When The Elder spoke it was through a series of grunts and clicking noises that came from deep within its throat.
The humans they had slaughtered would not have understood what he was saying, but the natives did because they shared a common language. Their language was old when Atlantis was young, was ancient when the natives first reached this island. “You are not truthful when you say that these newcomers threatened you with violence. I can smell the lie on you. It oozes from your very pores. Our kind has allowed you to live on this island since you climbed down from the trees. You have served as guardians. Some of you have served as sacrifices. You have done this in accordance with that which is written on the clay tablets of R’lyeh. In return, we have given you the gift your people crave more than anything: your miserable, wretched lives. And what do you show for your gratitude?”
The native shook his head, his fear palpable. His fellow natives were backing away. They appeared ready to bolt. “Please, oh esteemed one!” the native said again, his voice pleading. “You are our Masters! We are here to serve you! Tell us how we may redeem ourselves! We will do anything you ask! We throw ourselves at your mercy!”
“Mercy?” the Elder barked. If the Elder had the vocal capabilities for laughter, it would have laughed long and hard at this foolish human. “You have the audacity to ask for mercy? After allowing these humans to defile the holy site of Dagon with their presence? You know all too well what these mainlanders have done to our kind in the recent past. They tried to exterminate our race. Yet you welcomed them.”
The native trembled. Sweat poured down his brow. He was practically stuttering as he attempted to placate the Dark One a final time. “There were too many of them, my Lord. We tried to chase them off the island, but to no avail! They have walked all over us, they have not given us the respect we have demanded of them.”
“Respect?”
“We told them that out of respect for our ways and our god that they were to leave this island. When they refused, we threatened them with death.”
“And you did not carry out your threats?”
“Wanabi warned us against it,” the native said. “He said that if we did, then even more mainlanders would arrive, and that they would capture us and try us according to their laws, and that the island would never be free of them again. So we watched. The mainlanders called more of their kind to Naranu. We tried to warn them again—”
“You didn’t try hard enough. And I’ve had enough of your excuses!”
“Please, oh Father! We ask for your mercy. I will gladly give my life to you…in return of…”
“Oh, I will have your life,” the Elder snarled. It stepped forward, pointing a taloned finger at the native. “I will have your life, as well as the lives of the rest of your pathetic tribe.”
The Elder roared to his soldiers. “Ia! Ia!”
The Dark Ones charged the circle of natives, who barely had time to turn around in an effort to flee before they were set upon.
The Elder leaped on the tribal chief’s back and slammed one clawed fist into the back of his head. The chief’s eyes and brain matter flew out the front of his skull, splashing on the sandy beach with a wet splat before his body spun and hit the ground. The Elder straddled him and sank his teeth into the soft hollow of his throat as his generals chased down the tribe’s remaining members. He bathed in the hot spray of blood, relishing the feel of it against his scales.
The Elder let his rage take over. He was blinded by it. As he let the rage carry him on, his mind went back over millennia, to other times when they’d had to slaughter Naranuans for similar offenses against Dagon. It was one thing to kill most of the tribe, leaving a few behind to repopulate the island; today, the Elder was bent on eliminating the tribe entirely—punishment for them allowing intruders here on this holiest of sites just as the stars were right to summon Dagon.
The Elder stopped mutilating the body of the tribal chief and leaped after the remaining, fleeing humans, joining his generals in the hunt. The rest of the tribe had not gotten very far. Most of them were already dead, lying in pools of blood, their sightless eyes staring up at a star-filled sky. Two of the generals were tugging at either end of a native as the man screamed. The skin of the man’s abdomen stretched, grew taut, then snapped, spilling wet entrails and blood on the beach with a great splash. The generals picked each piece up and began to devour the remains. The smells of blood and death and shit were heavy in the air as the last vestiges of the natives were similarly killed.
The Elder approached one of his generals, who was cornering one of the surviving humans against the edge of the jungle. The survivor was a young man, no older than sixteen. The boy’s face was smeared with ochre, his body nude save for a loincloth fashioned from vines and leaves. His hands were stained red with blood. The boy had given up being afraid and was trying to show courage. His eyes blazed, his lip curled upward in a snarl. The Elder grinned; in another time he might have let this one live. But not today. After the defilement the tribal chief had shown with this latest invasion, it stopped now.