The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (28 page)

“You bastard. Where is she?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Liar.”

“Urea, I'll answer all your questions, but
not here,” he glanced at the old ape. He stared back at him with
eyes as sharp as Urea's.

“Liar!” She pulled back her hand into a claw,
ready to strike. Her teeth were bared, her shoulders tensed, her
fingernails ended in razor points. A low yowl came from her throat,
a thoroughly inhuman sound. Her eyes flicked from his eyes to his
neck. She was terrifyingly feline. Baucis didn't doubt for a moment
that she could kill him as easily as she'd butcher an elk.

“She's safe... Elia found her on the verge of
death, and Skup brought her to me.”

“He doesn't respect you,” was all Urea
said.

This infuriated Baucis.
The boy told his
sister? Of course he did. Disrespectful cretin.

“He respects my power. Elia is talented
enough to manage the flock. Skup’s expendable. I made him realize
this.”

“Where is the girl?”

“She's with Phoebe.”

Urea's yowl increased in pitch. Baucis was
terrified, and he knew she could sense it.

<>.

<> and a troop was
on its way. Now he only needed time. Good thing the Pilots knew
nothing of Aurelius's comm-system.

“You're right Urea, there's much we can learn
from them. Phoebe knows this, she's helping us learn from the girl.
Already they've learned to communicate. More than childish pictures
I might add. These apes show real potential.”

“You're hiding something.”

“Not everyone is as cynical as you seem to
be. Phoebe sees the apes for what they are, potential allies.”

A crack and Baucis flinched. Urea did not
even blink. Baucis whirled around to see the ape stare at him, his
hand on the force field, his collar throwing sparks.

“The
Wild Man
has another
question.”

He knelt down and slowly drew a sharpened
piece of elk bone across the palm of his hand. Red blood blossomed
from the wound. He dipped a finger in it, then drew a perfect
circle in his drawing of the Spire, another in the girl's head,
then used the bone to trace a thin red line between them. The
symbols couldn't be more clear. The ape understood their
technology.

“We had to. When she came in she was
comatose, we might have lost her...”

Urea closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She trembled, and Baucis knew she fought an urge within her with
all of her strength. The
Wild Ma
n understood just as easily.
He moaned a low and mournful note, a forlorn pitch that filled
Baucis with a disconsolate dread.

“You did it
for
her?” Urea's voice
nearly broke Baucis's heart. He knew he was making a grave mistake,
but he knew he couldn't lie. Stories weren't his strength, all he
could do was stall for time. He let truth bubble out of him like an
oil geyser on the surface.

“I did it for all of us! With their hands, we
can do anything! No more balancing different species, no more
waiting for the Spire to burn up and leave us to perish. With a
team of these things, we can bring back industry, we can return to
the surface!”

“But she's only a little girl... how could
one child do all you ask...” understanding drained the color from
Urea's face. At the same moment she heard the shuffling of an
approaching troop of
howluchin
s. She waited to see them turn
the corner.

she chimed, and they all did.
Baucis didn't hear this command, but saw it in her eye. He would
have sworn the entire Spire obeyed her thought.

“You're a monster,” Urea said
dispassionately. It was a statement of the truth as she saw it.
Nothing more. Then she drew back her clawed hand and slashed him
across the face.

It didn't hurt, and for a moment he thought
she only meant to scare him, but his vision filled with blood. In a
haze he saw the
howluchin
s seize her arms and pull Urea
backwards. She didn't struggle. He touched a hand to his head and
looked at his palm. Four lines of blood, four scars he'd have
forever.

Urea looked at her hands, her eyes wide at
the sight of Baucis's blood.

“I'm sorry” she mumbled into her hands before
the
howluchins
seized her and dragged her away.

Another shower of sparks and Baucis turned to
the caged animal. He pointed at Baucis, then dipped his bone-pen
into his blood. First he drew a head, then a chest, arms and legs.
He took his time, relishing the rich red the blood left on the
ground. He drew a knife in the figure's hand, its point sent a
shiver down Baucis' spine. Then he drew three prongs jutting from
the figure's left arm and a crown of horns. The
Wild Man
was
there, the true one. The young hunter in all his savagery stared up
at Baucis.

