Leaves fell, briefly held aloft by a passing wind. From the boughs of the tree the girl watched, patiently awaiting her target. Noises from above, was it him? She dared not move, lest she be seen. A bird rustled in the branches above her, then screeched its intent.

“You always pick a tree.”

She jumped as the voice materialized out of the branches beside her. He had arrived silently, as always.

“I’m going to catch you one of these days,” the girl huffed, nonchalantly flipping an auburn lock away from her small face. “It isn’t fair that you used him,” she pointed at the magnificent falcon that sat, stoic, on the branches above.

“A wilder is always with their companion, Haunt.”

“It’s Haunt-Fox,” she eyed her mentor with a slight frown, “even if I don’t have a companion yet.”

“It is not fitting to bear the name of your beast before the pact has been struck.” The man looked at the bird above him, and soundlessly, the falcon alighted and landed easily on a waiting shoulder. “I did not bear the name ‘falcon’ until Gano and I parlayed beneath the sky. I was just Waoku before then.”

The girl nodded. He’d told her all of this many times before.

“You will find one another in time.” Waoku-Falcon did not wait for a response, dropping silently from the tree and onto the ground below. Haunt followed suit, landing carefully among the twisted roots. The warden nodded. Gano alighted from his perch with a screech, weaving up through the verdant canopy of multitudinous species, searching. Waoku-Falcon waited a moment, then followed him at a jog, weaving effortlessly through the trees.

The ground was mostly bare of underbrush due to lack of sunlight, through copses of gigantic ferns and bracken ruled the shady places, as was common in the wilds; the going was easy if one was careful to avoid the numerous roots and fallen logs that littered the forest-floor. Gano had picked a path through the trees that was roughly flat, though it angled upwards at a slight but steady grade. Haunt eyed the trees as they moved. Shades of brown and grey, but different ones than she was used to. She thought these to be more varied than those in the outlying areas where she had been raised, and asked Waoku-Falcon to be sure.

“Always more varied the further in you go.” Waoku-Falcon without slowing his pace.

Haunt had come to expect that from him. Waoku-Falcon wasn’t terribly talkative. Still though, the revelation surprised her. From pines to broad-leafed tropical trees, her home had been a picture of diversity of both flora and fauna. And yet… compared to here, it seemed homogeneous. From the trees and the beasts that moved ceaselessly through and beneath them, to the skylets that hovered just above the multi-colored canopy, everything seemed different here. More varied and more mysterious.

Larger.

“What exactly are we hunting Master?” Haunt tried to match her pace to the older wilder, but found herself unable to bridge the gap. She pursed her lips and waited.

“We are not hunting, Haunt. Hunting is for personal gain.” Waoku-Falcon took his time to reply.

Haunt rolled her eyes. “Then what are we seeking?” Silence, save the sound of their feet padding on the gnarled, dark roots that littered the forest floor. “The-”

“We are seeking a great boar of the inner forest.” Waoku-Falcon cut in before she had a chance to ask more questions. He knew she would do so all morning if he did not stem their flow. “One that has fallen to the corruption.” His words hung, heavy in the still air, blotting out all semblance of intelligent thought aside from their reality.

The boars of the wilds were notoriously large, violent protectors of the forest. Since they were moving deeper, ever deeper, like the trees around them, the beasts too grew in size. For one of the great boars to fall to the corruption. It did not bode well for them. “Should we not—should we not have more wardens with us?” Silence again, save the padding of feet and the pounding of her heart. An animal rustled the branches overhead and she started.

“One and his student is enough.”

Their motions, quiet as they were, cut through the heavy sheet of silence that surrounded them. Haunt shook her head, then laughed, unsure whether to frown or smile. If anyone could kill the beast, it was Waoku-Falcon. He was the most experienced warden in their territory by far.

Waoku-Falcon stopped, and ahead, Gano circled. “Let us pause for a moment. There are things that you must know before we progress.” The man turned to face her. Framed in the dim light that filtered through the canopy above, casting an ashen pallor on his otherwise ochre skin; Waoku-Falcon was striking. His deep, black dreads stretched to the center of his muscled back, beaded and swaying with his sudden stop. His face was clean of hair, accentuating the flintlike contours of his cheeks and chin. Thick prayer beads of orange and green, blue and white hung loosely on his bare chest, above a belted loincloth of woven leaves that was common to the males of the wilders. In his left hand he held a well-oiled deadly shortbow, perfect for the confines of the wilds. He was the very picture of a successful warden.

