Wendigo Wars (11 page)

“Your majesty; it’s a pleasure to meet you, and your beautiful wife Queen Genevieve too. What an honour for you to visit our humble abode.”

The wendigo man spread his arms wide as if to show them his underground palace. His face held a patronising, superior sneer. He held all the power and he seemed to be enjoying the game.

“My name is General Zhu, your humble servant, and I hope you enjoy your stay in my home.”

Mathilde gasped and in her head she heard Violette do the same before muttering “Zhu”

“This is my close colleague Captain Gein. Do excuse his skittishness. He is a good partner in war but struggles so when faced with temptation.” Zhu gestured with his head and a loose flick of the wrist to another wendigo man hovering behind his throne. Gein was more wendigo than Zhu was. His tongue was the long thin tongue of the wendigo and he had the hunched stoop of a full wendigo. He only had one eye, the other was a socket barely healed over with a puckered patch of grey scar tissue. The remaining eye was deep set and had a blood coloured rim. The white of his eye had a spattering of burst blood vessels. He had closely cropped matted fur on his head and was a foot smaller than Zhu. Whereas every move that Zhu made seemed minute and carefully calculated, Gein skittered around on the spot as if his body and mind were fighting between his desire to follow Zhu’s lead and his desire to launch himself at the tasty morsels before him

Genevieve and Darius stared at Zhu and Gein. Their faces showed nothing of what they were thinking or feeling and years of royal breeding shone from them like a sterling silver armour of composure. Their daughter did not seem to share their calm and Mathilde was surprised to find herself looking at an almost exact double of Dash. Her colouring and features were identical to Dash's apart from her long straight hair which cascaded down her back, her slightly fuller lips and her more rounded face. Suzanna was his twin. She had to be.

Suzanna still lay where she had been dropped and she sobbed. The Protectors gathered near to her as if sensing that she was the weakest and most in need of protection. Obvious really from the way she behaved. Mathilde envied her that, the luxury of being able to give in to her fear and be the damsel in distress with no-one relying on her to stay strong.

Memory-Dash looked from his sister to do a quick sweep of the cavern. As he did Mathilde was able to see that Suzanna's open display of fear excited the wendigo and those nearest to her seemed as if they were itching to tear the regal delicacy to shreds.

"Be patient my children. We must be polite to our guests."

The wendigo snarled, some in what seemed like annoyance and some with the characteristic hyena smile of their kind, obviously enjoying the show.

"Now to your questions your Royal Highness," sneered Zhu. "Who am I? Surely you meant to ask what am I. Myself and Gein are… special. I am sure you have observed that we are neither wendigo nor human. We were once military men your Majesty, and so have exceedingly good self restraint. Luckily for us this allows us to maintain a certain level of control over what and how much we eat. Having seen several of your people become wendigo once they have become slaves to their gluttony I am sure that you can appreciate how useful this willpower can be in our…evolution. Now to your second question. What do I want? Well I have brought you here for a meeting to negotiate."

"What do you want?" asked Darius in a low voice with a heavy undercurrent of barely controlled rage.

"I have a dream of a civilized world without fighting or murder."

Mathilde felt herself staring closely at the Zhu, just as Dash must have done, and wondered how he dare talk of being civilized.

"You can help me to achieve my dream. You can tell your countrymen - your people - that we are going to rule together."

"What? Why would I support a wendigo? Why would I share my throne with a wendigo?"

"Oh I don't need your actual throne your highness. As you can see I have quite a nice one of my own. All I need is the obedience of your people."

"They would never give you their obedience. Why should they?"

“Oh well because the alternative is so much worse! Have you not noticed the increasing frequency of attacks? Have you not marveled at the intelligence and organisation behind them? We wendigo are the fastest, strongest and most vicious opponent you will ever face. What makes you think that you would survive if I launched an attack with all of these wendigo following my orders?”

“Why would they follow your orders? When have wendigo ever followed orders or been controlled?”

“Oh I am not controlling them. I have merely offered them a more...fulfilling future.”

