Crawling through the sand

[domendred]

First time author, so please be gentle!

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Sycieb felt, as he often did, that being outside the crawler was the worst possible place to be. No walls to protect you from raiders, no ceiling to protect you from the Sun, but worst of all? No great dragging limbs to propel you through these endless sand dunes. The crawler, temperamental machine that she was, had torn free some connectors from her upper nacelle, needed to extract phlogiston from the putrid air. No phlogiston, no fuel to feed her endless appetite. While the crawlers great maw would thresh useless silicates from organics and metallics, she could do nothing but rust without her fuel. So, the ever dutiful servant, Sycieb climbed the riveted plates to patch the connectors, and pray that they would hold till they returned to Chamistasya.

The great ravine city was know for its docking berths and the assorted sinful indulgences Sycieb's fellow crawler servants glutted themselves upon. This is not to imply Sycieb to be a paragon of any particular virtue, unless unwilling poverty was something cherished in the temples now. No, if Sycieb bore any virtue it was bloody minded determination, and at the moment? That virtue was turned to the task of repairing a neglected connector.

"Let me find the bastard of nine fathers who did this to you," Sycieb grumbled to the crawler "And I will feed him into your maw by his feet!" The crawler did not respond, nor would she speak to him until she fed once more. Even then, with her engines rumbling, and grasping limbs dragging them forwards, she would remain silent. Sycieb had long accepted that his lady was a quiet one, and he did not mind over much. When powered she did not speak, but sing to him with her crushing gears and steam filled pipes. Or at least, she would, if he could fix this damnable connector.

Atop the rounded hull of the crawler, not even two days away from the city Iljaskya, where he had purchased the right to serve an independent crawler. Unlike the great lumbering fortress crawler, Lord Morossa, where he was born and raised, his lady was a small a humble thing. She was thrice the height of a man, discounting her keel, which cut deeply into the sands beneath herself. While her interior was dual leveled, and tall enough for even Sycieb to stand, her corridors were narrow, as was her profile. She was a predator, and her name would reflect that, once their maiden voyage was complete. In the mean time, there was work to be done.

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Undadar asked, for what was surely the hundredth time, his brother Undim, "Brother, are you sure you damaged that connector properly? You told us the connector would barely allow the crawler to leave the city! Yet here we are riding through the Wastes for a second day, and we have seen nothing of the fool or our crawler!" Chamassast listened to his younger brother's whining and paid him no mind. Undim, the oldest brother, however did not have the same patience as their middle brother.

"Unda, with every spirit as my witness, I will strike you if you ask me again! I told you I did it, therefore, it was done! We follow the cut of her keel, and we will likely soon be upon her!"
Their older brother was not handling the heat as well as Chamassast, nor the relentless questioning of his younger brother. This did not bother Chamassast, well used as he was to both of his brothers ways. What did bother him was the silence. Given the freshness of the cut in the deep sands, they should be hearing some something, either the crew working or the crawler toiling away.

The genbu they were riding upon, in their covered palanquin, groaned his frustration as well. During these hot hours of daylight, their noble mount would prefer to bury itself beneath a dune, but they had to advance. Chamassast tapped the genbu again with the flick to lightly adjust his direction, keeping them moving after their crawler. And then he sighed, as he heard his younger shift on his cushion, preparing to ask his question, for surely the hundredth and first time.
"Brother, did you make sure that yo- Aaaghg!"

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Sycieb twitched in his postion, straining his ears to hear. Had someone just shouted? It sounded like some woman was crying out in pain. A quick review of morals reminded Sycieb stricking women was frowned upon in polite society, which was different upon a crawler, where there was no fairer sex, as all servants of the crawler obeyed only the great living machines and their ordained voices. This prompted a jolt out of Sycieb, because not he was in fact, the ordained voice of the great machine beneath himself.

Another shout across the dune reminded the young man as to why he had stopped his work in the first place, as he scrabbled out from under the nacelle and for the top port into the great machine. He has his rifle inside, near the round door? Or was it in the canteen? With a curse he began tearing through the narrow corridors searching for the blasted thing.

