The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (30 page)

Not one to waste, Kao gathers up some of the
fallen prongs from the duel he witnessed last night. Not witnessed,
that is not right he thinks.
I dueled an elk and...won?
He
had earned the prongelk's respect even though he had killed one of
them. But he knows in his hunter's heart he did the right thing. He
wouldn't have wanted his friends, the older or the younger to
suffer. Thinking of them reminds him of what feels like a past
life. He never thought he would make friends again, but maybe he
did last night. He bundles their prongs (
gifts?
He wonders)
into a pouch in his elk skin cloak. That done, he proceeds towards
the stone dome.

Never had prongelk done anything so bizarre.
They adapted the power in the air into their rutting, and did it
after dark so the Hidden won't see. Thinking back, he almost
understands. The chief’s antlers were more impressive than any of
the other's. He won every duel, so never had to sacrifice a prong
to the ritual. He was the strongest, and his antlers showed this
clearly. An undeniable Alpha male, obvious to their own kind as
well as the Hidden. Kao's mind swims with questions:
Who taught
them?
Do the Hidden know
?
Why be leader of the
mindless?

Kao does not understand entirely, he needs
more information. Pieces are beginning to fit together in his mind,
but so much is missing. He knows the Totem is key. Everything
starts with it and its blue lightning.
How do the animals use
it?
Where does the black moss come from
? He needs to
know more about this mysterious place. Hopefully the huge rock dome
has answers.

It stands before him now, the egg of a
mountain, half buried in the earth. The thing was obviously
made
. Pillars hold up more rock than he has ever seen at
once.

Beautiful figures, almost like people from
the tribe, are carved in stone and lay in the grass in front of the
place. But they are smaller, mostly hairless, shrouded.
The
Hidden?
They look so fragile, their hands are tiny, though
still with five fingers. Many of them wear strange things and hold
odd tools. Their power is not in their form, Kao knows, but in
their mind.

A shadow darkens his path. A kingcrow spins
high above him, already doubling back.

He curses. Legend says their eyes are a
thousand times sharper than his during the day. He has been
spotted. So he runs. He runs as fast as he can towards the stone
dome. He knows not what lies inside, only that it will offer some
barrier between him and the kingcrow.

“C-Craw!” the bird's angry voice shatters the
calm morning. It is gaining on the young hunter. Kao unties his
hoard of prongs. He flings the blades over his shoulder. He cannot
slow his pace to aim. The kingcrow lazily dodges each flying blade
then resumes its perfect line of attack. Like a river, it can only
be diverted momentarily, it will finds its path again. He hears the
ruffle of its feathers change timbre as it swims through the air.
He steals a glance and sees one eye glinting in the morning
sun.

“Damn you!” he yells.

One-eye shrieks, returning the sentiment.

He is close, but Kao will not make it to the
dome. He must think of something. He pulls the honeycomb out. A few
grubs still remain. He pops them out of their hexagonal chambers
and gores them all on the prongs that jut from his arm.
My
prongs
. They crackle as the grub's energy transfers to
them.

Kao stops and turns the prongs to the bird.
The kingcrow's splays its talons. Good, they are the same rainbow
black as his prongs.

Kao braces himself for impact. He feels the
energy in his arm grow restless as the kingcrow approaches. Right
before contact, the lightning jumps the gap to the bird's talons.
One-eye shrieks in pain and Kao runs.

He had been running at a slant towards the
dome, now he runs straight towards it. He is no longer in the
bird's flight path. One-eye has no choice but to swing around for a
second attack.

Kao was not so naïve as to think One-eye
would abandon his hunt. The sun is out, so unlike the lion he
battled near the Totem, or the prongelk he dueled last night, this
animal is controlled by the Hidden. Kao is not sure that even
matters. One-eye probably hates him as much as anything in the
Totem. He half-blinded him, sullied his nest, and killed some of
his flock. He does not blame the bird, but he will not let One-eye
him taste revenge.

