A Twist of the Sands

by P R Glazier

Chapter 38. The Isle of the Pigs

  “Nar’Allia, Nar’Allia!”

  Nar’Allia stirred in her dreams She imagined she was back home in Gel’Te’Ertenya, her head buried beneath her pillows trying to take no notice of the incessant voice calling out her name. But realisation dawned and she sat up resting upon her elbows. She looked around in the gloom of her quarters and then realisation dawned. “Not again!”

  “Nar’Allia! There is refuge to the south, an island, the isle of the small boars. There is a sanctuary….

  Nar’Allia now sat bolt upright in bed. The voice had gone, cut off suddenly. Had she been dreaming? She groaned and swinging her legs out of bed, she stood up wanting to go and take a look at the quiver. She opened the locker in which she had stowed her belongings. Only darkness lay inside. It was dulled, no arrows could she see within. She sat back down with a thump, a sudden dizziness overcoming her, she had got up too quickly and a slight thumping ache in her temple was her reward. But she was awake now; she cursed her dreams, pulled on her leather jerkin and leggings and strode out of her quarters to the control room. She guessed the Leviathan would be hanging high in the air waiting for the sun of the new day so that they could begin their search again.

  The control room was dark apart from the gentle glow from the control desks set around the room. At first she didn’t think anyone was there but a groan set her eyes onto a motionless figure leaning over one of the control desks. It was JDC; he had obviously fallen asleep at the desk. She looked around for Amndo and Jonas, but neither was to be seen. At least they had the good sense to go to bed. Nar’Allia sat on one of the chairs at one of the other control desks; she couldn’t remember which one it was, but leaning forward she placed her hands under her chin and thought about the voice she had heard yet again.

  The next thing Nar’Allia became aware of was an aching in the back of her neck. A dull ache at first but then a nagging ache. She stirred in her sleep and thinking she’s gotten into an uncomfortable position rolled over trying to reposition the pillow below her head and neck. But then she found herself falling and with a sharp pain to her elbow she was forced fully awake. She found herself on the control room floor. She groaned as realisation struck home. She also had fallen asleep on the desk, just as JDC had done and she now suffered the consequences. She heard a laugh from above her and turning her head saw JDC standing over her offering a helping hand.

  He said, “I saw you asleep there earlier, but thought I’d leave you to your slumber.”

  “Auugh, thanks,” was all Nar’Allia could bring herself to say. But she managed to stand upright and tried to massage some feeling back into her aching neck whilst trying her best to ignore the rapidly growing bruise to her elbow. It was morning, the sun was rising a large fiery ball shining increasingly brightly through the windows of the craft. JDC had opened the viewing portals fully so that the whole front section of the Leviathan was one big transparent viewing platform. She wandered over to the windows, she stood on the forward section, looking up. The sky was a beautiful rich blue colour. High wispy clouds moved lazily across the blue. It was vast; it extended all around them, broken only at the horizon where the blue sky met with the equally blue sea. Her eyes fell downwards and there below hidden partially by thin wispy clouds a string of islands could be seen. Emerald green and gold, a string of jewels strewn upon blue velvet. No real detail could be seen form this height, but the islands looked idyllic.

  “I thought we could drop down and explore those islands, one may have a suitable place for us to land, they all have large beaches of fine sand. At the very least we will need water and provisions soon. I thought you might like to get that bow of yours out and go hunting? The thermal imagers show an abundance of life down there on several of the islands.”

  Nar’Allia turned and smiled at JDC, “they look beautiful, but quite isolated, perhaps you are right.” The talk of hunting reminded her of the night before, the voice she had heard. She wondered about her step mother’s friend, where she might be and in what conditions, that was if she was even still alive. No that was not a consideration, she knew she was alive somewhere, she also knew that she could communicate with her, even as she was suspecting, Serinae could still help aim that old black bow of hers. There were things going on that Nar’Allia didn’t understand, she suddenly realised that perhaps the understanding of these things would greatly help their cause.

  The thought made her look up; look out across the sea beyond the islands towards Dahl’Ambronis even though she could not see the continent of her homeland from here. She frowned, something tugged at her mind, then shrugging she assumed it was some desire to be back home, for there lay home upon that continent, her father and her brother and sister. She wondered what they would be doing now.

