Tomas Edel's Arc

Chapter 12 of 17

The villagers were still lacing their boots when the sick hunter jerked upright on the floorboards. Tomas turned. The boy stared at the candlelit windows, listening to something the others could not hear. His cracked lips moved. "It's coming. It found the trail back." Tomas felt his stomach drop. He knew what the boy meant. The wendigo had recovered from its burned hoard. Now it hunted the fresh scent leading straight to this house full of people. Regan crossed the room and knelt by the boy. She had not left his side since they carried him from the cave. "Which way," she said. Not a question. The hunter pointed at the door. Regan looked at Tomas. "Your scent brought it here. Mine too. It'll walk through that wall like the last one." Outside, a branch snapped. Then another, closer. The villagers froze with their axes half-raised. A woman blew out the nearest candle, as if darkness could hide them. Tomas caught her wrist and shook his head. Hiding was useless. The creature did not need eyes. It needed scent, and it already had theirs. The boy grabbed Tomas's coat. His fever-bright eyes held steady. "Steel won't stop it. I hit it three times before it took me." His breath rattled. "You have to burn it. Fire. That's the only thing it ran from." He forced the last words out. "Kill it with fire, or it takes the whole town." Tomas understood. He had seen the wendigo abandon the chase to save its burning belongings. Fire was the one thing it feared. He looked at the lanterns clustered in every window, the candles on the sills, the oil the villagers used to light this house night after night. He grabbed the nearest lantern and pressed it into a man's hands. He mimed pouring, spreading, a wall of flame across the tree line. Regan was already moving. "Oil," she told the villagers. "All of it. On the doorstep and the yard." They obeyed her flat voice faster than any plea. Men dragged jugs from the cellar. Tomas shattered a lantern against the doorframe and touched a candle to the spill. Flame leapt up the threshold and spread across the poured oil in a bright line. The wendigo hit the fire at a full charge. It screamed. The smell of scorched hide filled the yard. It reared back from the wall of heat, clawing at the burning ground, unable to reach the door. Tomas fed the flames with a broken chair. The creature circled once, twice, then broke and crashed away into the dark forest. The yard burned bright. The villagers stood panting in the doorway, faces orange with firelight. They had not killed it. They had driven it off, and now they knew how. Fire. Tomas looked at the retreating dark where the wendigo had fled. It would heal. It would come back. But now the whole town knew its one weakness, and next time they would be waiting with torches.