The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (3 page)

Skup’s voice
sounded inside her head. What Baucis would do to her brother if he
only knew... But Skup saluted smartly (with more than a bit of a
scowl) turned on his heel, and marched out. He flipped his long
black hair back as he left.

Urea glanced around the table, the other
pilots were trying hard not to smile. Sometimes she thought her
sixteen year old twin was rebelling for both of them.

she chimed back to
her brother, then left the line open so Skup could hear.

“It's my fault, I had this dream-”

“Irrelevant,” Baucis cut her off, “Last night
at 0200 hours we lost an elk. One of the new line, no less.”

“It was stabbed in the heart,” Urea said
before she realized it.

Baucis tumbled his dice, then grimaced, snake
eyes.

“How did you know that my child?” the woman
who had spoke, was the High Priestess of the Naturalists, Ntelo
dePious. Urea was fairly certain the name was a fake, everything
else about Ntelo seemed to be. Like most of the Council, she was
bald, but her scalp was painted with a crown of beautiful vines and
insects. That her head was painted this early in the day spoke of
her power. Her eyes were a lush green, though Urea was too young to
recognize them for the contact lenses that they were. Her face,
like her scalp, was painted, though more traditionally, red lips
and eye shadow. She was as old as Baucis (not that she’d admit it)
yet Ntelo was still shapely. Draped in her elaborate flowing gowns,
her skin painted with the tropes of nature, she was beautiful. Only
her hands bespoke her age. Veins ran the lengths of her fingers, a
flaw she hid by gesturing with them generously.

Urea surveyed the assembled group before
answering. Baucis stood at the head of the table, of course. To his
right was Jacob, the best elk pilot in Spire City. He was almost as
tall as Urea but stouter, barrel-chested like the elk he worked
with. He had soft, kind eyes. His skin was dark as olives, one of
the few with any color at all. He had black hair like Urea, like
all the pilots, but he kept it cropped close to his head.

Next to Jacob was Aurelius, the Council's
Media Baron. He was younger than Baucis. He was very handsome, with
a strong jaw, keen eyes and a winning smile. Urea though he’d be
much more handsome if he’d shave the small mustache he kept closely
trimmed and dyed black. Urea knew if it grew out it'd be spindly
and gray. But this way Aurelius looked younger, more like the
famous pilots. He normally had painted skin, though typically it
was subtler than Ntelo’s, but this morning only dabs of almost
washed off eye liner besmirched his face. He didn’t even have on a
custom habiliment. He wore the standard, loose fitting, silver one,
like everyone else in the Spire. Urea had never seen him so under
dressed. She had scoffed at Ntelo’s appearance, but seeing Rufus
Aurelius so unkempt set her on edge.

Beside him was Tennay, the engineer who
managed the electromagnetic transformers that kept Spire City
running and safe from the Scourge. His head was hairless as the
rest, though darker, olive colored like Jacob’s, and more wrinkled.
His back was stooped and his gnarled knuckles clasped a cane, an
ornate artifact from the surface. It was made of ivory he claimed,
elephant tusks. It would look less fine in hands paler than his. He
was the oldest citizen in Spire City. He claimed to have seen the
Scourge released. Urea rarely saw him at these meetings, an odd
sign he was here. Losing this elk was more important to Baucis than
she had realized.

At the far end of the table sat young Phoebe.
She was barely ten, (and proud of it), a beautiful skinny little
girl. She had a smile too big for her face, a nose too small and
big doughy eyes. Most striking was her sparkling hair. It was as
black and thick as Urea's, but it shone like
biselk
antlers
when the light struck it. Under the ancient chandelier it sparkled
a thousand shades of dark purples, greens and navy blues. Not a
soul in the Spire had hair like Phoebe's. She risked Baucis’s wrath
and waived at Urea.

Seeing Phoebe gave Urea the confidence she
didn’t realize she’d been looking for.

“I told you, I dreamt it.”

“Do you mind if we delay the dream
interpretation for your next congregation Councilor Ntelo? There
are more pressing matters at hand,” Rufus interjected.

“Indeed. Something down there's using tools!
Just think of it!” Tennay said, his voice was a low purr, like a
very old, well cared for engine.

“What are you talking about?” Urea asked.

