Wendigo Wars

Wendigo Wars

Dulcinea Norton-Smith

Copyright 2010 D. Norton-Smith

Chapter One

Mathilde’s heart drummed a bloody beat as the thirteen members of the Protectorate stood back to back in a close group. It had been a routine hunting trip so far and the group had been planning to return to the settlement soon, having caught enough caribou and snow hare to see the community through the next couple of months. The catches had been tethered to the sled and the group was tying the final knots when the wind began.

It started quietly but quickly built to an intolerable volume, howling and screaming around them. It took only a second before one of the Protectors shouted a warning which sent everyone’s blood as cold as the snow they stood in. “The trees are still, there’s no movement in the air”. The group shot into formation, standing close together and facing out to cover all areas of the forest. They knew that the sound of the non-existent wind in the still air could only mean one thing - wendigo. The wendigo were ravenous and vicious but they also liked to play with their prey and drive them mad before they enjoyed their feast. As if panic made the meat taste better.

“Hold your positions, don’t panic,” shouted Mathilde over the noise of the wendigo wind. Then came a sudden silence. The Protectorate exchanged glances, unsure whether to be worried or relieved, and then the crying began. It started like a kitten mewling and then turned into a baby’s cry. The cry called out and tugged at the heartstrings of the Protectors.

“Hold,” shouted Mathilde. “It’s the wendigo.”

This was a well documented hunting method of the wendigo, varying between noises and voices to cause upset and confusion in the hope that one of the intended victims would run screaming towards it, making the fun of the feast even better. The baby cries continued for several minutes. The screams became more tortured and desperate then cut off suddenly with a gurgling choking noise. Silence settled across the woods and no noise was heard for what seemed like an age. Less experienced travelers would have breathed a sigh of relief but Mathilde knew that silence was just as ominous as the baby cry and the windless wind. There was never complete silence in the woods unless the animals were too scared to move or had fled. The wendigo was still out there.

“Help,” a woman’s voice called. It seemed to be coming from a few paces into the wood. “Help me,” pleaded the voice.

“Mum?” whispered Jack, the newest recruit to the Protectorate. “Mum,” he said, louder this time and made to move from the group.

“NO!” shouted Mathilde. “Hold fast Jack. That is not your mother.” Though Jack was new, Mathilde had known their enemy for long enough to know what would happen if he believed that the voice was his mother’s and went to her. Mathilde glanced over her shoulder to get a glimpse of Jack’s face. He was aged just fifteen and Mathilde knew he must still be able to remember the voice of his mother who had been taken by the wendigo eight years earlier as mother and son had travelled between two Romanian settlements. Jack had been found hiding in a tree one mile outside of the Suceava settlement having managed to escape the wendigo as it tore his mother apart.

“It isn’t her Jack,” said Mathilde, more gently this time “She’s gone. It isn’t her.”

“But what if she survived? What if I ran too early but she fought and survived?”

“She didn’t Jack. She’s dead.”

Jack looked like he wanted to run into the woods but he was well trained and listened to his Protector Superior. He held fast. “Jack, don’t leave me,” cried the voice “I love you my baby. Mummy needs you. Please help me.”

Mathilde felt a sudden cold at her back as the circle was broken. Several of the Protectors began to shout. “No”, “Come back”, “Jack it isn’t her”. Jack begin to run towards the voice. He almost reached the trees at the edge of the clearing when a long, grey figure leapt from one of the trees and landed on top of him with a screeching, jackal laugh.

”Change formation; archers front,” commanded Mathilde. “No-one break the group”

In a well rehearsed movement the group quickly changed places with a figure of eight shift and formed back into their original backs-to-the-centre pattern but this time with the five Protectors who held crossbows facing towards the wendigo. Mathilde stood as the centre archer with her crossbow at her shoulder. Jack could no longer be seen fully. His legs and arms were still, his face, frozen in death, was a tormented mask of terror. The huge form of the wendigo hunched over Jack’s stomach, ripping and tearing with claws and teeth to get at the entrails, which were now spilling over the glittering white snow. The snow turned to red slush with the heat of Jack’s blood.

“I shoot first then follow my command,” said Mathilde in a strong, clear voice. She raised her crossbow to her eye and lined up her target. Each of the crossbows were made to hold four arrows in a rotating chamber. After four arrows the chamber had to be reloaded. All of the archers knew that this was not a delay that they could afford so every shot had to be judged carefully even in the midst of panic. Mathilde held steady for a few seconds as she targeted the wendigo’s head. She squeezed the trigger and her arrow shot out of the chamber and swooshed towards the wendigo, landing successfully in the hunched up sinewy neck of the creature. It reared to its feet howling in anger and some of the newer Protectors gasped at its height. Mathilde, Seb and the other experienced Protectors were less shocked. The danger had not yet passed but they were relieved to see that, at only eight feet, this wendigo must not have eaten for a while and so would not have its usual strength. Had it been a taller wendigo, ten or twelve feet, then it would have been harder to defeat. With each meal the wendigo grew taller and stronger, with each week without a meal of human flesh, it decreased in size and became weaker. This wendigo seemed not to have eaten for weeks.

The wendigo snarled in fury, its long, blue-black tongue licked at its emaciated, muzzle, smearing blood further towards its eyes which were set deep in the sockets. Its, once human, blue eyes were speckled with burst blood vessels. The creature crouched as if weighing up its options. Nature said to flee but the greed of the wendigo saw a feast before it and its stomach screamed the order to pounce. As it crouched its angular knee-caps poked out against the grey leathery skin. And the loose skin bunched around its previously visible ribs. Tufts of matted grey hair around its body were covered with Jack’s blood.

