The many whistling voices of the wind drag their song across a sea of sand that stretches as far as the eye can see. That isn’t very far; orange dust has swallowed the Kuachwa desert whole.

The hunters push through the wind, clutching fluttering cloaks. They brave the dust with headwraps and tinted goggles. Gone are the young hunters who laughed their way into danger. The sands below them seem endless, and they walk with the weight of survival on their shoulders. Alone. Even the sun is just a hazy disk, glowing beyond the storm’s reach. They stumble along, each one lost in their own thoughts.

Malkia leans on Shuja’s shoulder, limping up the slope of an immense dune at a snail’s pace. Uvumi and Jildun follow, dragging Aska by the legs. His wide back leaves a trail that the wind sweeps away. He slid over kilometers of grit and rock and cactus, but he’s in no position to complain. His eyelids are heavy and his eyes unfocused, his forehead shiny with sweat.

He suffers a fever that has him trapped between delirium and unconsciousness. His chest barely rises with each shallow breath. Every once in a while, he shudders and mutters something too quiet to be heard over the wind.

Behind them, Changa pushes the wooden bar of the two-wheel cart they repaired. The wobbling wheels creak and spin on rickety axels. His sandals crunch deep as he hauls his burden to the top of the dune.

Up there, the dust is only slightly better, and there’s no sign of the Weaver’s bluff on the horizon. They must keep walking. They’re so close, but still so far from home, pushing themselves through the twilight of their journey.

They’ve been gone for days, much longer than their hunt was supposed last. Now they wander their way back, lost in the sea of sand and hoping they don’t lose their path in the dust storm. They hoped to make it before night fell, but… that doesn’t seem very likely.

They march down the slope, careful not to fall and tumble down. Changa takes a moment to look the way they came. Dust devils climb the dunes behind them, giant twisting shadows following every step of the way.

The calls of carrion birds are the only sign of life in this barren stretch of desert that separates the village from the deeper sands, where the Kuachwa teems with life and strange mysteries.

Life and mysteries…

A condor as tall as a child lands on Changa’s cart with a crash. The noise brings a moment of silence where all the hunters turn to look at the bird. They watch it pull at the tarp and ropes wrapped around the cart.

“Oi!” Changa tries to shoo the bird away, but all it does is hiss at him and stretches its wings. Another carrion bird drops to the sand nearby, and they hiss together.

“Tch!” Changa ignores the birds and their clacking beaks. He carries on, digging his feet in and easing the cart down the slope. Birds continue to gather.

This is how the hunters move south, fighting through their exhaustion, walking blind through the sand while an army of vultures and buzzards and condors surround them.

They struggle over the countless dunes of the Grave Sands, where the Corpse Stones appear out of the haze of dust like magic, looming in the hunters’ path. The hunters brush past broken, grey arms that reach for the sky, as taller and wider than the greatest towers. They slide between fingers that push their way out of the sand, slip around knees that form mountains, and across backs that form bridges, into the shadows under the stone hands coming together in buried prayer, past giant, grey heads that stare them down with eye sockets spilling sand.

The orange desert is stained grey by sleeping ghosts, broken giants that litter the earth.

These Stones feel alive in the shifting shadows. The arms shift, rumbling the earth. Hands and fingers twitch to life. The eyes seem to follow them, the heads turn their way, suspicious of the strangers walking toward the desert night.

As the night approaches, the stones, the sands, the dust and the skies above them are all dyed red.

“Feels like the sun’s been setting for hours.”

“Yat! It has been.”

“The longest sunset of my life.”

“We should be back already. We’re moving too slow.”

“By all means, go ahead. We’ll catch up.”

Soon enough, as the red world turns to purple, the dust in the air finally settles, and they see the shadow of the Weaver’s bluff on the distant horizon. The many-colored rock is still too far to see as more than a dark and far away shape, but they know what it is. They know their home’s within reach. They move towards it, crossing the countless dunes, though It never seems any closer.

Before they know it, the purple sky becomes a night of clouds and stars. A crescent moon trails behind them, and the wind fills with whispers.