Baucis spit at the figure but his saliva only
crackled on the force field. The ape laughed at him. Baucis never
felt so powerless.

Tell Baucis to let us out!

We have to be careful, Urea tells them. We don't
know who our friends are right now.

We can trust the pilots! Phoebe chimes.

And what do you think little one? Will your brother
trust the pilots?

My brother trusts his hands and his knife, she
replies.

It may be time for him to make new friends as
well.

The dome weighs upon the horizon. Unlike the
Totem, it is made of stone. Kao could smell it in the sun, in the
night it stands black against the starlight. The Hidden somehow cut
it and formed it into an enormous sphere, a drop of the earth,
carved and worshiped. It is nothing compared to the Totem in size.
It does not claw mercilessly at the stars.

The ferocious lion has not attacked him since
their bout. He caught her scent in the air the night before, but
she did not threaten him. She accepted they are equals. Good. For
if the lion decides to hunt him, she will succeed. Kao's only
defense is the Totem's strange power, and he is near it no longer.
Though the lightning beetles proved that there are ways to harness
the Totem's power, Kao knows none of them.

Thunder strikes, not far from the hunter. A
deafening crack, menacing echoes through the garden, then silence.
Kao hits the ground, certain the Hidden hunt him even after
nightfall. The thunder cracks again, as close as before, but no
bolt of lightning comes from the sky. He strains his ears and
listens.

Beneath the echoes there are low bellows of
prongelk rutting. Impossible. Prongelk have awful night vision. The
ones Kao knows duel in the morning. Yet there is the sound of their
rumbling approach, heavier than what it would be closer to his
home. Then instead of the dry clack of antlers, a thunderclap. More
silence, then it all repeats.

The noise beckons to Kao and he abandons the
dome for the night. His ears lead him to the dozen enormous
prongbucks that attended the lion and Elk duel. They are smaller
than that one, undoubtedly the Alpha before the lion proved her own
superiority, but still far larger than any that roam the plains.
Each of them boast antlers like tree trunks, with as many prongs as
a tree has leaves. They stand in a rough circle around a pair.
These two kick at the earth, eager to rut, though Kao sees no
females. They charge. Lightning dances from one's antler's to the
other's. They collide and a blue white explosion expands
spherically.

Kao braces himself for the wave of energy but
it does not go past the ring of bucks. Their antlers leach it from
the air like a tick sucks blood. The ring of males bellow a
judgment. One lowers its antlers, the victor carefully snaps off a
few of his prongs. The ground is littered in prongs, dozens of
them. Their sacrifice made, the two rejoin the circle. The ritual
repeats.

That the group is judging the bouts is
obvious to Kao, though he has no idea how they determine a victor.
He's seen duels between pairs before, sometimes three, but they
were gory, violent things. The tribe got most of its prongs from
the maimed carcasses of the losers. Those battles were nothing like
this. These prongelk are organized. They take turns, the losers do
not complain, the winners do not gloat. Kao watches as the go round
and round.

Hypnotized, Kao fails to notice the antlers
on his prongbuck skull begin to glow. All of a sudden, the circle
opens up to him. His helmet crackles with lighting. They sense it
through the brush.

Kao thinks of running, but prongbuck are much
faster. The thought of trying to outrun a boulder covered in blades
is not appealing. He is terrified to show them his form. They will
blame him, rightly, for the death of their kin, and might want to
make things even. Not sure what else to do, Kao puts the helmet on
his head, happy he never peeled off the leathery skin, and bows low
to the ground: the males' signal of submission.

The larger ones bellow and kick at the
ground. Kao does not want to leave the brush, they will see he is
no elk. Then the smallest of the twelve steps forward, lowers its
horns, and charges.

