Law of the Jungle

by Unknown Author

  “As you can see, my servant has assembled quite an array of ingenious equipment,” Sauron cackled. “As long as you remain in this cavern, an inhibitor field will be generated through that collar you’re wearing. You won’t be able to use your abilities even after they begin to reawaken. By the time you’re strong enough to break free, I’ll have feasted upon you again.” •

  “You really think you’re going to defeat all of us as easily as you took me? The others won’t be unconscious when you kidnap them.”

  “I think I have an excellent chance,” he stated. “You were the critical obstacle. But even if I overestimate my advantage, I have no choice but to make the attempt, don’t you see? I had to lure the X-Men to the Savage Land. True mutants are the only sustainable source of the fuel I require to be all that I am meant to be. I knew from the first that you would come. I only regret that Havok is not among you. His particular power configuration is suited to me better than any other.”

  Psylocke refused to show any sign of how daunted she was, but she was definitely intimidated. She and the X-Men had played right into Sauron’s designs. It chilled her to hear how calmly he assessed his situation. He did not boast like the Sauron of old; he was decisive and controlled, without irrationality.

  She strained to probe him. A whisper came. A misty image. Behind it, a shadow. Sauron the monster, enslaving Karl Lykos the man. His selves were still divided, but somehow the disharmony no longer impaired him.

  “Come, Lupo,” he said cheerfully. “I have to return you to your haunts and rendezvous with Amphibius if our schemes are to unfold correctly. Farewell, telepath. I do hope I can provide you with suitable company soon. It would be a shame if I am forced to kill some of your friends. They are not as useful to me dead.”

  Sauron and his bestial mutate marched away down a corridor hewn from native rock. Brainchild remained.

  “This was your doing,” she said, “You changed him, somehow.”

  Brainchild sniggered. “I tell no secrets. Sauron is as he always should have been. My brood and I have a master to focus our efforts once more. Not that fool Zaladane, always driving us to do too much. Not the Creator who betrayed us. Sauron is one of us. A mutate.”

  “And just as ugly as the rest of you,” she growled. She heaved against the straps, but the leather only dug into her skin.

  Brainchild licked his lips. He reached down and picked up a loose eyelash that had fallen on her cheek. He kissed it. “Such a beauty you are. And here you are, ail strapped down. Perhaps I should unbuckle you. It would make it easier to ... reposition you.”

  She narrowed her gaze. A taunt. Yet she couldn’t stop the flood of images that came to her of all the ways she might win her freedom, if his lust should prove unmanageable and he gave her the freedom he had just suggested.

  He laughed deeply. “Your expression betrays you, woman. No, I am not going to be tricked. Storm did that to me once. Besides,” he waved at the exit. A pair of burly, hirsute guards had emerged to assume posts there, now that Sauron had departed. ‘ ‘Even if I released you, the inhibitor collar would still work. I doubt your martial arts skills are enough to deal with the dozens like them you would have to go through to win free of the cavern. Even at your full strength they would overwhelm you, and at the moment you are so, so weak.”

  Her muscles shook from the temporary effort she had mounted against the straps. Weak as a kitten. No. A kitten was stronger. Weak as a potato.

  “I have work to do to prepare this facility for the other guests,” Brainchild whispered, his mouth no more than a finger’s width from her ear. “But as I do, I will be watching you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Shanna saw the smoke signals rising and heard the pounding drums. “Matthew!” she cried. Her feet left divots in the grass as she accelerated.

  Maternal alarm flooded her so thoroughly that she whipped past two bends of the trail before she recovered her ability to think. Calm down, she scolded herself. Hysteria won’t help him.

  The self-lecture worked. Legs still pumping hard, she settled into the strategic composure she had developed in her earliest days in Africa and India, when her leopards ran with her. She raised her wrist to her mouth, activating the device Hank McCoy had given her.

  “Attack on the Fall People village,” she blurted.

  Storm’s voice crackled out of the tiny speaker. “How bad?” '

  “Don’t know, I’m not there yet,” Shanna puffed. “The drums just say trouble, all warriors come quick. I’ll be at the gates in two minutes.”

