Path of Dragons-Chapter 45Book 8: : Barren

Jagged rocks covered in algae jutted from the sea, forming a crown around the island. Gentle waves lapped against them, their placidity a stark contrast to the aggressive spikes. Elijah climbed from the ocean, having shifted into the Shape of Venom and adopted the Guise of the Unseen. A shadow flashed across the rocky shore, and Elijah looked up to see a half-dozen birds flit across the sun.

They were enormous, with wingspans comparable to his in Shape of the Sky. Maybe even wider. Certainly, they looked heavier. More like giant birds of prey, compared to his colorful winged serpent.

It was further confirmation that taking to the skies would have been a bad idea. Perhaps he could have fought off one or two of the creatures, but they flew in groups of six. And there were many such flocks circling or roosting on the island before him.

The water surrounding the rocky spikes was shallow, so Elijah didn’t even need to swim in order to make his way to the shore. However, even with his preternatural balance, he often found his feet slipping across the algae-slick stones beneath the water. Tiny snails, slugs, and other creatures skittered to and fro with the current, completely unaware of his presence.

Nearby, an eel darted out of a crevice to clamp down on a slug. But a second later, its head exploded with jagged spikes. Even as the snail wiggled away, the spikes retracted into its body, and a hundred tiny scavengers descended upon the slain eel. It was a reminder that just because something looked small and harmless, that didn’t mean that it was safe.

Elijah slithered forward, staying low as he climbed onto the barren and rocky beach. The terrain reminded him of his own island, though it was devoid of most life. There were small creatures here and there – tiny crabs, skittering insects, and a few rodents – but for the most part, it was lifeless.

And as he traveled inland, carefully placing his feet, he saw more of the same. Most of the vegetation was gone. There was evidence of trees, but they’d all been felled. Not by a lumberjack’s axe, but rather, their trunks had been splintered by some unknown force. Elijah studied one such tree, its wood rotted and its stump having been infested with termites, and he puzzled out what had happened.

At first, he thought it must have been from the storm. Certainly, the winds had been more than strong enough to knock down trees. However, he soon decided that wasn’t the case. The island was populated mostly with oak trees, which meant that if they were to experience powerful winds, their relatively shallow roots would simply be torn from the ground. The tree would still topple, but the dense wood of the trunk would remain intact.

That meant that something had torn these trees apart.

Elijah continued on, and when he reached the top of a hill, he realized two things. First, the entire island had been subjected to similar destruction. There were only a few standing trees, and those looked like new growth. Barely more than saplings, which gave him some idea of the timeline at play. Judging by the height of the largest – which was around six or seven feet – it had been growing for a couple of years.

The second thing he realized was that the landmass was even larger than his island. He wasn’t great with estimates, but from what he could see, it was at least ten miles across and slightly longer. What’s more, the western edge – opposite from where he’d come ashore – was characterized by a sizable mountain.

It was easy to imagine it covered in thick vegetation, but like the rest of the island, it was entirely barren and comprised of dense, grey rock that gave the entire area a gloomy feel. Even in direct sunlight and without a cloud in the sky, it felt overcast.

Maybe it was the ethera, which despite its density, didn’t feel comforting at all. Instead, it felt oppressive. Controlling. As if it wanted to dictate how someone might react to it. Elijah had no idea what to make of that, so he pushed it aside as he focused on his search for the survivors.

Gwenivere had made it clear that they lived underground, so Elijah extended Soul of the Wild as far as he could in every direction as he looked for any caves. He found plenty. In fact, the island was pockmarked with so many caves, tunnels, and caverns that he suspected it would take him years to search every one of them. Fortunately, the senses afforded by Soul of the Wild were powerful enough to eliminate a few of them. Most ended only a few feet below the surface, and many, many more were far too small to allow for human passage. In the Shape of Venom, he could slither through some truly tiny places – much like a cat – so he searched even those.

But he found no trace of humans.

