The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (43 page)

A flash in the sky and he does feel the moon!
Something is screaming in pain, and the walls are pulsing, he can
feel their power. Through their surge he feels the moon's faint
pull. It cools him, reminds him of his home lands, of picking seeds
under its big round face, or hunting when it rose late in the
night. He remembers aiming his blades carefully in its silver
light. He has thrown so many.... When he was a boy he always
believed in the moon. When the hermit told them stories of the
Hidden he always imagined the moon as one of them. She was a quiet
one, she just sat in the back and rooted for you, for the good
ones. He was her favorite, the young hunter was. He believed in no
gods but the moon. And she did not need to be believed in, she was
there every day, pulling the streams and lighting the night.

Kao knew he was dying, for feathers float in
front the moon. It grows blacker and blacker, more and more
feathers obscure it, the vile one-eyed kingcrow comes for him, Kao
knows it. Yet he feels the moon's power increase.

I am not your enemy
he pleads, but the
bird does not stop. It grows closer and closer. He hears it scream
for him, than an explosion. Feathers and bile rain down from
above.

The hermit drops the girl and dives to the
ground. He is coughing and coughing.

Moonbeams fill Kao's soul with strength. He
feels purified, protected, powerful. His brain speeds up. His
muscles ache less.

Reflexes return and Kao deftly snaps off
prongs from his helmet. He throws each one faster than a bullet
towards the shimmering dome above him. As each connects it ignites
into an explosion of sparks and lightning. Each connection causes
the field to flicker, he feels the moon's tug more and more as the
projectiles collide.

Then the bird is upon them. There's a huge
crack of lightning and it forces its way through the field,
tendrils of electricity cling to its feathers. It hops and tries to
shake them free but cannot. The kingcrow hops over to the apes. It
starts to rain, but it’s not water. It’s tiny droplets of bile.
Each time he inhalesit burns, when he exhales it tastes of
blood.

“Stupid ape!” the hermit screams, his voice
ragged, his eyes furious. He grabs the antlered helmet from off the
hunter. It crackles and bolts of lightning hop from it to the
hermit as he wraps himself and girl in its protective shroud. Kao
feels the electric burn start to subside. Now he smells his own
hair like vomit as the bile starts to digest it outside the
kingcrows’ bellies.

The kingcrow hops closer. It whips its head
back and forth, constantly checking its prey. Lightning dances
across its obsidian black feathers. It sees the two apes in front
of it, then squawks at the one with the rack of horns.

“Skup! Its him! Not me! Skup, listen! It's
him!” One-eye ignores him. It lunges towards the hermit and the
possessed old man abandons the girl as he tries to escape. The bird
leaps and with a flap of his wings is upon him. Lightning arcs from
the bird to the hermit, the antlers serve as they were intended,
perfect antennae. Each snap of the bird's beak makes jolts of
electricity, every bite pouring power in the hermit's body.

Kao runs to his sister. She is warm, but
unresponsive. He snarls. He looks up to see the bird step back,
shaking its head. It looks like it fights a tiny wasp, but Kao
knows the brother is trying to regain control, save his mentor. The
bird takes ungainly steps backwards.

Kao's lungs burn. The room is filling up with
vaporized bile. The sound of choking is raucous.

The hermit throws off the lightning rod of a
helmet and it slides to the edge of the roof, into the field, there
it stays, crackling and whining a high pitched squeal into the
air.

Kao goes to the hermit. He grits his teeth
and snaps off the final prong jutting from his arm. He grabs the
old man in his free hand, lifts him up, and carries him towards the
wall. The entire time the crazy man is sputtering, half in the
tinny voice, half in his own. The hunter knows how to free him, but
it may end the body. It is what he would want.

He pulls back the knife and drives it into
the base of the hermit's neck, then shoves the barb directly into
the shimmering field behind him. The hermit's entire body
electrifies. His eyes sparkle, he twitches and drools and then
finally goes limp as the field fades, then blacks out. Everything
goes dark. The shimmering blue field vanishes. The hunter steps
back from the edge, then drops the hermit.

