Wrapped in giant stone fingers, resting on the sand cupped by a stone palm, they listen to the wind. The rhythm of their breathing is out of sync with the soft sounds outside, just like the strange grey stone throws off the harmony of the orange sands and red rocks. The cracks between the fingers shine with sunlight. The edges of the cave entrance glow. There’s a blue sky beyond- blue and bright and stretching forever.

“We’ve lost our way.”

In this Grasping Bluff, Malkia’s pacing feet drag trails through the sand. The eyes of her companions follow her, annoyed or tired or squinting in thought. No one argues with what she says.

“What else would we do?” Shuja asks. “We’re hunters. We hunt.”

“Remember what we lost.” Malkia stops in front of the rocky wall, the curling palm. It is as real as real life, holding the most minute wrinkles of skin. It wears not a single blemish- not the marks of time, not the insults of vandals or roots of plants.

“Our parents, lost to war. Our village, left to starve. Our people, split apart. Parents with no children. Children with no parents. In all these years, how much have we taken back?”

“War destroys,” Aska says. “We weather it. That’s all we can do.”

“The war is over.” Malkia turns to face them.

“And?”

“And… conscripts have returned home.”

“Not all of them. Some help reconstruct. There are still people out there-”

“They aren’t coming back!” Malkia glares into Aska’s eyes, then Uvumi’s, Shuja’s and Jildun’s. She stares at Changa, until he finally looks up from the sand. She says, “Stop saying they will, as if words are enough. If they return, they’ll be here. Until they do, they’re gone.”

“It’s a wide world, covered in wounds fit to swallow a people whole.” Malkia reaches down to grab fistfuls of sand. It trickles from her fingers as she lifts her arms high. “And we are getting swallowed up. Uli reminded me that we owe more to our people than food. Much more. Tell me, do you realize how different we are? We are missing something important. Aska, you see?”

Aska is nodding his head, the forever-frown on his face turned thoughtful. Malkia lets sand trickle from her hands, slow as time from an hourglass. She dusts them off and motions to Aska.

“Out with it.”

“I can see what you mean. I miss…” He taps his lips. “our home once had love in it. That love held us together.”

“There’s love still.” Shuja holds an unlit cigarette in his mouth. It’s a second, precious smoke, drawn out by serious talk. It bobs as his mouth moves and muffles his voice. “We look after each other. Always have.”

“Where’s the affection?” Aska rubs his forehead in frustration. “I’m tired of seeing the young ones fighting each other! Raising lumps and drawing blood. Risky challenges and foolish games. Out of control. They take after you.” He shoves a finger in Malkia’s direction.

“Competition breeds strength.” Changa says.

“We are not herd animals. We don’t need to be bred.”

“They do need to fight and strive. I don’t want my sister dyin’ ‘cause I was soft on her. I see her get knocked down, I let her cry and ask what she’ll do next. Every time, she says ‘stand up!’” Jildun rolls his leather ball across the sand. “They may be rough, they may be wild, but that’s us. How can we teach them to be who we’re not? Why should we?”

“Then we should be better. Strength isn’t enough! Not all of us are fighters, but everyone is trying to be, even those who should try to be something else. Have you seen how they act? Show yourself as less than a hunter and a warrior, you’ll be laughed at.” Aska shakes his head.

“Changing who you are for what others think is not strength. That is cowardice. I don’t like it. I don’t like what I’m seeing. Too many young ones trying to mirror us, and less trying to make their own way. Don’t you think we’ve fallen astray?”

“We definitely act different. I wouldn’t say it’s all that bad. But we’ve given some things up we maybe shouldn’t have. I miss the stories of our people…” Shuja says this quietly. He stares at the roof, rolling the cigarette between his fingers. “Ancient tales. The oldest legends. The story of the world. Back in the day, couldn’t go anywhere without some hunter pointing at a rock and telling you how it was born.”