He did find plenty of life, though. For all that the surface was barren, the tunnels below thrived, both in terms of volume and variety. Elijah lost count of the different sorts of algae and moss, insects and mollusks. However, one thing he noticed was that most of them had developed lethal defense mechanisms. Whether it was the sea snail that had erupted into spikes or a rat with snake-like fangs, they had all evolved in strange and interesting ways.

One of the oddest was the frog, though.

The thing was the size of a basketball, and outwardly, it looked no different from any other bullfrog, save that it was bright orange. Nestled in a cave of similarly-colored algae, it was almost invisible. Elijah felt it easily enough, though. Then, it suddenly erupted into motion. Without his Sash of the Whirlwind, he’d never have been able to track its tongue. Even with his enhanced reactions, he barely got a glimpse of it.

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And he was absolutely astonished by what he saw.

Instead of the fleshy, bulbous tip he might have expected from a normal frog, its tongue was equipped with a bony protrusion that latched onto its prey – a rat Elijah hadn’t even noticed – piercing its furry body and retracting the mammal into is amphibious mouth. It all happened in the space of an instant, and when it was finished, the frog looked no different than it had before.

Save for the twitching tail still sticking out of its mouth.

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Elijah shivered.

He had no idea what could have prompted such an evolution. It didn’t seem to serve much of a purpose. But it was definitely interesting.

Elijah moved on, continuing his quest to inspect the island’s surface in an effort to find evidence of the survivors. The first confirmation that he was in the right place came when he found what was left of the fuselage. The forty-foot piece was impaled on one of the jagged rocks that circled the island. Clearly, it had been picked over. Many of the seats were missing, and huge pieces of its aluminum skin had been cut away.

Those cuts were far too straight to have been caused by an animal, too.

Elijah waded into the water, careful not to disturb any of the potentially lethal and tiny sea life, then climbed the rocky spire. The remnants of the airplane groaned as he climbed aboard to inspect it further.

And it was much as he’d expected.

The thing had been cannibalized for parts. What’s more, he saw a couple of skeletons still strapped to rotted seats. They’d likely died on impact, judging by the number of broken bones. Why no one had buried them, he had no idea. Likely, they hadn’t had the time.

Further inspection told him that some of the cuts in the aluminum fuselage were newer than others. The metal would never rust – not like iron or steel – but that didn’t mean it didn’t corrode over time. Elijah had no idea how long such a process would take, but he could easily tell that some of the cuts had been fairly recent. Maybe in the last month or two.

It was a good sign.

Despite his procrastination, at least some of the crash survivors remained among the living. In that moment, he felt a little guilty for not coming sooner. But that quickly faded. He couldn’t keep going indefinitely. After the events of the Primal Realm, he’d needed a break. Without it, he never could have progressed his cultivation. On top of that, he was well aware that if he didn’t allow himself time to recuperate – both mentally and physically – he’d end up making mistakes.

And besides, he had to acknowledge that some things took priority over others. Sometimes, that was for perfectly logical reasons. The meeting in Seattle had been more important than saving a handful of people who’d already proven they could survive in their harsh environment. But then there were personal reasons. As much as Elijah wished he had the mental bandwidth to save everyone, he just wasn’t built like that. If he saw someone in trouble, he would act. But given time to think and plan, he had no issues putting a bunch of strangers’ lives on the backburner.

Maybe that made him a bad person. Perhaps he was the personification of the old adage of “out of sight, out of mind,” but he couldn’t change his attitude. Nor would he want to.

In any event, he was here now, and that was what mattered. He refused to feel guilty about not coming sooner.

With that in mind, Elijah continued his search, finding nothing of value in the plane’s wreckage. Soon enough, he moved on, but the movement from when he dismounted the plane’s fuselage got the attention of a flock of birds. They were so high up that he questioned how they’d even seen the minute rocking, but see it they did. In seconds, they were diving, and Elijah barely made it to shore before they ripped into the plane.

