The Wild Beasts of Anthony Mannis

The Tzolkhan are Old World savages who have been terrorizing citizens of Atos for hundreds of years. Unlike Borgesian SSI, who are dedicated towards the protection and service of Atos, Tzolkhan invokers are brutish and barbaric. Though Tzolkhan armaments are rudimentary, they as a whole are a dangerous secessionist force—not to be taken lightly.

- Information available to Borges Citizens, Pamphlet XII

Anthony tossed and turned in his bedroll trying to avoid the sunbeams that were shining directly in his face. He was drifting in and out of dream-sleep, where he was standing in the middle of a sunlit forest. A white tiger prowling nearby stopped to stare at him with burning eyes. The eyes stared through him and burned brighter and brighter until he snapped his eyes open. He tried to roll over, but even with his back to the window the sunlight was so warm it was waking him up. He finally threw off the covers frustratedly and rose to see everyone else already up and eating.

“Hey there, lazy,” said Philip. Ikoa also nodded a greeting at him. Anthony grumbled at them sleepily and grabbed an apple from the breakfast spread.

Lautara and Hayley entered the hut, sweeping aside the deerskin doorflap. “Time to go.”

“Where we going?” asked Anthony.

“Hunting!” said Hayley excitedly.

“Do I have to go too?”

“Yes.” Lautara said.

“But I didn’t even get a chance to eat breakfast,” he wailed.

“You should have woken up before dawn, like me!” Hayley chimed in. She snatched the apple out of his hand and took the first bite. Anthony made a face at her.

“We don’t really have time for this, we need to be moving on to the next town,” Philip said, glancing at Anthony. We need to be getting to Desert Zone, his face said.

“You do not have a say in the matter. Whether you are friend or foe has not been determined. Assemble in the hallway. We will meet you there.” Lautara swirled out of the hut; Hayley followed with a similar flourish.

Anthony thumbed at Hayley as she left. “What’s up with her?”

“They bonded. Lot in common, I guess,” Philip said.

“Geez, did I miss something while I was asleep?”

Ikoa stood up and stretched. “Man has limits to eating and drinking, and when he exceeds them he becomes sick. The same is for sleeping.”

The warriors all laughed, and Anthony turned red. He tried to think of a witty reply.

“Well, I uh…”

They had all left.

“Ah, forget it.” He hurried after them.

#

Hayley had indeed bonded with Lautara. Earlier in the morning Hayley had seen the Lautara practicing archery, separating apples at their stems. Enamored, she approached the Tzolkhan queen.

“Can you show me how to do that?” she asked.

“It takes years of practice,” Lautara said. She loosed another arrow dismissively and another apple fell to the forest floor.

“I’ve had a little practice. And I’m a quick learner.”

Lautara saw the fire in Hayley’s eyes and smiled. “I imagine you are.”

Huskar handed Hayley a bow—a beautiful elm recurve finely detailed with Tzolkhan invocations—and showed her how to string it. Strumming it thoughtfully, she let fly an arrow with a magnificent thrum.

“Hmmm, it went further than I thought,” Hayley murmured.

Lautara sighed. “Give me a chance to explain how to draw next time. Let us move further away from developed areas and try some more. We still have a few hours before the hunt. Ten Faces, please retrieve the arrow from Galvarino’s patio before she sees it.”

“The hunt?”

“Yes. We will be going on a hunt. It is a magnificent way to become in tune with the forest, to truly become connected—to know and respect life. Every step on the forest floor, every hand on the trunk of a tree, every breath of the cool morning air resonates with the transfer of energy.”

And with that, Hayley fell in love with the Tzolkhan way of life.

#

“This sure is a lot of people for a hunt,” Hayley murmured to Lautara, “isn’t it better to just go it alone?”

“Yes, mostly,” Lautara agreed. A huge white tiger-beast strode regally next to her, and she stroked its head fondly.

“Today is different. We will work in teams to flush and surround a stag.”

The party was trekking through the undergrowth stolidly in pairs—Lautara and Hayley in front, then Philip and Galvarino, Anthony and Huskar, and lastly Ikoa and Ten Faces.

