Cacalos and the Rise of Steam.

In the desert, chirping wings sting with metallic snipper-like razors throughout a desert valley chafed with aeon aged ochre hills, perched under the brilliance of a radiant full moon. Tonight -- they feast!

The town of Bardo was a tranquil little speck in that vast desert known as Asayar, where oasis were plenty and a small river runs rampant along its west bank, all the way to the city of Al-suda, the Jewel In the Devils Fork.
It slept well, listening to the sweet dreams of river spirits, its inhabitants riding the stars across the Milky Way.
Known well throughout the land as the largest exporter of grains and other irrigated crop that may be sold to merchants that rush past to feed their camels, fill their stomachs with wine and leave with a heavy pouch on their ways to Al-suda.

Sibuh, a young farmer who was up late drinking wine and communing with his best friend; Abal the Trickster - an infamous thief, all giddy with practical jokes to play on the guards in Al-suda. They sat on a river reed mat outside Sibuh' mud-brick cottage, illuminated by the eerie sheen of that glimmering blue disk in the sky drunk with starlight.
"Nights like this don't show often." Sibuh said with a sigh, taking a brisk drink from a cup that was two-thirds empty.
"That they don't, my friend," Abal tensed with a staggered breath. "Sadly, I believe it will be my last." He said before he swallowed his cup with brisk gulps, preparing himself another from a half depleted jug.
"Why do you think such a thing, Abal?" said Sibuh. He tried fixing upon Abal's expression, yet the haze of light was hard to describe his features. One of severe agitation, he thought.
"They're fed up with me, friend. They want me dead."
"I wouldn't be surprised. With all the stealing and throwing produce and fruit at the local guard; it was bound to cause such a fuss."
"It's not that."
"Then what? You can tell me these things. I was like you once, you know."
"Don't drag that camel Sibuh. Just let it go, and let us drink our worries into the morning. I was just thinking aloud." Abal's brow furrowed and he turned away from his friend, drinking deep from his cup with a shaky hand, accidentally spilling his drink down his chin. Sibuh worried over what may have been set into effect by his friend. He never stressed over anything, let alone what he did for a living, what he did to survive.
"How about you stay for a day?" Sibuh said, wrapping his hand over Abal's shoulder, gently nudging it. "Least I could do, since you've since visited me in months."
"Thank you, friend. But, I shouldn't impose upon you." He said, struggling to his legs. "In fact, I should get going."
"Where are you going?" he had the same effects encumber him, as he wrestled his legs from under himself.
"Away, friend. I've just realised, its happening tonight!" Abal wailed back on a mud step to the cottage.
"What are you on about? You're pissed out of your brain. Don't go camel hassling like you usually do when you're like this!" Sibuh yelled, tumbling over the jug of wine, spilling the rich red liquid down the steps.
"No - something worse than making camels mad, friend. The end of Al-suda; the sultans rule!" His face was a desperate portrait of fear, one of leaving and running as far as possible from this place. Sibuh managed to tremble to his feet, take a dive at Abal as he tried to sprint into the dark. He missed, watching in a storm of dust, Abal ambling in a zigzagging stupor towards the thick waves of river reeds by a small dock, tied off to several small riverboats.
"Stop, Abal!" he cried after him in worried despair, as he slugged to a crouch. "No joy rides, you're mad with wine!"
The boards made large hollow thumps as they heavily plodded down the dock, towards a small boat moored to a wooden stake that jutted from the end of the pier. As Abal gripped a rope, beginning to haul the boat to him, a pair of mud speckled arms wrapped around his upper waist.
"Let me go!" Abal screamed.
"What are you doing?" Sibuh yelled behind his ear, trying to maintain a sturdy grip around Abal; however Abal was adept at this manoeuvrer - wriggling slug-like around in a clockwise direction, he corkscrewed and gave Sibuh a nudge to the head with his shoulder. He let go and tumbled back. Abal stood motionless, staring at his friend, panting with surprised regret.
"My god, friend. I'm sorry!" Abal tried to reach a sketchy hand towards his friend, but it was beat away.
