The Land of Broken Roads

Dirt held on tightly, but Father wasn’t moving yet. The Devourer withdrew his magic and the world went still, but the tension in the air grew tighter. Father was wary and alert, which made Dirt entirely unable to relax despite how exhausted he was.

At least it was warm. Blessedly so. His frigid body soaked up the heat like a sponge soaked up water, and he could feel himself warming up from the outside in. Skin first, then muscle, then bones and guts. The cold was so deep that warming up was not a quick process.

-DO NOTHING TO INTERFERE. YOU WILL LIKELY DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD.-

“Yes, Father,” thought Dirt. It was somewhat of a relief, if he was honest with himself. His mana body stung from overuse, his mind was melting from too much focus, and his muscles had nothing left to give. It was probably for the best that he wasn’t given any tasks. All he could do was stay alert in case things changed.

The strangest thing about waiting was the silence. It seemed like the dead wolf and the living one would have something to say to each other. Threats, if nothing else. But the Devourer had no living mind to speak with, and Father wasn’t interested in speaking aloud. Dirt wasn’t even sure what form that would take, if it came to that. Wolves could communicate a great deal with body language, but it was a limited vocabulary. So would he say human words? Not even Socks did that. His mouth was shaped wrong to make all the sounds, so—

-TRY TO BE LESS INTERESTING, LITTLE HUMAN,- said Father, who sounded slightly amused. His intention was clear, though. Dirt needed to stop thinking distracting things. Well, that was like asking water to stop being wet; the reason Dirt thought about things at all was because they were interesting. Even so, he gathered what fleeting discipline remained in him and forced his thoughts elsewhere.

Dirt turned his attention to his mana vessel, sore as it was, and watched for magic to manifest itself. It was too dark to take advantage of his human eyes, and his senses of hearing and smell were too weak to be of any use, but perhaps one more person watching for spells would come in handy.

After a few quiet minutes, Father sniffed the wind, turned and sprinted. Dirt hardly felt the acceleration—it was as if the great wolf was holding still and the earth was moving beneath him. If he couldn’t see the falling snow dashing past, he might doubt they were moving at all.

The stop was just as sudden and just as gentle. Dirt tried not to wonder about it lest he become distracting again. He looked around for Socks, but Father’s bulk hid so much of the surrounding landscape that it didn’t do much good. All he saw was fur, sky, and the tops of the tallest trees.

Socks greeted Father in the way of wolves, all scents and emotions and images. The meaning was, “Hello, Father. Thank you for getting my human. Can I have him back?”

-FOCUS,- was all Father gave in reply.

Socks gave a dismayed little squeak, but didn’t argue beyond that. Dirt could just imagine him down there, anxiously wagging his tail. He probably wanted to jump up here and see for himself that Dirt was all right.

For a time, nothing happened at all. They stood silently so long that Dirt got a new layer of snow on his back, which he didn’t dare move to shake off. A minute passed, and another. Still no motion, no hint of anything. No magic. Just snowfall and his own breath. He struggled to stay awake, and more than once, a cold drip down a warm spot pulled him from dreamy half-sleep.

When the Devourer struck, it was instantaneous. Just as Dirt was drifting off for the fourth time, a flash of powerful magic ignited his magic sense. A counterspell slammed down the other direction, and from that moment, the magical contest was too fast and too vivid for Dirt to even begin to guess what was happening. Nor could he see it. From where he nestled in Father’s fur, all he saw was snow zipping at lightning speed each time the great wolf moved.

Even watching Socks’s mind was insufficient; the pup could hardly keep up himself. The ground splintered and slammed shut around a paw, only to shatter into sand before it broke his bones. A flash of fire blinded him and he leaped away, but was grabbed and pulled another direction so fast it hurt his ribs, only to feel the air compress and burst just a few feet from his head.

Every attack from the Devourer was intended to maim or kill, and no attack came alone. Always a second trap, a third one, to catch the pup where he moved to dodge. Once something slammed into the ground so hard that the earth was flung upward in a cone, high enough for even Dirt to see. Then, while he stared in wonder, a second one landed near the first. A third exploded in midair, high above, which Dirt only noticed from the cracking sound and the rain of pebbles and debris that fell with the snow.

Again and again, every element was torn from its proper place to destroy Socks at any cost. The air was split open into emptiness, the clouds funneled into spikes of ice and water. The ground cracked and roared, sometimes from a good distance away as either the living wolf or the dead one took hold of the entire area at once.

An inferno appeared and spun into a tornado, from which lightning struck sideways. Father directed its sharpness into himself, away from his son, and even Dirt felt the sparks.