  “We’re on our way,” Storm replied. “Archangel, Cannonball.”

  “I heard,” Archangel replied. “I’m way out by Garokk’s ruined city, but I’ll be there as soon I can.”

  “An’ I’ll be—” Cannonball’s transmission drowned in a wave of static. Another EMP. The radios would be out for a bit. No matter. The important part of the communication had already taken place.

  x-mm

  The community watchtower swung into view. The juvenile boys stationed on the platform saw her and waved vigorously. She gave them a quick gesture of acknowledgment.

  The tower was intact, the boys unhurt. The stockade walls loomed through the trees, unharmed. Whatever the crisis, it was not as widespread as it could be.

  She bounded through the gateway. Her first glance darted straight toward the hut she and Ka-Zar were inhabiting while the X-Men were based here. Zira was standing just outside the entrance, clutching little Matthew protectively in her long arms.

  He’s safe. Shanna’s heart ceased jumping like a cricket from one side of her chest cavity to another. Her son was

  safe.

  ,She spun to the right through the meat-drying racks and the tanning hoops to the packed circle of ground at the village center, where the mutate had been imprisoned.

  The cage hatch was wide open, the occupant gone. A group of warriors was clustered around the scaffold that had been under construction when Shanna had left for the rendezvous by the lake. They were gazing ruefully at the scuff marks on the ground near the cage—marks made by shoes, not bare feet.

  “What happened?” she demanded.

  “The woman who looks into minds was taken,” stated Bral, an elder. ‘ ‘She cried out and collapsed. Before anyone could rush to her side, the monster appeared from the sky, swooped down, and seized her. We—”

  “He clouded our minds,” added Nyo, Bral’s younger brother. “It was only for a moment, but it made every one of us pause.” .

  “During that time, he launched back into the air,” Bral continued, pointing upriver. “Two riders on leatherwings swooped down in his wake. They freed the wolf-brother and carried him away as well. My arrow struck the saddle of the second rider, but I fear it drew no blood. The attackers escaped. We are sorry, sister-warrior.”

  Shanna blanched. Psylocke taken? The She-Devil immediately regretted all the petty things she had been thinking about the telepath. Despite her annoyingly flirtatious demeanor, she was an ally—and a valuable one. No one deserved to fall into Sauron’s clutches, particularly not when OilC- If ad been put in danger as the result of an invitation Shanna herself had extended.

  Dust and particles of grass whirled as Storm landed in the village circle. Shanna rushed toward her.

  “Sauron kidnapped Psylocke. They went that way. They might still be in view if you fly high enough.”

  “If they are, I will stop him,” the wind-rider vowed. She lofted upward, summoning a jet of air so strong the treetops roiled like tentacles and the watchtower rocked back and forth. Even a pterodactyl in full dive into the lake could not cut the Savage Land atmosphere so swiftly.

  To the awe of the villagers, Archangel raced toward them even faster than Storm had left, seeming to be only an azure blur until he braked for his landing. He jogged the last few paces, halting the last of his momentum with his legs.

  He saw the opened cage and the empty spot where his lover had sat and let out an inarticulate yell. Sh
anna told him what had happened.

  “I’m on it,” he barked toward Shanna. Then he was in flight, crying out Betsy’s name.

  He’s as hot-headed as I about his mate, Shanna thought. She hoped Warren wasn’t rushing headlong into more than he could handle.

  “One down, without even a fight,” Logan muttered as the last of twilight faded from purple to black over the village of the Fall People. “Got mud on our faces, people.”

  “Y’hand out compliments like Cable, Wolvie,” Cannonball said, referring to his former mentor in the New Mutants and X-Force. “I think we’re feelin’ bad enough as it is.” Sam waited for Wolverine’s comeback, but Logan merely paced stiffly back and forth, rubbing the nearly healed scar on his side, shadows deep beneath his bushy brows. He’s gnawing his foot off, Sam thought. He pushed himself hard all day, caught a bad guy, and now he has nothing positive to show for it.