An armory, he decided, would be in that room, the empty one that was going to be a captains quarters, that had those boxes full of connectors and other well labeled boxes. He paused, staring at a box that clearly had the exact connectors he needed and cursed. Who could have imagined that looking around would have been helpful. What was not helpful was the lack of a gun in the room, and with another curse he ran down the corridor to... Maybe it was in the sleeping nook?

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Many things in life, Undadar decided, were patently unfair. He was not pouting, or even sulking, no matter that his bastard of a brother said. He had asked a simple question, and from out of nowhere, Undim, his eldest brother had struck him repeatedly about the head and shoulders! It had hurt! As they reached the top of the dune, he turned to his brother and-

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The rifle bucking in his hands, the bark of fire from its mouth, the touch of death where it struck. Sycieb watched the pirate fall from the genbu, most of the top of his head missing. The shouts from the other two pirates were loud and they hopped up to throw spears at Sycieb, crying out in surprise and distress.

It was peculiar to Sycieb, that pirates always seemed surprised that their victims should fight back. He was ducked behind the nacelle, the same one he had been working on only a few minutes before hand, now providing him with shelter. He worked the breach of the gun, the brass canister of the old shot deftly removed and replaced with live ammunition. These casings had been a gift to him, when he left Lord Morossa and his family aboard the behemoth, borne from the great metal shell of their Lord. It would not do to lose or waste such precious metals.

New round loaded, and the breach secure, he leaned once more around the nacelle. Quickly, he lurched back as one of the spears scraped off a line of metal less then a foot from his head. Those spearheads were made of metal! These pirates were clearly well off, which meant there must be more then just the one genbu riding towards him now, so Sycieb would need to work quickly.

Spinning around the corner he lined up his shot. Both the pirates stood tall, atlatls in hand to make their shots against him. It did not matter, however, as Sycieb did not aim for the pirates. The voice of thunder, the speed of howling winds, and the death of a genbu were the result of his next trigger pull, tossing the foolish pirates into the sand. The great shelled beasts were powerful, and could march for days it was true, but they lumbered, unlike nimble eleodes or lightning quick jerboas.

Reaching into his belt, Sycieb pulled the long knife from in and latched it to the end of the rifle. His mothers knife and his fathers rifle, were of great comfort as he moved towards the ladded, towards the two men now tumbling down the dune, the great genbu dragging its way through the sand after them. Once the nacelle was repaired, he would need to carve some rations from the beast.

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The great roaring of the crawler, the guttural rumbling of its ceasless hunger, and the twitches of its many legs were the reward Sycieb received for his labors of the day. He had removed near twenty pounds of flesh from the beast, and pulled the clothing from the bodies of the pirates. The crawler's servant had remained in highest alert, expecting more pirates to come at any moment, yet they never arrived. This was... good, Sycieb considered, but worrying. While he was no mariner, he had been trained with them, as all who choose to leave Lord Morossa are privileged to do.

Sycieb, his lady willing, had decided to move forwards after the blood work was done, quickly swapping out the connector. It was a blessing, he decided, from the heavens or the seller of the crawler, that the connectors he needed were left inside the great machine. It took only a few tenths of an hour to turn his lady's bulk till she faced the corpses and urge her forwards. Her great threshing maw, greedy and rapacious as it was, devoured sand and flesh and bone alike, and rendered it all for use.

One of the first lesson every child is taught, upon any crawler worth the name, is that the maw cares not for which it devours, only that it eats. Games are made of it, to throw trash, and food, and even prized treasures as offerings to the great machines, only to watch as all things are torn and sundered. The genbu, massive though it was, the corpses of pirates, thin and gamey, the coarse sand? All this was only a feast for his lady, only blood splattering her hull was safe from her hunger.

Her name, Ilosia Ilimla, was well earned, meaning Hunts-For-Blood in the old tongue, and would be well received amongst his people. For his lady was a huntress, and with a sigh, Sycieb knew he would need to bring more servants aboard the crawler, as a pirate hunter could not travel alone. Chamistasya, he knew, would have servants a plenty, and perhaps a deck gun to be mounted to his lady as well.

Inputting coordinates into the great machines interfaces, he began his lesser works, hallowing the holds and inventorying the new armory, unusually well stocked though it was. The journey to Chamistasya would only take a few days, and much needed to be done before a crew could be brought aboard.