All the while, through attack after attack, Socks stayed brave and alert. Bloody and sore from a dozen traps that almost got him, breath heavy from exertion, it was no easy thing. Dirt realized the poor pup had probably been running with all his might to get here and arrived already tired.

But Socks kept his head up, pushing all self-pity and weakness from himself with a mental discipline that mirrored Dirt at his best. Rather than whimper when the grass turned to thick thorns beneath his paws, he snarled and bared his teeth. He barked at the boulder that shot up from underneath him, and barked again when it burst and sent smaller rocks flying at speed that would send them through a castle wall.

A wolf Socks’s own size leaped from the ground, made of the crystals found in caves, and Socks rushed in to bite its throat. Father tugged him away before his jaws closed, and as the wolf shattered, Socks saw a ring of razor-sharp iron concealed in its neck.

Each explosion, each crack and boom and sizzle, lodged in Dirt’s chest and filled him with unrelenting stress. It was too much for his frazzled senses, even from way up here. Nothing was attacking him, but the constant noise and terror were taking what was left of his weary little self and grinding it into paste. He sent Socks a mental puff of fortitude, hoping to strengthen them both. Socks returned it with an extra little note of encouragement. Dirt took hold of it, pushed the fear away, and sat up. He could watch a little longer.

As he watched Socks’s mind, Dirt saw a new bloom of anger begin to rise. The Devourer coming after him was one thing, but it had gone after his little Dirt, and that was unconscionable. The anger gave him a new burst of energy, and his reactions grew sharper, his steps lighter and quicker.

A grove of trees cracked and shuddered, and arrows three paces long launched out as if from a bow the size of a house. Father swatted most of them with his mind, but Socks got a few as well, then stepped forward as if to dare the Devourer to launch more.

-I am sick of this. When is he going to get serious!?- yelled Socks mentally, using words for Dirt’s benefit.

Father responded in the way of wolves, saying that he was waiting for Socks to grow weaker first. Just a flash of thought, and the great wolf resumed watching for threats.

-Well, I am not going to get weaker!- said Socks.

“It’s not going to work, you stupid old dead wolf!” screamed Dirt at the top of his lungs, so the Devourer could hear it. He took another deep breath, coughed on a snowflake, and yelled, “Just leave!”

As if in reply, the snow began falling again, harder than ever. Dirt felt the pressure of the Devourer’s mana on the world and watched a great spell causing water to manifest itself inside the clouds. The snow came down thick in slowly falling clumps, some the size of Dirt’s finger, and before a count of twenty he was covered in a fresh inch of it.

A strong, swirling wind blew and shattered all the clumps of snow into clouds snowflakes, so thick they may as well have been fog. Dirt lost any visibility beyond a few steps. He couldn’t even make out the back of Father’s head.

He felt a dread on the air that was hard to place, amongst all the terror and chaos of the night. But it was a new note, something that hadn’t been there. If it had been any more subtle, Dirt might have thought it was his own feeling, but it wasn’t.

Then he knew where he’d felt it before. The ghosts in Llovella. This felt like that, but stronger and far, far more menacing. It robbed his breath. His heart pounded weakly in his chest and his eyes strained to make out shapes in the snow.

Dirt saw glowing light before he saw the burning eyes themselves. He knew them at once, eyes as big as Father’s, full of inferno fire and hunger. They were just close enough for him to barely make them out through the thick, windblown snow, and they fixed on Socks from above.

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Ghostly teeth formed from mist, glowing a pale bluish white. Before they could strike, Father turned and ran, pulling Socks along with his mind until the pup could get his paws under him. No matter how fast he moved, the eyes remained fixed in place, following as he turned this way and that.

They made it out of the worst of the snow, at least, moving to an area where the Devourer hadn’t summoned enough wind to shred the snow. Dirt saw far more plainly now, the area largely illuminated in yellow and red by the blazing eyes of the enemy.

Tendrils of ghostly matter wormed down from the sky, approaching Socks from all directions. DO NOT MOVE, commanded Father.

Socks fought an internal battle against unreasoning fear, and so far he was winning, but only barely. He knew those tendrils and those jaws. His wet fur stood on end and the rest of him went rigid as fear of horrible pain fought its way into his mind.

Dirt saw distress in Socks’s mind and little else. The pup had something awful inside him; not pain, exactly, but a sense of wrongness so sharp it may as well have been pain. Socks’s mind light wavered like it might be in danger of going out and Dirt heard the pup whimper. But Father stood unmoving, eyes fixed on the same thing the Devourer was watching from above. The tendrils grew taut, tugging something Dirt couldn’t see from up here.

It was more than Dirt could take and he ran across Father’s back until he began slipping down the great wolf’s ribs, at which point he grabbed and held on as tight as he could. He wiped snow from his eyes and looked down.

