Blackwood Flats Safari: Part 11

The first thing he was aware of was of a gentle breeze blowing gently against his face. This was followed by the all-too-familiar lulling sound of the ocean not to far away. Slowly, almost afraid he truly was dead, Lucas Pradelli opened his eyes. It took several seconds to focus on something other than the blinding white of sunshine.

“Ojio! Duniestra mnadani sibelios, neh?”

Lucas blinked several times in confusion. He was looking up at a childish Asian-looking face that was beaming down at him.

“Eh…”

“Nodeste! Sureima naide. O’Connor-san, geitruina muindani!”

“Wait, slow down. I can’t really understand if you speak so fast,” Lucas said sitting up. He took a moment to look around and gather his bearings. He had been resting inside a large tent with the front opened to allow in the sea breeze. There were two more small cots set up around the tent as well as several objects he couldn’t identify on the sandy floor.

“I’m sure you are feeling much better, but I’d prefer you not try walking yet.”

Lucas turned to the man that was just walking into the tent. The young Asian girl exchanged several too-fast-to be followed words with him, then quickly ran out. “You speak English?” Lucas said, then realized several seconds later the stupidity of the question.

“I do,” the other man replied simply smiling at his blunder. “My name is Kael O’Connor; I’ve been sent from Waterfall City, along with a small group of ambassadors, to welcome you.”

“Right,” Lucas said searching back in his memory. “We’re shipwrecked.”

“There is only you,” Kael responded. “The other man that was with you when we found you had been dead for several hours. No one else has come around since we’ve been here.”

“Wait, what? How long have I been out for?”

“Three days,” Kael replied. “You were badly injured. You had a deep wound in your thorax and another on your leg. They’ve healed perfectly since treated, but the stress they caused to you kept your body resting.”

Lucas quickly checked his side for the lethal wound but found only a well-healed scar in its place. “Amazing…” he muttered.

“You were lucky you got treatment just in time,” Kael told him. “You woke up several times, but I don’t think you’d remember. You had a very high fever.”

“I don’t-” Lucas was interrupted as the Asian girl returned bringing with her some water, food and a large orange and black-stripped tiger. Lucas smiled as the big cat rubbed himself against his leg.

“That’s some guardian you’ve got there,” Kael said smiling. “Almost didn’t let us get to you!”

“I’m surprised he seems so fond of you,” Lucas said as the tiger turned and sat between Kael and the Asian girl.

“This is Hikari, my understudy at the moment. She’s learned several Asian languages and dialects, though her English is still a bit sketchy.”

“But I can understand,” Hikari said in her defense. “If you would be so kind as to speak… slowly.”

Lucas smiled at her. “I will keep that in mind.”

“I suppose I should introduce the rest of us,” Kael said. “Then you can tell us exactly who you are and what happened here.”

The ocean was something completely new to the velociraptor and she loved it. Despite loosing the trail of the third person, she was quickly entertained by the water rushing up around her ankles. She just stood on the sand, letting the water pull the ground away from around her, leaving her standing on small peaks under her feet and surrounded by a lower area. Feeling a little braver, she waded in a little more and was waist deep when she saw a larger wave coming. Screeching a little, she ran back to the shore and then back into the water when the wave was gone. The tiny theropod started digging in the sand, making trenches as deep as she could before the water rushed up to fill them and smooth out the gouges in the beach.

Kael was returning from looking for firewood when he met up with the strange spectacle. He looked at Azonthus curiously for a few moments, not quiet believing what he was seeing.

"I thought you'd met Dylan…" he called at her as she ran from one of the small waves.

Az looked up, somewhat startled at his sudden appearance. She'd been so entranced by the oceans movement that she had stopped paying attention to her surroundings. "Dylan?" she asked, confused

Kael looked startled for a moment, but then smiled at her. "I'm sorry," he replied. "I just assumed he would have used any excuse to drag you to a beach. There's no place he loves better than a beach, river, or lake. Comes with the job, I suppose."

She nodded. "He wouldn't be such a good habitat partner if he didn't love water! But he hasn't really had a chance to drag me to a beach before; we've only met in the Rainy Basin and Waterfall City and those are pretty far from any beaches."

Grinning, the raptor leaned down and splashed in the water a little more. "I do think he was lacking in his duties for not showing me this before! I'll have to yell at him about it when I find him."

Kael laughed out loud. "I see; I'm sure he'll appreciate that. This would explain why you see him as miserably hyper. He behaves his worst when he is far from a large body of water he can dive into. Though, the pranks he pulls at that time share equal amounts of uncanny brilliance and genius."

"Speaking of finding him, I haven't been able to track that third mans scent any further than here. I'm sure we'd get more answers if I could find whoever was here with the other two dolphinbacks." She looked back towards where they had set up the tents. "How's the one that lived doing?"

"Better now," Kael told her. "I expect he'll be waking soon. Once that happens, I know he'll be able to help us decipher what happened here. There was no damage to his head. Speaking of which, I should return to camp to check on him. I'll leave you to your…antics?" He finished with a sly grin that made him look uncannily like Dylan.

“Let me know when he wakes up? I’ll be here for a while, then I’m going to search the shore to the east for that other person.”

