Before the land was tainted, before the trees wept in pitch of bitumen and the earth bled black, there lived a land ancient and thriving. A land encompassing a forest, muskeg, and prairie. A muskeg who bore moss as thick as velvet and deep, waterlogged peat. A river cut through the land with waters so clear that it showed its truth beneath its surface. No rock, no bone, no protruding danger was obscured by its depths. The prairie was said to breathe as the wind swept over its grasses.
At the heart of this land lay the mooselick: a natural swelling in the land where minerals rise to the surface. Animals would gather here in quiet truce. Hoof, claw, fang, and antler met without bloodshed, drawn by the same need. It was said the earth offered these licks as a covenant: take what you need, and no more.
A guardian kept this balance.
The guardian, a great white moose who was older than the oldest black spruce lived in the center of this land. Enormous and pale against the ochre grass, its frame dwarfed any person who braved to stand beside it. Its hooves pressed heavy onto muskeg without sinking. Its antlers caught the sunrise and broke into glistening crystals.
Wherever it passed, the muskeg remained wet, the forest birds sang, and the prairie did not burn. Water stayed sweet and acrid. Salt rose where it should. Animals thrived. The land endured.
The Dene Tsaa who lived at the edges of the muskeg knew better than to hunt it. The great white moose was guardian of the land and was meant to be reveared and respected. They left offerings at the lick: bundles of oats, antler chips, and grain cakes made with saskatoon berries and honey. They spoke of the moose only in low voices as to name it carelessly was to invite drought, flooding storms, or bush fires.
Then a Hunter arrived from the south. He was not born to this land, but he believed it could be made to serve him. On top of a horse he came with papers, iron, gun powder, and the conviction to lay the land as his own. He cut through grass and bush that had never invited him. The Hunter had heard stories; stories of a beast whose antlers could be ground into miracle cures, of marrow that could turn crude iron into precious steel, and tallow that would hold a candles flame for days. He called his lust to kill the beast a necessity. Others would have called it hunger and greed dressed as purpose.
He tracked the guardian to its mooselick at dawn, where fog laid low and the ground glistened white with salt. The white moose stood alone with head lowered and licking the minerals from the earth. For a moment, the Hunter hesitated. The land was quiet. Wind stilled. The moose appeared to him like a god.
Then steel rang.
The Hunter’s sword struck true, but truth was not enough.
The blade pierced the moose’s skull and stuck fast, driven in so deep that it could not be torn free. The guardian did not fall. Instead, it bawled, a sound that rolled across the land like thunder without rain. The moose charged, the sword jutting from its head like a mockery of a horn, and the Hunter was struck and trampled into the salt-stained earth.
The earth accepted the Hunter’s body readily. Within the muskeg, he was not returned to soil. Instead, it held him in its embrace, remembering the Hunter’s greed rather than forgiving him.
The guardian lived but its wound did not close. The sword remained imbedded.
Seasons moved on. Moons came and passed. Rain streaked down the blade lodged in the moose’s skull. Rust bloomed slowly, bleeding into bone and brain. The iron of the sword disintegrated into rust, foreign and toxic, leaching into the guardian’s body. Slowly. Painfully. Silently. It transformed them.
Something old and buried heard its pain.
Passed the mooselick and into the muskeg something ancient had been awakened. Where peat, compressed with the memory of a millennia of plants and animal rot, began to exude a crude oil. It was not clean or refined, but thick and foul. A bitumen stinking of pressure and time. It seeped through the moose’s wound, blackening its white hide. It dripped from its mouth and hooves. Wherever it stepped, the ground slicked and festered, becoming a poison.
The land turned bitter. Animals that came to drink and feed grew frantic, aggressive, and their coats were matted with oil and stench. Birds fell from the sky. The muskeg began to swallow whole stands of trees at once. Prairie grasses blackened, then rotted at the root. The river’s water turned muddy and dark.
The guardian wandered, maddened by pain and corruption, spreading blight across its land. Its antlers warped and cracked. Its eyes burned like flares against the night. It no longer protected the land and no longer kept its balance. It was now a wound left to fester.
The Dene Tsaa fled the lands. Homes were abandoned. Stories that honoured the guardian of the land turned fearful. The the great white moose became the Pitch-Crowned Beast, a thing spoken of only when the wind was loud enough to carry the name away. Those who left the land carried its story and truth: that the land will offer only what is needed, that guardians can be broken, and that greed does not does not stay buried.
As seasons and moons began to pass and the Dene Tsaa lived on new lands, their stories began to change once again. Stories of fear and warning gave way to hope. There came a promise of a soul who could free the blighted guardian. A soul willing to carry the weight of its slaying. For it was known, to kill the Pitch-Crowned Beast would not be a victory. It would be guardian’s release.
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