Baucis snapped his finger and just like that,
Urea was the elk, running through thick woods she had never seen.
She didn't like how the Master Ecologist could override her own VRC
so easily, but the footage commanded her attention. Something was
chasing her, as the elk. It was not like her dream. It was not a
panthera
, the patterns it moved in were different. The
predator stayed completely hidden. Jacob swore he had seen it at
the beginning of the chase, but had not been storing the data.

He had been infiltrating a wild herd of elk
and was working to introduce fresh genetics, loaded with the
bio-metals. Interbreeding in the garden caused occasional birth
defects to arise, a simple solution was to incorporate the wild
animals that lived in the nearby plains. Jacob had impregnated wild
elk dozens of times, it was a routine procedure. There Jacob was,
or rather, there was the
biselk
he had been controlling,
when he claimed to see it. A beast that ran on two legs and threw
weapons attacked the herd. He maimed Jacob's elk, and in a moment
of abject terror, Jacob lost control and the elk ran. He regained
control late in the race, after hours of feeling the elk's terror
in his own mind. Urea wouldn't have believed it if not for the last
few minutes of footage. Fortunately Jacob was able to synchronize
and record the final pursuit.

It--
he
in Jacob's words-- threw a
blade from the dark of the woods. All that could be seen was a pair
of red glowing eyes, floating well over two yards off of the
ground, and the hand that threw the blade. The hand changed
everything Urea thought she knew. It had five fingers, an opposable
thumb, was huge, hairy, and deadly. It should not exist.

Jacob managed to parry the flying blade, then
charged at the predator, whatever it was, but it had vanished from
sight. The elk stumbled and Urea guessed that the predator had
landed on its back. Then, barely a minute later, the elk careened
into a tree, and the feed went dead. Urea opened her eyes. The
entire room was silent. All eyes were on her. Baucis spoke first:
“Do you understand the significance?”

Urea shook her head. She understood that
everything she thought she knew had changed. He wasn't supposed to
exist, not really. He was a fable, a story to frighten children and
pass the time. He couldn't exist, he shouldn't.

“Imagine The Garden with
tools
at our
disposal. Everything will accelerate. The elk will have to adapt to
an infinitely adaptable predator. Their antlers can’t even begin to
defend against it. We’ll need a whole new set of mutation! All from
a new player for my symphony!”

Urea's mouth hung open in shock. Just like
Baucis to focus on his symphony. He saw himself as a maestro, the
forms of the Evanimals his instruments, the hunts between life and
death his orchestral movements. “The Naturalists would love to see
a new predator I'm sure,” Rufus added. Baucis nodded in agreement,
his eyes seeing five fingered stars.

Tennay cleared his throat. “Small goals,
gentlemen. Those hands can build. We can build machines again,
exploit resources! Industry can return! If we find a sufficient
population we can reclaim the surface.”

“You do realize you speak Blasphemy? We
survive the Scourge because of our Spire. You seek to leave it and
damn us all!”

“Not all of us believe your silly
superstitions, priestess,” Tennay said, his voice laden with
sarcasm.

“Still, she has prophesied him. At the very
least we'll have to address it.” Rufus was always thinking of the
patrons of the Spire.

“Nonsense! No one really believes in him!
It's just a way to explain to our children why we're stuck up
here,” Tennay said.

Ntelo scowled.

“We must find and capture it, immediately.
Any hesitation and we risk losing the animal. It is clearly
nocturnal, and probably lives past the mountain range. The Field’s
not strong there, so we'll have to capture it before he gets too
far. Urea, that will be your responsibility. Once we have it, then
we can decide how to best introduce him. Any questions?” Baucis
looked around the circle.

Urea had only one: “Who is he?”

Tennay looked to Rufus who only shrugged.
Baucis grinned devilishly, but the High Priestess spoke first.

“He is the Wild Man, sent by Nature to scour
the blight of humanity from this planet.” Phoebe gasped. Fat tears
rolled down Urea's cheeks. Jacob hid his eyes, but she knew that he
too wept.

