Amongst the shingle, larger rocks saw water trapped, forming odd sorts of rock pools, like the ones that Oliver had seen on the beach near the Emerson Capital. Here, when Oliver stepped on them for a closer look, he saw the discarded shells of dozens of crayfish, from where the birds had beaten them against rocks with their beaks, and torn through the soft flesh beneath.
Despite the horrors of the battlefields that he had seen, and the many corpses he had seen scattered that very day, the sheer scale of the number of dead crayfish made him blink for a second. It almost seemed like an act done out of anger, rather than of hate.
"Comeeee onnnn. Come onnnnn. It's going to turn into something nasty, I do tell ya."
"Nasty nasty – no fancy of mine."
"Then hurry your boots. It's our job to deal with this, ain't it?"
"I'm hurrying my boots, but there's heaviness in this hammer, see?"
"It's your turn, though. You can't complain. Boooooo!"
