There was no sign of a Scoa tribe in the swamps surrounding the ruins. Only screechers prowled there, and the occasional meek forest creature, like the gently creeping mammal that had spied him building the trap. If the timid leaf eater had known how to dig, Arn was certain they would help him fight the island’s hostile populace. Instead, he searched the coast of the island while living like prey. When the isle whispered, Arn held his breath in tall reeds or half-submerged in salty mud-water. When an ear-splitting hiss split the air, Arn lowered his spear and scoured the limits of his eyesight.
He found a sandy beach, pleasantly on the opposite side of the island from his rocky arrival. Nothing stirred there except for a handful of small green crabs and a departing arrow of young turtles. As Arn walked along the beach, looking for humans or the signs of them, and nearly leapt out of his skin when a wide-winged gull careened out of the sky to snatch one of the turtles up into the sky.
Arn didn’t find anything he was looking for and started his return across the island. His shelter sometimes flooded halfway with tidal waters, but it was his home for now. He had spent more than half a Moon on the island now and had not found anyone else.
Ahead, in the green and brown underbrush, a quick movement revealed the movement of something. Arn dropped to one knee, only to realize it was a gentle leaf-eater, not a deathly screecher. He swiftly kicked up dirt as he gave chase. He slid through the reeds and splashed through a quick stream, hurling his spear forward before the animal got up to speed. His weapon caught it in the shoulder—the mammal took one jerky step before it’s muscles gave out and it sagged against the sharp-angled bark of a mathhar tree.
A few steps brought him closer to his kill.
Without a sound, a long tan body came dropping down the tree, landing between the slain animal and him. It lifted its jowls and hissed, but didn’t move closer to him.
“No, no,” Arn murmured under his breath. “My spear is there…”
The creature hissed again, moving one claw forward, nursing the mud into a smear. Arn took a step backward, and the predator followed suit, withdrawing one pace. Arn walked quietly backward. After he had withdrawn to the reeds he’d burst through, the cat turned to snatch the leaf-eater’s neck in its mouth. It began to drag Arn’s kill away, splashing a stream as he neared another tree.
Arn cursed quietly again and resumed his pace back to the stone rubble he lived in. He stopped near a tree with a good straight branch and scaled it to shave the branch free with a sharpened rock from his belt. He’d need to make a new spear tonight, he realized. He wasn’t going to find one from a friendly tribe, he suspected. He’d give it another week or two—there was one more region of the island he had not searched, after all.
He was getting tired of the screechers, but he had been so merciless after the first shriek rendered him near senseless. Arn scratched his back as he kept walking, tree branch in hand, and cursed loudly. None of this was what he had planned on Razaad. None of it!