"Damn you, Abal! Do whatever you wish. Drown; be eaten by the crocodiles if you wish." Abal stumbled to his feet, managing well to the vertigo he experienced. "That's the last time I try to save or bail you out of your crazy, drunk camel-shit. I've had it." He punched and screamed at the air, giving Abal the mouthful he believed he deserved. He didn't care if he woke the village, he was furious and he wanted Abal to know it well.
"Every time we get drunk, this happens. It always has to end with violence, trouble with guards, authorities or Humus the camel trader!" He felt like vomiting or punching Abal in the face, he couldn't decide. However he took satisfaction in the cold sweat Abal had been brought to - oddly looking behind his shoulder -, almost smiling at his current state.
"I've had it, I'm just go- "Get down!" Abal screamed, pushing Sibuh away off the dock into the reedy waters below. Instantly, as if a lightning bolt had struck the dock, it exploded in a chain of splinters from the river to land.
The water muffled Sibuh's hearing, but as he arisen from the chilling waters, he had heard it more clearly: A sound of a thousand blades, slashing against one another all at once, followed by an high pitched cry that sounded unlike any desert creature ever made. It sounded very much like the bladed chatter, yet it sung like a songbird being tortured in foul cruelty in near deafening volumes. Screams soon followed the commotion, growing in seemingly countless number as town-folk awoke, ran out to the horror of shimmering insects the size of elephants.
Sibuh struggled to shore, angrily ripping out from the reeds that had tangled around his arms and legs. He crawled around the scene, trying to come to senses - though the chilling waters had barely awoken him from his drunkenness. The sky was curtained in a plague of creatures that dove about from the midnight, picking villagers up in their yellow like pincer-arms, holding them momentarily before severing their bodies like brittle breadcrumbs in mid-flight. Limbs rained across a hell-scape of blood, gore and an unsustainable hunger in which they craved. A small group of the creatures landed, scurried to sounds of a cacophony of terracotta pots drumming across the ground and charging for the irrigated fields. They devoured, sawed through stalks and reeds with serrated mandibles, filling their guts in satisfaction.
Sibuh's livelihood was destroyed in front of his eyes in mere seconds, his eyes widening in sudden realisation - where was Abal! Sibuh swung himself around and tried to pick apart the wreckage with his eyes, hoping to find him somewhere in there. He didn't care about what made his food, a friend to share it was more important in any mans life. A small hand hung almost lifelessly, bloodied amongst the sweeps of splintered boards, huddling up against something that moaned in pain on a sandbank, where the dock once was. Sibuh ran; half crashed to his knees next to the pile, then began to claw his way through it - his hands cutting apart as splinters slashed at his hands.
"Don't die, you bastard!" Sibuh screamed as he dug his way in, attempting to wrench an arm out with a pair of bloodied hands. The rubble gave way; Abal emerged with a thick trail of blood drooling down his cheek. His clothes were tattered to rags that fell from his shoulders, leaving nothing but a crude loincloth with his legs scratched of the flesh.
"My god." Sibuh squeaked from a set of pursed lips, as he examined Abal. "Why is there so much blood?" Abal croaked in an unsteady yell of fear. Abal roused and blinked an eye that wasn't obscured by blood.
"My eye!" Abal screamed, slapping his hand over the left side of his face in a fit of instantaneous agony; it forced Sibuh to jump back in angst. He began to tear away his shirt, pushing towards Abal's face.
"Get away from me!" Abal screamed, swatting the shirt into the sand.
"It'll stop the bleeding, you idiot! At least, try to."
"Fine - Give me it." Sibuh flicked it clean from the ground, handed it to Abal who quickly pressed it against his eye with pressure; he wailed in moans of pain, sounding distant at times. He was about to pass out.
"No," Sibuh said, picking his head up under his arm. "Don't dare pass out on me, Abal."
"Sorry, friend. I should have told you to come along - selfish, like I always am." Abal swallowed, trying to spit the blood from his mouth.
"Just shut your hole," Sibuh said. He swung his head around, scanning for a camel. He caught one, trying to run in blind fear. It was cradled up in the air by one of the diving creatures, and then was decapitated by a long pair of mandibles that closed around the cranium of the poor animal. It thumped to the ground in convulsions, and Sibuh looked away in disgust as his stomach churned upon itself.