One-eye finally gains enough altitude to
start another attack, but Kao is close to the dome now. He is going
to make it. Once inside the bird will not have the benefit of long,
unobstructed attacks. Either Kao will fill it full of blades in the
small space or the bird will do the same to him.

One-eye does not seem to like the idea of him
escaping either and rattles its wings. Shards of antler rain down
around Kao as he sprints for the dome. Most stick harmlessly in the
earth, some bounce of his leather armor, and a few puncture
through, and cut into him. Flesh wounds. Nothing more. He expected
better from One-eye, something is off with the bird, not wrong, Kao
would not say anything that spared his life is
wrong
, but
something is different.

The stone archway looms high now, though
Kao's disappointed that One-eye does not pull up. He thought the
bird might retreat and not risk going inside the place, but clearly
it plans to enter with him.

He bounds up precisely cut stone steps, past
the columns and into the stone dome. His feet slip on the cold
slick floor and he crashes to the ground. Prongs go everywhere,
some from his helmet, mostly the ones he gathered the night before.
He rolls over to see the kingcrow zoom just above him. Its wings
are tucked into its body, yet its momentum carries it forward. It
snatches desperately with its claws but Kao is too low. Had he not
slipped, he would be dead.

One-eye spreads it wings and soars up out of
view. Kao bounds to his feet and runs into the domed room. It is
enormous, bigger than the hermit's cave. There are rings hugging
its walls all the way to the top. Little walls stand at their edge,
handholds, to stop people from falling, like his tribe had built on
their steepest trails. They're carved intricately, like everything
in the huge room.

One-eye is already up at the top, spinning
tiny circles as he comes down. His wingspan is a third of the room.
He can hardly maneuver in the tight place. There are no openings
save the low entryway they came through and three others, all
leading down straight passageways longer than the first.

Kao moves around the circular room in the
opposite direction of One-eye's loops. He can reverse, the bird
cannot. The fight is his. He scoops up prongs from the ground,
picks out a straight one, takes aim, and lets loose. It flies true
and pierces the tip of One-eye's wing. The bird shrieks, loses
balance and careens into a stone wall, then lands on one of the
ringed levels that hug the dome.

Kao loses sight of the bird. He scans the
hallways, not sure if One-eye will emerge from one of them. He
reappears near where he crashed. He hops up on a handhold and crows
loudly. Something is wrong with him. One-eye shakes his head back
and forth, like there is water in his ear or a persistent mosquito.
Not one to waste opportunity, Kao hurls another blade at him. This
one hits him in the chest and he shrieks in pain. One-eye pumps his
huge wings to take off, but as he pushes off, the handrail
collapses under his force.

He falls two levels, and Kao readies a blade
to finish the bird off, but at the last instant he spreads his
wings and with clumsy flaps slows his dissent. He rights himself
and chases after Kao. His talons clack on the cold stone floor as
he hops around the room, still shaking his head.

Kao saw this once before, when he scared the
bird witless, deep in his own lands. One-eye was scared and far
from the Totem's power. It looked like the kingcrow battled the
Hidden within, for the two's motives were different. Surely One-eye
wants Kao's blood. The Hidden do not?

Kao throws a blade at the kingcrow and it
ducks, barely missing certain death. One-eye shrieks, and resumes
his awkward approach. He shakes his head more violently. The bird
is too blood-thirsty to think.

One-eye passes in front of the opening they
came through and hesitates, still shaking his head.

Finally Kao understands.

He runs at the bird, lowers his helmet, and
raises his pronged arm, turning himself into a battering ram.
One-eye shrieks and hops back, out of the dome and into the
passageway. This does it, and One-eye stops shaking his head.
Instead he pumps his wings once, releases a dull volley of prongs,
and flies out of the door and up into the air.

The Hidden did not want to battle in this
place.
Without their cunning, Kao would have killed the
bird.

There is something special about this room.
Kao must solve its riddles before the Hidden come to destroy him.
There is power here, but it is only stone, and stone
crumbles.

They'll destroy everything if you don't help.

But why me?