Haunt stopped, smiling. Waoku-Falcon was dry, stoic. His voice was as rigid as the stony hillsides around them, and his tone matched it. Though he was no older than her father, the lines in his flintlike face betrayed the nature of his work. He had lived a hard life, and she was destined for the same.

“I will say this once, so pay attention.” Waoku-Falcon’s voice betrayed no emotion whatsoever. “We are nearing Ichros, the inland sea that resides at the heart of the wilds.” He raised his hand, knowing Haunt was about to interject. “We are still kilometers away, and we will be traveling no closer to that place.” He cleared his throat and looked around them, then up at Gano as though for reassurance. Without facing her again, he continued. “What we are to face is a common challenge to the wardens, and to the Wilders as a whole. That is not to say that it will be easy. Mark my actions well, and learn them. They could save you.” He paused, taut, expectant.

“Ichros…” she rolled the word around her tongue, tasting it, “I’ve only heard stories.”

Waoku-Falcon’s bow hand relaxed, his fingers uncoiling slowly. Haunt realized that his grip had been vice-like. “I do not waste time with stories.”

“So it’s real then?” she questioned, taking a step forward. “It’s dangerous?” She seemed pleading now.

“It is the source of the corruption.” The warden’s breathing slowed, he turned to face Haunt once more. “This beast we seek, its madness stems from that place.”

“Then we—”

“Ichros is a dangerous place to even Wilders, but few are as lucky as we.” He paused. “As long as we do not stray closer we will yet return home.”

Motion in the brush–sounds above. The trees creaked, and the forest breathed around them. “And the beasts–” Haunt thought she spied a flash of red through the dense thicket of ferns that surrounded them, “like this great boar, are they often corrupted?”

Waoku-Falcon sighed, and overhead Gano screeched. “Much too often. It is a warden’s duty to stem the tide of illness that flows from Ichros.” Waoku-Falcon’s face softened. “We do what we can to protect the forest.”

Haunt felt her throat contract. Her mouth felt dry. “Can’t we stop it?” she said in a whisper.

“We do what we can.”

She knew he was avoiding the question, but wanted more answers. Needed them. This was her life now; she needed to know all she could. “Aren’t there enough of us to stop it?” She knew it was a long shot, but it had to be asked.

Waoku-Falcon’s face hardened again. “There are not enough in all of Saera, let alone the Wilds, to stop it. We simply do what we can to slow its spread.”

Crestfallen, Haunt nodded.

“And today we will do our part. Come now, the beast is near.”

They heard the boar before they saw it. The sound of something crashing through the forest resounded through the trees ahead of them. Thunderclaps of snapping trunks followed by howling squeals of pure agony… or was it revelry? Gano screeched above them, his cries almost imperceptible over the din that raged before them.

Waoku-Falcon moved quickly, silently through the forest, weaving between trees with such practiced ease that he seemed to blur as he moved. Forest and man were as one. Haunt followed at a distance, unable to match his measured, loping gait as he dashed toward the beast ahead of them. He never slowed nor strayed from his path. His focus was like an arrow loosed. Both he and Gano flew true.

To call the beast large would be a misnomer. It was gargantuan. To call the beast wholesome, would likewise be false. The beast was an abomination. From her quaking vigil at the edge of the clearing that the boar had made for itself among the centuries-old trees, Haunt finally understood Waoku-Falcon’s call to action, his zeal. If such things stalked the Wilds…

The boar, if it could still be called such, was larger than any creature she had ever seen, and seemed at this point to be more ichor and earth than flesh. Overflowing in dripping skin and oozing pus, its hide was fused poorly with the ashy stone from the surrounding hillsides. The stone moved as the beast did, seeming, although painful, to be one with the strange creature. It turned suddenly as it rampaged through the trees, running in circles and twisting about wildly, leaving puddles of crimson as it writhed. She saw that its massive head, too, was encrusted with the stuff; that its weeping eye-sockets were empty save the bits of fleshy, unwholesome stone that oozed from them and down its snout in rivulets.

Waoku-Falcon had moved further down the manufactured clearing, and was invisible from where he crouched in the fallen timber. Waiting. Gano circled overhead, screeching now and again, as though in commune with the watching warden.

The beast crashed around the clearing. Its course was frantic. Headlong. It rebounded off an ancient tree with a splash of ichorous blood, and turned down the clearing again. Toward Waoku-Falcon.

Without signal, warden and bird moved as one.

Gano dove, his razor talons raking vainly against the beast’s scaled hide. Waoku-Falcon drew his bow and waited. Gano circled and came again, this time finding flesh. The boar squealed maddeningly in response. It twisted to face the bird as Gano circled away.