"We have to leave, now," he tried to pull Abal's weight around his body. The alcohol still taking its effects on his muscles - he cursed as he slipped, dropping Abal back in the sand.
"Leave me, I'm already dead." Abal said. He attempted to push Sibuh's arms away, but he held strong, not letting go.
"We leave together, you stubborn prick." He hauled Abal upon his shoulder with what strength remained and shuffled through the scenes of death.
They managed fifty metres before one of the creatures took notice, screeching in an unholy roar. Abal and Sibuh rounded a cottage where a fire had ignited, jumping across half of the village by now, offering show for all those who were three miles away. The top of the roof they were by, gave way, raining mud and dirt over them, the creature plundered its away through the air, crashing into an adjacent wall into street corner bazaar. Pots, ointments rained over the creature. Sibuh stared dead into a pair of emerald spheres; duplicating his image ten fold in fishnets; it resembled a scarab; lion stripes leaping down its golden back, knife like appendages in three pairs sprinted for them, mandibles full-spread. It ploughed like a maddened oxen without thought, tearing through the wall, dislodging a large plate of mud in its mandibles, then scissoring it into dust with a simple movement. It flickered its wings and adjusted its legs in agitation, screeched, then pounded on like a rolling mountain boulder, threatening to crush Abal and Sibuh.
Sibuh was the one to push another to safety this time around, as he nudged Abal into a tapestry shop, cushioning his fall as he tumbled away in amazement. The scarab beast careered into Sibuh, almost cutting his legs off. It heaved him into the air upon its head, bucking him backwards. His world tumbled back into a crate, which may have killed him, as slithering blades, shimmering with flame-light poured out across the ground. He had been flung into an armaments store. The shopkeeper lay dead by his feet, his throat slashed by a blade. Ironic, he stupidly thought, but came back to the real world, drawing a slim scimitar commonly used by the sultans guard from one of the display stocks that was almost empty, from pillaging villagers afraid for their lives.
His street rat days came back in an instant rush of vigour, excitement; he felt a life he once had rush up his hand and electrify his arms; one that was identical to Abal's at one point, however he decided a simple life would be a healthier choice. He chose wrong, like always. He was the unlucky one; where Abal was the joker where luck practically rained from his anus - easy and carefree, while he had to clean shit up, getting stuck with the blame. He scoffed, regained some posture and engaged his acrobatic prowess; diving past the insects rush, he swung the scimitar down like a meat-cleaver on its back. It clanged like metal, flicking his scimitar past his face; he gasped as it rushed past him. Stronger than bronze he thought. The creature reared and screeched in anger, perhaps feeling the concussive blow. It rushed once again; Sibuh countered by pushing his barefoot against the top of its head and stumbling up a canvas veranda. He pirouetted, dove with his knees out from under him, scimitar brought down in a vertical arc. Ohhhh shhhh- he thought as soon as metal hit metal, his wrists cracking against recoil. He crumbled to his knees, beholding the scarab screaming in what may have been agony. The blade was protruding from its head, partially buried in its head. It scratched without success for the blade in its head. Sibuh took the advantage. He picked himself up, cradling his wrists and then whistled to the creature. It cried in fury. Its normal shrill replaced with a reverberating echo of a cross bird, man screaming in unified misery. It exhausted what energy it may have had, cannoning like a blurring hummingbird. Sibuh dove out of way with his rekindled life, barely making with his reckless move. The scarab buried itself into the mud wall, driving the scimitar with untold force straight through its head. It wailed like a hallow log, slumped dead in the crumbling ruins of the cottage.
That strange sound upon its death alerted its kin. They scattered, collecting to the skies in sheets of orange shawls, still holding limbs of dismembered victims, raining crimson mist that horrifically shone in the full moon.
"They're leaving!" One of the surviving villagers cried in happiness. They threw their pitchfork to the ground and slumped over.
"I survived. We survived it all, my son." A father said to their son, who was covered in a thin glare of red mist. He picked him up, hugging him with tears rushing down his face. Unfortunately, something amassed into a morphing shape of gold far above the nightscape. It grew into a howl of sheering steel; the swords that gnashed against each other were a deafening chatter. People fled into the desert night with what surviving camels could be rescued. They were not hanging around for what was a harbinger of something worse.
