The Wizards 1: Combat Wizard

by Jack L Knapp

  I was alone. I had near-perfect freedom, I could live or die, I could prosper or fail.

  I was a very small entity surrounded by a very large and dangerous world and there was no way back, even if I had wanted to go.

  Chapter 1

  I had never felt so alone, so much in danger, in my life. I had no idea of where I was. I was on Earth, sure, but a planet is huge when you’re on foot. I could be anywhere in one of the temperate-to-subtropical zones, based on the vegetation I was seeing.

  I was not well equipped for survival in any of them.

  No shelter. No food. I was wearing what the Futurist had provided, clothing. a good knife, and an oversized hatchet. Other than that, I had a brain with real memories and some that had been implanted. I was also young, healthy, and fit.

  The time appeared to be late morning, judging by the sun. The sky was partly cloudy and I could feel a faint breeze. The temperature was comfortably warm and the air was humid.

  Transplanting had dropped me in a small clearing surrounded by trees, mixed hardwoods the dominant type. Low bushes grew around me and there were berry vines near the edge of the clearing. I sank down until my head was just above the bushes and looked around, examining my surroundings.

  I would need to move soon; any feeling of safety gained from hiding in the bushes was an illusion. So I moved upwind, keeping concealed as much as I could. When I got to the edge of the clearing, I could hear faint forest sounds, the rustling of leaves and occasional chirps from insects or birds. Something, far off, made a chattering noise.

  None of the great animals of this time had reason to be wary of humans, so I was prey, not predator. Even rabbits had better hearing, as well as greater speed and agility. I had a better brain, but at the moment that didn’t fill me with confidence.

  Survival of the fittest was the rule here; Darwin's principle controlled my life now, and would for the foreseeable future.

  I needed water, food, and shelter, in that order, but I would soon need fire and better weapons. I would also need tools, but they could wait.

  Water would be found downhill, so I headed down the slight slope, remaining watchful of the breeze. Moving air would carry my scent, and if a predator was downwind I could expect him to follow his nose. More imperative than the search for water was the need to avoid becoming a big cat's dinner; I was no match for a cat, a bear or a dire wolf.

  I moved upwind, so if there was danger I would at least have the advantage of surprise. I also kept a watch downwind for anything that might be following the same plan I was.

  I would be a scavenger when possible and a grazer on berries, nuts, and vegetation the rest of the time. This truly was a world where only the fittest survived, Darwin's World. I grinned; the Futurist had called his planet Earth Prime, and now my version had a name too.

  My first weapons would be a club, a spear, and strings. The first club could be a simple thick piece of wood; the spear would also be crude because I needed something now and I couldn’t take the time to make it better. The strings would be used for traps and snares, and it could also be woven into a bag for carrying things.

  If I found a relatively safe spot I could immediately set a deadfall trap, which requires almost no material or equipment, but first I would need a club and a spear. With traps and a spear to kill what I caught, I would be hunter as well as hunted. The knife and axe were in-close weapons, nothing I wanted to face a cat or bear with; so until I got better armament, my only options were hiding, climbing, or running to escape danger.

  The idea of hunting, of killing even a deer, was laughable; sneak up on him and chop him with my axe? Stick him with my knife? He would be more likely to stomp me into a bloody paste!

  Bears could climb, at least some of them could, but I could climb higher and farther out onto limbs that wouldn’t support a bear. So I began watching for trees that I could climb in a hurry.

  I also looked for small, straight trees that could be worked easily with my simple tools.

  I soon spotted a sapling, tall, straight, and a little thinner than my wrist. It appeared not to have knots in the main trunk that would make it too weak to be usable. The axe made short work of cutting through the trunk and trimming the top to length. A few additional chops left a sharp point at the thicker end; I had my first primitive spear. Unlike the knife and axe, I could use the spear without having to close inside reach of an animal's teeth or claws. Remaining out of range, while still able to inflict lethal wounds, increased my chances of survival.

  There was a small stream ahead of me, but I looked warily around before approaching it. Water sources are dangerous; predators drink from them and they often hunt nearby. Nervous because of being near the water, I drank quickly by scooping up the water in a cupped hand. Even while drinking, I looked for a tree I could climb.

  I saw a large tree thirty yards ahead of me, smooth of bark and with low, spreading branches. I could see some sort of fruit hanging high in the canopy although I saw none on the lower limbs. Had something eaten the low-hanging fruit? I decided the lack of low fruit meant that the upper ones were likely edible.

  I began climbing, making an awkward job of it. But I wasn’t going to leave my spear, in case some animal did climb after me. Hopefully the spear would discourage such before it got within knife range.

  The fruits were finally in reach; some kind of fig, perhaps? These were smaller than the ones I’d eaten downtime, in my previous life, but they tasted better. I quickly learned to distinguish ‘ripe’ from ‘not ripe’ by the color. Not ripe also meant not tasty. My first attempt to eat fruit that was less than ripe left my lips puckered.