“‘Like all things, that stone has a life, has a past, has a future. Remember, the past brought you to where you are, your present brings you to where you’ll go.’ My mom used to say things like that.” For a while, Shuja can’t talk. He turns in his little wicker chair to hide his face. He clears his throat and begins again, with a rough voice. “Our parents taught us the histories of the sands. If someone took time to share that with us, we should be willing to share it ourselves. How much do the young ones know of the world? When they look at our home, do they see a story or a wasteland?”

Finally, Shuja lights his cigarette with a match. He waves the smoking stick to put it out, drops it on the ground. He turns to face the wall and a wave of smoke crawls up the stone. He ignores the eyes on his back, the mournful wind and the sad silence.

“I miss… celebration.” Jildun goes back to tossing his ball in the air. He sighs deeply. “Little bits of joy just gone. No more feasts. No more ceremonies. No name days. No walkabouts. No shadowing hunters to learn the language of the sands. No apprenticeship at all.” He studies his leather ball. “No more caravans. No more town visits.”

“Kwenda is rubble.” Changa says.

“I know. I miss it.” Jildun tosses the ball to Changa. “Come on, must be something you want to bring back.”

“Aye! Don’t need to think about it. I want my family back. And they will come back.” He throws the ball, and it sails straight at Malkia. It smashes into her hand and explodes in an orange cloud that leaves her coughing. He holds his hand up, and the leather ball is still sitting on his palm. Malkia shakes her head, shedding sand from her hair, but does nothing else. “Tch!” Changa clicks his tongue.

“You all look backwards.” Uvumi crosses her arms. “The way ahead is hard enough. Things will never be the same with these powers. Mutation is not a game. Changa, stop throwing those damn sand balls! If you want to have a serious talk-”

“I don’t.” Changa says.

“Shut up! Even before the war, villages were burned down and slaughtered if anyone even suspected. What will we do when Kwenda’s rebuilt? What if someone sees us racing up dunes and cutting things with wooden swords? What then? They’ll come for us.”

“Let them come.” Changa adds.

“Yat! Shut up! What if the stories are true, and we lose our minds? This is the greatest threat we face. Changa’s useless sand tricks. Hakim’s disappearing acts. Shuja’s fighting skills. Malkia, you feel like you stand in another world at times. All of us have quirks that are getting worse-”

“Listen to this!” Malkia finishes patting herself down. She’s dusty and her clothes are patched and worn. Her hair’s a wild and bedraggled cloud following her around. But she still has presence. Nearly tall as Aska, she looms. Her eyes never blink. Her smile speaks of blood.

“Are you afraid of what the world will think of us? Those cowards and killers, murdering people because they’re afraid of change? No… what we are changes, but who we are remains the same. We are not doomed. We are just beginning. Look at us!” She sweeps her hands wide and her comrades look around at each other.

“Aye, we’re a sexy bunch.” Changa shrugs.

“We were young, Changa. We were young and we lost all our elders but a small handful. We led the village out of necessity, and no part has been easy, but right now, we are as strong and fast and wise as anyone in this village has ever been. More than them- we are reaching another level. We’ve lost so much, but we can take it all back and more. Let us honor the memories of our parents. Let’s show them that the story of this village is still being told.”

“And how will we do that?” Aska asks. He sounds suspicious, and his frown deepens when Malkia smiles at him.

“We handle the responsibilities they left for us. But this isn’t the time to discuss that. We can’t decide the future by ourselves. We don’t live in a village of silence. We’ll gather our people and find our way forward, together.”

“First though,” Malkia rests her blade on her shoulder. “We have a request to fulfill. I’m thinking that a few roots and fruit isn’t enough. If my village says they want to eat plants, then you best believe they’ll get all the plant that they can handle.”

Malkia points the sword at them and smiles. Her teeth seem to shine in the shadows underneath her conical hat. Changa starts to laugh, and Shuja says ‘finally!’ under his breath. Aska sighs long and loud.

“What’s the plan?” Uvumi taps her foot impatiently.

