The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man

by Joe Darris

  The kingcrow descends with the sun rays. As the earth spins, the sun moves above the mountains on the far side of the caldera below them. Light spills upon the mountain face. The blade turns golden in the sun as it flies towards the kingcrow.

  Curse the sun and all its radiant beauty! The kingcrow shrieks an insult and Kao's perfect attack is foiled by glorious light. It illuminates the blade at the last moment, surprise is lost.

  The kingcrow reels high, calling and crowing to other members of its flock. They leap off the cliff and into the air. They build speed as they race the sunlight towards the bottom of the mountain before banking back up and returning to the calls of their leader.

  A dozen are in the air, soon there will be twice that.

  “Go!” Kao yells, but he knows in his gut that it is too late. The hermit is not sure footed enough on the steep slope. He can move rapidly, but the birds are faster, meaner, and hungry. They will not let an old man outrun them.

  The tribesmen must fight the birds, and Kao fears they will lose.

  So Kao scrambles towards the hermit. He leaps when he can, falls when he must, all the time he pumps pheromones into the air. He cannot drive away the entire flock, but if he can make them unsure of their prey, force them to hesitate, maybe he or the hermit will survive the morning.

  Undaunted, one of the birds flies in close. Kao lashes out with his prongblade. The edge finds flesh. The kingcrow shrieks and flies off in a cloud of feathers. He needed to kill it. It was a test and he failed.

  The flock dive bombs him and the hermit, one after the other. As soon as the hunter beats off one bird, the next's talons are already scratching at his back.

  Kao stabs his blade at them. He misses most, injures a few. He yowls and roars. If he wore the skull he had won, he would do better. There are dozens of prongs on it and Kao could make each find its mark. Instead, it prolongs the hermit's life. The old man clings to the rock face beneath the antlers and thick hide. The leather is tough and no talons pierce it, yet.

  The one-eyed kingcrow calls again, “Ca-Caro-CAWWW!” and the pace of attack quickens. No breaks between swipes of talons.

  They tear at his shoulders, his back. He swings the prongs embedded in his arm and connects. The bird crumples and tumbles down the mountainside. It crashes into the forest below. Kao hears bones snap as it falls. He vows he will not leave Father Mountain like that.

  The hermit is hidden now, surrounded in bodies and feathers. Kao hears the old man's screams and prays he is not injured. Kao tries to move down the cliff, but the kingcrows viciously peck and claw at each outstretched limb. They pin him in place. He can hardly see past their attacks or the mess of feathers he has clawed from them. He kicks out at a bird and knocks it breathless. It plummets to the earth. Finally, he catches a glimpse of the hermit. For a moment, no crows attack him.

  “No!” wrenches itself free from Kao's throat. One-eye drops from the sky and effortlessly scoops the hermit up in his talons. The Hidden's bird turns towards the bone-white totem. Kao's rope dangles from the hermit.

  The hunter has one chance.

  Kao howls and throws himself from the cliff face.

  For an adrenaline fueled moment Kao thinks he might catch the bird itself, but gravity catches him and he falls. His rope dangles in front of him, he snatches it and it snaps tight. One-eye turns to see what slows it. It deftly slices the rope with its beak.

  Gravity clutches Kao.

  He falls, clinging to a rope that is tied to nothing. The murder of kingcrows fall with him, each eager to take the kill for themselves now that their Alpha is gone.

  Kao reels in his rope then throws a loop out and around one the birds necks. In the air, the rope pulls Kao to the bird and the bird to Kao. They collide, and Kao pitches his leg over the bird's back and in front of its wing. He nestles the other down into place on the opposite side of he bird's body and kicks, hard.

  The kingcrow pumps its wings furiously, not wanting to be crushed under its meal's weight. Their fall slows, but they do not rise like One-eye and the hermit. Kao is much larger and his mount smaller. Instead of flying the two glide. Kao digs his heels into the bird, but no matter how hard the kingcrow struggles to throw its rider, the two fall together. They weigh too much for the bird's wings.