Twenty tendrils of ghostly light were holding something inside Socks, trying to yank it out. His spirit. Dirt was sure the Devourer was trying to tear the pup’s spirit from his body.

The dead wolf’s power strained against the living one’s, and all the while Socks was the prize in their test of wills. Each time Socks shuddered, if he moved more than an inch, his mind light wavered as part of him began to die. Once he was still again, it brightened again as that part of his spirit reattached to his body.

Dirt spared a glance at Father’s mind then, perhaps foolishly. But Father was only paying the tiniest attention to Dirt, resting all his focus on Socks. It was not a matter of strength, Dirt saw; the living wolf had far more power than the dead one. But the senses required to counter the Devourer in this way were subtle and difficult, even for Father. It took his whole focus to hold his heart and mind still enough to keep his little son alive.

That was enough to show Dirt how futile his own involvement could ever have been. What could a little tiny human do in such a contest?

Only one thing, really. Just one. Dirt jumped down, bracing his legs with as much mana as he could command, and rolled when he hit the ground. He stepped quickly over to Socks, slipping between the spiritual tethers that held his friend in place, and jumped all the way up to his head, twenty feet in the air.

He ruffled the startled pup’s fur, and said aloud, “Relax, Socks. You’re going to be fine.” He sent the biggest puff of love and affection he could and scratched all around Socks’s head, especially up around the ears.

Feeling Dirt’s little feet and hands on him again helped, it turned out. Socks was able to let go of some of the fear inside himself and quit trembling. His muscles loosened, and each tinge of painful wrongness inside him no longer made him wince away.

“You should’ve kept your harness so I’d have your rake,” said Dirt, his voice full of playfulness he didn’t feel. “I bet that would help.”

-That would not help,- said Socks. He was still suffering, his spirit hissing in the grip of death itself, but had grown calm enough to try to put on a brave face.

“Sure it would,” said Dirt, still speaking with his mouth. And in fact, let the Devourer hear how scared he wasn’t. Dirt filled his voice with warmth and humor and said, “I could rake all this snow off you and give you a good scratch. Then after that, I could go swat those tendrils with it until the stupid ghost gives up.”

A bit of amusement passed through Socks’s mind, although he couldn’t force it to stay there. But both their thoughts turned to the same thing a moment later: what would happen if Dirt did go swat those tendrils? Or even better…

“All right, I’m trying it. Keep holding still,” said Dirt.

He jumped down and moved toward a tendril. He felt his own spirit shudder against the power it exuded, but he stepped right up to it anyway. Then he snapped his fingers and made a light. Then another, and another, and another, until the area was as bright as he could make it with his exhausted little mana vessel. Then he commanded the lights to swirl, passing in and out of the tendril.

Dirt clapped and yelled at it, creating as much noise as he could to go along with the light. The tendril, taut as ever, quivered like a plucked bowstring. Dirt kept it up, and on a foolish whim, clapped his hands inside it. His hands went numb from the forearm down until he pulled them out again, so he didn’t try that twice.

But it worked. After just a bit more harassment, that tendril broke off of Socks and snapped back, where it began waving in the wind like a banner until it faded from sight.

With one gone, another on the other side snapped away, then another. Socks shivered and two more broke off, then another. One by one, they broke and withdrew.

At the last moment, just as Socks was sure he was about to be free, Dirt spotted a sharp ridge of stone quietly jut up through the snow beneath Socks, and Dirt reacted without thinking. He slammed all his mental force against Socks’s rear haunch, launching himself backward at great speed with rebound force. He saw the blade of earth slice upward and catch Socks along the side, right up past his rear leg, instead of into his guts where it had been pointed.

Dirt tumbled backward and thank Grace, didn’t hit a tree. He just came to a rest under three feet of snow. He quickly dug himself out and pushed his way back, but it was over.

The power in the clouds withdrew and the magic filling them with moisture ceased. The snow quit falling shortly after that. The menace in the air, the ghostly dread, all of it was gone.

When he finally got back over there, Father had Socks lifted high in the air and was licking the pup’s wounds shut. The worst was the last one, but that was far from all. Countless little knicks and cuts and bruises needed Father’s attention, and got it.

Socks was finally safe again. It was over for the night, and Dirt was so relieved that his exhaustion came back out and nearly made him weep himself to sleep. He was too tired to even celebrate. The earlier run had been bad enough, but the fear and chaos of the fight had drained the last of his reserves.