Huskar offered them slices of sightseers. “You want some of these?”

“Nah, we’re good,” Anthony said.

“It is okay. We are all doing it,” Huskar pointed to the other warriors, who were all chewing on them vicariously.

“I said I don’t need ’em, mate.”

Lautara whirled on them. “Be silent! Huskar, stop trying to give the child drugs.”

“I’m not a child!”

The tiger-beast growled, and Lautara patted it soothingly. Philip stared in wonder at the pair.

“Isn’t she much too old to summon invocations?” he asked Galvarino.

“Too old?”

“That tiger-beast, it is uh, a projection? She created it? She is past adolescence and can invoke—she’s too old.”

“I am not sure what you mean, but yes, many of us are…too old? Lautara makes her tiger. She is named Wild Moon.”

“Ah, I get it,” Anthony said, who had been listening behind them, “it’s like a spirit animal or something. You know, I had a dream about it—”

“Indeed,” Philip said, ignoring him and pushing his glasses up as he always does when he gets excited, “spirit animals. Familiars. Interesting development. Lautara is well past invoking age but is able to maintain a strong relationship with one specific beast. You should give that a shot, Anthony.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but don’t expect anything fancy. These Tzolkhan are a pretty special bunch.”

“The Tzolkhan do seem to have a high percentage of invokers in accordance with population. Low ratio of invokers to non-invokers. Must be genetics.”

Philip turned to Galvarino enthusiastically for affirmation.

“I do not care about whatever you are saying.” Galvarino replied, having lost interest in the conversation a few sentences ago. Philip’s ears turned red and looked down at the dirt.

“It is because you Haazads do not respect the avatars,” said Huskar suddenly.

“Haazads?” Anthony asked. He remembered Galvarino calling him that on their basket ride up to Tzolk’in. I am ashamed to be put here like a den mother to watch these—

“Haazads, you know, uh,” Huskar attempted to explain. He pointed at Philip, Anthony, and Hayley.

“Look at me,” he pantomimed, puffing out his chest. He turned to Ikoa and thumped his chest huffily, “I am a Haazad. I make big ugly cities with big ugly buildings. I fight for no reason. Over pigs.”

“Is that what they call us Atosians?” whispered Anthony to Philip amidst the Tzolkhan laughter.

“As long as it’s not Borges,” Philip answered.

He turned to Huskar. “What do you mean we don’t respect the avatars?”

“Here, we respect the avatars. It is not…a monster to do a job for us. For those who can make them, it is a friend. A friend from day of first creation to day of death. A friend for life. Haazads have no respect for the avatars. Because Haazads have no respect, Haazads can never make friends. Because Haazads can never make friends with avatars, Haazads can never keep friends with avatars.”

My minotaur, Anthony thought, “You know, that kind of makes sense.”

“No it doesn’t,” Philip scoffed, “invocations are a physical manifestation of creative energy. You can’t have a relationship with a bundle of pure energy, despite its form. Otherwise you’re having imaginary friends!”

Huskar and Galvarino exchanged glances. See? Typical Haazad.

“Rude, dude,” said Anthony, putting a hand on Philip’s shoulder, “not just to them, but me as well. Trust me, as an invoker—it’s much more than thinking up imaginary friends. They feel, and I feel, you know? Happiness and pain and all of that. They get hurt and I feel it. I get hurt, and they feel it. These people have found a way to forge a special friendship with their invocation that will last for decades, whereas I will lose my power in a matter of months. You have to respect that at least.”

“Being able to invoke past the age of thirteen or fourteen is a invoker developmental anomaly. There are a handful of historic Atosians who have, yet here we have a whole group of people who have turned that anomaly into a regular occurrence,” Philip complained, “It flies in the face of standard Atosian development. There needs to be research on this.”

“Look, a man of modern science has come to save us,” said Galvarino to the other Tzolkhan, and they all laughed. Philip’s whole face now matched his red ears.

“Silence!” hissed Lautara through her teeth, and Wild Moon growled assent, “we are on the hunt, or did you all forget? Such children.”

“Such children,” Hayley agreed, with a ruffle of her jacket. She and Lautara trekked forward, Wild Moon flicking its tail as it followed.

