Dag: Predator's Ground

Isle of the Gash B'zee

by Rod Hunsicker

The tide washed him ashore, still clinging to a shattered piece of tree bough, and deposited him on the wet gray sand like a broken mollusk shell. Semi-conscious, his body recognized the sand's solidity and began to gratefully inch away from the water where he had been cast adrift several days ago. He continued to crawl mindlessly until he reached vegetation. Then he stopped and fell into an exhausted slumber.

When he awoke he heard nothing: no insects, no birds, no animals. Only the wind rustling through the branches of the tall palm trees and the scrub vegetation that outlined the beach. He was tired and starving, but even more that that he was overwhelmed by a terrible emptiness in his heart that kept him lying on the sand for a long time. Dominating his thoughts was the image of his mate-to-be, Cor-li. Her raven hair falling in midnight waves down her back. Black eyes set like jewels above a pretty straight nose and succulent red lips. And as he mused over her lovely features he remembered the way she walked and the way she talked, and the sweet things she said to him when they were alone. Where was she now? Was she dead? Were all his people truly dead?

Eventually, the vitality of his people sat him up, and he took a deep breath. Overhead the sun was high in the sky. It seemed different to him, not the low hanging red orb it usually was. Now it was lighter in color as if it had painted its face yellow. And the air was a bit cooler than he had remembered it. Dag shrugged and with a practical turn of his mind dismissed all extraneous musing. Since he still had strength his first order of business was to procure weapons. After that he must hunt.

It took him the better part of the morning to find the right wood. There was no flint to be found for a spear head. Fortunately he still had a small cutting tool in his utility pouch tied to his loincloth and used that to shave a sharp point on a shaft. Later he hardened the point with fire. He had no gods to thank, but was none the less thankful that he had retained his pouch through his days of floating in the Restless Sea.

He had to range deeply into the primordial forest to find something to kill. The shock that had shook the world had also silenced it. What life remained had gone into hiding. In the end he was forced to dig up a burrower and kill it with his stick. Ravenous, he tore the small brown creature apart with his sharp teeth and feasted on its meager red flesh.

He found fresh water in a small pool. Standing in the island forest he was amazed at its peacefulness. It was a rare occasion for one of his kind to be feel safe. His was a world of savage predators and skittish prey. For the moment all the predators were gone.

With the needs of his body fulfilled, Dag began to wonder what had happened. Memories of the disaster burst through a dam in his mind, and he remembered the horror of the cataclysm that had destroyed his people, the Cliff Dwellers. While most of his tribe had been in their caves when some obscenely shattering force had tore away the rock face of their home on the cliffs, Dag had been on the beach several miles away. After the mountain had lifted into the sky and came back down again, a monstrous tidal wave had hit the beach of the Restless Sea. Dag remembered being tossed into the air, then he hit something, and his next memory had been clinging to a large branch that had been flung into the ocean at the same time as he had.

Dag trembled as he considered the possibility that his entire tribe had been killed in the cataclysm. Again, a terrible feeling of loneliness possessed him. He leaned back and pressed up against the sturdy trunk of a nearby tree. He waited. Soon the feeling was pushed aside by the sights, smells and sounds of the forest-jungle. He opened his eyes and looked up at the sky through a low canopy of leaves. Dag was angry with himself for allowing sentiment to make him foolish. While he had been standing with his eyes shut and his mind filled with emotion he had been prey for whatever predators that might be hiding on this strange island. He spit on the ground in disgust and began to search for a place to spend the night safely.

He found a large tree with a forked branch thirty feet up. Dag climbed the tree with the agility of a monkey and propped himself in its branches. The sun fell in the western sky, and soon the Cliff Dweller was asleep, though he kept one ear open to listen for danger as the starless night progressed.

Dag dropped to the ground and dog-trotted toward the small pond several yards away. A strange smell reached his nostrils, halting him in his tracks, and he poised motionless as he tried to identify it. It was vaguely reptilian, though not a true reptile scent, and Dag was certain it was a hairless beast. Whatever the origin of the scent it caused great alarm in the Cliff Dweller. With the suddenness of a slap, Dag realized he was in great danger. The short hairs under his black mane stiffened, his black eyes narrowed and glared, and his lip curled back and away from his fighting fangs.

Something sprinted through the tall grass. Dag wheeled and shoved his spear into a green feathered hide, while he sidestepped a slashing foot claw. The creature snaked its head at Dag's face. The Cliff Dweller snapped his head back reflexively and picked the squealing creature up in the air where he held it above his head, impaled on his spear.