The Wild Man, Nature’s Warrior, the force of
Nature that represented all that was good about mankind had killed
one of their cursed
biselk
. Long had the stories been told
of the Wild Man: he waited out there, in the wild, proof positive
that man could survive on the surface without the help of anything
but his own wits, but that one day, if you weren’t careful, he’d
come for you, so be good and he’ll stay down there! The boogeyman
they had all worked so hard to keep away had reared his ugly
head.

Skup closed the connection as soon as his
sister started crying. Skup did not like being excluded from
meetings, especially one as important as this. Why did Baucis think
he shouldn’t know about the Wild Man? Unlike everything else, he
actually agreed with Baucis on this one. They should capture the
thing, clearly it was powerful.

No one wanted to hear from Skup. Ever since
Urea's
panthera
was introduced to the Garden, his
vultus
flock had been forgotten, and him along with them.
Now Baucis ignored him too, it was an affront. He knew Baucis was
intimidated by him and his sister and sought to drive them apart.
They were only sixteen but already the most gifted Evanimal Pilots
in all of Spire City. But in light of his sister's
panthera
the patrons were quickly forgetting about Skup. His flock received
none of the respect it deserved.

Before Skup no one could pilot a
vultus
with any success, much less an alpha male that
presided over an entire flock. Without Skup, the flock would have
long ago turned on the
biselk
, and the Garden would be
doomed. If the scavengers simply left, disease from rotting corpses
would have burned through the herd like the Scourge burned through
civilization.

Each bird had a wing span of at least 12
feet. Bio-metals had allowed them to grow perceptibly even in the
short time he had been piloting them. They were scavengers
originally, but their size made everything prey. They could kill
monkeys, the big cats that prowled the jungles near the garden,
even an adult
biselk
, given a pilot with sufficient
skills.

Skup was sufficiently skilled. He worked
miracles with the flock. He had pioneered ways to use the bird's
body that the
vultus
hadn't figured out for themselves. The
flock had taken to adapting his deadly innovations. Skup was quite
certain that without him, Spire City would be doomed. And they
rewarded him by withholding information about the
Wild Man
?
Who exactly did they expect to pilot the animal if they could
actually catch it? Who did they expect to catch it?

No matter. It was nearly dawn. His VRC had to
be synchronized with the one in the skull of his
vultus
before the rest of the flock awakened. Urea and Jacob could wait,
their Evanimals couldn't do much harm on their own, but Skup had a
uniquely important position.

Besides, Skup had seen Jacob set out the day
prior. The breeding elk he had piloted headed south, out of the
huge caldera that cradled Spire City. His bird's telescopic vision
made it easy to keep tabs on everyone in the garden. Jacob's elk
had headed south, then looped back around, outside the foothills of
the caldera, but still well inside of the electromagnetic field
that powered the VRCs that gave all the pilots bodies more powerful
than their own. Whatever had happened, it had surely happened
there. If it was still in the area, it would not evade Skup and his
vultus
.

We stayed on Father Mountain when our brothers and
sisters left. We stay to honor the old ways. They play on the
Earth, like children, while we watch to the West, where the Hidden
sleep, and only their nightmares walk the surface.

He rises with the sun. He always rises with
the sun.

His people are far from here. He must risk
his kill and his life and carry the prongbuck through the exposed
hills to be home before the meat spoils. If nothing smells the
fresh blood, he can be home in the late day, when the shadows are
long. He will have time to prepare the meat and have a feast for
his people.

The hunter cannot untie his rope with his
injured arm, so instead he severs it with his unfinished knife.
Even without being worked, the prongblade is deadly sharp. The buck
lands with a loud snap. He fears the worst. If a prong has
shattered, the blade makers will have less left on the rack to work
with. Prongs are very valuable. A rack of them this large could be
worked into almost anything, surely more than simple prongblades.
Little, broken prongs could be found near prongelk mating
territory, as they often snapped off in duels.

In a rush he checks the rack of prongs. None
are broken besides the one he had snapped off to make his weapon,
not one. There are dozens of them. This buck's prongs are very
strong. He checks the animals ribs, a snapped rib can puncture
organs and ruin meat, but again, none are broken. He checks the
legs, but those too are undamaged. The only wounds are those he had
inflicted on the prongbuck and the puncture it had just received.
No bones broke, but something did. He leans in close, runs his hand
along its bristled hide. He searches for a clue. A spot of blood on
the back of the neck smells fresh.