“Well… Uli doesn’t have much faith in us. She thinks we’ll come crawling back with nothing but cactus spines in our hands. Hakim and the others think they’ll be better off without us. Even Aska has doubts.” She looks at Aska and he nods.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“If I had thought splitting up was an option,” he says, “I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

“I say we bring back something that makes Hakim and his ilk look like beggars, holding out scraps of weeds and bits of hair.”

“You’re nothing if not creative.” Aska says, shaking his head.

“Creative and brutal.” Changa adds.

“Well?” She looks them over, desert children in desert dress, wild hunters covered in sand. “I think I’ll hunt something worthy. Who here will hunt with me?”

***

The sun is swallowed up by the horizon. The sky grows purple and the lights of stars shine, bringing in the night. From the mountains, shadows stretch. East is already dark and howling with desert sounds.

Things will be prowling the cool evening. The young ones are stumbling in from whatever games they’ve played, whatever work they’ve played at. They have a bonfire going outside. Uli watches the little bodies standing around. Little hands fly through the air. Arms swing. Bodies twist and bend and jump in place.

They get consumed by every little thing they do. They put all their spirit into the most insignificant things. These little actors wrapped up in their own productions. She wonders what they say when she’s not there to listen. She pats the braids atop her head and closes the door.

“Any sight of them?”

“No.” Uli says.

“Will they come back with your plants?” Kafil finishes taking off his wooden leg, and massages the muscles around his knee. He reclines on a rug and sighs, then gives her the sweetest smile. She ignores it.

“They might.”

“And the ones that don’t?”

“They’ll come back to my fist.”

“Haha!” Kafil slaps his leg. “I wish you luck. Some of these young hunters… I’d rather face their parents.”

“It’s only Malkia’s crew anyways.” Oka nibbles on a hard cookie. She grinds it to bits with her mouth open. “They’ll all come back with just enough to seem like they did the work.”

“Don’t forget the puppy-dog eyes. They’ll come back with handfuls of fruit and sad eyes.”

“You let them off easy, Ulimi.” Sumu sits cross-legged on the dusty floor, pounding herbs with mortar and pestle. She wipes sweat off her face and looks up. “If it’s bread they waste, we should make them beat the grain off the stalk, grind the flour and bake it all over again.”

“I say they come back… with uh… uh…” Old Ibada struggles in his whispery voice. His bent back and deeply wrinkled face tremble. Oka and Uli and Kafil lean towards him, waiting. Sumu goes back to pounding herbs. “Uh…” He drones off.

“Are you okay, Ibada?”

“Mmmmm… can’t seem… to remember…” His lips twist and wrap around toothless gums, jaw working endlessly, as it always does. The young ones call it the language of the ancients. They point to him and screech ‘it’s the ancient tongue!’ And his mouth works even harder. Those in the room with Ibada now recognize his silent cursing. They know he’s a man of extremely quiet and foul language.

“Just tell us if you remember.” Oka says to him gently.

“I… will…”

For a while, there is quiet. Old Ibada sucks on a sour candy and scratches deep in his hairy ear. Sumu pours her ground herbs into an urn, slow and careful. Oka pulls a handful of dates from a pocket and savors each one. Kafil hums and watches Uli walk beneath the tiny window and stare up at the stars.

She puts a hand on the adobe wall and stands on her tiptoes. The night looks beautiful. Uli could go out and walk the sands, but she’s likely to find some child doing a stupid thing she’ll have to punish them for. She’s too tired for that hassle. Better to rest inside, get off her feet and relax.

These tiring years, months, weeks, days… every minute is stressful.

It’s a bittersweet feeling to know that things are going well, but only well enough that nothing collapses on them.

Uli is amazed she’s the one trying to carry the mess the village has become. She would have laughed in her own face years ago. That’s just the way it happens. It seems there isn’t really anyone else.

