Ashfall’s communal mess hall thrummed with a low hum, a different kind of vibration than the stark emptiness of the Delta. Spire-light spilled from glowing synth-panels, bathing the worn durasteel tables in a perpetual twilight. Cormac settled onto a bench, a mug of murky stim-brew clutched in his hands, content for the moment to observe. His journey from the searing winds of the Delta had culminated in this sprawling nexus, a city built from the fossilized bones of ancient things.
He watched the faces around him, a shifting mosaic of weathered skin, nervous eyes, and boisterous laughter. Each person carried their own subtle resonance, a life-song humming beneath the surface. His whisper-singing had grown sharper, more precise, a finely tuned instrument. He could almost discern the stories woven into the very fabric of the city’s populace.
Nearby, a merchant with a gaunt face tallied numbers on a data-slate, his fingers moving with frantic speed. A server, a young woman named Lyra with a quick smile and even quicker hands, darted between tables. Cormac caught her eye, a silent query. He sought information, the mundane kind that eased passage in a settlement this size.
Lyra paused, wiping down a stained surface. “Something you need, stranger?” Her voice carried the faint rasp of Delta dust.
Cormac pushed a small, intricately carved petrified desert flower across the table. “Bounties,” he rumbled, his voice still hoarse from disuse. “For the creatures that trouble the edges of the Spire.”
Her eyes widened slightly at the craftsmanship of the fossil. She tucked it away, a genuine smile softening her features. “Those? You’d want the Echo Hall. Central Plaza. Head-Scribe’s office for the official listings.”
Echo Hall. Head-Scribe. Cormac tilted his head, a faint frown touching his brow. He understood “bounty.” The rest was foreign. “What is… an Echo Hall?”
Lyra burst into a surprised giggle, a sound like glass chimes. “You truly are new to Ashfall, aren’t you? Not many don’t know that. It’s where the city-lord’s Scribes keep all the records, handle the rules, divvy out the services. Everything official.” She gestured vaguely towards the Spire’s vertical core. “Scribes are the ones who work for the city-lord, manage the populace.”
His isolated existence in the Delta, a life lived beneath the vast, indifferent sky, had left him ignorant of such intricate urban mechanisms. A stark difference from his recent, brutal lessons in survival.
“Too late to visit now,” Lyra said, glancing at a chrono-dial on her wrist. “They lock the outer doors when the deep-cycle starts. Best to go in the morning. Much less crowded then, anyway.”
She leaned in conspiratorially. “Tell me, are you one of the Delta Reapers? Chasing the Whispering Beasts?”
Cormac blinked. “Whispering Beasts?”
Lyra nodded, her gaze serious now. “Aye. The ones who believe if you fell a Whispering Beast, you can awaken the Song. Become a True Singer.”
He hadn’t heard such a widespread belief. His own gift had come unbidden, a slow, terrifying unfurling of perception. He had learned to ‘sing’ to the world’s primordial energies through sheer desperate will. He wondered if these ‘Reapers’ sought a similar path, a way to access the deeper truths of the Delta.
“Some say they’re madmen,” Lyra continued, her voice dropping. “Throwing their lives away for a fantasy. But enough of them believe it. Enough to risk the Delta’s hunger.”
A heavy hand clapped Cormac’s shoulder. He tensed, every muscle in his body ready to respond, a lingering echo of his encounter with the reavers. The touch was firm, not aggressive, but his instincts flared.
“Lena, girl, it’s no fantasy.” The speaker was a man whose face was a roadmap of sun-baked lines and scars. His hair was a tangle of grey and black, his beard matted. Yet, his eyes, though bloodshot, held a surprising, unwavering intensity. “I’ve seen it. Seen men change after they bring down a Beast. Heard their low hum grow louder.”
Lyra’s eyes brightened. “Taron! You’re alive!”
“Did you doubt it?” Taron grinned, revealing missing teeth. “Not even the Maw of the Delta can claim me before I hear the True Song myself!”
Behind Taron, three burly figures loomed. They carried crude but effective weapons – long spears tipped with jagged metal, heavy mauls that looked scavenged from excavation sites, and bow-rifles that hummed with a low power. Each man had the hard, unyielding bulk of one who knew physical toil.
Cormac shrugged off Taron’s hand. The man flinched, stepping back. “My apologies,” Taron mumbled.
“It’s fine,” Cormac replied, his voice flat. He was already analyzing their movements, their tells, the slight shift of their weight. The Delta had taught him to gauge threats instantly. “Tell me more of what you spoke. The True Song.”
Taron’s grin returned, wider now. “Ah, a seeker of truth, are we, young one?” He gestured for Cormac to make room. The three companions slid onto the bench opposite, their gazes assessing. “It’s simple, really. The Sages say the Beasts are vessels, conduits of the Delta’s raw power. A True Singer absorbs that power, makes it their own. But even an ordinary man, if he brings down a Beast, can claim a sliver of that power. It’s a slow burn, but it builds.”