Because you can.

The wind whips his hair around his head, his
hands cling to the magnificent falcon's strong neck. The air smells
like rain and earth. The air is cold, then it warms almost
imperceptibly and they soar up and up. This is flying. The wind on
his skin, the ground far below. The
vultus
lets out an
appreciate cry. The two are flying as one, really flying. They're
not sharing bodies, he doesn't have to fight for control. It's
wonderful. The
vultus
cocks his head to look at him, its
eyes sparkle with love and empathy. But something's wrong... That
eye... something happened to that eye.

The bird goes limp and plummets to earth. The
thermal they're in does nothing to stop its dead weight. Feathers
are everywhere. He can hardly see, but he knows how to fly, so he
grabs the bird's wings in his hands, and tries to stretch them out
and catch the air.

They slow, barely. It feels like his arms
will rip off, like his chest will split open like a watermelon.

His chest hurts. His heart races. His left
arm is numb. The bird is gone. He's falling. Alone. Losing all of
his feathers to the biting wind.

Skup woke up. He had this dream before,
flying with his
vultus
then just falling. Somehow the two
minds end up in the wrong body. But he never felt the chest pain
before.

His bed was drenched in sweat. The room was
bright and smelled sanitary. His eyes stung as they adjusted.

“Hey.”

He'd know that voice anywhere.

“Urea? You OK?”

Urea laughed weakly. “You just had a heart
attack and you're asking me if I'm OK?”

“Heh... so you're OK?”

“Yes. I'm fine.”

“Good,” Skup said, and tried to nod. The
motion was too much and he started to cough,

“Take it easy.”

“I had this crazy dream.”

“The one where you ride your
vultus
?”

Skup smiled. He had told her that dream a
hundred times.

“Yeah, but there was more. The
Wild
Man,
or the one we have, the old one, the ape, was telling me
all sorts of crazy things. But you were missing and I was really
worried about you. Baucis wouldn't tell me anything. And the ape
was saying it was all Baucis's fault and then I...” Skup trailed
off, lost in memory.

“Just a dream, right now, you should close
your eyes and relax.”

“But it seemed so real.”

“You've been through a lot. Just rest
OK?”

Skup closed his eyes. Something wasn't right.
Why was he in the medical ward? What had happened?

Skup's eyes jerked open and looked at Urea.
She sat calmly, holding his hand, her eyes staring serenely at
him.

“Shh...,” is all she said.

implanted him.>

“Did I...?”

man a heart attack, but your synchronization was weird. Jacob
thinks he made you have one to.>

“You attacked Baucis?”

“Something came over me.”

“The
Wild Man
.”

Urea nods, what happened, otherwise I'll never get to see my
panthera
again. It was more like Nature possessed me. He needs to be stopped
Skup. His plans for the little girl...> Urea shuddered.

“What happens now?”

“Elia found the other one.”

“What? How?” Skup sat up in bed and
immediately swooned. His VRC emitted a low calming frequency that
pulsed through his body and his muscles went slack involuntarily.
He laid back down.

“She used your
vultus
.”

Skup gagged. He felt violated, like she'd
been in his head.

Then Elia's voice was in Skup's mind, past
his ears.

had to. We tried to leave him unsynched while you recovered, but he
wouldn't stop attacking my bird. He knows she's implanted, and he
doesn't like it. I was doing alright, but never had the control I
had with my girl. When your
vultus
saw the
Wild Man
he went ballistic. I tried to stop him, but couldn't.>

Skup nodded. He'd piloted his
vultus
for years, and it still tested his control constantly. He had to
trick it into thinking it was free. It was doubtful that a foreign
and less experienced mind could pilot the bird with the same
subtlety.

“Let me guess, It didn't work?”

Urea smiled, glad Skup was going along. It
was risky to chime when they knew they were under surveillance.
Even though he knew nothing of their system (so thought Urea, Skup
knew otherwise) Baucis would figure it out if he saw that they
weren't talking. Some information he'd expect to tell her brother
to his face.