  Undaunted, Kao looks to the earth, now quickly approaching. The jungle below him no longer offers the protection he dreamed of. He looks beyond it to the river that divides the jungle from the fields that surround the bone-white Totem. They can make the distance, but the splash into water could be deadly. The kingcrow must break his fall.

  Kao reaches out far with each hand, and grabs the birds wings. He unhooks his feet from its body and lays on top of its back. His arms are outstretched like the crow's, and he fights to keep the wings stable with all his strength. The river races closer faster than the ground races up.

  The crow tries to lose its rider but Kao gores the bird's wing with the prongs stuck in his arm. It screeches in pain and does not make any more attempts to shake him.

  Faster and faster they fall. The river is almost underneath them. Both know the crow cannot pull up from the water now, they fall too fast, the river comes too quickly.

  “Your prize!” The feeble hermit's voice, again impossibly strong. Kao sees a falling star in the morning light, dropped by the hermit in a cloud of feathers. The hide, his weapons. Too late old man. The bird disagrees, and interprets the falling light for the omen that it is. Kao tries to keep the crow beneath him but the bird is mad with terror. It throws all of its weight to the side and they spin. Kao tries to resist the motion but cannot. The crow needs to be break his fall when the two hit water.

  The two spin round and round, each hoping to use the other's body to survive in a high stakes game of roulette.

  Chapter 15

  Love? I suppose love is a choice little one, but guard yourself from it. Love is blind and fickle, though can be found in the unlikeliest of places.

  The little hominid slept peacefully on the operating table. Her furry chest rose and fell softly in the illuminating white light of the surgery ward. Her fur had been cleaned and brushed. Someone had even retied her grass bracelet. Dreams might have danced behind her closed eyes.

  “She looks so peaceful, a little angel,” Ntelo said, her voice serene. She was painted in tiny feathers and wings and dressed in white habiliment that flowed like lazy mist on a spring morning. Flecks of gold here and there shone like beads of sunshine.

  Baucis smiled and nodded. He had already embraced the girl as his own.

  “Demon-spawn sounds closer to the truth,” Orus Luca said bluntly.

  “Blasphemy,” Ntelo retorted coldly, her white robe matched her icy tone just fine.

  “Enough,” Baucis said tiredly. He already regretted summoning the Council, but he knew if he didn't, he would have faced serious sanctions. Not that any of them had any real incites into the sleeping hominid.

  “She's unhurt?” Mavis Talik asked. Leave it to the psychologist to analyze an animal.

  “She's recovering. Things were touch and go for a while but we managed to stabilize her,” Nurse Pati said. She was a round soft women, doting and motherly. She had a few wisps of the telling black hair, and had worked as a nurse for both humans and Evanimals her whole life. She had stayed despite Baucis's protests.

  “Marvelous work. I can't wait to tell the Spire!” Rufus Aurelius could barely contain himself. It had been a long time since truly good news.

  “We must be patient, Master Aurelius. There's still a lot of wild cards,” Nurse Pati said humbly.

  “Don't be a fool! We have the beast, might as well brag about it,” Luca snorted.

  “The last thing she needs is attention, she must heal before you all parade her before the Spire,” Mavis Talik said, then to Pati, “I'm amazed at what you've done, especially given the limited supply of painkillers.”

  Pati glanced at Baucis for just a moment, but it was long enough for Talik to notice.
>
  “Oh no. Baucis, you didn't. Not without telling us.”

  “There was no choice, you know how few painkillers we have, and those might've not worked on her species. We had to use the technology we have.”

  “You expect us to believe that for a second? I'd bet you had your little minion slave drivers rough her up just enough.”

  Aurelius cleared his throat, “I'm afraid I don't quite follow...”

  “We had no choice. It was this or risk losing her,” Ntelo said, her voice placid and cold. The voice of no angel.

  “You knew about this?” Talik voice was barbed, “I expect this sort of evil from him, but from you Priestess? Do you not preach morality?”

  Ntelo glanced at Baucis.

