Praying fervently to the god of One More Step, footfall after footfall.
She was at the very center of the spiral, eyes closed and heart beating in time with the rhythm pounding into the dirt and cobbles around her. Forty thousand foot falls perfectly in time. The air swirled with dust and woodsmoke, the pyres too hot around her. Her fingers crackled and her hair flew wildly around her, the heat and energy building. This had been a city, a mere month ago. An old keep that had grown far beyond housing ancient soldiers, this was a home that had stood for a thousand years. She had taken hammer and ax to many of its walls herself. The paths had to be built. She had to pray, and her prayer had to be heard.
The mountains surrounded as her presence grew. The twin peaks to her north and south were cousins to her god. Their cleft gifted trade between her home and the expanse of other places. Soon, they would give them victory in isolation, else they would be the silent watchers to home’s despoiling.
Forty thousand boots slammed into the earth. Her priests, the world-weary set with their constant movement and restless souls, were outnumbered by the less faithful. Many were born here, had dismantled their own houses in her name, and now moved to her command. They had built the path, the holy spiral that would allow her prayer to be answered. Every step was getting harder, she knew. Their prayer was being heard, was being understood.
The deep veins of the earth, the hard skin of slate, the bones of diamond at the center, all began to march with her faithful. Every step was growing in power. The world resonated with them. Her god was turning his ear to them, her god had felt their ruinous step.
Finally. Hours of the heat and spiral had flayed her mind open. When her god ran wandering fingers through her, she knew it would end her. The firm muscles and calloused welts that comprised her would be ground into wet paste by this touch. Their success was the final act she witnessed.
Resonance. Rhythm. Rambling. The momentum had carried beyond this tiny city and had infected the mountains. Tiny, sedentary cousins, cry out and reach for one another as you had once.
Fingers the size of centuries reached. Slow limbs sped to cacophonous finality. The mountains crashed together, excited by their steps. Their ceaseless steps. The pass was closed with a kiss that killed some half of her people.
Home was safe. No army would march through this pass.
Her feet moved. She felt it deeper, as it reached farther than her bones or her soul. Her muscles unwound, burst free from her. Flying and wild, she sloughed needless pieces of her form along the spiral pathway. Leaving behind skin, shattered chunks of bone, the pink liquid of her brain, she walked on. One more step. Another. Another. Another. Move. Don't stop now.
Don't stop now.
Don't-