http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/water-tower-aerial-kansas/

For the first hour, the clouds rolled beneath the four aging towers in silence. They carried little speed, meandering southeasterly in no great hurry. Patterns formed and crumbled, from intricate swirls to simple, ridge-like striations. To the lookouts, one huddled on the railing of each of the four towers, the low-clouds seemed to stretch to the horizon in every direction.

Inside the towers, small groups passed the time. The noise was low, controlled even with the echo off the old metal walls. Some tended to their crude weapons, and others took the time to inventory their packs. Some slept, but most could not. They knew what hid in the low-clouds, and relaxation was hard to come by. Even in the safety of the towers, nerves ruled.

Two hours after the low-clouds began their slow march over the rounded hills, the lookouts abandoned their posts. Each climbed to the tower’s peak, threw open the hatch and dropped inside.

“They’re here?” a man asked in the northernmost tower as the lookout pulled the hatch shut.

“Any minute low,” the young woman answered. “The others went in also.”

“I hope this isn’t a big herd,” a young boy said to his mother, concerned but not quite complaining.

And then the tower fell silent. Just at the edge of hearing, a low rumble had become audible. It grew louder by the minute until it was a steady rumble passing on the ground far below. The metal walls shook a little, but their construction was still sound. These towers were built centuries ago to withstand catastrophic weather events; a passing herd, however large, was not a concern.

The herds existed in two varieties: the adult males and everyone else. They marched across the land in unpredictable patterns, always hidden among the low-clouds. Adult male herds were small, no more than a few hundred animals. The other variety, packed with adult females and youths ranging from freshly born to three year old adolescents, were enormous. They could number over a hundred thousand and take an hour or more to pass if the beasts were not in a hurry.

Both varieties were dangerous. Hungry. They ate plants and animals indiscriminately. Everywhere the low-clouds appeared, death followed with them.

After a few minutes, the sound below showed no sign of weakening. The people adjusted, settled into comfortable positions, and some amount of calm came over the tower once more. It was a large herd, and there was little they could do but wait it out.

“You know these towers weren’t always used for occupation.” An old man, short but trimmed in sinew, said to the people sitting near him.

“No? These cold, metal, lightless hovels weren’t some kind of luxury escape for kings of the old empire?” an irritable, youthful girl shot back. “Who knew?”

“I wouldn’t think, what with that empire not having kings at all,” the man replied without bile.

“What were they used for?” asked one of the youthful girl’s companions. She shot him a baleful look, but he gamely ignored her. “I always thought they were lookout towers used to spot game. Or enemies.”

“Maybe, but then why would they need four right in a row?” the old man asked in reply. The young man nodded his head to concede.

“Good point,” he said.

“We’re pretty sure they were used to store water,” the makeshift scholar explained. “For the settlements.”

“They didn’t have settlements here,” someone else countered. “That’s only in the East, beyond the Fat River.”

“Then how do you explain the Rust Pile?”

“It was an outpost, from the people of the East.”

“Maybe,” the man said, nodding. “Maybe. But think again about these towers. They held water, an emergency supply for people who lived here to drink when the rains failed.”

“When the rains fail, people move,” the young boy said from his mother’s lap. “Why would people stay where this is no rain?”

“That is how they lived, young man,” the scholar answered. “In one place. Stationary. Their whole lives.”

This brought on something of a ruckus, muted as it was by the pragmatism of the nomads. They’d lived their entire lives in vaguely connected groups, moving across the rain-soaked lands between the three huge rivers that made up their stretch of the world. In their minds, a permanent settlement wasn’t only unnatural, it was dangerous. Pirates, flash floods, and the constant specter of the low-clouds kept everyone on the move.

Below their feet and beneath their voices, the low rumble of the passing herd continued.

“That’s how the people in the East are said to live,” the young boy’s mother said. “That’s what I was taught. They live by some enormous ocean.” The old man grinned and nodded.

“That is the prevailing theory,” he agreed.

“The Fat River is impassable,” the contrarian girl pointed out. “So how could we know?”

“We know nothing for certain. We don’t know what passes beneath us.”

“I’m afraid we do,” someone said. “Nebulofeli.”

“So does the evidence suggest,” the old man said. “But we’ve not gone down to see with our own eyes, to make certain it is them. Anyone want to volunteer?”

It was no surprise that all hands stayed firmly down.

“Right. We use the information we have available to create a reasonable guess. The same goes for the people of the empire that lived here long before us. They were not like us, not nomads. They lived in one place.”

“But that’s just… wrong,” the girl said. Murmurs of agreement filtered through the crowd. “That’s not how we’re supposed to live.”

“If the rumors are true, the people in the East still live like they did in the old empire.” The old man spoke with eloquence and authority despite the uncertainty of the topic. “Big settlements with permanent structures for shelter. They tend their fields, help the corn and wheat grow. They even keep animals under control.”

“Now I know you’re crazy,” the girl scoffed. “Controlling animals? That’s madness.”

The scholar shrugged. “I can’t prove it.”

“Even if any of that was true, it sounds like an awful way to live. Stuck in one place, eating the same food, seeing the same people.” The girl scrunched her nose in distaste.

The old man shrugged. “You move from place to place, eat what you can find or kill, keep one eye on the horizon for pirates or Nebulofeli. You hide in a metal tower because if you didn’t, you’d be food.”

“Yeah, like normal people,” she defended. “If the people in the East really do live like that…. It just seems so… rudimentary.”

“I imagine they would say the same thing about you.” The old man grinned.

The girl opened her mouth to respond, but the old man lifted a finger to request quiet. Something had changed. The rumble was noticeably lower. The lookout scampered up the ladder and gingerly opened the hatch. She lifted her head and turned to the southeast. Spread out before her, the other three towers glinted in the setting sun. Each had its hatch open, the assigned lookout confirming the same thing.

The low-clouds had passed. And with them, the herd.

Inside the northern tower, the small group prepared to descend. Stiff legs were stretched, the sleeping woken. The old man made sure his gear was secured then moved to the ladder. More than one set of eyes stole a surreptitious look at him.

The young boy tugged on his mother’s pant-leg as she packed.

“Was he telling the truth, mom?”

“I think so.”

“So people really live in one place?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She paused, then added, “We might never know.”

“But you said he was telling the truth.”

“He was,” she said. “If they do live like that, they would think our lives very strange. Same as we might think theirs.”

The old man began the exodus from the water tower. It was possible he overheard the mother speaking to her son. Or maybe he was just happy to leave the tower’s metal confines. Regardless, he left with a smile on his face.