All this had happened in a few seconds. There were more of the creatures; a pack of them around Dag. They were odd, birdlike beasts with reptilian features; some sort of combination of both classifications of animal. Although they were not large, none of them a single match for the Cliff Dweller, as a pack they could bring him down. Dag realized his only chance to survive was to reach the trees. To think was to act. Using the dying creature on his spear as a battering ram, Dag pushed his way through the ring of predators and dashed for the nearest tree. They raced behind him, and nearly caught him before he tossed the slain creature behind him to give them pause. Then with a mighty leap, Dag hurtled into the tree and quickly scaled to the top.

They tried to follow him up the tree, scratching with their clawed fingers and toes, grasping with fingers that were not designed for climbing. As a squirrel climbs, so did these little monsters, though slower and no match for the nimble Cliff Dweller. With a mocking laugh, Dag perched on a high bough and watched their feeble attempts to reach him. He took the time to study them for he had never seen a beast such as they before. None of them were more than four feet tall, many were less, and their average weight was about 70 or 80 lb. Each beast was too small to slay a man on its own, even with the great 4 or 5 inch claws that sprouted from high on their feet, nearly at the ankle junction. And though they were feathered, they had arms rather than wings and could not fly. Nor did they have beaks; instead they had a reptilian face with small sharp teeth in this widely gaping mouth. But what bothered Dag most was the intelligent look in their yellow brown eyes. They screeched, clucked and cawed at each other, and Dag was left with the impression that they were communicating on a level greater than the barks and whines of wolves, a pack animal Dag was very familiar with. In their eyes was an unholy awareness that the Cliff Dweller found disturbing, because in his human soul he feared the rise of intelligence in any animal other than Man.

Fear was an unfamiliar intruder in Dag's mind. If he had possessed spears, he would have flung them at the bird-tiles, a word that sprung into his mind as he observed these new creatures. Since his weaponry was poor, nearly nonexistent, the Cliff Dweller decided that it would be better to just escape the little monsters. With casual ease, Dag brachiated away from the bird-tiles, and though they scurried on the ground with the intention of keeping up with him, eventually he lost them in the thickness of the jungle growth.

The next day Dag made new weapons. His first was a long handled stone axe. As for spears, few sharpened sticks would have to do until he found the proper tools to make better spears. Then he set out to scrounge up some food. A lucky cast brought down a bird, and Dag satisfied his hunger. In the trees were fruits that he was familiar with, and in the undergrowth he dug up edible roots and bulbs.

On the ground he kept an apprehensive eye out for the bird-tiles. He made sure he was never far from a lofty tree.

In mid afternoon he found a group of gibbons. In the Niocene World, these apes were a bit bigger than those of later ages, though they were none the less agile than any other arboreal simian in the upper terraces of the trees. When he approached them they behaved as if they had never seen a man before. He spent some time familiarizing the apes to his presence before he engaged them in a 'conversation'.

"Yo, eta-mangani (friends little apes)," he greeted them. "Popo vando? (is the food around here good?)"

"Vando popo (good food)," admitted one of the gibbons. "Jar-mangani yo? (is the strange ape a friend?)"

"Dag yo (Dag is a friend)," replied the Cliff Dweller. "Ho-jar-mangani yel? (are there other apes like me here?)"

"Tand jar-mangani (there are no apes like you around.)," grunted the conversational gibbon. They spoke in the universal language of the apes. It was a primordial tongue that had existed from the birth of the first ape and would endure until the death of the last.

This was sad news for the Cliff Dweller. Often these little men of the forests were carriers of valuable knowledge. They ranged far and wide and saw many things. If they had never seen a man before, then it meant that other men were very far away.

Suddenly one of the gibbons cried out a warning. Dag turned to see what had alarmed the gibbon and saw it pointing to the ground. A small pack of bird-tiles were pulling down a small forest deer. The Cliff Dweller admired their swift work, noting how the birdlike predators preferred to slice at the legs of their prey, crippling it; which made their prey easy to kill.

"Sord gash-b'zee," said the gibbon who had been talking to Dag. "Bad fang foot". Dag nodded grimly at how true that descriptive name rang.

"Ho gash-b'zee? (Are their many fang feet?)," asked Dag.

"Ho, ho gash-b'zee (there are many fang feet). Sord korak (very bad killers)," said the gibbon.

'Yes," murmured the Cliff Dweller, "I am beginning to see that." Dag spent a few more minutes with the gibbons before going his own way. He saw that way were safe from the gash-b'zee if they kept to the trees. And so it would be for him, though it irritated him that he should avoid any menace as if he feared it.