The creatures were even larger than he’d first thought. At least the size of fighter jets, and just as deadly. The sound of claws screeching through torn metal filled the air, overwhelming the gentle lapping of the surf. The first bird ripped a ten foot hunk of aluminum away, and the rest of its flock finished the job.

In the space of a few moments, the plane’s wreckage was gone. Some of it floated in the surf, but the birds carried the rest away.

Elijah watched as the bits of wreckage drifted away and were carried out to sea by the current. And just like that, all evidence of the plane crash was gone. It had been sitting there for years, and the moment he’d touched it, it was gone.

He didn’t know how to feel about that, but he couldn’t deny that he felt like he’d lost something important.

Elijah stood there for a long time, just watching the sea and trying to figure out his emotions, but eventually, he turned and left the beach behind to continue his search. After a while, the sun dipped below the wall of dark clouds in the distance, casting the entire island in darkness. Without light, the island’s nocturnal population came out. Most were larger than their diurnal counterparts, and Elijah suspected they were deadlier as well.

He ignored most as he continued his search.

By the time the sun rose, he’d covered half the island. So, he found himself sitting on a rock and enjoying a grove fruit for breakfast. As much as he enjoyed the overgrown berries, he’d begun to grow tired of them. More than anything, he wanted to be sitting in one of Ironshore’s diners with Sadie and enjoying something greasy and full of fat.

But that wasn’t in the cards.

“I’m getting soft,” he muttered to himself. There was a time when he’d survived on poorly cooked crab, foraged mushrooms, and non-magical berries. He could take a few days away from the comforts of home.

Once he’d finished his breakfast, Elijah shifted back into the Shape of Venom and resumed his search under the Guise of the Unseen. About two thirds of the way across the island, he felt a large cavern about forty feet below him, and miraculously, it wasn’t full of water. However, as thoroughly as he searched the area, he could find no entrance. Instead, he followed the cavern until it dipped below his ability to sense it.

Letting out a hissing sigh, he continued on.

When he reached the mountain, Elijah discovered the likely reason behind the island’s apparently barren nature. The nest of harpies wasn’t huge. Maybe fifty of the creatures, and they were just as grotesque as he remembered. It was like someone had mashed a human woman and a bird together so tightly that they’d somehow merged. Slate grey feathers, beak-like noses, and huge talons were the most noticeable features, but unlike his last encounter, Elijah now had the time and ability to study them more closely.

And what he saw was more than a little disturbing.

Beneath those feathers were feminine curves. And when Elijah looked in the nest, he saw the creatures’ monstrous young. They looked disturbingly like human children, though with undeniably alien characteristics. Like someone had taken freshly hatched chicks and crossed them with pudgy babies.

The sight was revolting, and not just because it activated the part of Elijah’s brain that could recognize how wrong it all was. In addition, the same feeling he’d experienced with the octopus reared its ugly head. These were unnatural creatures, and his every instinct screamed at him to kill them all.

He refrained, backing away so he could catch his breath and relax his tense muscles. For a long few minutes, Elijah calmed himself. He couldn’t let his instincts win. He needed to be smart. Rational. He needed to keep his eye on the proverbial ball.

And that meant ignoring the harpies and continuing his search.

Fortunately, it was clear that they couldn’t detect his presence, so he had no issue skirting around them. However, it also soon became apparent that the single nest was not alone. Instead, the entire mountain was dotted with the creatures. Hundreds of thousands of them, at the very least, and they were each and every one a monster.

Seeing them all gathered together, the flocks of harpies he’d seen on his way to Easton made sense. Back then, he’d spent days sneaking around and trying not to garner their attention. Now, it seemed that they’d all returned to the mountain to nest together. Gwenivere had explained the harpies’ presence, but Elijah hadn’t expected so many.

Elijah shivered.

He knew how dangerous they were, which meant that getting the survivors free would be even more difficult than he’d expected. He continued on his way, more careful than ever before, because he was well aware that one wrong move would kill even him.