Everything Zhu said was delivered with a superior smile and a condescending air. He seemed to know that he would get what he wanted with or without King Darius but Mathilde could tell from looking at him that he wanted Darius to help. Mathilde wondered why he was bothering and what he hoped to gain. She was surprised when she heard Memory-Dash echo what she had been thinking.

“What do you want from my father? Why do you need us?” His voice was not as deep as his father’s but just as commanding and Zhu looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

“Ah the little prince has a voice. A voice and a good question too. Well you see I have planned for a very long time and I have two ways open to me; two paths to follow between which you must help me to choose.

The first is to wipe out the people of your country. We are sick of finding a meal once every few weeks to fight over. We need more than that. We want more than that. We have enough to our number that your settlement walls will not stop us for long. We could feast on the flesh of Romania and decimate the people of this land.”

“Then why don’t you?” spat memory Dash. “If you think you have that power then just do it but know that we will fight and for every man, woman or child of ours that you kill we will rain down vengeance upon you. The people of Romania have seen hard times. You would be just one more dictator to destroy.”

“Strong words for a little prince. Yes I am sure that you would try and several of my wendigo would be lost to the fight. It would be a pity. A pity and a waste, but the greatest pity would be the loss of your people’s lives.”

“I am surprised that you would even care,” said Queen Genevieve, her voice soft but as clear as a bell.

“Oh but your beautiful highness of course I care. After all what would we eat if you were all gone?”

The humans looked at the Zhu and awaited the punch line. He obviously had something very definite in mind but none of them could work out what. Mathilde was also confused and Violette’s silence hinted that she felt the same way.

Zhu stood up and everyone’s head lifted slightly to keep his chilling face in their eye-line. He walked towards the humans. The Protectors automatically gathered around the King and Queen and left Suzanna momentarily unguarded. Mathilde watched with fear as the wendigo man walked slowly towards Suzanna. One of the Protectors saw which way he was walking and moved quickly in front of the Princess. Zhu did not stop walking.

He grabbed the Protector, a heavily muscled man aged around thirty, by the neck and lifted him from the ground. Without taking his eyes off Suzanna he grabbed the man’s right shoulder and with a move like twisting the top of a bottle he twisted his head right off. Mathilde heard herself and everyone else gasp as the Protector’s body tumbled to the ground, his head still in the hand of General Zhu.

Zhu smiled at Suzanna before bringing the head viciously up to his mouth and biting away a lump of flesh from the cheek, chewing it slowly before swallowing. He licked his lips and his slightly too long tongue left smears of scarlet on the grey skin around his mouth. Mathilde wondered if a once removed spirit form could vomit as she saw the decapitated head blink twice before stopping - as if the Protector took a few seconds to realise that he should be dead.

This time nobody moved as he walked towards Suzanna. Mathilde saw Dash’s muscles twitch as if he were ready to pounce if it looked like Suzanna was in danger but Gein had made his way to stand in between Zhu and the humans leaving Suzanna and Zhu separated slightly from the rest of her family and the four remaining Protectors.

Zhu moved closer to Suzanna and the girl sat frozen, staring at his advance. He grabbed Suzanna’s wrist and pulled her up onto her feet. Mathilde saw her cringe away as Zhu put his face close to Suzanna’s and smelt her skin from her face and down her neck. Big tears ran down Suzanna’s cheeks as Zhu traced his fingers down her neck, across her collar bone and then down towards her breast. Dash and Darius leapt towards her but Gein got in their way, knocking them to the ground and pinning them there with his clawed hands.

Zhu chuckled then let Suzanna go. She crumpled into a heap and began to silently sob again. Zhu returned slowly to his throne.

“You see humans are like cattle. They are good for two things: food and breeding. With your support I intend to set up a new way of life for all of us - one which will allow my kind to feast and your kind to return to a normal life.

With your support we can set up breeding camps. You need not put any of your important or innocent people there. The criminals, whores and thugs will do. I hear you are not a favourite of the People’s Rebellion - perhaps some candidates there? Give those people to us and it will be best for everyone. You rid your society of the dregs of humankind and we gain subjects for our breeding camps to create a sustainable food source. A good idea don’t you think?”

