Tales of the WildMan

Tamind peeked over the social shield of his large, wordy book to safely judge the other residents that populated the hearth of the small, isolated inn that would be his home for the night. What he saw disappointed him just as much as the last time he looked around to distract him from his dull tome. The simple innkeeper stood by the large fireplace stirring the leek and cabbage stew, the only item on tonight's menu aside from three day old bread and warm ale, his lazy eye and uneven moustache only added to the peasantly demeanour of the inns host.

In the corner a portly woman in a white frilly dress and her somehow more portly new husband in his frills and pomp fraternised and groped each other playfully on what appeared to be the third or fourth night of their honeymoon. The mess of the stew slathered across their faces and the large mole protruding from the man's cheek combined with the redness in their faces and heaviness of their breathing reminded Tamind of the pigs pushing each other aside to get to the feed back at his father's manor.

The only other customers of the inn were his bodyguard and a hunter. The latter was covered in mud, grime and body hair and had decided to show off his skill at barbaric skinning of twitching animals before laying their furs and meat cuts into two separate, equally disgusting piles. The former being a hairless dwarf that's wider than he is tall and gives off an aura of subservience and shyness unbecoming of both a bodyguard and a dwarf. Self esteem issues possibly rising from the poor stouts alopecia had made him the both the perfect and imperfect mould for a bodyguard. His low confidence made him perfect for taking and following orders to the letter yet made him imperfect for facing any man larger than he was, his short stature as a dwarf made this a regular occurence.

Concluding his observations, Tamind decided that due to the residents of the inn and the relative distance of the inn to any major town or city that Tamind was very likely the only man for thirty kilometres that knew how to read. If only his book wasn't as dull as any book titled 'Musings on the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Polytheistic Theocracy to all levels of society' ought to be then he would not have to distract himself with the goings on of the peasants that filled his vision.

Tamind let out a long, exasperated sigh and clapped his book shut. He stood from his bench and waved a dismissive hand to his bodyguard forcing the egg-like dwarf who was perked up ready to follow his employer's son to sit back down and stare at the carvings in the table.

Tamind stretched his arms and removed his reading spectacles as he attempted to look more approachable to the innkeeper who, to Tamind's surprise, held knowledge that Tamind did not. The inkeeper turned away from his stew to face the obviously noble fellow infront of him.

"Got a place to piss?" Tamind asked. Swallowing his pride and asking the question in the least intelligent manor he could muster.

"There's bushes outside. Or the bucket if you prefer." The Innkeeper responded in his most intelligent manor that still made him sound at most as intelligent as Tamind's impression.

Tamind looked at the small ajar door leading into a room no larger than a metre that housed a bucket and flies before opting for the bushes outside.

"Goin' outside eh? On a night like this, the Wild Man'll be prowlin'." The Portly Woman in the corner called out only to be pinched by her amorous husband and immediately distracted again.

"The Wild Man?" Tamind chortled in disbelief. "Is that some pagan monster like the manticore or the finchham?"

"It's a man." The Innkeeper met Taminds gaze with a look of both fear and warning.

The look made Tamind hesitate and stop himself from poking fun at the local superstitions further. The hunter stopped his skinning ritual and plunged his knife into the table in front of him right between the two piles.

"Oi Bill, three ales. One for me, one for fancypants and one for yerself." The hunter called to the innkeeper before kicking out a chair and gesturing for Tamind to sit down. Tamind complied, curious with the kind of curiosity that got cats killed.

"Who is the Wild Man?" Tamind asked, cautiously aware that he may well be speaking to the Wild Man.

"He's a myth!" The Portlier Man shouted from the corner before hoisting himself up to trudge over to the hunters table. "No such thing as the Wild Man! Just a story to scare children!"

"Wild Man's real, I've seen him." The Hunters response was not angry or confrontational but confident and factual. "Ugly as the forlorn swamp he is and twice as green. The scary bastard."

"Don't fear him, we should pity the poor soul." The innkeeper apparently named Bill spoke up as he plonked the ales on the table.

"Pity him?" Tamind repeated.

The Hunter took his knife in his hand and began carving a triptych of events as he spun a tale.

"In a town nearby, there was a baby born under a cursed moon that was so ugly and putrid that the townfolk forced the poor mother out of town to dispose of the baby in the woods. This little beast that she sired had a brow full of horns and teeth sharper than a kings sword, a face that not even a mother could love." The Hunters knife carved a rough, jagged visage of a demon being coddled by what seemed to be either a nun or a woman with a pyramid for a head.

