Flowers Like Needles
ShortStory 6,095 words Recommended by 3 award/anthology sources
"Bek scuttled over the needle field on the Waste of Mosses, far from Roktown and the monastery in Hom Valley. Turbulent winds scattered the neat rows of falling iron carbonyl snows. The steely needles here grew jagged, making the magnetic fields on the waste feel unsettled, haunted."
Quasar links out; the story lives on Asimov's, where the author gets the click.