PoraBora

Chapter Thirty-Six

It was harder to follow the fowl at night.

The day had been a jungle for Pora, searching through ferns and fruit trees for fowl that might lead him to his goal. He had found plenty of the birds, but they had been plenty enough everywhere, leading him no closer to Maye.

Night had fallen to spare him warmer temperatures and searching warriors, but it put the fowl to roost and left him with less to go on.

Pora sighed as he brushed through the undergrowth like an idle reef fish. The island had grown quiet. The cannonades had stopped, the villagers had settled their way back to their villages, and the birds had gone to rest. He heard rustlings in the leaves, by wind and animal, and the chirping of insects, but little else.

At least the moon was bright and half full, breaking through the moderate canopy the best it could. Pora crept carefully, concerned more with disturbing something sleeping than he was with being found. It had been a long time since he had stepped through the jungle of Wai Polu, but he treated it the same as he would exploring a reef: cautious steps, slow, calculated movement, and respect for flora and fauna alike.

Pora yawned. He'd barely slept the night of the landing, but the vibrant forest had given him plenty to eat, from bananas to papaya. He yawned again. Not yet, he thought. He still had so much to do. Including solving the question of what and how to do it.

Stop them from getting Maye. Stop them from finding Maye? Pora found a place to sit on a fallen koa tree. Maybe he didn't have to do anything. Maybe if he couldn't find the god, they couldn't either. He closed his eyes, telling himself it was so that he could hear better but knowing it was because he was tired. Maye would still be hidden in the morning. The warriors had gone back to their villages, and there were no lanterns that he could see from when he'd still been climbing the crest.

Naïve, he thought. It was naïve to even think he could rest, when resting had destroyed his island. If he wasn't doing, he wasn't doing enough. Pora got back to his feet. He had no light to look through the branches for roosting fowl, but that had never been a path. It had been a maze.

Still, it was all he had to try. Pora looked up, following the branches to see if any fowl were up with their heads put away.

All he found was the sky, trickling through the canopy to reveal no squatting shapes.

If only Tota could fly up and tell Pora what he found. But Tota had stayed at an empty beach, where no warriors fired their weapons and no oil drained from battered wells.

Thinking about the spillage and the debris redoubled Pora's efforts, his anger, and his search.

It took him to the crest again, which he climbed to the top of in the hopes that there would be something to see. Maybe even Maye himself, neck pointed above the trees and face open to the stars. At least he was free of the shadows as he made his way up the island, trees below.

When he could climb no higher, he looked around again. To the west, the island dunked into Li'hili. To the east, it gradually flattened into Kahule. Maye would not be in either, Pora supposed. Unless he was being held captive in the great hall. It would explain the size of it. But he was a long way from the village. It had taken him hours to get through the jungle, and he was loathe to take hours more just to find out his wild guess had been wrong.

Then be wrong, he thought. Be tired. It's what you deserve.

Pora stewed as he dropped to a squat, scanning the canopy and ridgeline with his eyes. There must be some hint, he thought. Something to lead him to the god....