Kao soaks up the moonbeams. He feels their
subtle power buffeting his system. His blood pumps faster, his
brain returns to normal. The charge isn't in the air anymore. A
breeze comes through and blows out the mist of bile that threatened
to drown them all with blood from their own lungs.

He peers down at the hermit. He is frozen,
twisted and contorted. His muscles are tight, his eyes wide open.
He does not move.

Then a clamor from the door he came through
and Baucis, the pudgy little man jumps through the opening, bent
low, dragging his knuckles. His veined head pulses fiercely. He
hoots and grunts in the hunter's tongue. He sounds like a child.
His voice is so high pitched, his growls so soft. He stands and
beats his chest, then runs towards Kao. He slows down when he sees
the body on the floor. He hoots angrily, runs around punching the
floor, bushes, whatever he can get his hands on. Then he gets on
top of the hermit's body and starts banging his own skull against
the body.

“Me! Me!” he hoots. But its no use. He is
stuck. He looks to the hunter, frowns and spits on the floor, “Not
me,” he says, jamming the demon's thumb against his chest. Then he
runs towards the edge of the roof. Before Kao can say a word he
leaps from the ledge.

Kao races to the edge but he is not close to
the speed of gravity. He watches the hermit fall into nothing. He
cries not. This is how it must be. Instead he turns to his sister
and leans over her. She is breathing, barely. He leans in to feel
her pulse and a little jolt of electricity jumps from his finger to
her neck. Her eyes flutter open and she breathes in sharply. For a
moment they do nothing, only stare into each other's eyes. Saying
more than words ever can, the language of brothers and sisters.

Then the ground shifts, and the horizon goes
off kilter. The Spire falls.

Beware false idols and false prophets! Beware
usurpers and liars! Trust that wherever our Prince and Princess
take us, one wise enough to know Nature's whims will rise to
lead.

Victory is a wonderful feeling.

But Kao's victory is short lived, for as soon
as the hermit threw his consciousness from the tower, taking
Baucis's body with him, the Spire gave way, and survival trumped
any vestige of success Kao felt.

“Urea's coming,” his sister says, and a
moment later she bursts from the doorway Kao came through minutes
ago.

If the crowd of people expected Kao, they
were anticipating Urea. As soon as she enters the already leaning
garden, the crowd cheers, desperate for a savior in this time of
their greatest need.

Skup follows at her heels and is greeted by
an even more tremendous applause. Kao knows not why they celebrate,
they'll all fall from the sky this day if nothing is done.

Urea turns to Kao's sister. Kao can tell
they're communicating but they use no words.

amplification rooms> Urea chimes.

Skup chimes.

Kao hears none of this but a hunter reads
body language like a scholar reads books. He knows his sister
speaks with them and he is thankful for it. He has played his part,
now it is their turn. He looks to Skup, his sharp eyes makes clear
he is the Hidden mind behind the kingcrow that haunted Kao
throughout his quest.

Skup cries into the night sky. Its a high and
piercing shriek, Kao wouldn't have been surprised to hear it from a
kingcrow's beak. Skup's greatest ally lifts its beak from the gore
of the bird it defeated. The crowd of Naturalists kneel, a thousand
services never prepared them for what they are about to
witness.

The kingcrow shrieks at Skup, and Skup
shrieks back. The two circle, each hopping sideways in odd
half-bird, half-human steps.

No one has ever seen anything like this. Men
cheer, children cry, women faint. The people of the Spire are
accustomed to seeing the hunts through their own VRCs, and just a
scant few hundred possess the ancient technology. People have seen
Skup's kingcrow before, whenever it delivers food, or when Skup
would brave the clouds and fly it near she Spire for Ntelo's
services, but nothing like this.

Kao can sense the tension in the air, The
kingcrow challenges the mind it knows was in its own for dominance.
If Skup missteps, the deadly winged predator will kill him, and
everyone else by extension, no one else can get them down from
their Spire. And they have no time. The ground is shifting, and
something is glowing brighter than the moon down on the surface.
Kao can feel the energy its throwing off in his bones.