“We’ve felled three ourselves!” one of Taron’s companions, a man with a scarred jaw, boasted.
“Almost there, we are,” another added, thumping his maul on the floor with a resonant clang.
Three. Cormac’s mind reeled. The ‘Whispering Beasts’ he knew were terrifying, apex predators of raw, unbound energy, capable of rending flesh and bone with a thought. To bring down even one required skill beyond most men. To bring down three…
“Three?” Cormac asked, his voice low. “Does that mean one of you has already… awakened the Song?”
The mess hall erupted in laughter. Lyra covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Even Taron chuckled, a rough, dry sound.
“Not likely, lad!” Taron slapped his knee. “In Ashfall, there are but four True Singers known to all: the city-lord and his three Wardens. If one of us had the Song, we wouldn’t be grubbing for scraps out here.”
“Almost died thrice for those beasts,” the man with the maul muttered, his mirth fading into a grim memory.
Four True Singers in a city this immense, a population Cormac estimated in the tens of thousands. His old mentor, a hermit sage, had often lamented the vanishing of the True Singers, their numbers dwindling with each passing epoch. Now, Cormac saw why.
Taron’s gaze drifted to the pack at Cormac’s feet, then to the worn leather grip of the small survival knife at his belt. “You’re after the Beasts, too, you say? Your kit looks… sparse. Where’s your main blade? Your stun-lance?”
Cormac drew the knife, its obsidian blade glinting faintly in the synth-light. It was light, deceptively simple, but honed to a razor edge. He had used it to sever sinews and carve out vital organs with surgical precision. Beside it, he laid a small, smooth river stone, worn from countless hours of rubbing.
“This is enough,” he stated.
His words drew a moment of surprised silence, then a burst of genuine, unmocking interest from the Delta Reapers.
“A stone-thrower, are you?” the scarred man asked, picking up the smooth stone, turning it over in his calloused fingers. “Looks like it’s seen a fair bit of use.”
“What size rocks do you aim with it?” Taron asked, his eyes keen.
“Palm-sized. Or larger, if I can find them.”
“Palm-sized stones, he says!” Taron exclaimed, slapping the table. “That’s enough to crack the carapace of a desert-runner, or stun a dust-fox. We’re usually after the lesser anomalies, you see. The ones that just start growing too quick, getting too aggressive. Not the big horrors.”
Cormac understood. They hunted the ‘mutated’ herbivores, the smaller predators whose nascent energy had twisted them into dangerous, but not insurmountable, threats. Still, even a ‘lesser anomaly’ could tear an ordinary man apart. He had seen it.
“Say, why not join us?” Taron offered, his eyes narrowed in thought. “We’re always looking for another set of hands. A marksman with precision could be a boon.”
“No,” Cormac said, his refusal immediate, unhesitating. He had no intention of revealing his ability, his true power. Their targets were inconsequential to him. He sought a different caliber of threat, a deeper understanding of the Delta’s song.
Taron sighed, a flicker of disappointment crossing his face. “A pity. But the offer stands, should you change your mind.” He nodded, then turned back to his companions, their talk quickly resuming its boisterous rhythm. Cormac finished his brew, the rich, bitter liquid warming his throat.
He collected his things, nodding to Lyra on his way out. “A good sleep, stranger,” she called after him. He found a small, spartan room on the third tier of the Spire, the thin synth-walls offering little insulation from the sounds of the mess hall below.
Through the floorboards, he could hear their voices, muffled but clear enough.
“Taron, why did you offer that scrawny kid a spot? He looks like a breeze would knock him over.” The scarred man’s voice, now tinged with a mocking edge.
“Aye, he’d just slow us down. Probably weep when he saw a real anomaly.”
They had been so friendly moments ago. Cormac exhaled slowly. He had experienced this dual nature of humanity many times, even in the desolation of the Delta. It no longer stung. He simply thought, *That is how they are.* He closed his eyes, listening to Taron’s response.
“Just… reminded me of my own foolish youth,” Taron grumbled. “Out there, with nothing but a chipped blade and a prayer? Even ten lives wouldn’t be enough. He might have a fight in him.”
“You’re too soft, old man,” another voice chided.
“Who’s to argue?” Taron’s voice, a final, weary sound. Cormac drifted to sleep, the low murmur of the city carrying him.
---
The first blush of dawn brought a cool, dry air to Ashfall. Cormac ate a meager breakfast provided by the inn – coarse bread and a thin, hot gruel – then made his way through the waking city. Ashfall’s central plaza, a vast open space carved from gleaming, petrified stone, bustled with activity. Merchants set up stalls, air-skiffs zipped through designated lanes, and citizens flowed like river current.
The Echo Hall stood at the plaza’s heart, a towering structure of dark, polished rock, its upper floors disappearing into the perpetual cloud-cover of the Spire. He pushed through a throng of arguing petitioners, an elderly couple haggling over a land-claim data-slate, until he found the Head-Scribe’s annex.