“You’re mad!” gasped Genevieve at the same time as Dash burst out with, “Lunatic”.

“That is not going to happen Zhu,” said King Darius. “Release us now and declare your war. I will never share your dreams. What you describe is murder. You will bring babies into this world just to raise and kill for your snacks. I will not let that happen. Even the most disgusting thief in my country will never be put to death for their crimes.”

“Ha, so condescending to come from a man from a species who raises animals to slaughter for food. To us humans are merely animals. How are we so different? No matter. You may stay in my home as my honoured guests and we will discuss it again tomorrow.

You! Take His Royal Highness, his lovely wife and the little prince to their rooms.” Zhu issued his command to the four wendigo stood nearest to his throne.

“Gein. Please take the princess to my chambers. I am sure you can make her comfortable there. I shall be along in a moment.”

Then Zhu gave a barely perceptible nod and all hell broke loose. Dash, Darius and Genevieve screamed and shouted as they were lifted up by wendigo but continued to struggle in an attempt to get to Suzanna. Suzanna had stopped crying and was now screaming as Gein carried her away. Suddenly a new wave of screams erupted into the air and catapulted around the cavern in a thousand echoes as the remaining wendigo pounced on the Protectors. They had no further purpose to serve other than as a meal and within seconds the slurping and crunching made obvious that entrails and bones had become entrees and desserts for the crowd.

The screaming carried on in Mathilde’s head and she could not work out if the sound was coming from her mind, Violette’s or Dash’s. She was catapulted from the earthy darkness of the cavern into searing white light which quickly settled to the white fog of the spirit realm.

“Mathilde! Tilly stop screaming, stop,” Violette hissed desperately before slapping her across the face and Mathilde then knew that it was her that was screaming. She took a breath and stopped.

“They heard Mathilde. They know we are here.”

Mathilde, Dash and Violette looked around to see that they were back in the spirit realm and they saw hundreds of tall slender black shapes flitting around the circle. The snout of a wendigo suddenly came to the edge of the circle snapping and gnashing wildly at them before letting out a howl to alert the hundreds of other wendigo spirits which were searching for new hosts.

Chapter Thirteen

"Don't move," shouted Violette. Silence no longer seemed important or necessary as a sea of wendigo jaws snapped at them.

"The moonstones no longer work. They know we’re here, but the amber should hold them for a little while. Don't break the circle or make any big movements. I will try and get us home while the amber still holds."

The three of them joined hands and Mathilde cursed herself for getting them into this situation. Some nerves of steel she had! Protector Superior! Ha! It seemed that she wasn’t much good at anything these days.

“Right I’m going to count backwards from ten. Remember to control your breathing. Think of the room back at the settlement and think of your body. Try to tune into the smells and sounds of the room. Try to feel what your physical being is feeling.”

The wendigo noise was increasing in volume; snapping, hissing, screeching, howling. These noises were joined by whispers and cries which sounded like human voices. “Help us, you can save us, stay here, we need you.” As they pleaded Mathilde wanted to break the circle to try to help but she knew better than to do that. The voices were old and young and all terrified, but Mathilde knew that they were not voices of humans but of the wendigo taunting and tempting.

“Dash. Dash don’t leave me please, help me, stay with me, save me, be with me,” a female voice sobbed before going silent.

“Suzanna” Dash whispered and Mathilde felt his grip on her hand loosening. She held it tighter.

“Ten, nine....breathe slowly...eight, seven.... try to feel the air in the room...”

Then silence. The counting stopped and Mathilde heard a scream. Not her own this time. She felt a small stone hit her back, heard Violette panting, and the noises of the wendigo rose together in triumph, cackles and howls came closer to her and she felt an oppressive closeness of the beasts swelling around her. Surely they must be close to breaking into the circle. Another stone hit her back. She made a move to let go of the hands which she held but Violette shouted again.