Skup and One-eye circle and call to each
other. A deadly dance of dominance. Each takes turns lunging, then
stepping back, Skup's long black hair and stubby fingernails
against the kingcrow's pointed beak and tearing talons. Skup shows
no fear. He has been doing this for years, he has won every duel
the one-eyed kingcrow has ever been in. The kingcrow is not so
confident. Its used to having a mind bolster its own skills. Its
instincts say that it can lose, Skup never allowed such
weakness.

Just when Kao thinks he needs to get Skup a
weapon, the young pilot attacks. A deafening shriek and he is on
the bird. The kingcrow tries to fight back but Skup knows its blind
spots too well. He swoops under a wing, and as the kingcrow tries
to turn around and catch him, he scrambles onto its back. He wraps
one arm around its neck, and with his free hand covers the bird's
only eye. Blue sparks fly back and forth between the pair.

The kingcrow hops in circles just a moment
longer, then settles down, and finally stops moving. Skup uncovers
its eye. It looks around quizzically, but makes no move to
attack.

it was before...>

The bright from down below flickers as the
ground shakes, a moment later the dull concussions of sound reach
their ears.

Elia's bird does not challenge her like
Skup's did. Instead she bows her head, and perhaps following the
Alpha male's lead, allows Elia to climb onto her back. A smile
spreads across the young pilot's face.

“Tonight, we truly fly!” she shouts to the
crowd. They cheer her on as she takes to the air, just behind Skup.
The dominant pair call to the flock and they are there, willing to
follow their leaders into the night and past the Spire they had all
been trained to avoid. This would really be no different for Skup
and Elia, instead of carrying down howluchin monkeys, they would
carry people. Though this had never been attempted with wild
birds.

Skup swoops back around right towards Kao and
his sister. Kao has no weapons, his muscles are burnt and
exhausted, yet instincts ready for battle. But Skup does not
attack. Instead he lands, lowers his head, and the bird does the
same. They submit.

“Forgive me,” he says, and Kao nods, he
understands that easily enough. Then he lifts his sister onto the
back of the bird, behind Skup.

People swarm the bird. Everyone is eager to
touch the kingcrow. Never before have they been allowed to. The
bird's visits to the Spire were always strictly off limits. People
could watch, but the risk of the Scourge was too great to allow
anyone to actually touch the bird's beautiful obsidian black
feathers.

Skup chimes
to the pilots.

The head shepherd runs a disciplined team,
and without argument, five pilots step forward. Kao is not
surprised to see they all have the thickest black hair on their
heads. Two clamber upon each of its legs.

Urea
chimes.

He
looks into her eyes. She understands then that he has always loved
her.

she says. Jacob
sheds a tear, never one to be able to hold them back, then climbs
on Skup's kingcrow. Skup urges the kingcrow to hop forward, toward
the edge, but the crowd is thick, he cannot get through.

The crowd resists collectively. One man,
dangerous for his anonymity shouts, “The prince and princess seek
to save themselves!”

Roars of agreement and the crowd surges
towards Skup and his bird. Desperate hands grasp at its feathers,
it takes all he has to keep the kingcrow from ripping the crowd to
pieces. He can feel its fear in his own mind.

“They know there's no way they can save us
all! We're doomed.” Urea's eyes, not as perceptive as her
panthera's still spot the man. Orus Luca.

“The words of your Masters! People entrusted
to protect us spread fear and lies!” Skup shouts to the crowd.
“Someone give this man what he deserves.”

An instant later Orus Luca screams as Elia
mounted on her kingcrow swoops down from the sky and scoops him up
into the air, she releases him over the edge and he plummets until
his scream can be heard no more.

“Murderer!” someone screams.

“Demons!” shouts another.

“Call us what you will once we're on the
surface, but we don't have time for this now! We're going to save
as many people as we can, but you're all right, I don't know if we
can save everyone.”

On the horizon a volcano erupts. Hot lava
spews into the air, briefly outshining both the moon and the white
light radiating from the base of the Spire.