With the silence of a last breath, the sleeping ghosts of the desert rise out of the Corpse Stones. Shades stream from the eyeless sockets and smiling mouths, from the fingertips of giant, clawed hands, from the ends of handless wrists, and headless necks: shadows, darting through the air like shooting stars.

They collide with the carrion birds around the hunters. One-by-one, they freeze and ruffle their feathers before walking on, sharp eyes watching the hunters behind sharp beaks. They become spirit animals, possessed by the ghosts of the Corpse Stones.

“Oh?” The condor on the cart says. It stretches its wings and stares them down, winding its featherless head back and forth. “Our young hunters still haven’t reached home?”

“I can’t do this again.” Changa spits at the bird. “Begone!”

“I think not.”

“Spirits, please show mercy on we hunters. Mercy, please...” Uvumi says. The condor lets out a haughty laugh but doesn’t reply.

The hunters and the vultures continue walking. Many more birds land on Changa’s cart. He laughs as he slides back down a dune, dragged by the weight of all his passengers.

The other hunters turn back to join him. The birds take flight and flap around their heads, pecking at their clothes, pulling at loose threads. Aska disappears beneath the crowd of caws and feathers.

Wolves howl and lope towards them in the distance. An army of small animals flows over the dunes, running and jumping and bounding along. Even tiny insects fill the air, eyeing the hunters, nibbling their skin.

“Enough!” Changa’s laugh dies like it was never there. “What do you want?”

“Another trade, spirits? What should we give you then?” Malkia pulls her wooden blade from her waist and rests it on her shoulder. She limps to Changa’s side with Shuja. Uvumi and Jildun have already dropped Aska’s legs, holding knives in their hands and trying to keep the birds off of him.

“The committee has gathered!” The condor screams. “Hunters, you have been charged with trespassing on the night, which all living things know belongs to the dead! For two nights already you have bribed and threatened and delayed your judgement.”

“You accepted the bribes yourself!”

“The time for delay is over. On this, the third night, how do you plead? Do you trespass? Or can you earn your passage?”

“We’ve given you weapons you can’t use, food you barely taste, and coins you can’t spend. What else do you want?”

“You know what we want!” The condor flaps its wings and storms up to the gathered hunters. The other birds create a chorus with their caws, flapping wings in indignance. The condor’s featherless head whips back and forth as it glares at all the hunters with shining eyes. “We smell this bounty you carry, wrapped in cloth and pulled by the gap-toothed fool-”

“I’ll kill you with my hands and teeth, bird.”

“Then I shall possess a sand shark and return to swallow you whole.”

“Yat! You can’t imagine what we went through, how we found that bounty you try to take from us. I’ll die before I give that up!” Changa leans away from the giant bird, and pushes away its probing beak with his hands. “Pick something else.”

“There is nothing else!”

“The wooden blade-” Another spirit says.

“No.” Malkia yawns and covers her mouth. “A gift from the Weaver cannot…cannot be given away.”

“There must be something…” Jildun

“We just came from the toughest fight of our lives, the experience of a lifetime, and you stop us here.” Shuja shakes his head and the hawk hanging on his turban pecks him for the disturbance. “Yat… I can’t believe this.”

“What do you have then? What are you trying to hide?”

“It’s just a corpse.” Malkia says.

“Have you ever heard of the Sinflower?” Uvumi asks. The mass of spirit animals shake their heads. Some demand to know what it is. Others ask what it tastes like. They want to know the flavor of its magic.

“How about the Sol flower? The City of Suns? The people of the sand? The Sanī Sea?”

“We don’t know any of these things!”

“They’re ancient names.” Malkia adds.

“What they are does not matter. You cross the sands in the night, and you don’t belong here, not now. The past nights, you paid your way. You have given ancient coins of purest platinum and gold, weapons you crafted in love, and the delicious foods we are most grateful for. Now we require the most valuable thing you carry. Give us that secret lying in the cart.”

“No.” Changa presses his nose to the condor’s beak. “Not that.”

“Then we take your flesh, and take the secret after.” The spirit whispers.

