Wendigo Wars Read online

  Mathilde splashed her face with cold water. If she was going to have a dream commune with Violette and Fleur she first needed to clear her head. They found it easier than Mathilde. Even if they were in the middle of something they could hear each other’s voices and talk back but Mathilde found it far more difficult and needed to reach a meditative state to enter the dream plains. Mathilde returned to her sleeping pad and tried to find a comfortable position, lying on her back. The large falconry was lit just by a single candle which she had brought with her. She began to meditate in the way she had been taught. To concentrate on everything that was registering with her physical senses in order to cast her physical distractions off and allow her mind to enter a dream state and journey to the dream plains.

  Mathilde dealt first with sight. She listed the things she could see. Dust motes, the falcons high up in the rafters, feathers drifting down each time a falcon shook out its wings, a sliver of moonlight and stars through the high window, her own eyelashes. She closed her eyes to concentrate on what she could smell. Sawdust, feathers, hay, old bird feces and newer, more pungent feces, the oil she had rubbed into her cold, wind cracked hands. She listened for the sounds surrounding her; a gentle wind and the noise of the caribou, the odd cry from the falcons and a rustle when they moved their wings, the sound of her own breath. Mathilde slowed her breathing to slow her heartbeat. She counted to four as she took breaths in through her nose and to eight as she exhaled through barely parted lips. As her breathing slowed and she could see nothing but black on the inside of her eyelids, Mathilde concentrated on what she could feel. The cool of the air creating a slight draft over her face as it came through the windows, the hardness of the floor under her thin sleeping pad, the aches and pains of the day in her knotted shoulders and over exercised thighs, the warmth and slight itchiness of the wool socks on the soles of her feet and, as she concentrated harder, a slight warmth coming from the candle which sat near her right hand.

  Mathilde took a few more controlled breaths and let all of these things slip away from her. As she concentrated on not concentrating the black of her eyelids became brown and then a light swirling blue and white mist like the moonstone she wore around her neck. As Mathilde entered the dream plain she could no longer see, feel, hear or smell anything of her physical world. She felt as light as air. After a minute of silence a figure came out of the mist. It was soon joined by a second figure, both so similar to Mathilde yet both so different.

  The first figure to have appeared was Fleur. She was both taller and more adult looking than Mathilde with curves, long, dark curls and full lips. Fleur wore a brightly coloured full skirt and a long sleeved blouse. Her wrists and ankles jangled with the charms of the Romany tribes that she lived with. Violette moved forward to join hands with Fleur and Mathilde. Her dark brown hair flowed straight and long with intricate braids coming down from each temple. Her skin was a rich nut brown like their mother’s had been. She wore a hide, long sleeved tunic, long pants and fur lined snow boots. The triplets formed a circle and sat down. When they smiled at each other their violet eyes glittered and their straight teeth shone from under their different lips to create identical dimples.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” said Mathilde. She never noticed her English accent until she spoke to her sisters. Each had adopted (or kept in Fleur’s case) the accent of the people they lived with but, despite living in Romania, Mathilde had grown to speak with the English accent of Protector Superior Henry, her now deceased mentor.

  “What is the matter Mathilde?” asked Violette in a thick Romanian accent. “Is Amelie not looking after you well enough? You need to eat more, you are so pale.”

  Mathilde smiled. Violette always assumed the mothering role when the sisters met. “No Violette. Amelie is feeding me well. She rarely stops trying to fatten me up!”

  “You saw a death. You are feeling guilty.” said Fleur in a French accent layered with touches of Cree. Fleur had a knack for that. She was very attuned to moods and her time dealing with the spirit world had given her a sixth sense just short of being psychic.

  “Jack, our newest Protector. A wendigo got him on today’s hunting trip. He died.”

  “You think it was your fault,” said Violette

  “Yes. We trained hard and he was a good fighter, but I can’t help feeling that I could have prepared him more psychologically, or seen that he wasn’t ready.”

