Burrowhorn

The Burrowhorn is a small but industrious mammal whose curved single horn serves as both digging tool and, when necessary, modest defensive weapon. Compact and densely furred, with powerful forelimbs and broad digging claws, the Burrowhorn creates vast underground tunnel networks across the Taurian plain — networks that aerate the soil, draw minerals upward, and allow water to percolate through what would otherwise become compacted hardpan.

Enki has calculated that fields within two hundred paces of an active Burrowhorn colony yield measurably richer harvests without any additional work from the tribe. She has begun encouraging the colonies with deliberately aerated borders and seed scattering — less farming them than inviting them.

Giliad's Field Note

"One has taken up residence beneath the corner post of my field tent. I have named it Durri, which is a breach of scientific protocol I have now committed three times in this volume and appear unable to stop. Durri emerges at dawn, regards me with its small dark eyes, collects whatever seeds have fallen near my work table overnight, and returns underground. — G."