"But when she found a spot isolated in the woods to kill the babe, she took pity on her little hellspawn and could not bring herself to kill it. Instead she left the baby there to fend for itself." The image was very obviously one of three things that vaguely resembled the story the Hunter was telling or had nothing to do with it. Tamind could not decide.

"It is said that a bear mistook the ugly bastard for its own kin and raised the boy as her own. As it grew, the child's deformity became its weapon as predators of the forest would run in fear of the demon that stood before them." The knife splintered part of the wood as he finished carving what could have been a bears long, thin tail. If bears had long, thin tails.

"When the boy came of age, he claimed the forest as his to protect. As he's grown up, he's only grown uglier and it is said that even gazing upon his horrific face can cause instant, painful death." The Hunter stabbed the knife into the table with a lingering twang as the knife hilt jerked from side to side quickly. He stared at Tamind for a long time, waiting for a reaction in Tamind's quiet, elegant face.

"That ain't wot happened" The Portly Woman broke the silence. "I 'eard he was the spawn of a witch wot had 'er way with a deadly snake and protects his mother from those wot found 'er act to be against the Gods."

Tamind was thankful the Woman did not carve that image.

"If he finds you, he'll eat you down to the bone and toss the remains onto his skeletal throne." The innkeeper's addition was truly the nail in the coffin for Tamind. It was clear to him now that everything these peasants were saying was absolute hogwash. Superstitions of simple minds to pass the time and frighten children out of running away from home.

"Well this has been entertaining, but I really do need to take that piss." Tamind announced as he stood up from the now crowded table and walked toward the door outside. The dwarf bodyguard who had heard the exchange but was too shy to butt in stood with him and followed Tamind out the door.

Outside was cold, dark, wet and dirty. Tamind did not like the outdoors. Where most people appreciated nature and the God's great land on their journey, Tamind saw it as an unfortunate side effect to the affliction known to aristocrats as travelling between cities. Staying at whatever inn is closest come nightfall, getting the ragged breath of the common rabble seemingly stuck in his clothes. He did find their stories entertaining at the very least. It comforted him to know that the peasants can make these stories up and be entertained by the collective creativity of folklore while he was resigned to gaining knowledge from his books. Their lives seemed too carefree, too simple.

Tamind stopped his musings and unbuttoned his fly. Away from the dull-eyed stare of the peasants inside, he allowed himself some fun and began writing his name in the dirt with his urine. He got to the final swoosh of the 'd' and finished the last of his piss by drowning a fiery-red marigold. The only flower he had seen growing in the forest at all, but then he had seldom looked down so far in his journey. He stared at the flower for a long time, watching as his very noble piss tore through the petals of this very noble flower until it fell under the weight of the liquid. With a smug sense of self-satisfaction, Tamind held his head up high, buttoned his fly back up and kicked the little flecks of urine off of his shoe. He turned around to walk toward the inn and the porcelain headed dwarf leaning next to the door. Tamind looked toward his bodyguard only to see the man staring into the tree line across the road, axe in hand.

Tamind followed the eyeline of his travelling companion into the forest only to see two glimmering dagger-like pupils staring at him in the moonlight. At first Tamind thought it was a cat of some sort but the longer he stared, the more features revealed. Above the glimmering cat eyes protruded six tiny pointed horns, three above each eye that sat where eyebrows would on a human. Other small horns ascended from the brow and up the forehead, Tamind did not know how far the went as the rest of the head was obscured by a hood. A short, stunted nose as if it was pressed against a glass window and flattened out sat squarely between the shining eyes and beneath that was a mouth with sharp teeth? Or was it tusks? Two sharp cones poked out from the bottom lip of the beast in the trees and rose higher than the rest of the teeth in the underbite of the monster staring through Taminds eyes and into his very soul. It could have been distant thunder, the dwarfs stomach or the spawn in the forest but Tamind distinctly heard a low, guttural growl emanating and echoing from around him.

He fought through the paralysing fear and reached out for his dwarf. Never taking his eyes off of the beast in the trees, he had a very sudden urge to be indoors and surrounded by humans, even if they were peasants. He pushed the door open and left, dragging both the dwarf and his own feet back into the inn and to the relative safety of Musings on the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Polytheistic Theocracy to all levels of society.