Dry. So incredibly dry and cold. The darkness is all but absolute, till two moons, a large white moon with a smaller red below, rise above a mountain line in the East, illuminating a vast plain below. The plain as far as the eye can see, is waste of reddish, brown, cracked clay, that under the red and white moonlight, seemed like a series of never-ending wounds. There is no standing water, no streams, the only vegetation are small grasses and shrubs, their limbs so twisted and writhing, that in the light of the moons, moving with the wind, they almost seemed like creatures reaching, begging for any liquid to stave their thirst, to end their suffering.

The vast outline of mountains where the moons have risen, extends from North to South, almost like a spine of some sleeping monster. Roughly ten kilometers West of the mountains within a vale, facing West toward the waste, an outcrop of 39 white and grey marbled stones arrayed in a half circle, (roughly 739 meters across), with a large dark monolith at its center can be seen coming into view as the moons continue to rise higher into the sky. Each of the stones was identical in size to its neighbor, 30 meters high, 20 meters across, 5 meters deep, with 10 meters spacing each stone from the next. Intricate symbols and carvings adorned the East side of the stones, while the face on the West side, a highly polished concave inner surface facing a dark object at the center of the half circle. Unworldly, and alien, descriptions that would fit the stones well as to their arrangement and comparison to all within the waste, however if the stones were unworldly, then the object in the center could only be described as ethereal. Thirty meters high, twenty meters across, and five meters deep, stood the pitch-black monolith. No dust shown, no other color marked its surface, the light from the moons did not show a shine, sparkle, or reflection, nothing that would show something was there at all, it was only the outline of nothing that gave it its shape. Through the vale to the waste the stones where the only oasis within the desolation, the only evidence that beings of intelligence and purpose once existed here.

Wind born sand and silt from the waste washes through the vale, as time passes the shadows of the stones shift with the moon’s movement through the sky. Within a rocky outcrop of boulders some 30m South – West of the ring, a sound of a deep breathing rumble, almost like a purr was emanating from a large dark crevasse. A dark murky shape within could be decerned, the outline bespoke of a creature of terrifying size, and as the moonlight began to angle away into the West, the tapetum lucidum of the creature’s eyes suddenly shown like yellow lamplights in the dark. Turning, moving, fast, then slow, the creature outline seemed to show it almost pacing, then looking at the stones, pacing then looking at the moons, and then pacing again, as if waiting for some event to happen. Then it just stared at the moons as they moved further West, almost as if it could will them to move faster.

It was not till the moons peeked high into the sky, their light impinging onto the concaved mirrored sides of the marbled stones, reflecting the light directly onto the monolith, that the dynamic within the vale altered drastically. The black emptiness of the monolith gave way to a rippling shimmer over its surface, followed by low guttural pitch, emanating from it, the vibrations spreading from its base into the ground. As if this was what it was waiting for, the creatures breathing seemed to cease with the coming of the sound, its eyes looked away from the stones to the Western edge of the waste, where on the horizon, a dust cloud like a small explosion appeared, expanding rapidly and drifting toward the vale carried by the winds from the West.

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The further the moons drifted West the light reflected to the monolith from the stones intensified, in response the sound emanating from it increased drastically, with distorted harmonics the sand on the floor around the stone rippled and danced in cymatic patterns extending out towards the mouth of the vale in the direction of the waste. The ripples on the monolith where now erratic waves, a bluish – purple corona now radiating from its edges, the monoliths feature now seemed to distort as the entire surface was vibrating.

The dust cloud in West seemed to grow larger and travel more rapidly in response, as if the sound was an acoustical piper drawing it in. Plumes of dry ground erupted along the edges only to have the wind from the West engulf it into the rapidly growing mass. Expanding, contracting, then expanding again, yet still gaining ground, it was then when the cloud was within 2400 meters to the vale that the wind started to shift from the West to the East, the edge thinning as it was being blown back. From within a deep rumbling sound could be perceptibly heard over the wind and the discordant sound of the stones. Within the thinning clouds of dust large dense tendrils separated from the main dust cloud, as the main mass was being blown back. Around the tendrils the sound of impact accompanied more earth being thrown in the air keeping whatever was within enshrouded in its own island of dust and debris while moving toward the vale.

As the wind from the vale to the west increased a shape could now be seen from the lead mass of the tendrils. Black, serrated, bobbing up and down as well as back and forth in time with the continued kick up of the dust, a 2-meter horn enshrouded within moonlight beams and dust blowing around it emerged, the blanket of dust was blown away revealing the creature as it continued to move forward. Roughly 8,000kg, and measuring close to 15 meters from snout to rear, 4.6m from feet to top of its back, its skin was thick and plate like, with rough horn like cartilage features covering its body. The large head of the beast had a massive maw easily able eviscerate its food and swallow it whole. Towards the ridge of the nose on either side, 2 large slitted and watery red eyes were dulled on each side of the head as the beasts nictating membranes were closed against the dust giving it an almost drawn non seeing form of locomotion. Four, thickly muscled limbs ending in large foot pads adorned with three claws on each, sent tremors into the ground and caused dust to constantly be sent into the air with every step it took. Combined with the mist coming from its breathing in the cold dry air it was an intimidating juggernaut wreathed in steam. One creature alone would be enough to destroy an army before it, just, one, following its lead fifteen others just like it broke through the mist heading for the vale.