To Farther Seas (1)
On the long, narrow island, nature was not as abundant as on the Floating Island, yet tracking living creatures proved far easier. Unlike the Floating Island, where falling leaves constantly buried every trail, signs of life here remained clear.
So clear, in fact, that even Monia—who had struggled to find tracks on the Floating Island—could follow them with ease.
Racing quietly through the forest on the trail, Monia sensed it drawing near. She pulled the arrow from between her teeth and nocked it to the string.
I can hear it.
Just as she expected, parting the undergrowth revealed a rabbit grazing while keeping watch on its surroundings.
A little bigger than the island rabbits.
The rabbits on the Floating Island had been so small that even one left Monia unsatisfied. In her old life that portion might have counted as a decent meal, but for a woman who now spent her days sweating and burning stamina as she roamed the woods, it was nowhere near enough.
The rabbit before her, however, was sizable and well-fleshed.
Monia carefully drew the bowstring and steadied her breath. The rabbit remained alert, yet it never spotted her at this distance. Reassured, she took her time, waited for the most stable moment, and released.
The instant the string snapped free, the arrow seemed to suck itself into the rabbit’s body. It punched straight through. The force of the shot sent the animal tumbling. It thrashed in pain, yet the arrow pinning it in place left it unable to flee. Monia approached cautiously, raised her club, and struck the rabbit’s head.
Thwack!
She lifted the limp body and turned with a proud smile toward Chester, who had been following behind. He smiled back and praised her.
“Well done.”
“It was easy!”
“Anything becomes easy once your hands get used to it. Just don’t get careless just because it feels easy.”
“Okay!”
While praising her, Chester pointed somewhere off to the side. Rex instantly snatched up a stone and hurled it in that direction. A sharp cry answered the impact. When they reached the spot they found another rabbit, its leg shattered by the stone, collapsed on the ground.
Chester seized it by the neck and crushed the vertebrae like a biscuit, finishing it off before adding the carcass to their take.
“Nice. I was worried my senses had gone dull on the island, but living there seems to have sharpened them even more.”
Monia, tempered by the Floating Island, had become an excellent hunter here. Chester—already a skilled hunter and further honed by island life—had reached a still higher plane.
After a simple meal of the two rabbits, the family set out in earnest to examine the coast where Chester had first spotted the ship.
Just as he had expected, the shoreline showed many signs of human presence, even if it looked somewhat neglected. Traces of campfires dotted the beach; simple tools lay scattered about; sections of the shore had clearly been cleared and leveled by human hands—probably to make landing easier.
Most striking of all were the wrecked ships abandoned along the beach, shattered for various reasons. Some had suffered fatal damage on the rough seas and could never have been repaired for the return voyage.
Chester began carefully inspecting the vessels. In their corners he found belongings the owners had overlooked and left behind, along with carvings and decorations that hinted at the culture of those who had used them. And then—
“Sand.”
“What about the sand? There’s sand everywhere.”
“The sand on this beach is pure white and coarse. Look at this, though—yellow, and the grains are extremely fine.”
Chester scraped a handful together and let it sift through his fingers. It poured away as smoothly as water that could not be held.
“Desert sand. And here.”
He pointed to the carvings remaining on the hull.
“Warriors riding giant lizards. Is that a cactus? Their hair looks like scorpion tails. A tribe that sees themselves as scorpions, it seems.”
Among the objects he uncovered were necklaces of dried bone and bracelets shaped like scorpions.
“There are trees in a desert?”
“Even if there are, they’d be rare. Look—the color here is a little different.”
Monia studied the spot, then nodded in understanding.
“This is blood.”
“Yeah. They probably killed the sailor who wrecked the ship. A vessel built of precious wood, used by people who sail far out to hunt—the ship would be their lifeline. They couldn’t forgive anyone who dared damage something so valuable, so they killed him.”
Chester examined the bloodstains a moment longer, then scanned the surroundings and fixed his gaze in one direction.
“Around here, maybe? The wind would have covered it with sand, so it shouldn’t be deep.”
“What shouldn’t?”
He took a stick and began jabbing and sweeping the sand. When he felt something crack under the tip, he dug. A skull emerged, one eye socket shattered by his prodding.
A primitive tribe.
There were signs of “surgery” on the skull. Chester studied the marks carved into the bone—likely cut after the scalp had been peeled back to drive out some illness.
The cut edges are rough.
Next he examined the severed neck. Time and sand had abraded the surface, yet deeper, more fundamental roughness remained—evidence of a crude, repeated hacking.
Not a tribe with swords good enough or strong enough for clean beheading. You can see they tried several times.
Studying the nicks left on the vertebrae, Chester pieced together the lives of the unknown desert people beyond the sea.
Do they still practice cannibalism?
That was the greatest worry.
Without cannibalism, outsiders were not immediately rejected. A stranger who could teach unknown knowledge or skills was a valuable guest—treated well, never killed. Cannibal tribes were different. Even they did not necessarily try to eat every human they met.
Though some closed-off tribes do try to kill every outsider on sight.
At least these people were not that sort. Cannibals or not, they had traded enough with outsiders to learn shipbuilding.
Chester examined the one human figure whose hair was not shaped like a scorpion’s tail—a carving of a man building a ship while speaking. Almost certainly the outsider who had taught them the craft.
I hope they’re not cannibals.
None of the remaining carvings hinted at such a custom. Even if they were cannibals, careful dealings might let the family pass safely—yet they would still have to risk not knowing what might provoke an attack.
Better not to meet them at all.
He wanted Monia to experience the world and see beautiful things, not risk a “primitive-tribe cultural exchange” that might end in being eaten.
Not every primitive people is like the People of the Summit, after all.
Considering their cultural level, the People of the Summit were surprisingly refined and intelligent. True, their worship of strength and hunting meant they were always ready to fight and smash everything around them, but they had accepted him as family; he could overlook that much.
“No more information to be had.”
Chester shared his deductions with the family, then said,
“Until we know how vast the desert is, I don’t think heading straight that way is wise. What do you think?”
“But if we go somewhere else we still won’t know whether we’ll find a continent.”
“Mm. That’s true.”
“Besides, going to the desert doesn’t guarantee we’ll meet that tribe. And if they can build ships, there must be a water source big enough for trees to grow, right?”
As Monia continued, Chester smiled with satisfaction and nodded.
She had once hesitated, reluctant to leave the island; now that they had set out, she was ready to press forward without restraint. Exactly as he had taught her.
Decide carefully. Act boldly.
In their present situation three paths lay open: return to the Floating Island, sail toward the desert land, or continue an endless drift. Settling on the long island would make four, but neither Chester nor Monia would choose that when the far superior Floating Island existed; it was no real option.
“Let’s go,” Monia said.
“Let’s keep going. We’ve already started this journey—so we won’t stop. We’ll keep moving forward.”
Chester nodded.
“All right. Let’s go.”
They used the sea to bring the raft they had left on the far side of the island around to the beach, spent one more night on the island, and then set out in the direction Rex had seen the settled ship take.
To farther seas.