  They decided to visit one of the larger islands in the centre of the chain. It was surrounded by white sandy beaches. The island rose quite high into a single hill, the summit of which was about one hundred and fifty metres above sea level. The interior covered in green trees and other plant life. The heat scanner of the Leviathan did indeed show numerous little bright dots moving about beneath the trees, but these never ventured out onto the open beaches, perhaps whatever they were could sense the presence of the great machine above and didn’t want to be seen.

  Nar’Allia was the last to drop down to the white sandy beach. JDC had brought the Leviathan to within ten metres of the ground just as they had first alighted onto the craft back in the sands of the Rust Desert. The small access hatch in the hull on the underside allowed the spiral staircase to drop down as before and Nar’Allia. Jonas and Amndo had all stepped down onto the warm sand. JDC remained on board the vessel, he seemed to prefer to stay aboard and no amount of persuasion could coax him from the craft, in the end Nar’Allia had just shrugged and told him he was silly to pass on the opportunity for fresh air and to walk once more upon the ground. Nar’Allia, on the other hand, was now relishing the feel of the soft sand once more under the soles of her feet; she had taken her boots off and was enjoying the feel of moving her unrestricted toes through the soft warm sands. The island seemed to be uninhabited, at least as they flew over it they had not seen or detected any signs of civilisation and no people had come out to stare into the sky and wonder at the great machine that hung there floating over the island. But as the thermal imagery had shown, there were numerous small creatures freely running about the island and Nar’Allia wanted to find out what they were.

  Nar’Allia had been on the island earlier in the day, but she had not seen any animals, probably because she had stayed in the open around the beach. She had heard numerous bird calls and other noises however. But what she had found was a tree that grew straight branches from the ground to a great height above her head, perfect for arrow shafts. Then she had gathered colourful discarded feathers from the sand where the numerous bird life of the island had dropped them. The arrow heads had been the biggest problem. She had no way of smelting iron even if she had found the ore to do so. But foraging around had resulted in her finding a bush that grew the most spiteful looking hard wooden thorns, she had harvested several not without some accidents to her arms and hands. But it was worth it for now she had several quite presentable hunting arrows clutched in her hand, they were a bit lightweight and would not penetrate very deeply into tough hide, but they would have no problem with bringing down small rodents or birds. The hunting party headed in land. Nar’Allia sang a T’Iea tune under her breath; Amndo strode along, his staff held in one hand. Jonas had his great broadsword, the blade rested across one shoulder, the hilt hooked under an extended elbow to counter its weight.

  Almost immediately beyond the beach where they had alighted, they came across trees laden with fruits of all kinds, none of them knew the name of this bounteous harvest, but some fruits were similar to those they did know, if not larger than the variety Nar’Allia was familiar with. By the time they had entered the denser forest that covered much of the island, she had tried several
of these fruits and finding them palatable had collected these into baskets that they had found in the kitchens of the Leviathan. When these were full, they hung them high on the boughs of some of the trees meaning to recover them on their way back to the Leviathan. Continuous rustling in the undergrowth made them keep a watchful eye on their surroundings. They had still not seen any of the small animals they had picked up on the Leviathans detecting equipment and still didn’t know if these presented any danger. But certainly they could hear them. Nar’Allia smiled, the noises she recognised, but her mischievous T’Iea character would not allow her to divulge her suspicions as to what was making the noises to either Jonas, who was creeping around, his broadsword held at the ready, or indeed Amndo who although trying to look carefree, often flinched if one of the noises was heard near him. Nar’Allia giggled to herself, she eventually took pity on the two men and notching an arrow took careful aim. She let the arrow fly, it sped into the undergrowth and a loud squealing could be heard. She went into the dense growth where she had shot the arrow and returned shortly dragging a small wild pig by the rear legs. It soon became clear that her suspicions as to the identity of the small inhabitants of the island where correct, it was indeed these small wild pigs that roamed the forest floor in great numbers. What was also reassuring was that there obviously was no real danger from predators here, at least not on this island for the number of these pig-like creatures was great. Hunting them was also easy for they did not appear to be frightened of them in the slightest, another clue as to the fact that this island chain was most probably uninhabited. Nar’Allia took some cord and tying the animal’s legs together and recovering her arrow, she hung the dead animal on a bough, again meaning to recover it on their return journey. Both Jones and Amndo seemed to have a lightened mood now that they understood that there was in fact no real threat to them, Nar’Allia giggled once more. She was enjoying this little diversion from life on the Leviathan.

