by Joe Darris
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.
Chapter 3
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.
One prong is driven backwards, into the base of the skull of the elk, but still looks intact. Slowly, he pulls the prong out of the skull. It is not damaged and slides out with a loud sucking sound. Like a curious child, he peers into the wound.
There is a stone.
First it glows red, then turns black, then red, then black. Back and forth like a dying flame or a light bug. It can be neither.
He remembers the hermit's stories. The hermit is the oldest member of the hunter's tribe. He does not stay with the rest of them in their mountain jungle. Instead he lives high up a mountain path, in a cave. He comes down to the tribe, mostly when the moon is black, a dreaming moon, tends a fire and tells stories. One of the hermit's tales captures the hunter's mind as he prods the blinking stone:
A glorious battle between the hermit's father and a vicious lion. The lion fought like one of the people. It did not only try to use its bite. It fought with its claws like hands instead of feet. It knew to defend its neck. No lion had ever fought like it.
His father killed the lion by sneaking through the forest and back around it. The hunter had laughed at this when he was little. Everyone knew lions had powerful noses. No one with a smell could ever hope to sneak up on one, but this one did not smell the hermit’s father. The hunters would say that was impossible if he smelled anything like his son and laugh and laugh.
From a hiding place his father leapt from a tree and stabbed the lion in its neck, but the prongblade had shattered. Though the end of the tale was what seized the hunter's mind like an eagle seizes a fish from a river. When skinning the lion, the hermit's father had discovered a glowing red stone inside of its head. The hermit swore that the stone guided the animal, and that it had been put inside the lion by the Hidden.
The light coming from inside the prongbuck reminds the hunter of the light of the story. He fears he has found the stone's brother.
The young hunter convinced himself long ago that stories and begging for food were all the hermit was good for, yet the prongbuck and the light within it seemed to say the elder told truths. The hunter decides to share the light with the hermit when he shares the meat with tribe.
He lets the pieces of the story leave his mind as he teeters under the buck's weight. He must balance it with his one uninjured arm. He chuckles to himself. He does not think anyone has ever caught a prongbuck so big! Perhaps having someone else skin the beast will be worth it. He peers once more into the wound, but blood and muscles block his view of the glowing stone. He tries to forget the whole idea, shoulders the buck on his good side, and goes home.
The young hunter must walk through much forest, around the cliff face he cornered the elk against, and up into the foothills of his people's mountains. He knows that fear and the cliff hidden in forest were the only way to trick and kill a prongbuck so large and dangerous, but his hike back is long and he regrets his hunt. The forested mountain is his domain, he is at ease there. It was an instinctual decision to drive the powerful animal into the woods but surely there was a better way.
No weapon, he reminds himself. A twinge of pain from his arm reminds him he may never be without weapons again.
Bands of trees trade with open savannah around the mountain lowlands that his people live in this time of year. Normally he would have stuck to the forests. His strong arms and nimble toes are able to traverse the thick undergrowth or storied canopy easily, but injured from the elk's prongs, and struggling under its weight, he chooses the savannah. It is the easier way. He follows the prongelk's trail out of the woods.
He can't help feeling fear in the open plains. Elk live in the plains, as do all that hunt them: saberlions, grizzlywolves, and worst of all, the monstrous kingcrows, the lords of death. He is prey here, injured prey with a meal. But the sun rises high and nothing attacks.
The day grows hotter, and the young hunter relaxes. The grasses sway in the wind and put him at ease. The sun is warm and soothes his tired muscles. Clouds chase each other through the sky like lovebirds. Here and there pockets of boulders jut out of the landscape, ancient game pieces thrown by the mountains long before the hunter was born and sure to remain long after he dies. He smiles at the thought. The hermit would like it.
The sun eclipses. He cranes his neck to see a silhouette of a kingcrow block out the light. The deadly birds fly near the sun, where the bright rays hide them, but this one passes too close, and alerts its prey.
In an instant the hunter drops his kill, and is underneath it, his prongblade ready. He should let the lord of death take his kill without a fight but the elk is too impressive, the hunter too proud. He wants the village to see his trophy, clap his back and sing him praises around the fire for seasons to come. He can see their faces, mouths hanging open over antlers thicker than a child's arm. The women bicker over who will cook and share the choice cuts of meat. He wonders if any of them are worthy of his favorite piece, the heart. Surely with a beast of this size he can choose the strongest woman. Part of him longs to tell them of how he battled a lord of death as well.
