Dust-striders, a flock of hardy, horned goats, scattered across the Stoneheart Mesa. Their hooves clicked a rhythm against the parched stone, a familiar sound that brought Kael a quiet comfort. He stood at the mesa’s edge, a silent sentinel, his gaze sweeping the vast, baked landscape.
A shift in the earth, a faint tremor, and the stragglers began to coalesce. No barking hound urged them, no shepherd’s crook prodded. Kael merely extended his will, a subtle whisper through the stone beneath his bare feet. It was a resonance, a deep hum he coaxed from the bedrock, guiding the creatures as if the land itself were herding them.
Eight years. That was how long this strange bond had shaped him. He had learned the language of the Dustborn Plateaus, a tongue spoken in shifting sands and resonating stone. He could ask, and sometimes, the earth would answer.
First, a profound intent, a yearning rooted deep within his core, could stir the land. The greater the desire, the more keenly he felt the strain, the earth’s subtle resistance.
Second, a quiet murmur, a voiced plea, seemed to ease the path, like carving a channel for water. It focused the burgeoning energy, making the connection less demanding.
Third, some desires were impossible, or consumed such a torrent of his strength that they might as well be. The 'difficulty' was an enigma. Sometimes, stone fractured with surprising ease, a willing partner in his unspoken command. Other times, a pebble remained stubbornly rooted, defying his most desperate plea.
Only days ago, facing the canyon-stalker, even the simple intention to immobilize had barely rippled its hide. That beast had been a knot of resistance, its ancient wildness an impenetrable wall. Yet, these dust-striders, a hundred strong, responded to his silent call, moving as one, their collective spirit docile.
To shatter a cliff face, to guide a falling boulder with the precision of a slingshot – that felt simple, a mere extension of his arm. The strength he expended could have repeated such a feat countless times. But life, especially the fierce, untamed life of the Plateaus, held its own unyielding will.
As the last strider ambled into the rock-hewn enclosure, a faint, metallic scent pricked the arid air. Blood. Not goat, not his own, not the familiar tang of the mesa. It was deep, primal, a memory from the raw kill he'd stumbled upon near the villagers’ territory. A canyon-stalker. His pulse quickened.
Minutes later, a figure emerged from the descending sun, silhouetted against the fiery horizon. Keorn. Over his broad shoulder, the limp form of a great canyon-stalker hung, its fur coarse, its fangs long. Keorn’s stride was unfaltering, even with the immense burden.
“Greetings, Kael,” Keorn’s voice rumbled, a deep timbre against the silence. “If you’d have me, I’d trade this hunter’s bounty for a place by your fire tonight.”
The carcass was a treasure. Its hide would fetch a decent price in any settlement. The meat, though lean and tough, would provide sustenance for days. More than enough for a night’s shelter.
Kael nodded, a silent welcome. “Few of these stalkers roam so close to the settlements anymore. How far did this one lead you?”
For years, Kael had subtly influenced the migration paths of the fiercer creatures, guiding them away from the vulnerable villagers, a silent protector. This mesa, Stoneheart, was stark and barren, never home to many predators.
“A good distance,” Keorn mused, easing the heavy carcass to the dust. “Tracked it near the Great Scar.”
The Great Scar. A gaping chasm at the world’s edge, a jagged wound in the earth that climbed, according to legend, to touch the sky itself. It was a barrier, a broken, insurmountable wall.
“Reaching its foothills alone can take days for some,” Kael murmured, his eyes lingering on the beast.
Keorn chuckled, a low, easy sound. “My own pace, and a morning’s sun was all it took.”
Kael felt no surprise. He, too, knew the peculiar swiftness that came when the earth itself aided his steps. Yet, a silent tension settled within him. Keorn wasn't merely a wanderer; his words carried the weight of experience, his movements the grace of hidden power. Kael’s guard, a constant companion since his mother’s warnings, subtly tightened.
