Tomas Edel's Arc

Chapter 10 of 17

The growl rolled up the passage toward them. Tomas held the sick hunter against his chest and turned back the way they had come. Ahead, the cave mouth glowed. The coals had burned low. A gray shape pushed through the gap, shoulders scraping stone. The wendigo had come home. It filled the only way out. Tomas could not fight past it with a dying man in his arms. Drop the hunter and he might live to swing. Keep him and they both died at the wall. "Give him to me," Regan said. She took the boy's weight and braced her feet. She freed the silver stake from her forearm. Her hands did not shake. "I'll hold the thing off. You find another way." But there was no other way. One entrance. One throat of stone. Tomas knew it. Then the boy in Regan's arms stirred. His eyes cracked open, glassy with fever. His lips moved. No sound came. Tomas leaned close. The hunter tried again, and one word left him, dry and cracked. "Fire." That was all. His head fell back. But Tomas understood. The villagers still stood at the cave mouth, feeding the low coals. The creature had crossed the coals to reach fresh blood. It could stand a dying fire. It could not stand a wall of flame. Tomas grabbed the burning branch from the dirt. He pointed it at the ring of belongings around them. Dry coats. Packs. Years of stolen wool and leather, stacked and waiting. Regan saw it in an instant. "Its collection," she said. "It'll come for that before it comes for us." Tomas shoved the branch into a heap of coats. The old wool caught fast. Flame ran along the ring, coat to pack to coat, until the collection stood in a circle of fire between them and the beast. The wendigo froze. It stared at the burning heap. A sound tore out of it, high and broken, not a hunting sound. Grief. It broke past them. It threw itself at the fire, dragging out a smoking coat, a half-burned pack, beating at the flames with long arms. It had forgotten Tomas. It had forgotten the boy. It knew only the ring of stolen things, burning. Tomas took the hunter back onto his shoulder. He and Regan ran for the mouth. The gap stood empty now. They burst past the dying coals into cold gray dawn. The villagers grabbed them and hauled them clear of the smoke. Behind them, deep in the stone, the wendigo screamed over its ruined circle. It did not follow. Tomas laid the hunter on the ground. The boy still breathed. Regan pressed her hand to the swollen arm and shook her head. The wound was worse. Fever had climbed. He needed more than they had here. Tomas looked at the trees, then at the burning cave, and knew the creature would not stay lost in its grief for long.