“What do you want?” The Scribe, a pinched-faced woman with a severe coif of grey hair, peered at him over the rim of her electro-specs. Her tone dripped with disdain, as if he were an unwelcome desert creature tracked into her pristine office. He had stated his purpose: bounty listings for anomalies.
He could have, with a subtle shift in his own internal resonance, impressed upon her the truth of his power, compelled her to respect. He could have shown her the latent strength that lay beneath his quiet exterior. But Ashfall’s web of politics and obligation was intricate. A revealed Singer of his caliber would be drawn into the city’s defense, lauded, feted. He would waste precious time, time he needed to understand his growing power and the Delta’s deeper truths.
No. Better to remain unseen, a quiet hunter. He would find his quarry, claim his reward, and slip away. There was no need to gamble his freedom to earn the respect of a haughty Scribe.
“Just look, then return it,” she snapped, pushing a thick, battered data-slate across the counter. On its glowing screen, descriptions scrolled: appearance, estimated size, known habits, last sighting, bounty offered. Lesser anomalies, like the 'Dust-Stalker' (a mutated desert scavenger), fetched meager rewards, requiring capture alive. More dangerous ones, like the 'Chitin-Winged Ravager,' could be brought back dead.
“A word of warning,” the Scribe said, her voice sharp. “If you kill an anomaly, you bring its remnants back. Every fragment. The Wardens must disperse its lingering essence. Left in the wild, that energy can coalesce, breed new horrors, even animate the dead. Abandoning a creature’s remains is a crime against Ashfall, punishable by severance from the Spire. Understand?”
“I understand,” Cormac affirmed, the memory of a half-formed, skeletal horror he’d encountered in the deep Delta flashing through his mind. The warning resonated with a chilling truth.
“These seem… quite dangerous for ordinary hunters,” Cormac observed, his gaze tracing the listing for a particularly vicious-sounding anomaly. “Do the Wardens not pursue these threats?”
The Scribe scoffed, a dry, dismissive sound. “Do you think the Wardens have time for common pest control? Their duty is to uphold order within the Spire, to repel invasions from rival settlements, or defend against the truly vast, ancient things that stir beneath the Delta. Hunting these nuisances is for drifters like you. Those who chase easy coin.”
Cormac’s gaze fell to the data-slate, landing on a specific entry.
~~~~~~~~~
**Chitin-Winged Ravager**
*A large avian anomaly, its feathers mutated into hardened, razor-sharp plates. These armored wings deflect directed energy blasts and even light projectile rounds. It hunts by circling high above, dropping its deadly feathers with terrifying accuracy. Known to prey on small, unprotected children and domesticated beast-forms near the city’s outermost reclamation zones. Its kills are often grisly, scattered remains a testament to its brutal efficiency…*
~~~~~~~~~
If the Wardens, the city’s True Singers, were meant to be the protectors of Ashfall, shouldn't their priority be the swift elimination of a creature that preyed on children? Yet, it seemed, the powerful often found reasons to distance themselves from the suffering of the mundane. A familiar bitterness settled in Cormac’s gut. He returned the data-slate, a new purpose hardening his resolve.
He left the Echo Hall, stepping back into the teeming plaza. The city’s core receded behind him as he walked, the dense buildings giving way to more scattered structures, then finally to the ragged edges of the reclamation zones. Here, the polished rock of Ashfall met the raw, untamed sands of the Delta. The familiar wildness greeted him, a faint whisper on the wind.
*Time to begin.*
Cormac closed his eyes, focusing his senses. He envisioned the Chitin-Winged Ravager, its sharp feathers, its predatory hunt. “Ravager’s Whisper,” he murmured, sending out a seeking resonance, an attunement to the specific patterns of its existence.
Hundreds of small, sharp sounds assaulted his perception. The dry rustle of desert flora, the skitter of sand-lizards, the low croon of distant wind chimes hanging from settler dwellings. And above it all, a dizzying clamor of avian life: the chirping of tiny sun-finches, the raucous cries of scavenger-gulls, the endless, minute rustle of countless wings. The air vibrated with a bewildering chorus of life.
“Ugh.” Cormac clutched his temples, the sudden overload stinging his mind. He cut the resonance, the chaotic flood of sound abruptly silenced. The method was too broad, too blunt. The edges of Ashfall were teeming with mundane life.
*This won’t work.*
He needed a finer filter. A creature whose essence hummed with anomaly, yes, but more. A predator that had *eaten* human flesh, its core twisted by the consumption. He tried to attune to that, to the specific vibration of such a violation.
Again, a rush of sensation, but this time, far too many distant echoes. Scavenger-gulls picked at refuse from the reclamation zones, their diets likely containing traces of meat from fallen beast-forms, perhaps even human remains from derelict Spire sections. The whisper-singing was precise, but reality was messy. He needed something more focused, a distinct pattern of energetic distortion.
He opened his eyes, scanning the horizon. The challenge was not just to find the beast, but to learn how to sing to the Delta itself, to decipher its complex, ancient song. The true work had just begun.