“No problem. Don’t go too far.” He waved a farewell and headed back towards camp with his load of firewood.

~~~~~~~~~~

The day after her initial encounter with the ocean, Azonthus was still enthralled with the vast amount of water. She was searching the shore for shells or something more interesting than kelp when Alan came to find her.

“The dolphinback’s awake. Kael sent me to find you. Enjoying the water?”

Az smiled. “The water, yes, the sand, no.” She moved towards the human. “This sand gets everywhere! It’s in my quiver, in my cape, everywhere! It’ll be forever before I manage to get it out.”

“Not quite forever. Just wait until we’re away from the beach; you’ll be able to empty your quiver of sand and not have it refill itself in a few minutes.”

They headed towards the tent. Az knew it would probably be best if she stayed out of sight until he was feeling up to seeing a saurian equipped with so many teeth and claws. Still, she wanted to see him and hear what he had to say.

Jebar ran in the darkness as the rain washed the blood from his hands. Something in the back of his mind refused to let him drop the knife he held clenched in his fist. Eventually, the adrenaline that had been pumping through him since the attack ran out.

Slowly, sense came back to him. Running without a direction would do no good; he needed a plan. Looking around, he didn’t see anywhere that would provide shelter. Deciding it would be best to get more supplies, he turned around and headed back towards the beach, or so he thought.

That stupid tiger... He’d kill it too if he got the chance.

The driving wind and freezing rain combined with his growing madness stole any sense of direction he once possessed. He wandered for hours, lost in the darkness of the night and his own soul.

As dawn began to claim the sky, he reached a grove of trees clustered around a spring. Thankful for fresh water to drink, he fell to the ground and plunged his head into the water. He gulped in the cold fluid, not paying any attention to the strange taste. When his thirst had been satisfied, he stood and noticed a board nailed to a tree that grew next to the spring. The board was covered in fading red paint that flaked off like a dried skin. Some sort of strange markings that looked like arrows going in every which direction were on it. Unable to decipher its meaning, he ignored it and walked around, exploring the strange grove. There were funny plants at the waters edge that grew in segments and had little brown tufts on top, making them resemble paint brushes stuck in the mud. Larger, tree sized versions of these made up the majority of the other foliage. Jebar would have been able to identify the greenery as horse tails and bamboo if he had been to the Orient, but Captain McGreggors ship had never gone to that part of the world while Jebar and Kairo had been on board.

He found a comfortable, mossy area under a large tree and settled down to sleep. His dreams were uneasy and filled with visions of McGreggor attacking and murdering his son while Kairo screamed for help.

Jebar awoke sobbing. He stayed in the grove for several hours, mourning the loss of Kairo’s young life.

“He’s mine now,” a strange voice said.

Jebar looked up and saw nobody. “Who there?” He looked around for the source of the voice and still could not find it.

“Su hijo es mio…” whispered through the air, followed by laughter.

“Give him back!” Jebar leaped to his feet and searched for whoever was there.

“I think I’ll just keep him.”

He ran into a clearing and found five figures standing there. One was a bare-chested man with a long, black, very curly beard. He stood motionless, arms crossed. His only clothing was a sort of kilt or skirt and sandals with straps up to his knees. Gold glinted off his wrist gauntlets and the quiver sling across his back. A black bow peeked out from the quiver. Another of the figures was an extremely beautiful woman dressed in the costume of the ancient Greeks. Her gauzy, blue gown barely hid what nature had given her and her full lips were painted red. Brightly colored flowers were woven into her curly, golden hair. The third was another woman, but she was terrifying to gaze upon; her eyebrows were a solid line across her forehead and her eyes were empty holes. She was scowling at the fourth person, who was even stranger than her. The fourth looked so odd. Jebar could hardly believe he was real. This person, if he could be called that, looked human except for his head, which had a large frill growing out the back and three horns sprouting from his face. He didn’t have a human mouth, but rather a beak similar to a turtles.

“I have him; he’s mine,” the fifth person sang. He had four huge, black wings sprouting form his back and he was spinning a sword around.

“Oh, leave him alone,” the beautiful woman scolded.

“And why should he?” the eyeless woman demanded. “That human drank our water.”

“Peace, all of you,” horned one said. “Bickering will do us no good and he is as confused as any are who find us.”

“Oh, come off your high and mighty throne, Ogthar,” Eyeless demanded. “Just because you’re the only one of us who still has any followers doesn’t give you the right to tell any of us what to do.”

Jebar ignored all but the winged being. He glared at him and pulled out his knife. Now he really wished Namir hadn’t knocked the gun from his grasp. “You gi’ me ma boy or ah’ll keel you.”

The winged being laughed. “You can’t kill me; I’m already dead.”

“Come to me, love,” the beautiful woman said as she moved towards Jebar. “Ignore Ninhursag’s bitterness and Ogthar’s platitudes. I can make you forget all your sorrows.” She leaned towards him and kissed him full on the mouth. Her floral scent filled Jebars nose and her lips were so sweet he would have given in to her charms if Wings hadn’t spoken again.

“He deserves his pain, Aphrodite.”

“No, Syrus. Nobody deserves what he feels,” Ogthar spoke.

Forcing the temptress away, Jebar growled “I want my son. No horn-face or tart is gonna keep me from ‘im.”

“Then,” the bearded man said, “This human is mine. He desires revenge and I will give him the strength.”

“All on this land belong to me,” Ogthar countered.

Suddenly, Syrus changed into Rico. “Tengo so hijo!” he yelled and ran into the bamboo jungle.

Jebar followed, screaming his rage. He ran and ran, but never caught up with Rico. Somehow, he ended up back in the clearing where the beings had held their strange conversation. Now, it was empty of all life. All that remained in the clearing were crumbling statues.

He looked around, confused at the disappearances. One thought broke through the confusion. Rico. Rico had his son and Jebar was going to do whatever it took to get him back.

[Top] [Back]