When the clan returned to their campgrounds the raiders immediately checked every tent with a dread in their heart. For now, they found that dread was unfounded, as they found their young and those too old to raid to be safe for the time being.

That night, however, the clan leader called a meeting, and everyone was expected to attend as the chief circled a great bonfire as though agitated, sweat rolling off his brow in thick beads.

Mau pushed her way through the throng and found her way to Suvdaa's side.

"So are you going to tell me what the deal is?" Mau asked.

Suvdaa's only response was to hiss as her, shushing Mau quickly as she jerked her chin towards her father.

"You are about to find out."

It was obvious it wasn't going to be good news, whatever it was.

"What the hell is a wendigo, anyway?" Mau asked, feigning ignorance.

The Hero had encountered countless monsters, beasts, ghosts, and all manners of ghouls. The Hero knew just what they were dealing with; a man-eating monster that could never slake its hunger not matter how many people it killed and ate. The fight ahead of them was not going to be an easy one, and Mau frowned to herself just thinking of how exactly she was supposed to tackle such an enemy while so poorly equipped.

Suvdaa replied with a sharp jab of her elbow, briefly knocking the air out of Mau's lungs with a firm thump.

"Be silent and listen, dumb cat." She snarled. But the damage was done. People were already repeating Mau, uttering the word wendigo with horror and revulsion.

It was then, that the clan leader had stopped pacing.

"My family," he began, immediately silencing the chatter. "A great threat is upon us."

All eyes were riveted on him. Much of the clan revered Suvdaa's father for his wisdom, tactics, and fearless nature in battle. No one had ever before seen him look shaken until now, as he pointed to the east.

"You all tell your children stories of the beast that eats the flesh of man in the cold dark night, to keep them in line. There is not one among us who has not been told by a mother or grandmother of something terrible that stalks the plains at night." He said.

Already the clan was murmuring once again, hushed whispers of quiet and gnawing fear running rampant amongst them.

"I tell you, now," the chief said. "Those are no mere stories."

The clan hushed once again, stunned as the chief drank from the skin at his hip and spat the contents upon the bonfire.

In an instant the flames leaped, briefly flickering green and into the shape of a terrifying skeletal visage of a beast akin to a buck, with great pronged antlers and rows of razor teeth.

"A wendigo stalks the lands of our prey to the east. It very well may have followed us."

A solemn silence fell across the camp for just a beat before the chief continued.

"We had thought ourselves free of this fear... For the last fourteen years we had seen no sight nor trace of the beast... The very monster that had taken my beloved from me. But now it has returned." The chief said, pausing to wipe his brow. When he looked up there was a fire in his eyes.

"I will take only those who volunteer to hunt and slay the beast. I will not look down upon any who wish to remain behind."

Immediately several members of the clan stepped forward, Suvdaa was among them.

But, rather than beaming with pride at his daughter for being among the first to volunteer, the chief frowned hard.

"No." He said firmly. "Not you. You will not be coming on this hunt, Suvdaa." He said.

In an instant a shocked expression flashed across the girl's face. Then came the outrage.

"But father! You said yourself that creature is the reason I do not have a mother. I'm going to hunt it. I'm going to kill it." She said.

"NO." The chief boomed, his voice loud enough to make the entire congregation jolt.

"I will not have it." The chief said, voice firm and unwavering. "You are our Moon Child. We cannot lose you to this beast."

. o O ( What the hell is a Moon Child? ) Mau thought as she watched on. That was something the Hero had never once heard of in all their lives.

"But father-" Suvdaa began, only to be met with a stern, unyielding, gaze.

"No." The chief said with finality. That was it, then.

"FINE!" Suvdaa snapped and whirled around on her heel, bear skin cloak fluttering heavily behind her as she stormed off, petulant and furious.

The chief pretended to pay her no mind, but Mau could see the pain in his eyes as Suvdaa retreated from the gathering.

"The hunting party will leave tonight, the rest of you will remain in camp. No one leaves for any reason until we return. I want sentries posted all hours of the night, at the first sight of anything other than our return sound the alarm and wake the camp to be ready for battle. I will not have this monster catch us unaware." The chief gave his final orders and turned to begin conversing in hushed tones with his volunteer hunting party.

When they finally left to hunt their dangerous quarry, Mau returned to her tent. But she found she wasn't alone. Suvdaa was waiting, stringing her bow, sharpening her knives, a grim expression of silent and wrathful determination gleaming in her eyes.

"We are going too." Suvdaa said, volunteering Mau to come along with her as soon as she entered the tent.

"... So you're not going to tell me anything about what a Moon Child is?" Mau prodded, earning a hard glare.

"Dumb cat, a wendigo is a devil. One that hunts man, woman, and child alike in the frozen wastes, drags them back to its lair, and devours them. Its blood is as black as night, and arrows do not pierce its flesh, blades do not cut its hide, and it is impervious to all blows."

