CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

Second Labor, Part 2

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As the arrow found its target, embedding itself deep into the wendigo’s right eye just before the moment the hind would have ended its cursed life, Sam recalled a lesson he’d heard from a priestess of Pan that one summer Marie had dumped his twelve-year-old butt at summer camp.

“Of all the horrors that stalk the wilds, the wendigo is perhaps the most pitiful,” the priestess had told the kids gathered around the campfire.

One of Sam’s friends had asked, “Why’s it pitiful?”

“Its origins make it so,” the priestess had answered. “A wendigo is birthed after a gifted, out of desperation to stave off starvation, eats the flesh of another human being within the domain of the great Pan, god of the wilds.”

“Eugh,” one kid had said.

“Disgusting,” another had replied.

At their words, the priestess’ expression turned forlorn. “Most gifted become horrors because they’ve given up on life, but a wendigo is born because of a desperate desire to live... that’s what makes them pitiful. In exchange for life, they lose that which made them human.”

Now that he was staring at one—the crooked light of life leaving its bloody, emaciated face—Sam could almost see the human it had once been struggling to survive in a place where no help would come.

It is pitiful, he thought.

Stop daydreaming, lame-brain, Chiron chided. That other monster’s noticed you now!

The hind, its moonglow antlers dripping with dark ichor, turned its face in Sam’s direction. Beady eyes the color of blackened coals glared at Sam from across the clearing, and he could swear that he’d seen them burn momentarily with rage.

“Hold on,” Sam’s gaze zoned in on the blood coating the fur around the hind’s neck, “it’s wounded pretty badly…”

I don’t think it cares, Chiron replied. That thing’s frothing at the mouth…

He was right again. In a frenzied rage, the bear-like creature charged toward Sam with the tips of its moonglow antlers aimed forward.

“Holy—”

Sam threw his body to the side and just barely avoided getting skewered in the chest. He rolled to a stop just inside the tree line to the right of the clearing which is when he got up and hid behind the trunk of a thick oak tree.

“Styx...” The hairs on the back of his arms were standing on end because he’d felt the wave of energy emanating from the Ceryneian Hind’s antlers. “That thing might be at the peak of beta level…”

Your enemies have always been stronger than you, kid...and you’ve always beaten them, haven’t you?

Sam couldn’t help but smile at Chiron’s rare compliment.

And each victory has made you stronger… Believe in yourself. You’ve earned the right.

Sam glanced down at the hand holding onto his bow, noticing how it wasn’t shaking in the least. “Stop praising me already…it’s making me nervous—like things might go wrong if you’re not making fun of me.”

I can make fun of you and compliment you in the same breath, lame-brain…Watch—

But Chiron’s words were drowned out by the sound of falling trees to Sam’s five o’clock. He took a quick peek around the trunk of his tree and watched as the hind thrashed its surroundings like it was having a… “Tantrum?”

Sam looked on in confusion.

“What’s wrong with it?”

If I had to guess, I’d say the poison in its system didn’t just change its form…it forced the Ceryneian Hind into a frenzy…happens sometimes when something pure and good is corrupted by condensed darkness.

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“How do you condense darkness?”

Only one thing I know can do that…but we don’t have to get into it now.

Sam couldn’t see Chiron, but the slight shudder in his voice made him think his master might actually be spooked by something other than losing his subscription to Olympus+.

Listen, kid, that thing’s blinded by rage…it can’t focus, which means you’ve got an opportunity here.

“Lesson number thirty-four,” Sam recited. “Take advantage of the situation and put myself in an optimal position for a stealth attack.”

Think you can do it?

“Yeah, but,” Sam glanced down at his bow once more, “maybe I can stack the odds in my favor…”

Sam pulled out four arrows from his quiver and laid them on the ground by his feet. Two of them had tips made of reinforced hypodermic needles. These were the tranquilizers. The other two arrows had capped tips. Removing their caps revealed arrowheads coated in a sticky gelatinous liquid.

“Egyptian Asp venom,” Sam deduced.

That’s a strong paralytic…might work to calm the hind down… but you’ll need the tranquilizers too if you’re going to keep it docile long enough to lay your hands on it. Assuming they’re strong enough.

“Ash said these can take a beta-level hound down,” Sam answered. “Two should be enough to do the trick...I hope.”

