Dark Knight
Born on the volcano's slope the night the ash fell, and the black never washed out. It has held the burnt ground ever since. The three claw marks on its flank are from the last one that tried to take it.
Skins
Black from the volcano, red from the badlands, pale as the first to land. Soldiers and scientists too.
Founder
Before the herds came and before the first nest, one animal walked up out of the surf. It is the colour of old bone and dried mud, red in the eye, and it has been here longer than anything else alive on the island.
Ironstone
It grew up in the badlands' gullies, where the clay runs red after rain and the dust never settles. It walked down to the coast with the colour of the cliffs on its back and the riverbeds still caked to its knees.
Ridgeback
It grew up along the lowland rivers, crossing the shallows at dusk while the herds drank upstream. The old ones on the island say you see the ridge first, and by then it has already chosen.
Dark Ridgeback
It crossed the cinder fields the year the volcano woke and came out the colour of the burnt ground, ridge and horns gone to black horn. It hunts the edge of the ash, where the herds come up to graze the new growth.
Bone Ridgeback
The old-bone colours of the first animals on the Ridgeback's body. It walked the lowland rivers when there was nothing else on them, and the dark ridge down its back was the last thing many newcomers saw.
Iron Ridgeback
The badlands' colours on the Ridgeback's body. When the rains come it follows the dry gullies down out of the south, its ridge caked in red clay, and waits where they meet the river.
Stalker
A scaled raptor out of the badlands, where nothing wastes water on feathers. It runs with its head held dead still, and the herds on the plain have learned that the grey shape at the treeline is never there by accident.
Dark Knight
The pack chased it off for its colour before it was grown. It lived alone at the edge of the ash on what the big hunters left behind, and the scars across its snout are from the day it walked back in.
Founder
Pale feathers streaked with dark, quills the colour of dried blood. They were here before the forest closed over the lowland, and the trails they wore through it are the ones every animal still uses.
Founder Scaled
The old-bone colours of the first animals on the Stalker's scaled body, with mud on its feet and dried blood at its throat. One of the first to leave the dry country for the coast.
Ironstone
Raised in the dry beds south of the lake, where the shade is short and the water goes to whoever reaches it first. Years of rolling in the red dust have turned its feathers the colour of the rock.
Dark Knight
Every herd has one that stands with its head up while the others feed. This one has the marks on its neck and thigh from the night something had hold of it, and then didn't.
Founder
The first herds were hunted from the day they landed. This one carries the claw marks of something that had it and lost it, and it has been on its toes ever since.
Ironstone
Its herd crosses the badlands at a run, from one muddy hole to the next, and never stops long at any of them. It has the red clay to its knees and the dust of every crossing in its scales.
Dark Knight
An old bull from the burnt ground under the volcano, as black as the rock it grazes on. A tyrant raked its frill once. The bull is still here, and the herd walks behind it.
Founder
The bull that led the first herd from the beach up to the high meadows. Its horns have yellowed and the rim of its frill has gone dark, but the trails it opened are still the widest on the island.
Ironstone
An old bull from the red beds, ringed like the rock it grazes under. It walks the dry gullies down to water every evening, and the hunters there have learned to wait for something smaller.
Dark Knight
It nests in the soot-black cliffs above the lava coast, where nothing else will. The fish on the reef know its shadow, and by the time they see it, it has already taken what it came for.
Founder
Bone-pale, with ash-grey wings and a dark crest. Its kind has nested on the sea cliffs since before the volcano last woke, and it still flies the same line along the coast at dusk.
Ironstone
Its colony holds the ledges of the southern sea cliffs, where the clay stains everything that lands. It flies out over the gulf at first light and comes home dusted red.
Dark Knight
Black as the cinder mud it lies in, with horns where its kind have only knobs. The warm pools under the volcano are its own, and the bones along their banks say how long it has kept them.
Boarcroc
Leaner and longer in the skull than its cousins on the lake, with tusks that stand clear of the lips even when the mouth is shut. It lies in the reeds of the lowland river, and nothing drinks there twice without looking.
Founder Tusked
The old-bone colours of the first animals on the Boarcroc's tusked body. It claimed its stretch of the lowland river when there was nobody to argue with, and it has not moved far since.
Founder
Bone-pale under a coat of dried mud, with a red eye that shows just above the water. It has outlasted every dry season the island has thrown at it.
Ironstone
When the badlands dry out, one muddy pool lasts longest. It lies in that pool plastered in red clay to the eyes, and everything that comes to drink has to come past it.
Dark Knight
It has met every rival on the black ridge head-on, and the top of its dome is scraped pale from it. Nothing on the ridge challenges it any more, but every season something new comes up the slope and tries.
Founder
Bone-pale from dome to tail, its knobs yellowed with age and its beak worn dark at the edge. It held the high meadow against the first herds that came up from the beach, and the meadow is still its own.
Ironstone
It holds a ridge in the badlands where the rock lies in bands, and its dome is scraped pale from every rival that climbed up to it. The red dust has done the rest.
Desert
The expedition was kitted out for dry country and landed in jungle. The sand-coloured kit was what the stores had left, and the first squad off the boat wore it up the beach anyway, sleeves rolled and canteens full.
Urban
Whoever ordered these had streets in mind, not swamps. The grey and slate-blue cloth came off the carrier in sealed crates, and the crews who wear it swear it dries faster than anything else aboard.
Navy
Deck blue and grey, the colours of the people who keep MERIDIAN running: the ones who fuel the helicopters, man the guns and count the boats back in. When they go ashore, they go in what they work in.
Founder Scientist
The research station's founders came ashore in white field coats with the sleeves cut short, wide-brimmed hats and radios on their backs. They were the first to learn that a tablet does not slow a raptor down. Some of them carried a rifle anyway.
Field Scientist
I came over from Brazil for one season of counting nests on the beaches. Now I know where the herds drink, which trails the big ones use, and how far I can walk from the boat before it is time to turn back.
Desert
The motor pool repainted the whole fleet for a desert posting that never came. The trucks, the helicopters and the boats still wear it, chipped at the edges and gone pale where the salt has been at it.
Urban
Ordered with the grey kit for a city posting, then sent south with the rest of the carrier's load. Grey over darker grey, it shows every splash of mud the island gives it, and the crews have stopped washing it off.
Navy
The deck crews painted their vehicles to match the ship: navy hulls, grey trim, the carrier's number stencilled where it always was. On the island it marks a truck, a helicopter or a boat as MERIDIAN's own.
Founder Scientist
The survey crews asked for vehicles anyone could spot from the air, so the lab painted theirs white with a teal band. On the island that turned out to be a mixed blessing: the rescue flights found them first, and so did everything else.
Field Scientist
I asked for cream so the trucks would not bake in the sun, and a yellow line so the rescue flights could find us. The olive was the motor pool's idea, and the boat's blue stripe came from a tin someone had left over.