"So then... How do you kill it?" Mau asked, pointing out a very notable flaw in Suvdaa's lacking storytelling skills. Creatures such as Wendigos and their ilk often required weapons touched and imbued with magic, or at least coated in silver, and both Mau and Suvdaa had neither of these things. "If it bleeds it can be killed. We just need to find a way to deal with it." She pointed out, earning an irritated hiss from her tent mate.

"Only an arrow blessed by the moon goddess can pierce its hide, and kill it, if it is struck in the heart." Suvdaa said.

"I'm guessing this has something to do with you being a 'Moon Child'. Which also has something to do with why you disappear on every night of the full moon ever since I met you." Mau considered. "And the deal with that is...?" She prodded, earning a hard glare.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"That is not for an outsider to know." Suvdaa growled.

"What? You think I wouldn't notice you leaving the tent and not being back until morning, all those times?" Mau jabbed back with an irritated huff. "You want me to help you, you've gotta come clean."

"No. And you're going to come with me anyway."

"So that's it, then." Mau shrugged, pretending to be put out. "I'm being voluntold into hunting some kind of demon." In truth, she was not too keen on fighting such a creature without the scales tipped in her favor, somehow, at the current time.

"Yes." Suvdaa said, matter of factly. "Yes you are."

❧

Snow crunched under Mau's boots as she followed Suvdaa into the night. The hunting party had already left hours before, and the two had to sneak past the vigilant eyes of the sentries posted at the edge of the camp, but the sentries were more preoccupied watching for anything approaching on the distance than two small figures slipping away into the darkness.

They were following the trail left by the hunters closely, as to not lose them, but not close enough to be detected by the volunteer party. It was a bitter cold night, and the light of the moon and stars gently illuminated the plains, but as long as they kept moving, their furs kept them warm enough to not be bothered by the elements.

Mau instinctively checked her equipment one more time as she followed Suvdaa through the frigid plains. She still had the two daggers Thrain gifted her, and though it fit more snugly than she remembered, she was wearing her breastplate under her furs. At her side was her trusty short sword, and in her hands she clasped the hunting bow that had been made for her by the raider clan. It was a small but powerful and effective recurve bow, though it was weak in comparison to the much larger war bow Suvdaa had strung over her shoulders.

It was still several hours until daybreak when they had to stop, hiding behind the remains of a fallen tree. The hunting party was resting just ahead of them, the light of a crackling fire visible in the distance.

That was when they heard the keening wail and cry of the same creature that Mau had heard at the failed raid, floating over the winds from the distance. The mere sound of it sent a chill down her spine, and the hunters clearly heard it as well, because they quickly snuffed out the light of their fire, bathing the land in darkness once again.

"It's close." Suvdaa said, expression grim. "It definitely followed us back to our land."

"I heard it." Mau confirmed, pursing her lips into a frown.

"We'll rest here for the night, keep an eye on the hunters and move when they do." Suvdaa said as she nestled down against the dead tree. "You take the first watch, your eyes are keener in the dark than mine."

Mau nodded. "I'll wake you when it's closer to sunrise. Or if I see anything funny."

The pair hunkered in for the night, ready to wait out the hunters first move. But it wasn't long before that eerie, menacing cry floated over the night sky again, much closer. Suvdaa shot upright, but Mau didn't budge, keeping her eyes on the hunters in the distant darkness.

Something was wrong. It sounded like the creature was too close by.

"I don't like it." Mau said, eyes still locked on the hunting party. "They're about to be..."

The sound of a man's scream suddenly pierced the night. In an instant, Mau's ears pricked up and the hair on her neck stood on end. Something lunged into the hunters camp, lifting the sentry clean off the ground with the strength of one arm alone before it started to rip him limb from limb in front of the other hunters. The men and women were up in an instant, some remaining brave in the face of danger and pelting the beast with arrows, another drawing his blade and rushing in before it casually batted him aside with bone shattering force.

"We have to help them!" Suvdaa said standing up. But Mau clapped a hand on the other girl's shoulder and shook her head grimly. "And how are we gonna do that?" She asked pointedly. "Our weapons are the same as theirs and you're not seeing what I'm seeing." She said pointing to her eyes, glimmering in the darkness and reflecting the light of the moon. "And it's bad..."

Mau wasn't lying. In the next instant the hunters were scattered, those that weren't dead or injured turned and ran, fleeing for their lives into random directions in the night with or without their spooked horses, screaming and whimpering. But just like that, the ferocity of the attack was over. Several of the hunters lay dead or dying surrounding the creature as it bellowed that keening cry to the night sky again... Before it plucked one of the fallen party up by the leg and started to drag them away into the darkness, leaving a bloody furrow in the snow.

"What's happening?" Suvdaa asked, tone hushed and strained.