Ibada is forgetful and short-tempered. Sumu has been the most impatient person in the village since the day she was born. Kafil is too silly and friendly with the children to get them to do anything they don’t already want to. Oka is barely older than Malkia herself and doesn’t try to take control.

So it is Uli, mean Uli, that moves through their home like a sand shark.

Where she goes, conversations grow quiet, children scramble to clean messes up, hunters nod her way or eye her in challenge.

…As if she is the obstacle to their lives.

Uli would have fun if she could. She was once a hunter. But things change- they always change.

A long time ago, Uli was standing in those sands outside, head still shaved, crying. She had her daughter in her hands. A thousand shadows stood across the sands from the Web Weaver’s totem. They wore faceless helmets and stood around cockroach shaped constructs with turrets and mortars sprouting from their backs.

An Architect avatar was at the front, holding a scroll of paper. They both glowed translucent and blue. As the scroll unrolled and crossed the sands, it said:

“Kuachwa village! You have been called to war for humanity!” The village had responded with the wailing of babies. The avatar had stared them down and waited.

“All able-bodied adults are now members of the Eupe auxiliary force. For humanity itself, you will come! Report for duty immediately…”

The questions had flowed like a flood, in a wash of tears the sands rarely see.

“Why?!”

“This must be some mistake!”

“Please, if our hunters leave, how will we eat?”

“Let the fathers of young children stay!”

The soldiers held their weapons and ignored the protests. Her people, who stood together in everything, fell apart on that day. Each family was lost in its own crisis. Each person sought out their parents, their siblings, their children. It was a morning of surprises and goodbyes.

The village was ransacked, searching for hidden things and people. They sent their drones over the sands to recover the distant hunters. All the families could do was watch and hold each other.

Hours later, Malkia’s papa came running from the sands. He watched the barrels pointed his way, counted the soldiers, glared at the avatar. He stood in front of his daughter and held her face in his hands. Even then, the girl could not cry. She pretended the water in her eyes wasn’t there.

Her father whispered to her; his words lost to the wind. He was never one for long talks: his stories brief, his conversations to the point. Soon enough, he wrapped his daughter in a bear hug and carried her over to Uli.

“You stay?” He asked.

“All the pregnant and nursing mothers. Anyone unable to fight stays. Everyone else goes. Everyone. Akida, you must… do something. Talk to them.”

“To who?”

“I-I don’t know!”

Akida smiled his little smile, one that was hard to see even in the best of times.

“Ulimi, take care of them. All of them.” He gave Malkia one last kiss on the forehead, pried her hands off his shirt, and walked away.

“I can’t!” Uli called after him.

“You have to.”

“This will destroy the village! We cannot let them do this!”

Uli called to his back in desperation.

"Akida! Akida?!”

The ones left behind shouted in desperation. They called the names of those they would miss. The village was split: part left to grieve, and the rest marched off like prisoners.

On that day, Uli inherited the ghost of a village.

“Are you worried for them?” Kafil asks. It takes a moment for Uli to catch up to the question, pulled out of her thoughts.

“No. Malkia, Changa and Uli by themselves could go anywhere in the sands without fear. They won’t be trapped by something they can’t handle.” Even as she says this, Uli covers her eyes with a hand and laughs. “I only sent them gathering. It doesn’t take days to do that. Where in the Weaver’s sight did they get to?”

“To hunt something made of plants.” They all turn to find Hakim, lying on his back by the wall.

“When did you get here?”

“Before sunset.”

“Ayeesh… trying to show me up, Hakim?” Kafil points his cane at the boy and glares. “I knew you were there!”

“Of course, senior hunter. For a second, I thought I surprised you… but I was wrong.”

“You were!”

“Well, I have a question for you, elders…”

“Don’t call me that, Hakim!” Oka snaps.

“Watch you mouth.” Sumu frowns at a bushel of pale flowers. “Call me old again and you’ll be squatting and shitting for a day.”

Hakim clears his throat and continues.

“Do you have any news?”

“No news.” Uli replies. “Come here if you want to talk.”