  Sam recalled all the times he’d seen Psylocke and Wolverine tumbling around the gym or the lawns of the Xavier Institute. Kicking, jabbing, rolling. Delighting in the chance to practice lethal moves with a partner who could withstand the intensity. It had been their ritual ever since Betsy had acquired her ninja skills. Though her romantic involvement with Warren had curtailed the frequency of such practices, Sam suspected Logan was remembering them now.

  Sam had his own memories to cope with. Such as his first encounter with Sauron. His protective blast envelope disrupted by Phantazia, Sauron’s teammate on that roster of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Sam had proven vulnerable at just the wrong time. The horror of Sauron’s spearlike wingtip thrusting completely through his body still made him shudder. There he’d been, skewered like a cube of lamb at one of his family’s backyard barbecues.

  That was the sort of stuff Sauron was made of. That was the type of freak who had Psylocke now.

  Sam tried to distract himself by nabbing a strip of dinosaur jerky from a basketful that a lithe young village woman was offering the visitors. Didn’t work. If he’d been capable of distraction, then the mere sight of the all-but-naked server would have done the job. Still, the meat soothed his gullet going down. He had not eaten in many hours.

  Ororo was sitting, finally, on the chieftain’s stool Tongah’s aides had brought from the lodge for her. Deep lines etched her usually smooth brown forehead. She, Warren, and Sam had flown from one end of the valley and back again countless times in the hope of spotting Sauron. She hadn’t even taken a break to carry the flightless X-Men back to camp at dusk, leaving that to Sam.

  “No telepathic contact whatsoever,” Ororo was saying to Hank and Bobby as Logan and Sam joined them. “She’s disappeared both physically and psychically. Sauron must have a way of dampening her powers.”

  .“ ’Twould seem so,” the Beast said. “Not surprising. He's done that before, with the help of Brainchild. The mystery is how he surprised her. The villagers say she was unconscious before Sauron ever swooped down to abduct her.” “She wouldn’t’ve been taken like that if she’d been awake,” Logan said. “Hell, she probably wouldn’t have been taken, period. Green-beak’s hypnotic powers wouldn’t have meant squat against Betts.”

  “I’m not certain who would have prevailed in a telepathic melee,” Storm said. “However, it does seem likely that if Psylocke had her shields up, she would have been able to stalemate him for a considerable time. She appears not to have had the opportunity to erect those defenses.”

  “He’ll have drained her by now,” Iceman said. “He’ll be stronger and harder to beat.”

  “We’ve lost several advantages,” Storm declared. “Including our radios. Sauron has one now. He can listen if we continue to use them.”

  “Not to worry,” Hank said. “I set them so that they’ll

  x-mm

  only work for a day unless I enter a code I’ve prepared. By midnight the circuits in Psylocke’s unit will fuse themselves together. Once that happens even Brainchild won’t be able to restore it to functional capability.” As he spoke, he went to each person, raised their wrists, and punched in the necessary code. ‘ ‘Of course, it also means we cannot track her down via the radio signal.”

  Cannonball lifted his radio to his mouth. “Hey, Warren. Time for dinner, fella. Y’can’t do much more right now.” “Negative,” Archangel replied. “Save the leftovers. I’m staying out here awhile.”

  Ororo nodded at the young X-Man. “I appreciate the attempt, Sam, but I already tried. As long as Betsy is in danger, Warren will obsess. He’ll stay out all night even if I order otherwise. I won’t force the issue yet. He has the stamina. My hope is he’ll wear down enough to get some useful sleep before dawn.”

  “Okay,” Cannonball responded. “How about the rest of us? What can we do? Do we just rest and try out the same strategy tomorrow?”

  “In the absence of new information, I’m afraid that may be all we can do.”

  They paused, keening their ears. From far off came the sound of native drums. Ka-Zar soon trotted up.

  “Message from the Swamp People,” he said. “It’s old news, but it may help. Not long after the attack here, one of their scouts witnessed Sauron cruising by carrying a woman in a costume. Doesn’t mean the monster stayed in the vicinity, but that does add up to more sightings of him or his riders in that piece of the Savage Land than any other.”