Yet the kingcrow does not strike. Instead it circles a few times, and flies on. This troubles him. He hurries to his feet and quickens his pace. kingcrows have insatiable appetites and eat everything. The only thing they love more than killing a meal is stealing one. The kingcrow's sharp eyes surely saw the glitter of the elk's antlers, its acute sense of smell tasted the iron tang of its blood, yet it did not strike. He hopes it is blind to its senses like the saberlion in the hermit's story. He immediately curses the idea. He does not believe the h
ermit's stories, and if he did, the last thing he wants is a duel with one of the Hidden.
A whiff of carrion and he knows the kingcrow returns. It was trying to deceive him. He thanks his senses for the few moments they give him. With luck, he will make it to the nearest pile of boulders. A fresh surge of adrenaline makes the prongelk lighter in his arms.
He runs.
The kingcrow is the biggest he has ever seen. Each wing is as long as he is tall. A sharp black beak, big as his arm, guides a body light enough to fly yet strong enough to kill a prongbuck, towards the hunter like drops of rain fall to the earth. It beats its wings a few times then tucks them in. The kingcrow gains speed.
The hunter has never seen one so close. It almost has a lizard's head. Rough dark red scales start at its deadly beak, run round eyes that scream hunger and down its neck before turning into feathers that sparkle rainbow shades of black. It reeks of death: old death, fresh death, every death in between.
The kingcrow flies much faster than he can run. It levels out and approaches him opposite the direction that he sprints. They will meet head on, closer than the safety of the boulders. He quickens his already breakneck speed and cautiously leans the body of the elk forward, eclipsing his view of the bird with its girth. If he can not see the bird, then it can not see him. Surprise is important to a hunter.
He races forward, balancing the falling weight of his kill and does not see the kingcrow pull up from its descent and begin to beat its wings. It hovers in place above the boulders the hunter plans to hide in.
Faster he runs, the weight of the elk is getting away from him. His injured arm screams in protest as he struggles to hold up the body. The carcass grows lighter, not by much, but his injured arm feels the difference acutely. Wind blows through his fur, then gusts rustle the rope tied around his chest. The winds build, offering more and more resistance while simultaneously buoying the elk. The hunter listens carefully and hears the beat of the kingcrow's broad wings, quick as his heart, strengthen the wind. His pace slows to a trudge as gales of wind whip past him, tearing plants from their roots and kicking up swirling twisters that whip the earth itself into a frenzy.
The hunter tastes fear, but presses forward. His weight combined with the prongbuck's is too much to be carried by the wind. Though his pace is slow, the elk weighs less in his arms. He will make it to the boulders that the crow has turned into the eye of a windstorm.
The hunter has scaled mountains with nothing but his arms and legs, his fingers and toes biting into the rocks themselves. He has faced jungle cats in brawny fights and sent them mewling for their mothers. He can stand a strong breeze! This is a pleasure to a warrior like him! Surely the ugly crow has more than this. The kingcrow cannot dive bomb while it throws the winds at him. It struggles just to stay in place. Each beat of its formidable wings sends it backward with all the force of the winds themselves. The hunter draws closer to the safety of the boulders. He has never faced a kingcrow, and did not think it would fight like such a coward.
Once safely under the rocks he can snap off prongs from his kill’s antlers one at a time and hurl them at the crow. It will be a pity to waste the rack of antlers, but his life is worth it.
Smells of wet earth and mosses that chew at rock invite him in to safety. He is paces away from the boulders and ready to launch his attack when the kingcrow rattles its wings as it pulls them backwards. The tinkle of crystals rips his mind from his murderous plans and forces him to consider the crow's own schemes.
The elk obstructs his view. He peers around it and immediately dodges as something whips past his face then embeds in the earth beside him.
It is a prong from a buck. Another whips past and lodges firmly in the ground, barely missing his foot. For a moment, only a few fall, like fat raindrops heralding a coming storm. But in no time enough shards of antler and bone fly through the air to darken the sky. The wind was never the weapon, only a way to hurl the deadly projectiles. The hunter roars and pushes forward as dull thumps from above tell him his food is being eviscerated. He has never seen such an attack, never heard tales of something so ruthless. The Hidden, he thinks, wondering what other truths the hermit tells.
A shard grazes his calf. He howls in pain and his legs buckle. He heaves the prongbuck forward and drops to the ground. He hides behind it.
The kingcrow lets out a piercing cry as it beats its wings faster and faster. Splinters of edged antler and bone rain down and turn the once verdant meadow into a bed of shards sharper than crystal. Broken prongs pelt the elk. The hunter clings to his kill and feels the dull thuds melt into each other as the projectiles melt the elk's flesh to mush.