  Talik's blood boiled, her face flushed. “Oh how naïve of me. Of course you're a puppet like the rest of them! And I attend your services... like a biselk to slaughter.”

  “What is going on?” bellowed Luca.

  Tennay took a step forward and gently rolled the sleeping girl over. The back of her neck said it all. It was shaved. Her pink skin was tender around fat stitches at the base of her neck.

  “You gave her a Chip? I've been asking for one for months, and you give one to a monkey? Don't you have enough monkeys?” Orus Luca mumbled dumbly.

  “Its an ape, you buffoon, and thanks to your own incompetence she may be the last one in existence,” Baucis replied with unconcealed malice.

  “With more VRCs I could have prevented all of this!”

  “I'm sure you would have done things differently, but Baucis acted, rightly or wrongly, because that is what we are all expected to do,” Tennay said diplomatically. Surprised the silence held, he went on, “what we have now is a decision to make. Do we waste what our ecologist has given us, or do we go forward?”

  “Removing the VRC would be very dangerous. Its all we have to deaden her pain and run diagnostics,” Nurse Pati added meekly.

  “What do you propose we do?,” Talik asked, “I know your goals Tennay, she's your ticket to the surface. You're worse than the other two. At least they'll face all this while you tinker away in the shadows.”

  “The Spire's already lasted too long. Every system needs parts, we can't even service the central conductor from up here. If we don't find a way to the surface soon...” Tennay's silence spoke louder than words.

  “She's not an elk or a bird. She's a little girl! Can't you see that? Don't any of you see that?”

  “I do.”

  The Council all spun to hear the little voice that spoke up.

  Phoebe stood quietly, her sparkling black hair framed her heart shaped face. She glowed in the bright light of the room and made Ntelo's gold and white body paint look opulent compared to her simple beauty.

  “She's scared, and misses her family, and wants to go... swimming, I think.”

  “Phoebe, hush!” Nurse Pati hissed, sounding scared for the first time.

  “Phoebe. You joined the Evanimal program almost a year ago, correct? You wanted to help the animals?” Baucis asked.

  Phoebe nodded.

  “Do you like doing that sweetheart? Is it fun?” Ntelo asked.

  “She has a gift. Last night she birthed a six point on her own,” Nurse Pati blurted hastily, then added, “Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  “Phoebe, how would you like to be this little girl's friend?” Baucis asked, “if that's agreeable to the Council of course.”

  “That would be... acceptable,” Tennay said. His mind was already somewhere else, deep in thought. Lucas nodded in quick agreement with the engineer.

  “Spire City will adore this! A real human interest piece.”

  “Splendid Aurelius, though perhaps we can show some discretion until the two are a bit more... connected,” Baucis's black eyes turned to the psychologist. The veins on his head pulsed more rapidly, That just leaves you, Miss Talik.”

  Mavis Talik thought a long time. She looked from Phoebe, already called an angel by the Naturalists, to the sleeping Wild Child branded a demon, then to the pack of wolves standing between them, their mouths watering. Only Baucis maintained a vestige of humanity as he watched Mavis think. Still, she was certain his eyes flicked to her jugular more than once.

  “I don't really see that I have a choice. It's better than throwing her to you vipers,” calling them wolves seemed too close to the truth, another self-fulfilling prophecy. “It’s fine with me if it’s fine with Phoebe, but I want in on this. I don't want to lose her to the fifth floor.”

  “Of course, I was going to suggest that myself,” Ntelo said, then to the little girl, “What do you think sweetheart, do you want to help our new friend feel better?”

  “Can I?” Phoebe looked from one councilor to the next. All but Mavis Talik looked down at her with kind eyes and big smiles.

  “Then its settled. I'll set up the synchronization so you two can figure out how to communicate.”

  “Thanks Master Baucis,” Phoebe said politely.

  “You're more than welcome Phoebe. And remember, Spire City will be counting on you.”

  Part II

  THE GARDEN

  Chapter 16

  Are you afraid of anything?