---
Later, under a sky ablaze with sharp, cold stars, they sat by a sputtering fire. The stew, thick with rich canyon-stalker meat, steamed between them. The stars here were always brighter, a galaxy spilled across the inky canvas.
“My mother often said,” Kael began, his voice softer, “that this mesa is one of the highest points in the plateaus, save for the peaks of the Great Scar.”
“True enough,” Keorn agreed, his gaze fixed upward. “Having visited it today, I'm more convinced than ever. Even the most powerful Stone-Speakers would find it a journey to traverse.”
“The tales say Stone-Speakers, those of the grand houses, wield power like ancient gods,” Kael said, the words feeling foreign and heavy on his tongue. “Couldn’t they simply command the earth to carry them across a mountain range?”
Keorn shook his head. “Not all, boy. Only the elders, the very lineage-holders of the oldest houses. The true patriarchs are akin to living earth spirits.” He spoke of Elder Dargos of the Obsidian Spire, a legendary Stone-Speaker said to have once leveled a lesser mesa with a mere gesture, reshaping the land with a breath.
A hot flush prickled Kael’s neck. Sometimes, in the solitude of the Dustborn, he nurtured a secret delusion. His burgeoning power, raw and untamed, felt immense to him. He imagined himself strong, perhaps even rivaling those distant, feared figures. Yet, Keorn’s stories carved his abilities down to insignificance, mere dust against the might of titans.
“Living out here, alone, does it not weigh heavy?” Keorn asked, breaking the sudden quiet.
Kael stirred the fire with a short, dry stick. “It does. But the dust grows familiar. I’ve grown accustomed.”
“Why not seek a partner, then? From one of the settlements?”
A bitter smile touched Kael’s lips. “Who would choose a life herding striders on a desolate mesa, tied to one such as me?”
“Plenty of young women would find solace with a steady hand and a quiet spirit like yours,” Keorn offered gently, his eyes kind.
Kael remembered. Girls from the sparse villages had once followed him, drawn by his youthful quietness. But his mother’s death, and the hushed whispers about his ‘unnatural ways’ – the fear in their eyes when he was cast out – had severed all those fragile connections. They understood the harsh truth: to join him meant a life exiled to the fringes, touched by suspicion and the chilling power he could not control.
“Do not let the dust blind your sight to possibility,” Keorn said. “Fortune can arrive on the swiftest wind.” Of course, Keorn himself was the only traveler Kael had seen in nearly two decades.
Silence settled again, companionable this time, the crackle of the fire a low counterpoint to the chirping desert insects. Kael, restless, broke the quiet.
“Why do you offer your strength to them?” he asked, his voice low. “The villagers. What did they promise you? With your abilities, you could live far easier, claim more, without their meager offerings.”
He watched Keorn’s face, etched with the lines of sun and wind. Any settlement would bend to the will of a Stone-Speaker, or even an Earth-Shaper of Keorn’s apparent strength. Protection bought with fear. It would be a hundred times simpler than tracking a beast across miles of unforgiving terrain, just to earn a night’s lodging. The villagers had, after all, demanded an exorbitant fee from Keorn for his stay near their hovels, compelling him to seek shelter with Kael.
“They are merely people,” Keorn replied, his gaze distant, fixed on the ember-flecked darkness.
“And in what way does that merit your service?”
“Living in constant tremor, on this exposed frontier, without the earth’s steady hand to guard them,” Keorn explained, his voice gentle, like an elder teaching a son. While the Stoneheart Mesa remained desolate, the lands beyond teemed with creatures, with dangers that preyed on the unwary. He spoke of a duty, a connection that bound those who could touch the earth to those who could not. It was the solemn obligation of an Earth-Shaper, a protector’s pride. This was a vastly different tale than his mother’s warnings of Stone-Speakers as oppressors, of those with power as exploiters.
Kael’s brow furrowed. His mother’s voice still echoed, a chill warning. He looked at Keorn, confused. Keorn merely smiled, handing Kael a cup of cool water. “Not all see the world in the same light. The world is vast; so, too, are the paths people walk.”