  The tree divided into two main branches midway up the trunk. One of the branches, about two feet in diameter, had a smaller but still substantial limb extending to the right, and another a few inches farther on that projected to the left. Using my axe, I collected thinner limbs with the necessary length and wove them through the three branches. This made a crude platform where I could sit while I worked, and it would also serve later for sleeping. The platform was not particularly comfortable, but nothing was going to approach unseen. I sat down and began working on my spear.

  I used my knife to trim the shaft. Half an hour later, it was done; the finished spear was slightly longer than six feet, tapered still but less so than had been the case when I cut the sapling.

  It was crude; there was no other word for the spear. But it was better than nothing.

  The forest around me wasn’t true jungle, but the leaves of the low-growing plants beneath the trees tended to be large. I knew I could find a number of uses for them. Some would be toilet wipes, necessary soon because the figs had left me with an urgent need to go.

  I added this lesson to my memories; beware of eating too much fruit, especially unripe fruit!

  I climbed down, did what was necessary and used some of the leaves to clean myself. I gathered others before climbing back to my platform ‘home’.

  Pounding on the leaves, using a chopped off branch for a hammer and another limb for a work surface, loosened the long fibers from the matrix. I extracted as many as possible, then dumped the remaining material on my platform, making it more comfortable for sleeping.

  As soon as I had enough of the fibers, I began making string. The result was almost as thick as my little finger, fuzzy where I had spliced in fibers, and yet quite strong.

  #

  The next morning found me hungry but wary of eating more figs. Not quite diarrhea, but I was certainly very loose! Still, it wasn't a total failure; I had discovered that the green figs had a kind of milky, sticky sap that I could use for sticking things together. I had a number of projects in mind and glue would be helpful.

  Back at the tiny stream, I drank and examined the bottom carefully.

  A large rock near the edge of the stream looked promising, so I turned it over and grabbed a crayfish before he could scuttle backwards to deeper water. He managed to snap a pincer closed on my finger but I rep
aid his impertinence by eating him raw. There were also insect nymphs in the leaf litter on the bottom and I ate those too. I was hungry, not fussy.

  I moved upstream and kept looking.

  I crept around a small bend in the stream and found a treasure. A small turtle was sunning himself on a large fallen tree. The animal would provide a crude pot as well as a meal, if I could catch him.

  I swung my spear shaft, knocked him onto the land, and grabbed him as he scrabbled to turn himself upright.

  Raw, or cooked? I decided to cook the turtle, but that meant I needed a fire.

  I knew the theory but had never practiced it before. Finely-crushed dry material from inside a piece of fallen birch bark made my tinder. I shaved the straightest of the dried branches for my upright piece, then carved a starter hollow in the other, larger one. A carved channel led from the hollow to where my tinder was stacked, and I was ready to begin. The turtle was waiting and I was hungry.

  There are easier ways to make a fire, but they require things like flint and steel. I didn't have those, so I went to work using what I had. Hold the stick upright with the point in the hollow, holding my feet on the large stick to keep it stable. Palms on the sides of the upright near the top, then press downward hard and spin the upright piece back-and-forth as my hands slipped down the vertical stick.

  Eventually, I got a tiny spark in the powdered residue from the friction of branch rubbing against branch. The spark fell through the gap I'd carved and into the channel. The tinder smoldered and I blew very carefully on the spark. Soon the first small flames appeared and I carefully added wood, small twigs first, then larger pieces.

  Humans love fire, other animals don’t. For the first time since I arrived here, I felt safe.

  I lopped off the turtle’s head (turn him over, wait until he sticks his head out, fast swipe with the knife) and let the carcass bleed out. I would soon learn to drink the blood as a source of salt and additional nutrition, but for now, I simply cleaned the entrails from the turtle.

  Turtles stink when you open the shell, but I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I made a quick trip to the stream and washed the turtle thoroughly, then made a hasty retreat back to my fire.

  The turtle was soon cooked, more or less, and I ate him. The bones were small, but I saved them; I would find a use for them at some point. I hardened the tip of my spear in the coals, then fashioned a sling. Scraping the live coals together and covering them with ashes, I hoped they would still be hot enough tomorrow morning to start a new fire. I scraped dirt over the coals to preserve the heat.

  I collected more of the birch-bark before I climbed a tree to spend the night; the bark had long fibers that I could extract. I did so, then made more string, smaller but still strong. Now I had enough for a safety loop to keep from rolling off the platform in my sleep. The powdered bark remnants I scattered over the woven branches of my second platform home.

  The trees offered concealment and a place to sleep in relative safety, plus a refuge from predators, but that was all; I needed a better location, one with small animals I could trap and fish I could catch.

  My first crude spear was better than nothing, but that wasn’t saying a lot; the wooden shaft had begun to dry, and overnight it warped. I could still use it, but the second one would be better.

  I had lined the turtle shell with a thin layer of mud before sleeping. This had dried overnight and I would use it to carry fire. I hoped I didn’t have to make another fire from scratch, at least not right away. Still, I could if I needed to, and next time I could use my string to make a fire drill rather than use my still-tender palms.