“Must be something…” Hakim climbs to his feet, slow as a sloth, and shuffles to the rug beside Kafil. He dodges a playful swipe of the cane and sits cross-legged. In his hands, he holds the gutted shell of a radio. It smells of burnt rubber and hot metal.

“Pylons are coming back online. They’re rebuilding, but they started across the divide, in the East. It’ll be a long time until roads open, until trade is flowing like it did. There’s no signal, Hakim.”

“They’re doing it on purpose.”

“Stop with those pirate channels, before you bring trouble to the village.” Kafil taps the radio with his cane. “You’re wasting wire.”

“We’re out. This was the last of it.” Hakim tips the device. A circuit board and copper scraps spill on the rug. “Something’s wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

“They’re keeping us blind and quiet. Keeping us from learning what happened to our families. Why do that? Letting us know if they lived or died is easy. We could say goodbye and move on, or prepare for their return. Why hide things?”

“Giving us closure is no priority. Architects are not known for kindness.”

“What are they known for?”

The answer to that is full of complications and conflicts. What the Architects are known for and what they should be known for are different things. Their truths are illusions. Hiding behind them are hungry beasts.

“Hakim, there’s nothing we can do about the Architects and their war.”

“How long until we find out?” Hakim takes his time to say this, pronouncing each word carefully. “We should… send someone to look.”

Before anyone can answer him, there’s an uproar. Uli opens the door and the sounds of shrieking and yelling and laughing reach a crescendo. The village is lit by a dim crescent moon from above, and the bonfire below. It became a giant blaze, crackling and spitting sparks.

Its light turns the tall totem and sand around it bright. The circle of children are shadows. They sway, and take up a song: the hunter’s lament.

On the levels of adobe homes below, others rush out of doorways, racing to the commotion surrounding the bonfire. Shadows spill in from the desert, running or gliding or crawling along on spindly arms like nightmares.

Bongos and djembes beat as the crowd swells, deeper and darker. The bonfire shines straight up. Motes of light dance through swirling smoke. Swathes of stars wink out, covered by twisting clouds. The wind is rising, and the dunes are shifting.

“What has she done?” Hakim asks at her shoulder.

“You young hunters love flaunting your strange power.” Kafil says. The others have gathered behind them, even Ibada trying to catch a glimpse.

“No, this is different. Something’s happening.” Hakim steps out onto the roof and they follow. The breeze whips their clothes around and makes them huddle close. The heavy, bass sounds of drum strikes reach them.

Bum-bum! Bum-bum! Bum-bum! Bum-bum! Bum…

Drums and winds and cheering. The air sweeps in, turning the blaze into an inferno around the totem. It’s glow burns into the sky and the smoke looks like specters, flying around the light. The crowd is so thick, it could be a forest.

The sand forms a ridge around the village and the plateau. Spiderlike shadows stretch up the rock wall. The ridge of sand keeps rising, dunes closing in. If it goes on for long, it’ll become a wave fit to crush them all.

Standing before the fire and the totem are a handful of familiar figures. One wears a conical hat. She takes it off and holds it up. Just like that, the crowd grows quiet.

“My people,” Malkia says. “I come with a feast and a promise!” Her voice echoes around the village. Her words race up the walls of rocks and sand that surround them. It burns in the fire, and rumbles in the sky among the clouds.

“We have hunted and come home in victory!”

“Yaaaaaaaaaa!” Hundreds of voices rise up, wild and euphoric.

“Listen well! Our struggles are your struggles! Our triumphs are your triumphs! Take in this story and this food, so the hunt can become a part of you.”

She takes a deep breath that makes the wind lull, and the fire burn down. The crowd leans in, whispering and hushing itself. Malkia sits cross-legged in front of the flames. Someone- it must be Uvumi- sits behind her to untangle that unruly hair.

“We will all tell a piece of how we left to fulfill Uli’s Request, and found ourselves fighting for our lives in the lair of the Sinflower itself…”