---
The next dawn, Kael moved through the dust-strider pen, his mind still heavy with Keorn’s words. ‘Pride.’ It was a concept his mother had taught him to fear, a gateway to arrogance and misuse of power. But Keorn spoke of a different pride, a deep-seated reverence for one’s connection to the earth, a responsibility.
The notion unsettled him. Perhaps, if there were others like Keorn, beings touched by the earth’s magic who chose to protect rather than dominate, then a life within their reach might not be an absolute damnation. The thought was a seed, newly planted, in the arid soil of his understanding.
Now, a more immediate concern. How to tell Keorn about the canyon-stalker? The one he was searching for was the same Kael had subdued days ago. He had wanted Keorn to merely search, perhaps give up, and then move on. He didn’t want such a presence tied to this remote place.
The problem was the beast’s body. Kael had sealed it deep within a crevice, the earth itself absorbing its life force. To retrieve it now, to present a half-rotted carcass, would invite too many questions. The traces of his Earth-Shaping, though subtle, lingered. If anyone were to seek an Earth-Shaper in these parts, Kael, with his quiet presence and uncanny connection to the land, would be the first suspect.
A sigh escaped him. With a quiet intent, a gentle tremor rippled through the pen. The accumulated dust and strider droppings lifted, a fine cloud, and settled beyond the enclosure, where the arid winds would quickly dry it. It would make good fuel for the winter hearth.
His chores done, a moment of respite. Perhaps he should seek Keorn out. Keorn had mentioned patrolling closer to the mesa today. There was a chance Kael could intercept him, offer a false lead, guide him away from the truth.
Kael settled, closing his eyes, extending his consciousness. He reached through the stone, feeling for the faint, resonant hum of human life. He wasn’t searching with sight or sound, but with the earth itself, listening to its deep, silent currents for the minute vibrations of muscle and bone against soil.
A sharp jolt, a sudden dissonance. Kael’s eyes snapped open. A frantic echo. He saw Keorn, not with his eyes, but with the earth’s sensing, a pulse of distress. Keorn was struggling. Blood, a fresh, hot surge of it, seeped into the ground, a crimson stain on the land’s ancient skin.
Opposite him, a horrific sight. The half-decayed body of the canyon-stalker Kael had subdued days ago. But it was not dead. It was reanimated, a grotesque parody of life, its matted fur caked with dried mud, its empty eye sockets glowing with an unnatural, sickly green light. It snarled, a rasping, hollow sound that grated against the earth’s natural rhythm.
---
‘Who would disturb the slumber of the dead…?’
Keorn gasped, a ragged breath tearing from his lungs. Blood trickled down his temple, mingling with the dust. His shoulder throbbed, a searing pain where the reanimated canyon-stalker had slashed him.
When creatures of the Dustborn succumbed, their vital energy, their very life-force, was meant to return to the earth, absorbed, cycling back into the land. But sometimes, in a creature’s death throes, a surge of raw, malevolent will could cling, refusing to dissolve. This twisted remnant, if left unchecked or, worse, provoked, could animate the husk, creating a ghastly echo of its former self. A spirit-bound corpse.
Whoever had dealt with this beast before had either been ignorant of this grim truth, or worse, had deliberately left its corrupted essence to fester. That gaping hole in its skull, the precision of the strike, pointed to an Earth-Shaper, one skilled in wielding stone as a projectile, yet careless or malicious enough to leave such a blight behind.
[■■■■--!!]
A guttural roar ripped from the stalker’s putrid throat, a sound of profound anguish and primal rage. It echoed across the canyons, a chilling wail of a soul trapped between worlds.
“Away with you!” Keorn bellowed, pushing off the ground. He brought his hands up, a faint, almost invisible tremor preceding a crack in the rock beneath his feet. A spear of hardened earth surged upward, aiming for the creature's chest.