  After an hour or so they came across a large clearing in the trees. To their surprise many dried bones littered the forest floor in this area. These bones were small, and many skulls that littered the ground obviously the remains of the small pigs, but they were so great in number, too many individual skeletons to count by far. The bones were piled into small heaps in places there must have been thousands of individual skeletons. Nar’Allia wondered at this grave yard of small animals, she was of course aware that they had a mortality of several years and would have been born and died here in great numbers, but why would all their bones be piled up in one area of the island instead of being scattered far and wide across the whole of the islands length and breadth?

  Jonas moved the bones around with the tip of his sword, what he hoped to find beneath the pile Nar’Allia didn’t know, but there seemed to be nothing beneath but more bones. On closer inspection many bones proved to have deep score marks in them, like knife cuts or the result of the blow from an axe blade. The other strange thing was that although the trees and shrubs growing around the clearing were the same types as they had seen throughout their travels across the island, here around the edge of this clearing they seemed larger, healthier somehow. It was as if something in the soil suited the plants around here and made them grow larger than other specimens around the island.

  Everywhere they went on the island these small wild pigs were apparent. Nar’Allia wondered at the sheer number of them, the population must have been in the many hundreds. In fact the forest was starting to show the signs of being over grazed by these animals, many areas which should have been grassed were now bare sandy soil, not even the grass roots had been left. Also many trees seemed to be dying where small sharp teeth had stripped the bark from them up to a height where the little wild pigs could reach. The few wild pigs that Nar’Allia had shot would not make any significant dent in the population and certainly not curtail their swift reproduction to epidemic levels. Yet the island survived, so unless the wild pigs were a recent addition to this micro environment, which would have meant someone or something had brought them here possibly from a neighbouring island perhaps, then something was keeping them in check from time to time, the graveyard they had seen earlier was perhaps testament to this. Nar’Allia felt a little uneasy, for all though they had not found any significant predators anywhere on the islands, something had obviously killed the little pigs in great numbers at regular intervals, or, she thought with some amusement, perhaps they had all agreed to die of old age there in that one spot. But then a further thought entered her mind that perhaps the demise of a predator or predators had resulted in the over population of the little pigs. They decided at any rate to stay for a few days, it was after all very pleasant and abounded with all sorts of nourishment.

  One evening Nar’Allia was resting, sitting on the cot in her cabin, she happened to glance at Serinae’s old quiver. Suddenly she was reminded of her dream a few nights before; she had heard the words, Serinae’s words, “Nar’Allia! There is refuge to the south, an island, the isle of the small boars.” Well they were obviously on that island, the island of the small boars! Nar’Allia found her curiosity rising, why then was she told to come here in that dream, what was on this island that could possibly aid them? But then she remembered that Serinae had also mentioned a sanctuary, perhaps it was this they had to search for?

  Nar’Allia had not told the others of her dream, but she was secretly glad that she would have the opportunity to explore the island further; she would look out for anything that could have the potential of being a sanctuary. After all it was the first they had found suitable for a landing and they all agreed they felt it worthwhile exploring for a while.

  During the days that the company spent on the island Amndo noticed that the moon was getting lower and lower in its cycle. Consequently, the tides were getting lower as the days passed, each day it seemed that the ocean receded further from the coast exposing more shore line as it did so. The tides were now going out so far that much of the coral reef that surrounded the place was high and dry for several hours of each day. Nar’Allia took to exploring the reef for there were many interesting crustaceans and other life exposed, all it seemed had developed a way to protect themselves from the hot sun whilst they were left high and dry. She found a particular marine snail that could grasp hold of the rock in such a way that it could contain some of the sea water under its shell to keep it cooler and oxygenated. Then there was an abundant sea weed that had evolved long tube like structures that spread over the reef for many metres the ends of which remained beneath the waters at the edge of the tide mark.

