. Some lingered and ate in small groups, while others wandered over by the grave and ate there. None went up the hill, though.

The crowd was basically gone by the time everything was handed out and Dirt finally got his share. He sat on the floor of the kitchen with the other boys, and all of them got half an extra flatbread for their trouble, since two would have been too much.

Dirt asked, “So what does everyone do the rest of the day? There can’t still be more chores, other than maybe feeding the babies again.”

“Just… whatever we want,” said Moru.

“It’ll be weird with no one watching us, though,” said Rovi, around a bite of dried meat.

“So everyone is free until… when?” asked Dirt.

“Until there’s… I don’t know. I guess until it’s time to get ready for night. We used to…” he trailed off, and Dirt could tell it was because he didn’t want to admit something without even looking at his mind.

“You used to spend time with your parents? Learning things, I bet?”

“Yeah,” said Moru, so quiet it was almost a whisper.

Dirt wondered what he should say to that, if anything. Perhaps he might have explained that he knew what it was like, since he lost his family too. It was close enough to the truth not to be a lie. But what would be the point? Grief was miserable and no amount of explaining would do any good.

“Well, I have an idea,” said Dirt.

“What’s that?” asked Antelmu.

“You might know how to make bread, but I know games you can play with three hundred children at once,” he said, breaking out into a sly grin. “Hurry up and wolf that down.”

The boys stuffed their faces, and Dirt stood and shook his heavy woolen shirt to get the crumbs off. “Come on! We’ll meet in the center of town.”

He ran outside, with only two of the boys fast enough to get up and follow him. Instead of heading to the center of town, he ran to one of the infant houses, where he found Lila sitting and chatting with other girls while they fed the babies who were already hungry again.

“Hey, Lila, I’m going to get everyone in town to play a game, but we can’t just leave the babies alone. So what I’ll do is, everyone who helps in here can play next time, and you get the first toys when I make some later. Is that all right with you? With all of you?”

“I guess. What are you playing?” she asked. From the curiosity that appeared on her streaky gray face, he suspected she’d really rather come play, but she’d agreed and he didn’t want to give her any time to change her mind.

“Thanks!” he said, and ran to the other house to ask the same thing there. Once they agreed, he told the boys following him to wait there for a moment, then ran and hid under the sheep’s feed hay, covering himself with it.

Then he shouted with his mind, “Hey, everyone! Since you’re done with chores, let’s play a game. I’m going to hide and try to keep away from everyone, and you all need to search for me. Whoever finds me first wins, but you’ll have to try hard because I’m hidden really well. Then, I’ll tell you what to do next.”

The games went smoothly and took up a good portion of the day. It turned out that children were easier to find than dryads, typically, but could be a lot more creative when it came right down to it. Some of them hid inside baskets that Dirt would never expect to fit a person, and one time he only found a girl hiding between two sheets of a tent wall because her tail twitched.

Dirt made sure to swap out the girls tending the infants, and even took a shift himself to make sure everyone got a chance. The smallest children didn’t quite get the rules or know how to hide properly, but everyone pretended otherwise and humored them.

They ran through everything Dirt had played with the dryads, although some of the games had to be adjusted because no one could do magic. All in all, it had the desired effect, and even the most fearful children began to believe that they’d be okay after all.

Now, it just needed to be true. Dirt hadn’t heard from Socks all day, not even after the games when he helped milk sheep, or feed infants, or clean up tents that had been played in. When the sun dipped below the horizon, everyone gathered around the grave hill and Dirt began shaping wood into toys.

First, as promised, he asked the girls what they wanted, and none of them were sure. Just as he’d begun to suspect, they had no toys. They’d been playing with tools and bundles of cloth and dead plants the whole time, and that had been enough to learn the word.

That wouldn’t do now, though. Since they usually had their hands full with real babies, he thought dolls might not be the best place to start, so he made a crown and explained what it was. Lila loved it, and several more wanted the same thing. After that he made some horses and gryphons and wolves, which the boys found more interesting than the girls. He started making anything he could think of and see who wanted it, and that worked for a while.

Wooden spheres with holes to make them lighter and easier to throw. Soldiers and queens and swords and shields. Most of his ideas came from the treasury the trees had collected for him, but Antelmu helped as well by tossing out ideas. And they were good ones—boxes with lids and latches, stilts, hoops and tops and all sorts of things. Big heavy dice and promises to teach some games for them.

There were at least a dozen fights over the things Dirt handed out, usually amongst the smaller children, but those were resolved by simply making another of whatever it was.

It took hours, all told, and by the time Dirt was done, daylight was nearly gone and everyone was getting hungry. Dirt himself felt raw inside and had a bit of a headache from hours of steady mana use, but it was worth it.

He rested, not even summoning an ember against the cold, and lay on the lumpy ground of the grave hill for a bit. He watched the stars come out and ignored the discomfort of his gently overtaxed mana body while Antelmu headed back to the kitchen to start on dinner. Looking out with his mind sight, he was relieved to see that the mood had changed significantly since this morning. He still found a lot of grief, but much of the fear and hopelessness were gone. That strange, bald-faced little boy had promised them hope, and so far, things were working out.

There was something odd on the air, though, which he couldn’t quite pin down. At first he thought it might be a moment of solitude, which he hadn’t enjoyed all day. But that wasn’t it. There was a metallic tinge to the air, an energy that didn’t sit right with him. It felt like eagerness, or maybe hunger or predation. It grew, but it seemed only he noticed. Everyone else was off where there was warmth and lamplight, playing with their new toys. Only he was out in the dark, alone with the sky.

Dirt felt exposed. Something was watching him. He could feel it. He looked around for Socks, suspecting a surprise, but the big pup was nowhere to be seen, and if he was hiding his mind, he was doing so perfectly. Dirt looked up again, wondering if the Eye was up there, but the sky was darkening and hid anything that might be hiding.

“Caeso?” he said aloud.

No response came.

“Apkallu?” he asked. Only once, since he was now fairly sure you had to say it three times to summon him. Again, nothing.

Something pressed against Dirt’s spirit, making him shudder. Fear gripped him and he rose to his feet, ready to run. His eyes scanned the heavens, watching for movement against those mysterious points of light that were just now being lit.

Dirt looked again with his mind, but no one else in the village seemed to notice. They were all too distracted, too insulated by light and warmth and noise.

The dead. Spirits of the dead. That must be it. But how? The abominations were all soulless, half-dead things. They couldn’t haunt anybody, and besides, they were buried. No pile of skulls to linger and curse a place. Unless a newcomer dug here, they’d never know what was below.

He heard no whispers and saw no motion. No shadowy outlines in windows and doors, no disembodied voices creaking in the quiet, freezing air.

Dirt stared up again, and for the briefest moment, he sensed, rather than saw, the presence of two enormous, burning eyes, of bared and glowing fangs, of saliva that dripped and hissed on the ground. He sensed exultation, and then the pressure vanished. The hill became an empty hill, the night an empty night.

Perhaps he had spent too much mana and sent out too many ripples. Perhaps he had spoken too often and too loudly with his mind. Perhaps he had simply been unlucky. Whatever the reason, after months of slowly following his scent, the Devourer had finally found him in the living world. The great dead wolf was here, and the hunt for Socks was on.