Voices of the Herd
The Stormscar Wastes used to be a sea — now it’s a sheet of cracked salt and glass, scarred by centuries of lightning storms that never found peace. I ride on the back of the Tremorback Colossus, last of its herd, its six legs dragging thunder through the soil. Each step is a prayer in motion.
Above us circles the Stormcarver Wyvern, weaving through clouds of ash, storing lightning in its wings. The sky answers to it — not in obedience, but in respect.
Beside me moves a shadow that sometimes isn’t there: the Voidstrider, slipping in and out of sight like a forgotten heartbeat. I’ve learned not to blink when it vanishes; reality does the same.
They follow me because I still remember the word “home.”
And because I promised them I’d find one.
[LOG ENTRY 02 – 41°]
Signs of scavenger intrusion. Carbon smoke. Metal scent. Human remains. The cycle repeats.
The scavengers dig through the bones of Zalthor’s fallen cities, cutting relics from the ribs of our ancestors. They melt them into bullets and trade them for water. When I confront them, they call me witch, beast whisperer, ghost.
Maybe all three are true.
I sent the Voidstrider among them. It returned unseen, carrying a cracked helmet and a memory chip. When I played it, I heard a child’s voice — human, tired, trying to mimic the song of the herds. Off-key, but brave.
For a moment, I couldn’t tell if I pitied them or envied their ignorance.
[LOG ENTRY 03 – 46°]
The Apex has entered the stormfront.
The horizon tears open. From it crawls a creature the size of mountains, made of bone, stone, and things best left unmeasured. Its roar folds the air into fire.
The Tremorback answers with its own sound — not rage, but grief.
The earth shakes in memory of better days.
I open the runes along my forearms. Light spills out, binding my essence to theirs. Pain laces through my nerves as the bond ignites — three beasts, one pulse.
TAL’ZORA: “Hold the line, my giants. Let the storm remember us.”
The Wyvern dives, exhaling lightning that melts the air.
The Voidstrider appears behind the Apex, claws phasing through matter, cutting through what should not be cut.
The Tremorback charges, each step creating a quake that fractures the desert crust.
The Apex endures.
Its massive hand, shaped like a cliff, crushes the Tremorback’s side. I feel ribs break that are not my own. The link bleeds static through my mind.
TAL’ZORA: “Stand, old one. Just one more step.”
The beast obeys — not because I command, but because it refuses to die kneeling.
The Wyvern dives again, channeling the last of the storm into the Apex’s crown. For a heartbeat, the sky splits white, and the monster howls into silence.
Then the light fades. The Tremorback collapses.
[LOG ENTRY 04 – 48°]
Aftermath.
Ash rains from the torn sky. The Apex is gone — fled or dead, I can’t tell. The Tremorback lies still, half-buried in its own shadow. The Voidstrider circles it once, then vanishes entirely. The Wyvern perches atop its spine, wings twitching with exhausted thunder.
I kneel beside the great beast’s head. The plates of its skull glow faintly, like embers of thought.
TAL’ZORA: “We built no temples. You were the temple.”
I press my palm to its brow. The rune-bond fades. For the first time, my mind is quiet.
The Wyvern lifts into the storm, tracing wide arcs of light. Somewhere inside those clouds, it screams — not in mourning, but in promise.
[FINAL ENTRY – 50°]
Herd count: One.
Heart count: Unclear.
I walk east now, through glass dunes and broken lightning rods. Behind me, the skeleton of the Tremorback cools into stone. In a thousand years, scavengers will find it and call it a mountain.
Maybe they’ll climb it and look at the world the way I once did — in awe, and with the ache of knowing it could have been different.
We were never gods,
just the last creatures who remembered what gods sounded like.