  “You couldn’t have known. You have such a responsibility for a teenager. We all do but you most of all.” Violette gave her hand a squeeze.

  “Forgive yourself” said Fleur, breaking out of the trance that she had temporarily retreated into in order to reach the spirit world of the dead, just a breath away from the dream plain in which they sat. “He has already forgiven you. He feels there was no wrong to forgive. He’s made his way to the spirit plain and is reunited with his mother.”

  The girls sat in silence for a while, each in their own thoughts, their hands warming each other’s and their pulses beating in their fingertips in perfect synchronicity.

  “How is Father Fleur?” asked Mathilde wearily, making a forced effort to shrug off her negative thoughts.

  “He is well. He’s on another journey, in search of a man in Prague. He thinks that he may have some new knowledge on the wendigo. He has been studying the poison from its claws. We have been working on something in the settlement too which may help.”

  “That’s excellent. That could really be something.”

  “I’m not so sure. This is his sixth trip this year to follow a lead and each time he leaves excited only to arrive back at the settlement distraught. He disappears in a rage for days. No-one dare talk to him. Then he comes out of hiding and begins the search again. I just hope that one of the things we are working on will turn out the way we hope.”

  Suddenly Mathilde noticed how quiet Violette was being. She was usually the most talkative of the three of them but had sat in silence almost as soon as she’d been reassured that Mathilde was indeed eating enough.

  “Violette?” said Mathilde looking at her more carefully then looking at Fleur to see if there was any indication that she might be able to read what was going on in Violette’s mind.

  Fleur stared more carefully at Violette as she lifted her head to look at her sisters. She stared for a bit longer before gasping in horror.

  “What? What is it?” asked Mathilde. Her head whipped between Violette and Fleur. Sometimes she wished she had inherited her mother’s ability to see what people were thinking so that she wasn’t always the last to figure out what was going on.

  “I can’t see clearly but I see that the Bucharest settlement is scared. They are terrified that the wendigo are not what we thought they were. What has happened Violette?”

  Violette sighed then began to talk. “I wanted to hear how Mathilde was before I said anything. I’ve been waiting for you to call for us to meet. I know you can’t hear when Fleur or I call so I had to wait for you to get in touch.”

  “What is it? Why didn’t you send a falcon?”asked Mathilde, trying to ignore the feeling of inadequacy which threatened to crawl into her mind, as it always did when she was reminded of her lack in spiritual skills.

  “I didn’t want it to be caught, for our message to be intercepted.”

  Fleur and Mathilde exchanged confused looks.

  “Intercepted?” enquired Mathilde “Who by? We have no enemies. There have been no wars since the White came. The worst a wendigo would do is to eat the bird.”

  The only benefit of the White, the second Ice Age, had been that it ended any wars between humans as they were forced to fight only for survival and the good of the small settlements of survivors.

  “I fear there may be one approaching. Two weeks ago our settlement was attacked by wendigo but not one. There were six of them.”

  “Six! But wendigo don’t hunt together. Any wendigo who travel together fight so viciously that they rarely both survive more than a day of pack hunting.
You must be mistaken.” Mathilde shook her head in disbelief.

  “We weren’t. The lookout saw just the one wendigo at first. It was early afternoon and it came from in between the derelict buildings that surround the Bucharest settlement. Then a few minutes later a second wendigo came from another side. Our lookouts thought that it was a co-incidence but then more wendigo appeared until there were six of them. They kept pouncing at the walls and trying to climb over them but our archers kept them back. They almost made it over the wall a few times. The fight went on for many hours but eventually the wendigo stopped attacking. They were all dead. We left them for a day before we made a move and then our Protectorate dragged them into the settlement to burn them”

  “It’s unheard of,” said Mathilde aghast. “It goes against their natural behavior.”

  “That wasn’t the worst of it” said Violette “When they were dragged into the settlement we saw that there was a message carved into their backs”

  “Who would do that? How would they do it? Hang on, carved? You mean written right?” Mathilde looked confused as the tale grew stranger.