  She nods.

  I am too, lots of things... What are you afraid of?

  She shrugs.

  I'm afraid of the Spire breaking and falling and being eaten by a vultus or a panthera or the Scourge... and The Wild Man of course.

  She looks away.

  Are you afraid of this place?

  She nods.

  Don't be! I'll protect you, and there's nothing up here like there is down there.

  Her eyes fill with tears.

  Everything is blue. Only a red stripe breaks the endless ocean. It goes round and round. The sun? He wonders, his head hurts, he cannot think. He drowns in blue before he touches water.

  With a magnificent splash, the fall ends. The force knocks the air from his lungs. He is in warm water. It feels so calm, so peaceful. He peers around the gloomy silent world. Bubbles everywhere. A grass braid floats near him. It belongs to someone he knows, someone he loves. His sister!

  Kao struggles to right himself. Which way to the surface? There is warm red light in both directions. The kingcrow is suspended motionless beneath his feet. It is dead. It must have landed before Kao. The water killed it, not him. He kicks off its body, towards air. His lungs burn. The bird sinks deeper. Through bubbles and feathers, fish nibble at the mangled carcass as it sinks to glowing red depths. Kao thanks the crow for its death. Another life the Hidden must pay for.

  The count is getting high: his mother, the chief, beautiful women and brave men, his people, the animals, they even took the mad old hermit, but most of all, they will hurt for his sister.

  Kao breaches the surface of the river with a gasp of air. The surface of the river is more like the streams of his mountainous home, cold and choppy instead of the warm red embrace of the deep. The rules of this place are different.

  The hunter looks back at Father Mountain. A trail of black feathers hangs in the air from the cliff to the spot in water they splashed. The light filters through the feathers and they sparkle every color. A tired rainbow, dark and sagging in the middle. The sky's passing battle scar.

  Kao swims to the far side of the river, away from the mountain, away from his lands, towards the Hidden and closer to their doom.

  Bruised and battered, he pulls himself from the water and collapses in the nearest clump of brush. He sleeps.

  When the sun kisses the horizon, he wakes. Orange and red rays of light filter through the brush and warm his sore body. He stretches silently and revives his muscles.

  Hunter's eyes see far. The Totem dominates the landscape. Even in the daytime, it crackles with lightning strikes. Looking at it makes his stomach hurt. Something about its stark lines and constant storm makes Kao sick. He looks away, battling nausea. The pain is still there, dull and persistent. The thought of scaling it is enough to mak
e him dry heave.

  But he cannot turn back, only forward, he must. There are fruits! Trees and bushes, vines and vegetables. But the likeness ends there. The plants grow in rows straight as the horizon. They go on and on, rows upon rows, crisscrossed here and there by straight stone paths. The plants rise from neat little mounds of earth, each the same size as the last. Lifeless streams trickle between them; they never want for thirst.

  The plants themselves look different than those of his homeland. Their leaves are dark, nearly black, and iridescent, like prongelk antlers, kingcrow feathers, or his own three prongs. The garden glows in shades of crystal in the evening sun.

  He sees nothing poisonous hiding among the vegetative feast. Instead only fruits as far as he can see. Bright red round fruits, long yellow ones, big fat striped ones that grow from crawling vines. There are fruits of every shape and size, lumpy, smooth, shiny, speckled, long and skinny, short and fat. Some look like flowers, some like insects. Some of them Kao knows very well, others are less common, a rare treat. All of them are tinted like black crystals. Even the soil glows in the sun. The land here is different. It has made the plants and the animals that eat them different.

  His stomach grumbles, a welcome change from the knots the Totem twists into it. He grasps for his pouch but it is lost to the depths of the churning river. He is very hungry. The plants look alien, but he can smell them in the warm, humid air. His mouth waters. He looks away in an effort to stifle his hunger but juicy fruits hang everywhere but the sky itself. His stomach growls louder. He cannot resist. He reaches a long arm out from the bushes, snatches one of the red fruits, and vanishes into his shelter.