Once the pup’s wounds had been tended to, Father plopped down right there, the displaced air sending a crashing wave of snow thirty feet high rolling across the ground. -COME. I WILL REST WITH YOU UNTIL DAWN.-

-I am glad Dirt was there. He helped,- said Socks, grabbing Dirt with his mind and yanking him over. The pup nestled along his sire, and Dirt crawled in to sleep on Socks’s front legs, under the fur of his neck.

-IT WOULD HAVE BEEN OVER SOON REGARDLESS OF HIS INVOLVEMENT,- said Father. -AND THAT LAST SPIKE WOULD NOT HAVE KILLED YOU.-

-No, but it would have hurt. I am glad he is here,- said Socks.

-YOU DO NOT NEED TO CONVINCE ME, SILLY PUP. DID I SPEAK OF TAKING HIM AWAY?- said Father.

Dirt almost explained that the dead wolf had found Socks by following Dirt in the first place, but surely he already knew. And what was the point of arguing with a being who could see all your thoughts?

-YOU TWO WILL HAVE TO GET MOVING IN THE MORNING. DO NOT STAY HERE,- said Father.

-But what about Antelmu and the little animal humans?- said Socks.

-THEY’LL LIVE FOR NOW.-

Dirt felt Socks grow tense again. The pup kept his mental voice meek, however, and said, -What do you mean they’ll live? Did something happen?-

Father replied with a mental image of the town as it was now, or had been a short while ago. Half the place was on fire, with still-flaming skeletons fallen and shattered along every road. The children were distraught, panicking, unable to get enough water to put out any fires. They weren’t spreading, however, and would go out eventually. Antelmu lay on the floor of a tent, eyes closed, breathing shallowly from severe pain. He had suffered several nasty burns, the most obvious being a patch in the shape of a hand where the side of his face was burned away, and some of his hair. The spear, the majestic Sceptrum Flammae, was unharmed, but the hand that held it would forever be scarred and might never function quite right again. Most surprisingly of all, not a single child had been killed. The vision closed.

Socks hopped to his feet, sending Dirt tumbling into the snow yet again, and said, -They were a lot of work, for both me and Dirt. I do not like how that ended. I am going over there.-

-YOU WILL NOT.- commanded Father. -MY FATHER LEFT TRAPS. YOU WILL GET HURT.-

-Then what are we doing about them? I suppose I don’t mind too much if the children die, but I liked Antelmu.-

-I SAID THEY WILL SURVIVE,- said Father. -ALL OF THEM, FOR ANOTHER SEASON OR TWO.-

-But Dirt worked really hard to feed the babies, and I spent more than a day convincing the other humans to come take care of them. First they wanted to run away from me and I had to convince them I was not there to hurt them. Then, they didn’t want to do anything I said, and didn’t want to raise pups that weren’t theirs in a place they didn’t know. The men said they were prosperous but I was not impressed. I had to start threatening them, but it was hard to be convincing without killing any, and that would make Dirt upset. I only convinced twenty to come, but they were slow, and I had to leave them behind when I saw the Devourer trying to kill Dirt,- said Socks, growing more agitated the more he spoke.

-SO WHAT?- said Father. -GO TO SLEEP.-

-So after all that, I want them to at least have parents, and I don’t want Antelmu to get injured like that and never see us again to know what happened,- said Socks. -Thinking about it is making me upset.-

-THEN THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE.-

-I can’t,- complained Socks. And it was true—his mind might be grand and powerful, but it still belonged to a very tired puppy. Part of his frustration was on Dirt’s behalf, knowing how hard Dirt had worked trying to keep them alive until Socks got back.

-Can I at least go lick Antelmu’s wounds?- said Socks.

-DID YOU FORGET ABOUT THE TRAPS? YOU CANNOT GO BACK UNTIL THEY DISSIPATE.-

-So what am I supposed to do? I liked Antelmu,- whined Socks. He stepped this way and that, growing more agitated and unable to calm down because he was simply that tired.

-YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GO TO SLEEP AND STOP PESTERING ME,- said Father.

-Well, now I can’t sleep at all.-

“Do you think you would mind sending them to the forest?” asked Dirt meekly, speaking aloud in order to seem as humble as possible.

Father didn’t respond immediately, and Dirt began to wonder if he’d overstepped and was about to be killed. If he’d been less tired, that might have bothered him.

Still, he continued, “The trees raising children makes me nervous, so I’ll have them send them all to Ogena after we get there, and tell the Duke to take care of them. And Antelmu can live with Biandina and raise the egg.”

-I like that idea. Please, Father? I promise to go to sleep if you do that,- begged Socks.

-FINE,- said Father. Dirt felt nothing when the great wolf paused, but shortly after he said, -IT IS DONE. NOW SLEEP, MY TIRED LITTLE PUP.-