  One day the tide was particularly low and as Nar’Allia explored the tidal pools and corals of the reef, she noticed a causeway or sand spit being gradually uncovered by the receding waters. This bank of bright white sand stretched further and further out into the sea towards a neighbouring island a kilometre or so distant. Nar’Allia’s eyes followed the sand spit and as they alighted on the distant island she felt sure she could see much movement amongst the trees that grew down to the beach. The movement got greater as the sea receded until she was sure many shapes where gathering amongst the forest of trees on the far shore but it was difficult to see clearly at this distance and also the shapes themselves had a backdrop of dense forest which made it all the more difficult to distinguish any individuals. She was curious about the movements on the far island. Thinking this may be a group of inhabitants she made her way along to the sand spit where it joined her island. She walked out upon the sand bank shielding her eyes with her hand in an effort to get a closer look. She remained a little wary as she did not yet understand what she was looking at. She held the black bow ready in her hand by chance she had one of the bulbous arrows notched in readiness, she always carried at least one of these just in case, in case of what she didn’t know, but she did not trust one of the arrows she had fashioned as being able to dispatch any creature larger than the little pigs she was used to hunting.

  Something in her mind was trying repeatedly to w
arn her of something, perhaps to change her mind on this action. A small voice it seemed in her was trying to tell her to return to the island they had landed on and not to go any further out onto the sand spit. She was thinking about this, worried that the occurrences of hearing voices in her head seemed to be on the increase. She hadn’t noticed that the sea level had dropped sufficiently for the sand spit to now reach from her island to the other island. Only a short section around halfway, was still submerged but only with very shallow water, no more than knee deep. The sloshing of shallow water around her feet brought her mind back from her thought of the voices. Nar’Allia looked up again at the far island and she was surprised to see that a number of large creatures making their way onto the other end of the sand bar and walking towards where she stood. She stopped walking, fear clouded her mind, these creatures were big and although they were sauntering along slowly, she just knew they would not be quite so casual once they took sight of her. Suddenly a warning she could not ignore struck her mind she heard one phase in her own tongue ‘Itahl’Q’Thjilee’, she did not know what this meant but it was said with such a tone of warning that she turned and started to run back towards the island where she had come from. She was somewhat dismayed to realise just how far along the sand spit she had strayed.

  The sand was drying quickly in the sun as the water level continued to drop and any moisture quickly evaporated in the scorching sunshine. The higher areas were now quite dry and the fine loose sand made it very difficult to even walk across. Once she slipped and fell to the sand. As she got up she glanced back towards the far island. To her horror running towards her, much more efficiently than she could manage, were a great host of what looked like very large birds. They had their bright eyes fixed upon her, she could see that the creatures had red and black feathers on their bodies; she was also surprised by just how large they now looked, taller than she was certainly. As they ran they held out two short stubby wings on each side, more to keep balance running across the shifting sand for the wings were obviously too small for any kind of flight. But each bird had bright large eyes and a curved sharp beak. They called with a terrifying shriek as they ran towards her. Nar’Allia was up on her feet again in seconds and running away as fast as she could, but it was obviously going to be a fruitless flight for the creatures were much more adept at running on this sandy surface and would reach her long before she made it back to the trees on the island where she had come from.

  She turned, resolved not to go down without a fight. She wished she had brought the two short swords and had donned the chainmail armour. But she drew the black bow and allowed it to choose a target, she released the bulbous arrow and it sped on its way hitting the beast squarely on the chest. It must have hit something hard for the arrow burst and trails of white lightning issued from it hitting several of the creatures running across the sand, each fell with a shriek, the sound cut off suddenly as they fell and to lay still, their feathers smouldering on the sand. Nar’Allia turned and ran, the remaining creatures had stopped to inspect the remains of their fallen comrades, but already others were taking notice of her once again. Nar’Allia turned and ran using their confusion to again get some distance between them.