Galvarino hung her head in mock sheepishness, then gave a huge wink and grin to Huskar. They all snickered and even Philip, despite his recent embarrassment, smiled.

“You mentioned yesterday that the Borges sent an ESO after you,” Lautara said to Hayley, “Who did they send specifically? Which ESO; Diana, Neff, Typhon…?”

The Tzolkhan warriors behind her grimaced, muttering angrily at the mention of each Elite Spectre Officer.

“Raffick,” Anthony said, and was surprised at their gasps.

“Raffick!” Lautara said, “you must really have made someone angry.”

“We’re the angry ones, sister,” Hayley said, “but I also feel like we’re uninformed.”

“They call him The Wolf,” Huskar grinned, “he’s the one they send when they’re really mad at someone.”

Lautara shushed him. “Be quiet, Huskar. Officer Raffick is not one of their hulking brutish footmen. He’s an excellent tracker, survivalist, and marksman, and his Squad 151 is equally tough. In fact, we have a saying…”

“May you kill the wolf and his pups,” Huskar said, waving his hand with an air of melodrama. Ikoa growled.

“We’ve run into him a few times, and his men never gave us much trouble,” Philip boasted.

“Speak for yourself,” Hayley muttered, thinking back to when Raffick had them cornered in the rain, or when Anthony had been under the influence of sightseers, or when they had been attacked in the food court.

#

“Hold for a moment,” called Lautara from ahead, “tracks.”

Galvarino knelt down beside her and examined the imprints in the dirt.

“Still fresh,” she said, “he will be by the Mother Tree.”

“Good. You and Ten Faces track and overtake. Call when you are in place. Hayley, with me—we’re going up. Anthony, Philip, Ikoa, Huskar—you four stay on the ground. No funny Haazad business. We know the forest better than you.”

Lautara leapt business-like into the tree above them and disappeared. Hayley punched Anthony lightly on the shoulder—everything will be just fine; play it cool—and clambered up after her. Wild Moon yawned lazily.

“Space out evenly,” Ikoa said, “they will send the stag our way.”

He brandished his axe and hefted it expertly. Huskar unslung his spears and crouched in wait. Wild Moon plodded in between them, as calm and as dangerous as mercury. Anthony straightened up, prepared to invoke.

Philip looked around confusedly. “Where’s my weapon?”

“Clench your fists,” Huskar said.

Philip did.

“There they are.”

Everyone but Philip laughed.

“Not funny,” he muttered.

Pooweet, went a bird.

“That’s the call,” Ikoa said, “be ready.”

A stillness came over the forest. Far away, they could hear the calls of Galvarino and Ten Faces driving the stag towards them. A scanner-class skydrone buzzed by overhead.

“Did you see that?” Anthony said to Ikoa.

“Yes. We should not stay here long. We will head back to the village after the kill. Ah, here it comes.”

The sound of galloping grew closer, and the stag burst out of the underbrush in front of them. He paused for a moment, looking uncannily like Anthony’s emerald stag invocation. There were humans blocking his escape. He reared up in full glory, breathing heavily, and the sun through the trees outlined him regally.

“Damn,” Philip breathed. It was quite the beautiful sight.

Two arrows zipped from the trees and thudded into the stag’s chest, and he bellowed in pain. His eyes rolled wildly, looking for an escape, but the Tzolkhan had surrounded him. Huskar and Ikoa stepped with the spears.

“We thank you brother,” Ikoa shouted, “for your life and the sustenance you will provide.”

“No!” Philip cried, but it was already finished. He ran to the kill and tried to push Ikoa away, but the native was so big that the shove was ineffectual. Ikoa glared at him. Do not do that.

“What is the problem, Haazad?” Huskar said, moving in-between them.

“You killed him!”

“Yes.”

“What is going on here?” Lautara said, dropping out of the trees.

“You killed him!”

“We kill a lot of things.”

“Something is not right about this.”

Lautara sighed. “Do you hunt where you are from, Haazad?”

“No,” said Philip, sick.

“Then you do not appreciate where your food is from,” she sniffed, “you ate the chickens and pig last night. Do you suppose they died in their sleep?”

