The Place
The Tuskridge Barrens is a ridge of bare stone and red dust that runs 40 km along the high country, and the 40 km is the length of the debt the earth owes the boar-men. The surface of the ridge is scored by tusk-marks a thousand generations deep, the marks running in long parallel lines from the foraging-lines to the holds, and the lines are the only writing the barrens has. The stone is a bare, wind-worn grey, and the grey breaks where the red dust of the ridge has settled, the dust lying in drifts a half-metre deep along the wind-shadowed side. The wind is a constant red whisper across the stone, and the whisper is where the barrens keeps its one sound. The ground under the ridge is honeycombed with tunnels, the tunnels deep enough to hold a hold and wide enough to turn a charge, and the tunnels are where the barrens keeps everything it does not give. A traveler who has crossed the barrens at dusk says the ridge is a wall the earth is still building, and the saying is the traveler's only word, because the barrens does not answer and the dust is all it does. This is the place where the ground is a debt, and the debt is paid in the only currency the ridge has, which is the tusk.
How They Live
The Boar Men build their holds in the tunnels under the ridge, chambers cut into the bare stone and lined with hides and dust, their entrances low and guarded by the tusk-wall. Light comes from the red dust of the ridge, which glows faintly in the dark of the tunnel, and from the small warm fire that is kept low, because the fire is a sound and a sound is a location. Food is the ridge itself: the roots, the tubers, the small game, and the red dust that keeps the tusks honest, the foraging-lines running in long lines from the holds to the bare ground. Water is drawn from the deep springs, which the foragers tend like a garden, the springs lying 12 m under the ridge in water that tastes of iron and old stone. The defense is the ridge itself — a visitor who climbs the ridge is already in the path of the charge, and the charge is the alarm and the welcome and the sentence. The day is measured by the tusk, which is also the calendar, because the ridge is the only clock the barrens needs. The foragers mark the turn of the season in a shallow trench cut in the bare stone, and the trench is the only writing the barrens gives back, because the ridge does not write and the tusk is all it does.
People
Home of the Boar Men, whose holds are counted by tunnel, and the tunnels keep some four hundred boar-men under the ridge, four hundred being the most the dust can feed in a dry season. The foraging-lines are run by the stocky females, who hold the shorter tusks and the longer memory, and the running is the only rank the boar-men have, for they have no king and the not-having is their only law. A boar-man who has not polished their tusk in a season is called "the one who forgot the debt," and the calling is the only punishment the ridge gives, because the ridge does not punish and the remembering is all it does. The tusks are polished to a point and worn like a crown, from deep umber to a true quiet black, with the hide-tips a clean bone-white, and the polish is the boar line's most persistent claim.
In Stories
The place where the ridge is a debt, and the debt is the tusk, and the tusk is the charge, and the charge is the end. It was in the red dust that the boar-men first learned the weight of a tusk not yet polished, and the learning cost them a season and gave them the foraging-lines. The ridge has kept the charge ever since, and the keeping is the barrens' way of holding the debt honest.