And if they’re not enough?

Sam patted his hammer’s holster. “Then I go old school and bash it into unconsciousness.”

What an unrefined strategy, Chiron laughed. Go for it…but remember not to die.

With his preparation completed, Sam notched a paralytic arrow to his bow and aimed it at the beast’s hindquarters. Luckily for Sam, the hind seemed to have forgotten all about him as it was way too focused on destroying the trees in front of it like they’d offended it somehow.

Lesson number thirty-three, kid.

“Aim,” Sam answered.

As if sensing danger on instinct, the hind stopped its rampage. It reared its head, glancing left and then right. It didn’t find Sam. The trees had provided him cover.

“Wait for it...” Sam pulled the bowstring taut. “Almost there...”

The hind dropped to all fours so that its muzzle was close to the ground. It sniffed at the dirt, possibly to locate whatever danger it had sensed. It also made its backend a larger target which ensured Sam couldn’t miss.

“Now,” he whispered.

Almost as if it had heard him, the hind turned its head in his direction, but Sam had already let his arrow loose. Quick as a gunslinger, he notched another arrow to his bow—one with a tranquilizer’s tip. He drew, aimed, and then fired in the seconds it took the first arrow to hit its mark.

The hind didn’t even notice the first arrow hit its ass. As for the tranquilizer, it flew slower across the expanse of space between them but managed to hit its target just as the hind turned around and rose to its full height.

“Right in the chest,” Sam said, sounding very pleased.

Lucky shot, Chiron teased.

One of Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Um, it’s not working?”

Even with the paralytic and the tranquilizer in its system, the hind’s charge toward him didn’t slow one bit.

Keep firing, Chiron ordered.

Sam wasted no time notching the second paralytic arrow to his bow. He aimed, pulled, and fired.

“Styx!”

His third arrow had struck the hind in its thick belly, but the beast reached him before he could finish aiming the fourth arrow at it. The Ceryneian Hind let out an angry roar and then drove its moonglow antlers down on Sam’s head.

Kid!

It seemed Lady Luck was on Sam’s side at that moment because the hind’s antlers got caught in a low-hanging tree branch, which was just enough of a pause for Sam to dart out of the way. He threw himself into a clump of bushes and then crawled away from the danger zone while trying to still his rapidly-beating heart.

Hades’ balls, I was on the edge of my seat. Almost thought you’d run out of luck there.

While the hind found offense with the tree that had stopped its attack—gorging chunks of bark off of its trunk in anger—Sam took this reprieve to crawl to a new firing spot behind a group of shrubs that had a good vantage of the horror’s back. Once there, he got into firing position and then drew the second tranquilizer from his quiver.

“Let’s try this again…”

It was around now that Sam noticed the slight change in the hind’s demeanor. It had lost its mosh pit attitude and was shaking its head around like someone who had a little too much to drink.

“About time.”

When Sam aimed his bow at the target, he locked eyes with the hind for just a second. As recognition filled those beady eyes, Sam fired his tranquilizer.

The tranquilizer embedded itself right into the hind’s wounded neck. Soon enough, the beast swayed in place. Swayed some more. And then, with a pitiful whine that was underserving of its monstrous countenance, the hind finally dropped to its knees.

“Got you,” Sam grinned.

Don’t be hasty, kid! Chiron warned.

“Sorry, master, but when I see something in need...”

He walked over to the now docile beast that continued to sway around like it was attempting to stay upright despite the pileup of debilitating effects Sam had given it.

It might be down, but it ain’t out yet…

No sooner had Chiron’s warning popped into Sam’s mind when the hind lifted its head at Sam’s approach. Rage, the kind Sam had seen once from the cannibal boar that had nearly killed him back in the hospital, flashed across the beast’s face.

“Oh”—Sam hurriedly drew an arrow from his quiver—“Styx!”

The hind flew toward him in a sluggish rage, making it possible for Sam to jump back and avoid the swipe of its antlers.

As he jumped away, Sam aimed, “Go down already!” and then fired his arrow.

The projectile’s bulbous tip smacked into the beast’s chest, and the golden flames that exploded out of it grew into a blossoming flower that engulfed Sam’s entire vision. Then he heard the boom, and he too was blown away.