“You want the secret… but what lies in the cart is just the body it left behind.” Shuja sweeps his hands wide, ignoring the birds that fly onto his arms. “We can tell you the greatest tale these sands have ever heard. We can tell you of an ancient city and its terrible downfall. We can tell you about the curse we found buried in this very desert, and the creature that feeds on the corrupted souls of helpless spirits.”

“…Go on.”

“… Well… not here. If we can return and prepare-”

“Hah! You think you can find the safety of your home and leave us cursing in the sand? Will you invite us in?”

“No!”

“No.”

“No-”

“Aye.”

“Changa!”

“Oi!”

“What the f-”

“Hahaha!” The condor bobs its head. In the dark night, it’s only a silhouette with shining eyes. Those eyes study the hunters, taking their measure. “You promise to let us in?”

“No!”

“I will,” Changa says. “You spirits hold to your words. We’ll do the same. If you promise not to harm the village, I promise we’ll tell you the greatest story you’ve heard in all your lives.”

“And if you don’t?”

“I’ll face you. Fight you to the death.”

“Until you die. Spin us the greatest story of all time, or you young hunters will face our wrath. Do you agree?”

“Aye.” Changa nods his head, but frowns when the words catch up to him. “I speak for myself.”

“You all must agree.” The condor looks to the other hunters, who share looks among themselves.

Jildun glares at Changa’s back. Shuja only thinks for a second before he agrees to the spirit’s demands. Malkia, she scratches her head in thought. Once she’s run the idea through her mind, she purses her lips.

“If we can’t tell you the greatest story you’ve heard, I’ll face the wrath of the forgotten spirits.” She says. And then Uvumi agrees.

“Aye,” Jildun says after a deep breath.

“It must be quite the story. And him?” The condor points its beak to the mound of birds hiding Aska.

“We can’t speak for him,” Malkia says.

“He has agreed,” One of the spirits lying on his back says. “We spoke in his dreams.”

“Then it is done.”

“Wait-”

“We follow to your village to hear this story of yours. Then we’ll kill you.”

“But-”

“I’ve heard a great many stories, young hunters. We all have. Once you’ve joined us, you’ll understand. When time has turned the world around, there is no greatness left.”

A specter crawls out of the condor’s back, like a drowning man bursting from the ocean. Its wispy body drifts into the howling wind, and the other spirits rise with it.

The cold cuts through the layered furs the hunters wear, digging into their skin. They shiver, watching the spirits gather overhead.

“I’ve had enough of ghosts,” Malkia mutters. Changa takes the cart in hand and pushes it back up the dune.

“Let’s go home,” he says. “We’re almost there.”

***

Changa’s the first to slip out of the shadows and collapse before the bonfire, knees digging into the sand, arms thrown wide and head thrown back. He cries:

“Alas! Rejoice, you ragamuffins! We! Have! Returned!”

With this, the village is gathered. Clouds and specters sweep in on the wind. The bonfire blazes and a wave of sand builds behind them, until it stands as tall as the cliff the village is built against. The children clap their hands and play their drums.

Malkia steps up to calm them down, while Changa sees a young girl, bantu knotted, snot nosed and a little cross-eyed, edging towards him.

“Psst! Njiwa!” He calls to his daughter and waves her over, flapping his hand wildly until she’s close enough to pull into a hug, to kiss and tickle and toss in the air. He cradles her in his arms and holds her face in his hands.

“Go get papa’s apron,” he says.

“Papa!”

“Yes! The apron!” He stares into her eyes, shining in the firelight. “… Apron!” He pretends to hang it over his neck and tie it around his waist.

“Oh!” She nods and he nods, and together they nod. They look like mirror images. Changa frowns and points past the crowd that’s gathered around the returned hunters.

“Stop wasting time…” He pushes her along and watches her disappear.

“Yaaaaaaaaaa!” The village fills with a cheer that shakes the sand.

Changa moves to the cart he pulled so far, to the bounty they harvested and the few treasures they could bring back. He unties the ropes lashing it all in place, setting the tarp aside to reveal the last of their weapons, as few remaining ancient coins and strange little devices from the city they found buried underground. At the top is every bit of the Sinflower they could harvest.

Changa pauses to watch how ominous the earthly remains of the Sinflower are, under the light of the bonfire. The light is bright as day, the shadows deep and dancing across the sands. The Sinflower’s corpse casts the biggest shadow of all.