Dag roamed the forest-jungle through the rest of the day as he sought to learn as much as possible about the area he was now in. When the sun was swallowed by the western sky he made a nest in a high tree and went to sleep.

Faintly, he heard a distant scratching sound. Dag stirred from a sound sleep and turned on his side to find a more comfortable position when he opened his eyes to the dim light of a pre-morning sky. Alarm seized his heart and groin and galvanized him into action. Inches away from his face was the fanged snout of one of the gash-b'zee, open and ready to bite him. With desperate audacity, Dag smashed his forehead into the birdlike killer's nose. Its head snapped back from the sudden impact; it screeched, bit at Dag's face and scrambled to maintain its balance on the tree branch where it was partially anchored by its claws. The Cliff Dweller belted the bird-tile with a heavy left hand, and the force of his blow hurled it into the air in a shower of torn bark. It fell to its death after bouncing off several large boughs on the way down.

Wiping the blood from his lacerated face, Dag saw that there were more of the gash-b'zee in the tree. Apparently they had clawed their way up to him while he slept. Had he been so tired that he had not heard them? Or had they come up so slowly and carefully that they had made no sound? Dag backed away from the killing glean in their eyes, his hand groping for the heavy stone axe he had made the day before. One of them leaped upon a thick, broad branch and ran along its length to attack the Cliff Dweller. It came delicately and fearlessly, its only goal was to attack the man. Dag swung his long handled club like a baseball bat and crushed the bird-tile's skull. He kicked its body off the branch and leaped up to put himself above the remaining gash-b'zees, who were beginning to swarm onto his nest.

The young Cliff Dweller considered retreat. It was clear that the bird-tiles were no match for his nearly simian arboreal agility. He squatted on a bough, perching his chin on his knees as he studied the killers. . He could feel their resentment towards his untimely awakening. They squeaked, whistled and screeched; the were so angry and displeased at his escape. Dag's own resentment grew as he brooded on their aggression and invasion of his territory. Suddenly he roared in unabashed fury and leaped upon them, swinging his heavy club, growling and snarling like a beast wilder and more ferocious then they were. The stone head of his axe crushed bones and smashed flesh and muscle, and the Cliff Dweller slew and slew until they had all been either squashed and broken against ragged tree limbs or hurled to the ground below. Dag looked down at the ground and saw a score of the bird-tile killers staring up at him. The rest of the pack ignored those of them that had been slain and continued to glare at the Cliff Dweller with raw malevolence. Dag sneered at them and began to laugh.

He roared again. This time not in fury, but in victory. Though hampered by the treacherous footing of the tree branches, he stepped to his victory dance and laughed at those he had slain. He was a Cliff Dweller, a slayer of mighty beasts, never a victim, and always a man to be feared. And when his dance was over he spit down at the gash-b'zee and barely resisted the temptation to leap down upon them and continue his grisly work. Fortunately he retained enough sense to remember that these bird-tiles were a much more deadly foe on the ground.

He was bleeding from a dozen bites and a few claw slashes. He would die from none of them, so he hurled himself through the upper terraces of the jungle-forest until he had put a great distance between himself and his new enemies. Later he descended and washed his wounds at a small, clear pond.

Several days later he returned to the beach. He was grateful for the sun warmed sand beneath his bare, heavily calloused feet, as the nights had been strangely chilled. He kept an eye out for his new enemy, the gash-b'zee, and though they had a healthy respect for him since he had killed many of their numbers in the trees, they were fearless predators and would not hesitate to attack him if they found him on the ground.

His keen eyes searched the ocean as if he expected something to come to him in the same manner as he had come to this strange place. The ocean was empty. Dag turned and returned to the jungle.

Every few days he went back to the beach. He didn't know why, unless it was a foolish hope that the ocean would deliver others like himself from its endless mysteries. He was not a religious man. He worshiped no gods; he bent his knee to no ideologies other than the good, wholesome customs of his people. There was no supernatural agency he could call upon to aid him in solving his problems or alleviating his loneliness. He had only his practicality to help him. He wanted to return to the sea and sail back to the Cliffs, but he didn't know how to make a boat such as the Boat Builders had been able to make. Many days ago, before the disaster that had shattered his world, his people had descended upon the Boat Builders in an attempt to rescue, Nu, Dag's best friend, who had been captured by them and was destined to be tortured. The Boat Builders fell easily to the mighty Cliff Dwellers, but Dag had never thought to ask the defeated people of the waterways how they made their canoes and larger boats. His people were not given to excess labor; the thought of building a boat was a thought that very few of the noble Cliff Dwellers would ever seriously consider. They were a race of proud hunters and fighters.

So he waited. He lived day to day and waited. And waited......

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