The wendigo smiled then howled triumphantly as it made its decision and leapt the ten metres between Jack’s corpse and the Protectors. One leap was all it would take to reach the feast. Greed had won over self preservation.

“Fire,” yelled Mathilde and five amber tipped arrows flew from the crossbows and buried themselves in the chest of the air borne wendigo. It crashed to earth and writhed around on the ground using its claws and needle thin teeth to try and rip the arrows clear. As it got to its knees and put its head back to howl in anger another five arrows shot into its chest, ripping a hole to its heart. As the amber touched the beast’s heart it fell back to earth twisting in agony, its claws slicing the snow and searching for a victim to grasp, to take someone with it into the spirit world. Finally the thrashing stopped and the beast became still. Its eyes leaked blood and its tongue lolled out to touch the snow. Water leaked from its chest as the amber continued to melt the beast’s frozen heart and the ice which ran through its veins.

“Rest,” said Mathilde as she took a deep breath. “Everyone rest for a moment. It’s unlikely that there are more. They don’t like competition”

The Protectorate collapsed in a heap where they stood. The older members gave each other weak grins, saddened by the loss of Jack but thankful to still be alive. The newer members, some of whom had just seen a wendigo for the first time, looked to be in shock. Anya had started to sob quietly. Mathilde had heard rumours that Jack and Anya had begun to get close recently and it seemed that may have been the case. Mathilde felt a tinge of sadness for the sixteen year old girl who had now lost her first love at such a young age, but she felt unable to completely relate. Losing your first loved one to a wendigo at the age of three affected the amount of sympathy you could have for other people’s losses.

Mathilde pulled herself up off the snow and went around to Anya. “His spirit was good Anya. He’ll be in a safe place now.”

Anya nodded her thanks at her Protector Superior before bursting into a fresh flood of tears. Mathilde turned to the rest of the group to issue orders.

“Come on everyone, we have work to do” Mathilde stood up and her group began to slowly gather around her. She separated them into two teams. The group led by her, began to dig a grave for Jack’s body. The other, led by Seb, set to work disposing of wendigo. Seb led the action for his team with his weapon of choice, a heavy silver axe with intricate inlaid amber markings. This he used to chop the wendigo up as his team worked together to build and light a fire in which to burn the wendigo remains. He set one of the team members to work on retrieving and cleaning the arrows. Protectors did not leave weapons behind if they could help it. Amber and silver were not in plentiful supply and so every loss of a weapon was a great loss to the protection of the people of the settlement.

Anya soon joined Seb’s group. Although she didn’t look at the site of Jack’s body or the slowly growing grave, she had been chosen for the Protectorate for the bravery and clear headedness which she had shown in her tests and so was not the sort of person to wallow when the group needed help. She tucked her hair behind her ears before beginning to help with cleaning the arrows.

After an hour of work the jobs were done. The wendigo smoldered in the fire and the Protectorate gathered over Jack’s grave to give a final goodbye and leave one of the recovered arrows with him to offer protection against wendigo spirits on his journey through the spirit world.

The journey back to the settlement was done in silence. Once out of the woods and in the wide open countryside Seb and Mathilde took the positions at the rear with crossbow and axe to look for signs of further attacks, but none came. As they reached the perimeter wall around the settlement they found that the lookouts had already lowered the drawbridge to allow them passage over the wide trench which surrounded the outer walls. A trench designed to keep wendigo at bay and so filled with constantly burning fires rather than water.

As they entered the settlement Mathilde saw a sea of faces. One of the settlement lookouts must have noticed that Jack was not with the group. The Protectors slowly dragged their sled loaded with animals towards the butchery yard for the meat to be gutted and cleaned. Each member of the Protectorate studiously avoided the faces that stared at them, each face asking the same silent question “Where’s Jack?”

“Want me to stay with you Tilly?” asked Seb quietly as he held back with Mathilde, standing close to her side.

“No. You go with the others. Help to unload the meat and clean the weapons properly”

Seb nodded and gave Mathilde’s shoulder a squeeze then left her where she stood by the settlement gate as the drawbridge was slowly hoisted up. Mathilde searched the crowd and finally found the anxious face of Carer Jolie, Jack’s adoptive mother. Her wet eyes were pleading Mathilde to tell her something good - something not quite as bad as she feared. Mathilde made her way to Jolie and the crowd parted for her, making a walkway to where Jolie stood, wringing her apron.

“I am sorry Jolie. The wendigo got him. We buried him in the woods - a hero’s burial. He’s at peace now.”

“No.” The tiny word escaped from Jolie’s lips as a whisper and her eyes rolled back in her head. As she collapsed to the ground the people standing nearest to her ran to catch her before her head hit the ground. With the weight of the message off her mind Mathilde still did not feel any sense of relief. A woman pushed through the crowd and put her hand at the small of Mathilde’s back and spoke gently to her.“You get inside Mathilde. Let me deal with this. You’ve done all you can.”

Mathilde gave Carer Amelie, the nearest person she had to a mother, a weak smile of thanks and took her leave in the knowledge that Amelie could help Jolie a lot more than she had. Mathilde had never quite mastered how to deal with people’s emotions. She felt impotent standing in the crowd and staring at the unconscious body of the grieving woman. She took Amelie’s advice and left to go into the castle which they called home.

Chapter Two

The little girl awoke suddenly to the sound of a woman screaming. She expected and hoped for the screaming to stop but it didn't. It intensified and her mother's voice was joined by the screams of other women, cries of infants cut off almost as soon as they began and the shouts of the Protectors who guarded the settlement.

"How did they breach the walls?" she heard one of the Protectors bellowing. "To arms, to the weapons store."