  “No. I mean carved. Someone had carved the same message into the flesh on the back of each wendigo. They were so thin that we could see bone underneath the cuts. There was no blood. The edges of the letters were frozen, as if they had been carved with wendigo claws.”

  “What did they say?” asked Fleur in hushed tones.

  “It was a letter of sorts, or a declaration of war? I’m not sure how to describe it. It said ‘We will tear and slash and eat. Your blood will run and the snow of this world will be stained red. This world is for the wendigo. In anticipation, General Zhu.’ ”

  “What?”said Mathilde, sharing a confused look with Fleur

  “I know! No-one knows who General Zhu is or how he managed to get the wendigo to work together.”

  “How did he even get to the wendigo without being torn to pieces?”asked Fleur.

  “No-one knows. No-one knows what to do, no-one knows who General Zhu is, no-one knows... no-one knows anything. We are just waiting for something to happen but nothing does. It’s been silence since then. As if this General Zhu is trying to drive us mad. We are running low on food and need to send the Protectorate on a hunting trip but the Protector Superior doesn’t want his group to go out until we know what’s going on. It’s too dangerous. What do we do Tilly?”

  Violette looked pleadingly at Mathilde. She had never before needed to ask Mathilde’s advice and it felt strange for either of her sisters to be asking for her help.

  “Does your Protector Superior not have a plan? Paul has been a Protector Superior for over twenty years. He has far more experience than I have.”

  “You know experience isn’t everything Mathilde. He is at a loss about what to do. He told me to ask your advice. This is in your blood. You are the daughter of Jean Louis and the descendant of Joseph Fiddell, the first of our Protectors before the world could even imagine that the wendigo were anything more than a legend.”

  “So are you”

  “Don’t be difficult Tilly. You have a sixth sense for what to do in battle. It is what you were born to do. No amount of experience can top that. He knows that and trusts that you can help us. We all do.”

  Mathilde raised her eyebrow to give Violette a cynical look.

  “That wasn’t your fault Tilly. You trained Jack well and you gave the right commands. You know what to do in battle but you cannot control the actions of other people. That is not in your power. And besides... there is the prophecy”

  Mathilde sighed and nodded in acknowledgement. She knew in her head that it was not her fault she was just having trouble convincing her heart of that. The prophecy? Now that was a different matter but now was probably not the best time to start on her usual rant of the prophecy being pointless nonsense.

  “I need to come to Bucharest - to meet and plan with Paul. Tell him to prepare for my arrival and you work with the community to make your food last. We’ll be there in a fortnight.”

  “I will tell Father,” said Fleur, knowing that this was the most she could do to help.

  The sisters gave each other a final squeeze of the hand then let go and each began to speed their breathing up to a normal pace. Fleur was the first to fade away from the dream plain. She always was, being the most accomplished spirit walker among them. Violette disappeared next and Mathilde last, same as always - forever having to try just a little harder to get the job done.

  Mathilde stood up from her sleeping pad and stretched her back and legs. Morning had crept up on her whilst she had been in the dream plain and today was going to be a busy day. She rolled the sleeping pad up and went to store it in the corner of the room. There was a lot to do before the trip and only a week to prepare before she had to set off for Bucharest but first the day held a duty which Mathilde could not get out of and one which she knew that Seb would be dreading.

  Chapter Three

  To get to Amelie’s rooms Mathilde first had to navigate the courtyard. Most settlements were long disused castles, forts or monasteries, and at the centre of each one was a courtyard which acted as the centrepiece to the community. The courtyard had a large, low burning fire which burnt at all hours of the day and night. All of the settlement food was cooked on this fire and as Mathilde navigated it she could see its many other uses in action from curing hides to drying out wood and to acting as the primary source of heat in the settlement. Mathilde walked past the stalls around the edges of the courtyard. People called out in greeting to her and offered her food or drink to welcome in the day. Mathilde smiled warmly but shook her head at everyone who spoke to her, though she knew that they were asking out of kindness. Money and trade had been abandoned when the White took hold and everything in the settlements was done for the good of the tribe. Mathilde was hungry but she never allowed herself the luxury of breakfast until she had checked on her Protectorate. They needed to be woken and briefed for the day ahead. She had decided to wait until the afternoon before she updated them on the Bucharest situation.