  Suddenly the sky darkened, for a moment Nar’Allia feared that the creatures had in fact taken to the air and were above her even now, but as she ran she looked up to see the great underside of the Leviathan, the spiral steps dangling down from its underside. Jonas swung on one hand, hanging low from the bottom step, he stretched his other hand out towards her. She reached out for his hand with her free hand, for in the other she still held the black bow. After missing a couple of times eventually they clasped wrists and she felt herself lifted up, her feet dangling as she swung about wildly. But then her feet touched the bottom step and Jonas transferred her hand to the metal railing. He then grasped and held tightly onto her other elbow and hauled her upwards. Thus she was able to climb the steps slowly and managed at last to get her breath by placing both feet on a step a couple from the bottom. She felt safe enough now to hang the black bow back over her shoulders as she normally carried it when not in use. She allowed herself a look upward to see how far she needed to climb to get herself on board the vessel, she saw Jonas’s face peering down at her from the hatchway. He had obviously already climbed up into the machine to get out of her way. He was waving at her frantically to climb, so she started her way up the ladder. She saw a look of fear on Jonas’s face and looking down she was shocked to see that one of the creatures had caught up with her and was even now pounding along the sand beneath her feet, it was screeching madly and its eyes burned a deep red. When it was directly below her the creature leapt upon its powerful legs and she screamed as its head and bone crushing beak now opening wide seemed to rise up towards her, it flapped its short stubby wings which must have aided its leap. Nar’Allia instinctively hung on with both hands and bent her legs at the thigh and knees to lift them as high as she could. Thankfully the creature’s beak closed with a snap, not on her feet but on the now empty bottom step. It gripped solidly and was lifted bodily swinging to and fro on the end of the steps. Nar’Allia clung to the now madly swinging spiral stair; there was no chance of climbing any higher the way the thing was now swinging to and fro. Then she thought, well it’s not as if it is going to let go, for to do so would mean it plunged to the sand far below. She had an idea. Carefully and making sure she had a strong grip with both hands on the ladder she raised both her legs and with a sudden movement brought both her feet down as hard as she dared to connect with the front of the creature’s head. There was a sickening crunch, the creature cried out a shriek of pain, which was its undoing for it opened its beak and fell from the ladder. Some ancient reflex caused it to extend both its wings and flap them hard. To Nar’Allia’s surprise this did seem to slow the creatures decent. In fact it seemed to slow and even glide a little before hitting the water in a cloud of spray. She could hear its cries of torment and great anger. But these were not remembered for she climbed the ladder and after entering the belly of the Leviathan, sat heavily on the floor and sighed in relief.

  “Thank you Jonas, I thought for one moment I was lunch for those things. How did you know I was in trouble?”

  “Well milady, Amndo was watching the imaging detectors in the control room; he picked up a large quantity of individuals on the other island all congregating towards the side of the island facing this one. We decided to go and investigate. That was when we saw you running back along the sand bar being chased by those things.”

  Nar’Allia thanked the Maker for Amndo being so alert.

  They both made their way up to the control room. Both JDC and Amndo were there looking through the wide windows. Nar’Allia and Jonas walked across to join them. Looking down they could see that the massive bird-like creatures where now walking upon the isle of pigs and spreading out into the forest. Even from this height they could see what purpose the creatures had in mind. For all of them were hunting down the little wild pigs, slaughtering them whenever they found them. As they were caught the giant bird creatures tilted their heads back and swallowed the poor unfortunate pigs whole. This went on all over the island for the remainder of the day until darkness came and they could no longer see what was going on below them.

  “Well, now we know why the pigs can achieve such great numbers yet the island remains relatively unscathed. Every extra low tide they are culled by those bird beasts.” Said Jonas.

  “They are called Dragon Birds. Although not many of any of the races have actually seen them face-to-face as it were.” Said Amndo.

  Nar’Allia smiled whispered under her breath, “well I count myself amongst the fortunate few then.” But suddenly she remembered hearing that name before, a voice had tried to warn her, it had said the T’Iea words, Itahl’Q’Thjilee in her head. It was an ancient dialect of her language but in the common tongue the words, Draconas Raptor, could translate quite literally into the more modern Dragon Bird. “How did you
know of them Amndo?”