Sibuh rushed to Abal who was propped outside of the tapestry shop. He held a fine silk roll of cloth, stained by his blood around himself.
"It's time to get the hell out of here." Abal croaked, barely being able to see through his only workable eye; his other being bandaged by a turban, tied to his head with thick twine.
"For once, you're right. I've had enough reliving my past," Sibuh breathed heavily, catching his breath. "At least, for tonight. This is crazy!"
They staggered into the desert, following the river as fast as they could. They looked back, however regretted it immediately as the globe of scarabs dispersed in a cloud of death, staring with death in every emerald eye. They closed in, flying faster than they could walk. It was over. Sooner or later, their mandibles will tear their limbs off from their bodies, run wild and gobble every morsel of flesh left on the desert floor. Revenge buzzed in their ears. A circle formed around them, enclosing them in a pen of impenetrable anger. Every scarab stood idle, buzzing and grinding their mandibles with anticipation, as though they were waiting for something. A howl that outmatched all that was heard on this night, paled in all comparison. A wailing compilation of terror, a thousand tigers being ground round and round, resonating in an echoing void emerged over the dunes. It belonged to a creature the size that would of taken half of Bardo with its mass. Its mandibles were small, however they outmatched the grain warehouse by threefold; its legs were thick pillars of ochre stone, pocked with monolithic spikes that ran along most of the insects body; its eyes were that of its children, planetary bodies that blazed against the backdrop in glowing emerald.
The citadel scarab bent down, staring down at Sibuh and Abal.
"In all the lands of heaven, I have never seen an insect that large." It was the only thing Sibuh managed to shriek Abal couldn't speak, all he did was stare into those moon shaped irises.
"You! Pitiful human." A voice rung around amongst the chatter, it dimmed to a silent murmur as it had spoke. A deep earthen voice that croaked like the dryness of a desert had surely given heed of those words.
"Did someone speak?" Sibuh questioned in an almost unshakeable fear.
"Indeed, I did, human." A figure emerged on top of the citadel scarab, perching itself on its head.
"You are the one responsible?"
"I don't answer the questions; that is your job, if you so wish to survive further." A pair of grey lips breathed out into the twilight. An emerald, purplish colour surrounded the figure, lifted it through the air, and then hovering a mere metre away. This man, or whatever it was, was a creature of what looked like decay; its face was stretched across a dry scalp of grey flesh, tendons throbbing black; it was wrapped in a parcel of tattered leather, flickering about and crumbling away like it was set ablaze, yet never dissolving.
"You killed one of the masters pets?" It said with a lisp without lips, exposing rotting teeth grown black.
"My good friend here just did that." Abal boasted, tapping Sibuh with a playful fist. "Completely ripped one of those bugs a new breathing hole." He smiled, wincing at the pain of his cuts.
"Oh did he now?" The corpse figure narrowed its brow and gave Sibuh a closer look. "You thought you were skilful in defeating one of the masters pets?"
"Easy enough." Sibuh said. Trickery was also an incredible skill. If this ghoul believes I am all-powerful, he may let us go. Of course, it's usually the case of them trying to eradicate a threat, these overtly power hungry mystery figures.
"How about twenty-thousand?" The ghoul smiled, waving a snake staff with ruby eyes in the vicinity of the ring of scarabs. They screeched and stamped their knife-like feet.
"Perhaps." Sibuh gulped. This was stupid, he was thinking. Fess up - don't go overboard; you're going to die!
"Lying gets you killed, human."
"I'm not lying. I'm the amazing thief warrior - Sibuh!" Sibuh, thief of 'lots-a-lies' gulped. The ghoul laughed almost hysterically in a disgustingly dry raspy cough, half breath that may have been considered laughing.
"You aren't important to the destruction of Al-suda. However, you managed to kill a scarab. I'd like to see you do it again."
"What?" Sibuh and Abal said almost simultaneously.
"Being as old as I, I strive for entertainment wherever it is due. If you live against another, you win your freedom."
"I'm finding that hard to believe." Sibuh doubted the whole situation. The ghoul shook his head.
"You'll just have to trust me." It bore the foulest grin, where a strip of black teeth strung its way around its head.