  “It may not be as solid a lead as we would like,” Storm said, “but we’ll take it. Tomorrow we’ll devote a squad to that region. Meanwhile I’ll go up after supper. I’m tired, but it’s worth a look right away as long as I know where to concentrate my efforts.”

  Sam said, “I’ll help.”

  ‘ ‘No. If you go up at night, our enemies will see the glow of your kinetic envelope. Probably hear you as well, no matter how silent you’ve learned to be these past couple of years.”

  Cannonball looked up into the shrouded heavens. He could barely see the bats swooping over the village in pursuit of insects or fruit-bearing trees. It was a witch’s cauldron up there. In a way, he was glad not to be journeying up into that.

  Ororo soared through the blackness. The mist layer was an oppressive weight somewhere above her, depriving her of the starlight she had come to love on her night flights over the Great Rift Valley of Africa, back when she was worshipped as a goddess. Still, the night was the night. The darkness stole away the distractions of color and contrast and movement, leaving her head clear and sharp. A gift.

  Below, lights twinkled. The absolute blanking of the heavens made each source vivid. They were fires, mostly, blazing in the villages and camps of the United Tribes. Fires to keep away the wildlife, and fires around which to gather for storytelling. Otherwise the only illumination came from the lava fields on a mountainside to the north—a dull, emberish glower—and from the phosphorescent fish and squid down in the depths of the lake—darting, ghostly streaks.

  A warm gust buffeted her hair. She redirected it, using its vigor to sustain the artificial currents that held her at this altitude. Warm. Tropical. Yet a few thousand feet up, beyond the mists, frigid air was roaring past on its way to the Trans-antarctic Range, further chilling an ice pack that had not

  melted for thousands, perhaps millions, of years.

  Though it was one of the most stunning natural sights Ororo had ever seen, the entire climate of the Savage Land was, in fact, artificial. She reached out with her power and tried, as she had on previous visits, to grasp the scheme behind the magic. It was a work of genius and cosmic technology. Clearly, some of the ancient infrastructure that had warded this place for so many years still operated. The ring of mountains, the geothermal sources, the inversion layer— those all helped, but they didn’t explain it all. She could see it, could revise it here and there the way she did the climate elsewhere on Earth, but she couldn’t have originated it so completely and, once done, expected it to continue without her active guidance. If she were younger and could ever bear to. submit herself to an apprenticeship, she would want to study with a weath
er sorcerer who could fashion a masterpiece such as this.

  What was that?

  Her gaze locked on the swamp below. Tiny witchfires danced across its dank waters—methane gas, bubbling up from the putrefying lower layers, the sort of phenomenon sometimes mistaken for UFOs. The glimmers were not significant in themselves, but she was certain that for an instant, something large had passed between her and them.

  A flying creature? It would have to have been as large as the flying reptiles she had shared the skies with that day. But wild pterosaurs didn’t fly at night. That meant the being near her was either one of Sauron’s riders on a tamed mount, or Sauron himself.

  “Archangel,” she said into her wrist radio. “Meet me over the swamp southeast of the lake.”

  “On my way.”

  Good. He had heard her. She had feared that this would

  be one of those unlucky times when the EMPs would be masking radio contact. No need to stall, then. She took a deep breath. Time for—

  Lightning!

  The bolts split the sky as she asked, illuminating the whole area. She glimpsed a dark, winged silhouette cruising low over the bog. It suddenly wheeled and started to climb.

  Sauron. And he was alone.

  I have you now, murderer, she thought.

  She formed sleet and more lightning, funneling it toward the speeding figure. The gale pelted him sideways, but he ducked and circled into quieter air in a stunning example of flying agility. The draining of Psylocke had charged him with such vigor he was as fast as a swooping eagle, but as ma-neuyerable as a swallow.

  The initial burst of lightning faded, plunging Ororo into gloom. She called up another round.

  Sauron was no longer fleeing clockwise as she had anticipated. She had to hurriedly scan about in order to locate him.

  He was coming straight for her.

  She commanded a thermal current to form and rocketed herself upward. When Sauron plunged into the updraft, she twisted it around like a funnel, intending to disorient him.