He had dropped the elk's belly towards the bird, and he wonders idly if the tougher hide on its back would have stood up any better against the razor-sharp hailstorm. He doubts it, prongs are valued for their unmatched razor edge. Only the thick carcass intended to feed his tribe can slow the deadly storm.
The shards of prongs fall for what seems an eternity. He clings to his now desecrated trophy, using it as a meat shield. He knows the kingcrow cannot keep up its attack forever. Its wings only hold so much. Already the field is reduced to something more akin to a volcanic obsidian flow than the idyllic pasture it had been just moments before.
The impacts grow less frequent. He readies himself to sprint to the boulders. His ears carefully tune to the bird's rhythms; he hears a change in the dull thuds of the prongs hammering the earth. Instead he hears a higher pitched tinkle as shards clatter to the boulders below the bird. The kingcrow releases another piercing scream, and he knows it has exhausted its reserves of prongs.
He lunges over the elk's messy body, then scoops it up and raises it over his head. Its muscles and organs form a bloody pulp on the ground in front of it. He lifts it by the inside of its ribcage, and pulls the elk's skin around him in a macabre shroud. It weighs less than a quarter of what it had before. Thankful the belly of the elk had absorbed most of the blows, the young hunter hopes the bones and thick hide of the elk can protect him from another assault if the kingcrow holds anything in reserve.
He aims the rack of prongs at the boulders and charges forward, his feet skipping between the jutting barbs that adorn the earth. He peeks out from under his shield to see the crow perched atop the highest boulder, hurriedly preening its feathers. It screeches loudly and beats its wings once more. He hides under the elk's skin as another volley of prongs flies at him. These shards lack the speed of the earlier attack and bounce off his bizarre cape and hood and clatter harmlessly to the ground.
By the time the kingcrow prepares its wings for another assault the hunter is inside the pile of boulders it perches upon. He watches silently, obscured by massive rocks and his bloody cape as the bird folds its wings and squawks angrily from its high vantage point.
The hunter snakes through passages between the stones, trying to stay hidden and find a place from which to attack the bird and hopefully scare it off. Animals never challenge the kingcrows, and the hunter hopes it won't anticipate an attack.
He peers up through gaps between the boulders while the avian killer peers down for him. He drops the carcass in a pool of sunshine, hoping to draw the bird's attention as he finds another line of attack. He scrambles up between rocks, pokes his head out into the sun and sees the bird beat its wings and send a few shards down the tunnel towards his decoy. The young hunter draws the prong he killed the elk with, takes aim, and hopes kingcrows know fear.
The prong flies fast and true. It catches the bird's elbow joint as it raises its wing to launch another volley at his decoy. The monster screeches in agony as the razor sharp prong passes through the tendons and emerges on the other side with a squirt of blood that glows in the afternoon sun. The hunter drops back into the hole as the kingcrow reels around and hops towards him, its huge unwieldy talons ripping pebbles loose from the boulder.
He dives out of a ray of sunlight as his opponent shadows it. The bird's muscular neck allows its bald head dee
per into the shaft than the hunter anticipated. He falls to the ground to avoid injury but badly jars the prongs embedded in his arm. They send jolts of pain up his arm and he knows he won't be able to fight or even stay conscious much longer.
Hoping the kingcrow will fall for the same trick twice, he grabs what is left of the prongbuck and places it into another sunny patch. He barely clears the ring of light before it goes dark. He scurries away from a the bird's retching as messy globs of white bile drip down from above. A drop lands on the back of his hand and he grits his teeth in pain as he rubs it in dirt. The globs hiss and evaporate into acrid mist as they ooze down the boulders, dissolving any lichens or moss that had grown on the boulders over the decades. His nostrils burn from the clouds of noxious gas that leisurely fill the tunnels between the boulders.
Vomit rains down again, this time spattering the prongbuck's pelt. The young hunter holds his breath and lunges for his trophy. It is worth far too much to be lost to something so revolting. He furiously rubs it in the dirt, diluting the corrosive slime and salvaging the hide. The acid only had time to burn a few tiny holes in the leather pelt, but had almost completely eroded the remaining fleshy bits and organ chunks that hung from the skin and skeleton.
Realizing the hide offers more protection than his own skin, the hunter digs his hand into the skull cavity and scoops out the only organ unaffected by the bird's stomach juices, its brain. He tosses the brain in a shadowy corner. It lands with a loud CRACK as well as the expected squelch. He had forgotten about the curious stone inside.