There was a whumpf as Hayley landed next to them, leaves gently falling around her. “Did you see that?” she said eagerly, tugging on Lautara’s arm. She pointed at the arrows sticking out of the stag’s heart.

“I see that, child. Your arrow is amazingly close to mine. See how mine struck it in the heart? Yours is only a little off. Quite the improvement from this morning…” she lifted an eyebrow curiously.

Hayley shrugged. “Ma always said I was a quick learner. Told you so.”

She peered at the distraught Philip. “What’s up with him?”

“You talk to him.” Lautara turned away to face her warriors, “we have pressing matters.”

“You saw the skydrone?” Anthony piped up.

“Of course. And they have seen us. We must get moving before rangers come. We…do not agree on many things.”

Hayley squatted next to Philip and massaged his shoulders.

“Philly Phil my friend, what’s the matter with you?”

“He died. We killed him.”

Hayley put her arm around him, adopting a gentler tone. “Philip, I hunt all the time. Remember the black cats, and the rabbits? What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know…He was just…he was just so grand…he was the king of the forest. I saw it in his eyes. He looked right at me. He had the wisdom of the forest, years and years of it. And we took it all away and tore him down.”

Her straw jacket sleeve was scratchy on his neck. He shook her arm off.

“First time deer hunting?” she asked softly. He nodded.

“I remember the first time my father took me deer hunting,” she continued, “I was eight. The deer was so large…I remember crying a lot.”

She threw her rough scratchy arm back around him; much to his dismay.

“The thing is, that was the year of the big drought. Remember? Many harvests failed, and not much was left after the Borges taxation. That deer helped feed a lot of Kamishans through the winter. The same goes with the stag, and these people. They will use the body to the fullest and will honor the deer’s life. From its life it will provide life. You get me?”

Philip slowly nodded, not entirely satisfied. She gave his neck a last affectionate squeeze, and ignoring his wince, stood up. “It would be a waste of his life if we wasted his life, ya know, like if we left him there. Your neck is all rashy. You must be allergic to grass or something.”

“Cleaning is done,” Ikoa announced, shouldering the stag’s body, “We must move.”

“Ten Faces, scout ahead,” Lautara ordered, “Rest of you, follow me and be quick. We are not many and the rangers will be.” Ten Faces bowed and disappeared.

“We’ve handled rangers before,” Anthony said to Lautara as they ran, “they’re pretty inept.”

“You are Haazad,” Lautara said lightly, “we are not. They will shoot on sight.”

“And you are from the east, no?” added Huskar, “we are in the north now. Rangers of the east are soft. Rangers of the north are strong.”

Hayley glanced back at Ikoa and his scarred arms, who, despite carrying near three hundred pounds of deer, was keeping excellent pace with them. “Iron sharpens iron, I guess,” she said.

Pooweet, pooweet.

“Ten Faces has spotted them,” Lautara said.

Po-wit, Po-wit, Po-wit.

“A lot of them. Perhaps a whole squadron. Hayley, Anthony, with me. Rest of you, stay in the forest. Use the trees to your advantage. We will draw them to open ground where our avatars and bows will be more useful. Move now.”

Lautara mounted her tiger-beast and rode off so quickly that by the time Anthony had summoned a boar-mount and pulled Hayley up next to him, she was almost out of sight.

“We’ll be back, Phil,” he said, “be safe.”

Philip nodded, and Huskar stepped forward. “We will protect him. You go forth.”

Anthony kicked his mount, and they took off. He glimpsed in passing one of the largest trees he had ever seen.

“You couldn’t have made something cuter?” Hayley grimaced as she gripped the coarse hair of the warthog-esque beast they rode.

“Kinda pressed for time, Haystack.”

Lautara pulled up to the edge of a clearing with beautiful green and gold waist-high grass. As Anthony came up behind her his heart sank.

“Command level cruiser, eh?” Munroe had shouted. He began to summon a large lizard, striped red and gold.

“You okay, Anthony?” Hayley said softly.

“Nice one Munroe, but check this out!” Anthony had shot back, focusing his energies into a new monster; colors swirled around him as it came into being.