  “I read about them once a long time ago in a book in Solin’s library. Your people Nar’Allia, the T’Iea, they prize the creature’s feathers and claws for some reason. I didn’t read further in the book for I was looking for other things at the time. I wish now I had.”

  Nar’Allia thought for a while, something was nagging at her mind. Thinking about it she had heard that name before, the T’Iea name for the Dragon Birds, but where? Then she was a little relieved to think that she too must have read the same book, just forgotten about the creatures. But she frowned not remembering any book which described them or, even the islands that they inhabited. But then it occurred to her, she went to her cabin and retrieved Serinae’s quiver. Taking this back to the control room she laid it upon a table top. “These feathers that adorn this quiver they are the same that appear on those creatures and these claws look remarkably similar to the ones attached to the toes of the Dragon Birds down there. This is why they are prized by my people.”

  They stayed aloft that night for fear of attack from the giant carnivorous birds, the Itahl’Q’Thjilee, not that these creatures could have gained access to the Leviathan. But it seemed prudent to Nar’Allia to stay out of the way. It was obvious that they were witnessing a natural cause of events, probably key to the continuing success of these islands with their own ecosystems. Too many times in the past Nar’Allia’s people had made the mistake of dabbling with nature and reaped the disastrous results of these actions. In a tiny ecosystem such as each of these small islands, it would be all too simple to unbalance the natural course of events and disrupt the entire system.

  The following morning they gathered again on the outside viewing deck of the Leviathan. Down below many of the Itahl’Q’Thjilee were gathering on the shore line where the low tide would once more expose the sand spit. There was a long line of the creatures slowly making their way from the forest to the beach. Flying over the forest they could see that this line originated in the clearing where they had found the piles of pig bones, the same clearing they had found and wondered about on the first day of their arrival. There were still many Itahl’Q’Thjilee standing around, they seemed to be behaving oddly, strutting around and crouching occasionally then getting up once more only to repeat the strange behaviour. Slowly though, one by one, or in small groups the Itahl’Q’Thjilee left the clearing and made their way back to the beach. When the clearing below had only a few Itahl’Q’Thjilee remaining, Nar’Allia could see the ground but the old bones were now covered in a shiny dark substance. She laughed in sudden realisation; Jonas and Amndo looked at her in surprise. She couldn’t stop giggling to herself. When she had managed to compose herself a little she said, “now I know how all the pig bones get piled up there in that clearing.”

  The two men looked at her questioningly.

  “Nar’Allia continued to smile, she pointed down towards where the few remaining Itahl’Q’Thjilee stood, or crouched, “the Dragon Birds, they use this clearing as an area to defecate. Here is where they undertake their morning ablutions prior I suspect to returning to their own island across the water. They obviously pass all the indigestible bones and over the many years this has been happening the pile has grown quite large. All the other softer material probably gets washed away in the rains. That probably is the reason why the plants around the clearing look so healthy; they have an unending supply of bird droppings as fertiliser.”

  Amndo looked a little nauseated as he said, “I will never touch any of the fruit from the trees around that clearing again.”

  The others all burst into laughter as they looked down to see the last of the Itahl’Q’Thjilee leaving the clearing shaking their tail feathers to and fro.

  Over the next few days the next tides changed and the sand spit was no longer exposed and many large sharks patrolled the waters between the islands once again. They carefully checked both visually and using the thermal imagery equipment, to their relief they found that all of the Itahl’Q’Thjilee had returned to their own island and would presumably remain there to await the next set of low tides so that they could again repeat their feeding upon the little pigs. Nar’Allia wondered why they didn’t just stay on this island. But then she thought that they would quickly run out of food, she was content to think nature and its designs a wonderfully organised thing and this thought made her all the warier of upsetting the fine balance of the natural world. She decided that it would be better for the four of them to start finding an alternative food source than the little pigs, for their numbers had diminished greatly due to the visiting dinner guests, she feared that if they took more of the little pigs, they may upset the capability of the creatures to increase their numbers significantly enough to survive the next visitation by the Itahl’Q’Thjilee. To this end and reminded by the sharks, they decided to try fishing as their main source of food for the remainder of their stay.