Codex of the Eight Wildernesses · The Flame-Horn
In the northern burning mountain dwells the Flame-Horn, an ox-shaped beast wreathed in fire whose horn foretells plague and plenty. An old soldier tells how it once strayed to the flatlands and set the crops aflame.
[Haunt] The Codex says: in the northern wilderness stands a burning mountain called Firewood. It breathes flame through all seasons; every blade is scorched, yet one beast alone makes its den there. The mountain folk call it the Flame-Horn.
[Form] It is shaped like an ox, its whole body wreathed in fire, with a single horn jutting forward, dark as cured lacquer. When it walks the earth splits; when it rests the fire dies. Its eyes are like two lit lamps, and by night, crossing the hills, it seems a stream of falling fire.
[Nature] It feeds on stone-marrow and drinks molten metal. It does not devour men, yet whoever draws near finds his cloth singed and his hair curled. It fears water; in rain it crouches among the grass, horn drooping as if dead. The hill folk need only fling water to send it fleeing.
[Omen] When the Flame-Horn's horn burns bright, the earth's breath is about to stir, and the people flee to the heights. When the horn dims, the year is ripe and the folk at peace. Thus the elders read plague and plenty by the horn.
[Account] An old garrison soldier told this: in a year the mountain suddenly went cold, and the Flame-Horn wandered out into the flatlands; all the crops it touched took flame. The villagers drew water and doused it; the beast fled in fright back to the mountain. Ever after they raised a shrine at its foot and each year offered a black beast, and the mountain raged no more. Even now, those who pass Firewood see a flame in the rock-fissures like the glow of a horn, and say the Flame-Horn has not slept.