The roots, gnarled and twisted like loops of brown nooses, are soft enough to bend and braid, but tough as stone, heavy as metal. They trail pale fungal tendrils that spark and burn anything they touch.

The leaves are rolled into massive scrolls the color of old bone, spread with bloodred veins, and covered in discolorations that look too much like pained faces. The whispers have died down, but the scrolls still seem to tremble and fight the ropes holding them in place.

The fossilized seeds are wrapped up in a net. The few shells they cracked open were full of iridescent minerals. The head of the Sinflower is there too, wrapped and padded carefully. Those dead petals turned ashen, crumbling to the touch, drifting away through the air.

The last things they gathered from the Sinflower were its buds: as big as Changa’s head, green bodies wrapped around the point where the petals are curled and waiting to spread. They look like giants’ eyes, vibrant eyes that have been plucked out and bundled in a net. Each one is a different color. Rose. Crimson. Pale. Jade. Golden. Indigo. Six hunters left. Six returned, with six blooms to show for it.

“Listen well!” Malkia shouts.

Shuja drops a metal grate across a trench filled with fire. Uvumi and Jildun haul a cast-iron pot, and it goes crashing down onto the grill.

“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.”

Malkia takes a deep breath, and the huge fire starts to die down. The wind slows and the crowd leans in. Changa looks over the faces: many are the same ones he’s known all his life. Some are hazy and indistinct, half-forgotten even as he sees them.

Little Njiwa breaks away from that strange and familiar crowd. She hops into his arms with a pristine apron folded in her hands. Changa gives her a kiss and shakes the apron out. ‘Kiss the Cook!’

“That’s the one!” Changa says. He gives his girl a proud smile and a thumbs up.

“A… feast?” Aska groans and drags himself off the ground, dusting sand off his torn clothes. “We really eating that evil thing?”

“Indeed we will.” Changa takes off his tattered shirt, and Njiwa gasps to see the crusted, blood-soaked bandages wrapped around him.

“Papa!” She jumps at his side, like a flightless bird trying to land on his shoulder. He keeps his smile and pats her head.

“We earned it.”

“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…”

“Aye!” Changa grabs a bag of squash and holds it overhead, waving to grab the attention of the crowd. “I may as well begin. First, let me tell you that we believe the power of the bonfire and the Web Weaver’s totem will purify this bounty, preserving its power and leaving it safe to eat, as it does every feast.”

He takes the bag of squash and drops it in Jildun’s lap. Jildun is sitting on his heels, waiting while Uvumi and Shuja roll the cutting board around the bonfire. The board is as tall as them. Cut straight from the stump of an ancient tree, its uneven edges are ringed with bark and its surface polished and glowing in the firelight, showing a thousand rings. While Shuja eases it to the ground, Uvumi hands Jildun a cloth roll, full of knives of every kind.

“… There are no guarantees in life. We prepare this feast for anyone who’s willing to try. Just know this is no normal meal; no normal flower. It was the most magical being I’ve ever seen, a thing of ancient power and pure evil, old as the ocean this desert used to be, older even than the Sand King! It was a devil among monsters and it nearly brought death to each and every one of us! Yat! No one knew a secret as dangerous as this was lying in wait so close to our home. We are the toughest hunters ever born, and we barely made it out. In fact,” Changa brushes a hand across his bandaged chest. “I may have left my daughter’s weight in blood behind.”

Changa shrugs while the crowd laughs. He makes a face as if it doesn’t matter how much blood he lost. He watches Jildun and Shuja, chopping squash and pouring oil in the pot. He watches Malkia, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the crowd, with her eyes closed and Uvumi behind her, braiding her hair. He watches Aska, who watches the fire with his hands balled into fists, ignoring everything around him.

“We were unprepared, but we still faced the toughest challenge of our lives and overcame it. We found victory in the desert, but not only victory. There was something great and terrible hidden in the sands. Let me tell you how we found it. Before the corruptiion of the flower, before the deadly battles, before falling into the trap, I was fighting a prickly giant near the border to the Shimmering Sands..."