“My brother and I used to have rumbles in a field like this.”

He wiped at his eye, hoping Hayley couldn’t see his eyes water. She put a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ll see him again. Soon. I promise.”

“You sound like Philip.” Anthony said.

“Move, children,” Lautara said, and they dismounted and dove into the grass. “Silence from now until they spot us. Hayley, with me. Anthony, when you hear the bird call you unleash your avatar on them, like when we first found you.”

He nodded, and they disappeared. There was a quiet in the air, the kind before a storm, and he lay on his back in the grass in an inappropriate state of calm.

“That’s a cool one,” he had said to Munroe, observing his new monster. It was a giant gold and emerald lion with glorious wings. “Where’d you hear of that? Ma? Philip?”

“Yea, Philip told me of these things that used to live in Desert Zone. Sphinxes, he called ’em. Showed me a picture. They used to look like this, I guess. Asked riddles to people and ate ’em if they got ’em wrong!” Munroe laughed, “a riddle for the weary traveler, perchance?” he had shouted to no one in particular. They had laughed together, long and loud, on that sunny day.

The crack of rifle fire snapped him back to the present. He couldn’t see anything lying down in the grass, but he could hear. There was a zip zip of the simultaneous return fire from Hayley and Lautara, the cries of the enemy as the arrows found their marks, and the triumphant roars of Wild Moon as it moved from ranger to ranger. He heard a mechanical, unnatural whirring and clanking. Stalkers. With their height given by the long legs, the cover of grass was no longer viable.

Pooweet, pooweet.

Anthony jumped up, an orange and green ogre colossus forming underneath him and growing larger and larger until it surpassed the stalker. Each of the ogre’s legs were as thick as oak trunks and its muscled arms were covered with glowing runic tattoos. Anthony straddled his monster’s neck and gripped two convenient horns as handles. It let out a bellow and booted the nearest stalker heavily into a tree, the robotic legs snapping off as if they were made of matchsticks.

Another stalker had cornered Wild Moon and was shooting it violently with the purple beams of a Spectre Man railgun. They don’t have those in the east, Anthony thought. The stalkers must have been upgraded to deal with the Tzolkhan invokers. His ogre shredded the stalker, but not before it had forced Wild Moon to snap out of existence. Anthony turned to Lautara, who had fallen clutching her head. Hayley caught her and laid her down.

With his commanding view atop the ogre, Anthony could see the full extent of the rangers attacking them. There were two more stalkers moving towards Hayley and Lautara, and about six more rangers. Though they wore the burgundy hoods of the ranger corps, they did not wear the brown leather armor of the east rangers. Instead, they had a dull silver armor that offered substantially more protection. Not from me though, Anthony said to himself, and moved to protect Hayley.

“I’m out of arrows,” she stated simply to him, and drew out her quarterstaff. Anthony’s ogre cupped her with its giant hands and covered her protectively as if she were a baby bird. Bullets pinged off of them as it lifted her up. Anthony winced. Still, better for me to absorb the damage than Hayley.

He pulled on the horns of his ogre, making it dodge an energy beam from one of the stalkers. Don’t want to get hit by those.

Haley leapt gracefully from the ogre’s palm and knocked the ranger pilot out of the stalker, the swing of her staff clipping the crown of his head. She landed lightly on the ground, rolled, pulled on her straw hood, and promptly disappeared.

“Protect Lautara!” Anthony shouted, hoping Hayley could hear him. He dismantled the last stalker despite the protests of its pilot. From his high perch he could see rangers slowly making their way to the collapsed matriarch. With no more stalkers, the tall grass could hide Lautara from ranger line-of-sight. Nevertheless, they would eventually find her. To make matters worse, he could feel himself growing weaker—his colossus would soon disappear.

Hayley popped up behind two rangers, dealt them each a ferocious blow on the backs of their heads, and disappeared back into the grass before they hit the ground.

Anthony dismounted the ogre, unsummoning it amidst scattered railgun fire. He summoned a smaller command—a lithe werewolf being with the consistency of molten steel—and sent it growling at the remaining rangers. Streaks of silver flashed in the grass as it moved from soldier to soldier. The last ranger, running for her life from Anthony’s beast, ran directly into a full swing of Hayley’s staff.