  The briars from the original clearing had been blackberries and the ripe fruit proved quite tasty. This told me that the season was sometime in early summer, probably June or early July. It meant I could count on having perhaps four months before cold weather became a problem.

  From the size of the trees, I was somewhere in southern North America. That meant the Gulf of Mexico was to the south. Some of the oaks I’d seen were distinctive, among them southern live oaks with their wide spreading branches. I’d seen magnolia trees too. It seemed familiar, the kind of country where I’d grown up downtime.

  I might have a better chance of surviving near the Gulf. The fruits and berries I'd been eating wouldn't last through the winter. There would be clams, crabs, and fish along the shore, none of them difficult to catch. I would also need salt, and I could evaporate that from seawater at need.

  This area might be eastern Texas, or western Louisiana downtime. That meant that I could head southwest, avoid the worst of the swamps, and hopefully reach the Gulf within a few days. I might also go northwest and reach the mountains. To the east lay hundreds of miles of forest, much of it like this area, and offering no advantages that I wouldn't have if I built a winter home and remained here. There were also huge rivers to the east, very dangerous obstacles for a lone man to cross.

  Heavy forest, the kind where I now stood, was not my preferred habitat. I had good vision, not particularly useful because I could only see a few yards in any direction. A large predator might be lurking just out of sight. Predators in the deep woods use scent and hearing more than sight, which gives them an advantage I lack. They tend to ambush prey, and many could climb nearly as well as I could.

  The only advantage the thick forest offered was summer foods like the figs and nuts. There was timber for building a shelter and for improved weaponry, but large game would be scarce. The forest didn't provide enough grass to support grazing, and in any case, there was too much cover to make hunting easy.

  I would also need to seek out other humans at some point.

  Ensuring my survival was the first priority, but I intended to rise above the bare-subsistence stage before I found others. Otherwise, why would they welcome me, hungry and probably ragged by then, if they had managed to do better?

  #

  Routine took over; travel, look for anything I could find to eat, find a place I could sleep at night, and work on improving my equipment in the afternoon.

  I had tied my strings into a passable net bag, crude as all my first efforts were, but it would serve. I lined it with wide green leaves and put my turtle shell with its live coals into the bag, then tightened a drawstring around the top. The drawstring loop I secured to my belt before I picked up my spear and headed southwest.

  I had been nervous, even fearful, during the first few days spent on this survive-or-perish world. But now I had a weapon, the replacement for my early effort.

  I had not yet seen any of the predators, but I knew they were out there, so while I was more confident now, I was still wary, still prepared to run or climb.

  I was also prepared to sleep on the ground if for some reason I needed to, relying on my fire for protection. But cloudy skies were more common than clear, and there had been a few light showers. A rain during the night might drown my fire, leaving me nearly defenseless if I was on the ground, so I remained in the trees at night even though it was less comfortable.

  If my food was mostly the sort of thing I’d have rejected in my earlier life, still, it was keeping me alive and well fed. I wasn’t losing weight; the clothing I’d been given by the Futurist still fit me and was holding up well.

  I had adapted.

  Darwin’s World was home.

  Books by the author:

  The Wizards Series

  Combat Wizard (http://www.amazon.com/Combat-Wizard-Paranormal-Thriller-Wizards-ebook/dp/B00J2HMUX2/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

  Wizard at Work (http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Work-Paranormal-Thriller-Wizards-ebook/dp/B00J6OO42G/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1426612232&sr=8-6&keywords=jack+l+knapp)

  Talent (http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Paranormal-Thriller-Wizards-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00MJ5LBL6/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1867GH2RHV288CM62RXK)

  Veil of Time (forthcoming)

  The Darwin’s World Series:

  Darwin’s World (http://www.amazon.com/Darwins-World-Epic-Survival-Book-ebook/d
p/B00K1PWI6S/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

  The Trek (http://www.amazon.com/Trek-Darwins-World-Book-II-ebook/dp/B00KNE07IS/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

  Home (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Book-Three-Darwins-World-ebook/dp/B00TCZBVWK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423487128&sr=8-1&keywords=Home+by+Jack+L+Knapp)

  Novella

  Hands (http://www.amazon.com/Hands-Novella-Jack-L-Knapp-ebook/dp/B00NVZU9KC/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

  Short Stories

  Ants (http://www.amazon.com/Ants-Jack-L-Knapp-ebook/dp/B00LG3BLLC/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

  About the Author:

  Jack Knapp is a former soldier and science teacher, now a novelist and blogger. He’s a member of Mensa and the Society for Creative Anachronism.

  He’s reinvented himself a number of times over the years. Currently Jack is a novelist and an amateur scientist, musician, photographer, and commentator on national and international affairs.

  Jack retired (twice) before becoming a full-time caregiver for a disabled adult son. That kept him at home but didn’t occupy his time, so he turned to writing.

  http://jlknapp505.com (nonfiction essays)

  http://jacklknapp.com (topics in writing and publishing)