  "Morning Julia," Mathilde called as she watched a young woman, five years her senior, waking up and stretching out. "Look-out duty on the outside today."

  Julia nodded and smiled then drifted off to eat before the long day on the settlement lookout post began. Mathilde carried on her walk around the alcoves, greeting each Protector with similar words and assigning them duties. On a normal day the duties were usually to stand on the lookout post, work on the outside where the animals were tended and vegetables grown, work at the fishing hole catching snow seal and fish or to work with the blacksmiths making and repairing tools and weapons. These were the daily duties of the Protectorate along with regular fighting practice.

  Mathilde finally reached the rooms which were home to Amelie - Mathilde's favourite place in the settlement. This was where Mathilde and Seb had been raised along with Carer Amelie's other charges. As Mathilde entered the alcove and stored her sleeping pad by the door she noticed a young boy. Twelve years old, small and skinny he turned to smile at her and wrinkled his freckled nose.

  "Morning Mathilde," he said as he bounded over to her for a hug. Mathilde ruffled his red hair and hugged him back.

  "Morning Jaya," she said to Amelie's only natural born child "Have you seen Seb this morning?"

  "He went out to get bread and cheese for breakfast. Are you staying for breakfast? Stay for breakfast please."

  "Of course she is Jaya. Get your sister a seat," said Amelie as she joined the conversation and shooed some of her younger charges out of the alcove "Get to your classes children" she called after them "and don't dilly dally at the rabbit pens". The three small children ran off and promised not to stop at the rabbits. Their giggles betrayed their fib.

  Jaya was not the real brother of Mathilde but Carers often called their charges brothers and sisters. Unity was the most important key to the continuation and survival of the tribe and this was taught from a young age. Amelie pulle
d a chair up to the table and sat opposite Mathilde. Mathilde smiled at Amelie, her violet eyes crinkling as she peered up from under her blunt fringe at the nearest thing she had to a mother.

  "Do you have a busy day today Mathilde?" asked Amelie.

  Mathilde leant back in her chair, relaxing for the first time that morning. Though everyone in the settlement was kind and friendly they all treated Mathilde with a sense of awe and respect. She was the first teenage Protector Superior to have ever looked after a tribe. Most Protector Superiors were forty or fifty years old and of course everyone had heard the rumours of the prophecy. With Amelie, Seb and Jaya was the only place where Mathilde be treated like a normal seventeen year old. Her answer was cut short before she even began but it was a welcome interruption.

  "Tilly!" a big voice boomed as a tall teenager bounded into the room, big thick arms carrying bread and cheese and a flagon of warm milk.

  "Morning Seb," said Mathilde, smiling at the pet name he had used for her since she arrived at the settlement aged five to his seven years. He was the only person, apart from her sisters, to call her Tilly. He flung the breakfast goods on the table and flopped down next to Mathilde then ruffled her hair, completely ruining the tidy style which Amelie had just made.

  "What are today's plans then Til?"

  Mathilde smiled fondly at her best friend as she smoothed her hair down again and tucked it behind her ears, conscious, as always, of the white stripe which had appeared in her black hair the morning after the wendigo attack which had killed her mother. He couldn't look much different from Mathilde. He was broad shouldered and almost 6ft 5 with mid length, blond hair. Mathilde’s pale skin was in stark contrast to Seb’s tan and freckles, a result of his usual role of supervising the Protectors who worked outside of the settlement building which meant that he was constantly in the sunlight which bounced off the snow and ice.