“She almost made it to the treeline,” said Hayley dryly. She moved quickly to Lautara’s side, and propped her up. Anthony ran to meet them.

“I am fine, I am fine,” Lautara waved them away. She stood up, clutching her head.

“I have a massive headache, but I will manage. We need to move to assist our warriors. I cannot summon Wild Moon for a while. How are you Anthony?”

“I’m burnt out as well. We’re going to have to hoof it the old-fashioned way.”

“Grab some arrows and follow me. I will be able to pick up their trail quickly.” Lautara slung her bow over her back and strode off.

Hayley and Anthony trotted after her. “Can you even fight without your monsters?” She raised an eyebrow at Anthony.

He pushed her shoulder teasingly. “I don’t know, can I? You’re my teacher. Give me a few minutes to recharge, I’ll be good as new.”

#

Ikoa’s axe flashed in the sunlight as he brought it crashing down on the ranger captain. The armor-clad Borges officer turned it away with a flick of her sabre and countered. Ikoa ducked and the ranger blade missed him by a hairsbreadth. It was thunder against lightning between the two.

Huskar ran along the ground, swift as a deer. Dashing behind trees and rolling between cover, the rangers fired at him to no avail. When they stopped to reload, Ten Faces and Galvarino descended upon them from the trees. Philip, hiding in the massive branches of a tree, clutched a small knife nervously. A flash of white armor caught his eye.

“Spectre Men!” he yelled. The Tzolkhan warriors looked up. The ranger captain used this opportunity to slash at Ikoa but he deflected the blow, trapping the sabre with the axe’s crook momentarily—long enough to land a solid punch that sent the captain crumpling backwards into a tree. He turned to see a pair of Spectre Men break through the brush, one in the dull silver armor of the northern rangers, the other in the white of the CDF. Their railguns were slung across their backs and plastic riot shields were mounted on their nondominant arms. In their other hand they held batons that crackled menacingly with electricity.

With a whoop, Galvarino launched herself at the pair, popping out at them through a cloud of smoke. She tried stabbing at the grey-armored Spectre Man, but the shield thwarted him. A swipe from the baton sent her shuddering on the ground.

Huskar attacked next, throwing his double spears at the white-armored Spectre Man. The spears thudded heavily in the plastic shield, off-balancing it and forcing the Spectre Man to discard it. Huskar closed the distance and tried to stab the Spectre Man with his knife, but it stuck in the armor uselessly. A blow from the baton left Huskar convulsing as well.

The Spectre Men closed in on Ikoa and Ten Faces, the difference in technology strikingly contrast. The Tzolkhan warriors gripped their iron weapons grimly, prepared to go down fighting.

There was a buzzing noise, like an incensed bee, and an arrow grew out of the back of the knee of the grey-armored Spectre Man. He grunted an acknowledgement of the incident, but despite his stoicism he could not place weight on that leg and was forced to kneel.

More arrows came whistling angrily, and the Spectre Men were forced to take cover. The white-armored one fumbled for the shield he had abandoned and Ikoa bulled him to the ground. Ten Faces was knocked backwards with a blow from the riot shield of the grey-armored Spectre Man but before the officer could tase him, a small, quick crony that appeared to be a blue cannonball with wings launched itself at the officer’s head and connected with a wet crunch. Lautara, Hayley, and Anthony stepped out from cover. Ten Faces blinked.

“You’re welcome,” Hayley said to him. Lautara and Anthony helped the other Tzolkhan to their feet.

“We must be going,” Lautara ordered. “Can you walk?”

Huskar and Galvarino nodded.

“Invoker,” said a gravelly voice. They all turned. It came from the grey-armored Spectre Man. He lay with his back against a tree, the arrow sticking out of his leg. His full-face helmet was cracked where the crony had struck him, so the lower part of his face could be seen. From it, a battered earpiece dangled, droning radio chatter.

“We found you,” he breathed, with the slightest hint of a smile, “we’re coming. This is war, and you will lose everything you hold dear.”