Though smaller than the rest, the buck is
twice his size and as comfortable with jousting as the hunter is
with throwing blades. Battle with it would be folly, but to run?
His flight would end with prongs gored into his back and jutting
from his chest. So Kao does what he must.

He raises his antlers, roars some courage
into himself, and charges the elk.

Each of the buck's steps shake the earth.
Kao's own steps fall like feathers. Its antlers are no bigger than
his, but more jagged. No foolish hunter has been snapping off
prongs to use as blades.

Kao can feel the elk's weight pulling him
towards it. He understands how an apple feels when it falls to
earth. Still more than ten long paces away, the thunder booms. Too
early. Kao feels heat from his antlers jump to his arm. His muscles
are invigorated, he runs faster. More lightnings cracks to him. The
other bucks bellow in surprise. Their own stored charges are being
stolen by this interloper.

They collide. An enormous blast of energy
ignites between them. Kao is flung back.

He heaves himself to his feet. His elk skin
is gone, blown from him in the explosion. He stands before the elk
for what he is. The prongs in his shoulder crack with lightning and
throw sparks.

None of the elk attack.

Confused, Kao looks to his opponent. The
small buck (more of a hill than a mountain) bleats painfully from
the ground. Lightning twists beneath its crown of horns. It is
dying. The herd knows it as well as Kao. One of the Hidden's stones
is killing it.

In a breath Kao scoops up a prong from the
ground and kneels next to the elk. The base of the elk's head
radiates energy. Kao can feel it in the air.

He comes in close, careful to avoid the elk's
antlers and puts a hand on its neck. The spot is hot, Kao can smell
it cooking the prongbuck from the inside. He slices open the elk's
neck and grabs the stone. It is white hot and throwing sparks.
Touching it weakens Kao and he stumbles to the ground. It tells him
something, but not in words, its deeper than that.

DEATH
.

Part of him wants to obey, it would be so
easy to lay down and sleep, but he knows that is the Hidden's
magic, and hurls the stone as far as he can. The feeling subsides.
Kao is himself again.

The hunter returns to the dying prongbuck. It
is breathing too fast, its heart races like an insect's wing.
Though the Hidden's stone is gone from him, he will not live
through the night. He bleats painfully into the quiet night,
wishing for peace from the pain that comes from its damaged
spine.

Something large as a mountain pushes up
against him and Kao knows he is doomed. Another elk wants revenge
for what he did to the youngest member of their clan. He wishes he
could tell them he did not mean to, that the lightning is still
beyond his control, that the Hidden should pay
.
Curse the
Hidden with their cursed lightning and damned stones.

Kao turns to face the prongbuck. He stands
solemnly next to him. His large eyes stare straight into Kao's.
He's never seen one up close before (save those he has killed). Its
two round horns stand majestically off the side of its face while
the rest of its pronged antlers sweep back across its huge body.
Their beauty and the tuft of white hair growing from its chin
remind him of his uncle and his head dress. He notices this one has
more prongs than any of the others. This is their new leader,
already wise and kind.

The young buck bleats again. Flecks of drool
and blood spray with its call.

The leader, the great prongbuck (though still
smaller than the one the lion killed) nods his head towards the
youngest and Kao understands. Prongelk are not killers, but they
know death. The young one does not have the strength to live. Kao
feels same as they, better to end the suffering. He takes the
prong, the same one he used to free the Hidden's stone and gently
pushes it into the buck's heart. The buck bleats once more, wishing
the world its last farewell, then Kao closes its eyes for the last
time.

The great elk lowers its head to Kao in
thanks. One of its knees touches the ground before him, an
incredibly graceful act for an animal so large. Kao tenderly
reaches out and grabs hold of one the elk's prongs. Lightning runs
between the two, each shares the other's energy. Kao gently snaps
the prong, it breaks cleanly in his hand, almost like the buck
intended it.

Then, as if the buck whispered in the rest of
their ears at once, they all go off in different directions, soon
lost to the blackness of the night. Kao leaves, lost in his own
thoughts, an increasingly common phenomena.

Their new chief stays to mourn.