Waoku-Falcon loosed his arrow, then nocked another and fired before the first had hit its target. Both arrows embedded shallowly in the flesh behind the monster’s ear.

A deafening roar shook the clearing as monster descended upon warden, smashing into the earth with a resounding crash. Wood and stone alike flowed in an earthen wave as Waoku-Falcon sprung away. Using his momentum, he drew and fired another arrow, striking the same mark as before. Embedding deeper this time. The abomination squealed again and squirmed on the ground as a colossal, writhing worm. Righting itself shakily it charged again, its ruined eyes searching sightlessly.

Gano caught the beast in the side of the face as it charged, pulling its colossal head to the side. Waoku-Falcon loosed an arrow, then five more in quick succession, all hitting their target seemingly in the same instant. In the same spot.

The great beast fell, sliding through the ruined clearing to a stop at the warden’s feet. It squealed pathetically, its head a mess of pus and stone and the ichorous blood that still flowed from the gaping wound behind its ear. Haunt frowned as she watched the man approach the dying beast, her earlier excitement extinguished.

Waoku-Falcon stooped, placing his hand on the great boar’s brow, and whispered soothingly. The beast quieted, then faded, at peace. The warden’s words were lost to the wind.

By the time Haunt reached him, Waoku-Falcon had already begun the smudging ritual. He had procured a ceremonial bowl, and using his hunting knife, had begun cutting a strip of flesh from the beast. He waved Haunt over as he heard her approaching.

Haunt had never seen the ritual performed in person, had just heard of it in passing from the other wilders. Wardens were very particular in the way they handled the passing of their kills, and especially those that the corruption tainted. By smudging, they reconnected the spirits of the being to the life-stream, and allowed it to rest. Without the ritual, the being is doomed to wander the world as a wraith, or worse—or at least so they say.

There seemed less mysticism about what Waoku-Falcon was doing than she had expected. After the warden had carved a strip of flesh from the beast, he placed it in the bowl next to several sprigs of herbs that he carried with him, a flake of the beast’s stone hide, and another, similar piece from the hillside that he had her fetch. With the materials necessary gathered before him, Waoku-Falcon bowed his head before the bowl, and waited.

There was silence for a time. The attitudes of both man and bird (for Gano had joined him in his silent meditation) spoke of utter calm. The very air around them stilled; the air was charged, and Haunt with it. The two living, and one dead before them, were the locus of something very powerful, and very foreign. Without knowing why, Haunt again began to quiver.

At the very height of the tension, when the air around them seemed to shimmer wildly and sing in discordant chorus, tearing the very fabric of what is real, Waoku-Falcon lit the contents of the bowl ablaze.

A minute passed, then two.

Without opening their eyes, both man and bird drank from the beast’s wound that still flowed, mixing its tainted blood with their own. The world ceased its shimmering, faded grey, then green. Haunt blinked her eyes for the first time in what seemed minutes. It was done.

Waoku-Falcon rose and shook the ashen contents of the bowl into a pouch, stashing it somewhere on his person. Turning to face Haunt, he did something she had yet to see him do. Smile.

“It is done. The boar has communed with the divine, and has been found worthy to return to the earth. All is well.” The warden sighed perceptibly, suddenly exhausted. “We will begin home immediately.”

Haunt nodded and for the second time today she was surprised; she didn’t have a rebuttal or remark to offer.

“What I did may have seemed easy. It is not. Don’t allow yourself to fall into that way of thinking. Many wardens have been lost that way.”

“The blood…” Haunt felt a chill run down her spine.

“It is necessary. We must serve as a conduit for the spirit.” Gano flitted to his shoulder and Waoku-Falcon stroked the great bird’s head. “The creature’s tainted blood must be cleansed. And,” he looked at his hands with an undecipherable expression, “their power becomes our own.”

“And those who are lost?” Haunt felt she knew the answer.

“They too must be returned to the earth.”

Haunt nodded. For the first time, she felt the gravity of the position she was entering.

“Do not fret. It comes with practice, and with time. One must always remember to be patient, be careful, and to listen to the forest. With that in mind, all is possible. Even this—” he motioned at the felled behemoth behind him.

Haunt felt like her head was on a hinge, for she was doing nothing more than nodding. She tried to speak but found herself unable.

“It is a lot to learn, but you will.” Waoku-Falcon rose to his full height, and he smiled again, knowing that the girl was beginning to understand. “Soon you too will be a warden of the forest. Now come, it is past time to be heading home.”