"It's gone." Mau answered, standing up from their hiding spot. "The hunters are either dead or ran away."

"We need to go check on them... There may be survivors, injured." Suvdaa said hurriedly, "Father might still be-..."

"Yeah." Mau agreed, lowering to a crouch as she walked, Suvdaa quickly followed suit and the two crept through the night towards what remained of the hunters camp, silent and expecting the worst.

Their fears were founded. There was blood everywhere, splattered all over the snow and trees, already cooling with the winter chill.

"Find your father. I doubt he would have ran." Mau said as she crouched over the mangled corpse that had been the sentry. For a beast, whatever this wendigo was, its tactics were flawless; it rushed the sentry and savaged him with enough brutality to shock the rest of the hunters into getting sloppy. Then it efficiently went to work on those that chose to fight rather than take flight. They weren't just up against a monster. They were up against a vicious man-eating monster, and that made the situation all the more worse. Mau frowned as her eyes followed the bloody trail in the ground where the beast had dragged a man away effortlessly.

"Father!" The cry came from over her shoulder, and she whipped around to face it. Suvdaa was kneeling over one of the fallen figures. Of the ten men and women that had left on the hunt, five were definitely dead and Mau had counted four flee into the night. She quickly made her way over.

Suvdaa's expression was a stone mask. The clan chief lay at her feet, still alive, but breathing shallow and strained. His eyes fluttered open.

"Suvdaa." He rasped. "I told you to stay back at the camp."

"Father, you're a fool if you thought I would." She answered him back solemnly. Between Suvdaa and Mau assessing his injuries, they found the chief's wound's to be severe, but not fatal if treated. "We need to get him back to camp." Suvdaa said. Mau nodded in agreement as they hooked the chief's arms over their shoulders, grunting with the exertion of lifting a full grown man in thick hide armor.

"Our arrows did nothing to it... Our blades did not cut it. Just as the tales said." The chief muttered. "What do the two of you think you can do against it?" He asked as Suvdaa whistled for the horses to return. Just as they all had been trained, one horse returned, ears pinned back and agitated as it nervously glanced around the demolished camp. Suvdaa and Mau heaved the chief into his saddle with some effort.

"The two of us will hunt it. We'll catch it on the night of the full moon, and kill it." Suvdaa promised her father as she smacked the horse on its backside to send it galloping back to the main camp.

Mau was silent for a moment, watching the horse speed off into the distance before she turned to face her clan mate.

"The night of the full moon?" She asked. "First off, that's three nights from now. Secondly, what is your plan exactly?"

"The night of the full moon is our best chance. The goddess of the moon will bless my arrow and I will pierce its heart." Suvdaa answered her.

"Okay. But that still doesn't answer how we're going to get one of the gods to magically pay attention to us." Mau replied.

Aside from seeing Galatea quite often, The Hero has never met, nor interacted with any of the other gods. They were supposedly a constant presence in all the worlds, but never once had The Hero spoken with, say, Laita; the goddess of nature and plants, or Thuvros, the god of mountains and stone. Though the dwarves they encountered always swore by Thuvros, never once did any of these other gods so much as give The Hero a guiding vision. Needless to say, Mau's opinion of the gods that were supposedly always watching her, was pretty low.

"How the hell are you going to call down the moon goddess to help us?" Mau grumbled.

"I will figure that out when the time comes, stop doubting me, dumb cat." Suvdaa spat, smacking the back of Mau's head lightly.

"Argh." Mau complained. "You don't even know, yourself do you!"

"I do not need to know." Suvdaa retorted as they crept off into the night, following the bloody furrow in the ground in the direction the wendigo had dragged the hunter that it was likely going to feed upon.

The blood trail stopped suddenly at a slim creek that cut across the plains through the trees, and the girls paused. The trail, along with the body, had completely and mysteriously vanished. It could not have been possible- and should not have been possible. Both girls were expert trackers, but for the life of them couldn't find any further trace of so much as a speck of blood as they crouched by the edge of the water.

"Think it could have dragged the body along the creek?" Mau muttered.

Suvdaa shook her head. "The stones along the creek bed would be disturbed." She pointed out, jabbing a finger at the water. "And it's too shallow for it to swim away."

"So you're saying it can just vanish into the snow?" Mau asked.

Suvdaa nodded. "The stories say it can."

Mau drew a slow breath through her teeth.

"Three nights in the wilds I can do." She said. "But I'm already sure that thing is hunting us now, as much as we're hunting it."

Suvdaa nodded. "I had assumed as much, as well."

"This isn't going to be easy. A direct fight against that thing won't end well for us."

"So we will not fight it directly." Suvdaa replied.

"We need to find shelter, for now, though." Mau pointed out. "We'll come up with a battle plan in the morning, after we've both gotten a little sleep."

"Agreed."

The girls had a long and rough night ahead of them... And it was only going to be the first of three...