“Are you scared?” I asked.
Pierre turned his eyes on me. “Scared?” he asked, smiling. “Of you?”
“Of the Wendigo.”
“I’m not afraid,” Pierre said, pressing his chest against mine, “of the Wendigo. If anything…” He glanced at his pack. “It would be an honor to be felled by a creature that could strengthen my people.”
“You’re not serious,” another spoke. “He’s new blood. That’s not our way.”
“You wait,” another added.
“It’s a right that’s earned.”
“After years of service.”
“And only when certain incentives are met.”
“You can’t do this!” someone cried.
“It’s madness! Preposterous!”
“SILENCE!” Pierre roared, jawline flaring as he spun to face his pack. “I will have no one, under any circumstance, tell me how to lead my pack. Do I make myself clear?”
The Howlers silenced, nodding as they shrunk back.
Pierre let loose a guttural roar that no human vocal cord could’ve produced. When he turned to face me, blood dripped from tears in his gums where sharpened teeth had begun to push through. “So, Wendigo,” he said. “You wish to face me in combat, and by doing so, forfeit your life in a battle to the death? If this is your wish, swear on your honor—right now, at this very moment.”
“I swear,” I replied.
“Then meet me in this room when the sun has fallen and the moon is full.” Pierre wiped the blood from his lips. “Take him away, Baptiste! Return him only when it is time.”
Baptiste grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away.
Pierre roared.
I laughed.
The leader of the Hill Country Howlers swept an arm across a table covered with dinnerware before turning to regard me with pure-black eyes.
As inhumane as his gaze had become, I saw something there that gave me hope—something that, regardless of his horrifying visage, made me realize I may’ve had the upper hand.
I saw desperation.
I saw panic.
I saw fear.
I couldn’t make sense of how many hours had passed between the time I was placed in my cell and the time Baptiste returned to take me from it. My mind wandered, my nerves grew. I’d tried to sleep but, bustling with energy, I’d eventually fell to pacing my cell when I found I couldn’t. This was how Baptiste found me—wide-eyed and fully awake, paranoia strumming along my conscience and bravado the cocky edge that ensured I’d win. He merely glanced at me with his stark green eyes before inserting the key, unlocking the cell, and opening the door to my imminent fate.
“Come,” the man said.
I stepped forward and allowed him to take hold of me without issue. Already the previous bruising had healed, indicative of my Kaldr blood. My head was no longer sore and any bodily discomforts had all but vanished.
Was this the trait that would lead to Pierre’s demise?
I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. Faced by a Howler with years of experience, I couldn’t expect luck to aid me like it did with Missy Sue. That’d been a fluke—a stupid mistake that had ultimately cost the Howler her life.
But Pierre?
I shook my head.
No. I could do this. I knew I could. I’d been trained—pushed to the limits and instructed in the cruel and mystical ways of the Kaldr. Nothing was going to happen. I’d come out on top. I—
We turned down the hall.
We entered the den.
And that was when I saw him—surrounded by tables, ensnared within a hexagon, shirtless, chest heaving, eyes burning with black hatred. The moment he saw me a snarl escaped his throat and a laugh so impossible it raised every hair on my body echoed throughout the chamber—inspiring, what I could only discern as, Darwinian fear within my mind.
“DePella,” he said, his teeth already lengthened, his gums healed but bearing ugly black scarring. “You’ve finally come.”
Taunting cries and howls followed Pierre’s jest. Baptiste—whose grip on me had been secure—tightened his hold as we approached. I didn’t dare turn my eyes from Pierre.
The hunt had begun.
The battle was on.
Even I—who had not fully succumbed to the beast—felt it all the same.
My gut churned.
My eyes blurred.
My heart pumped blood into my brain and compelled the darker parts of my being to dominate.
As we approached the entrance of the hexagonal arena, passing men and women who called for blood, Baptiste relinquished his hold on me and nudged me forward. “Shirt,” he said.
I didn’t argue. I quickly stripped out of the sweaty T that covered my frame and grimaced as frigid air hardened my nipples and stirred the fine hairs on my body.
When I dropped the garment, Baptiste nudged me again.
I passed the threshold.
The Howlers descended.
What I thought would be an ambush only turned out to be a group of three closing the arena.
Before me, Pierre waited—black eyes flickering, talon-tipped hands twitching with bloodlust.
“You are to fight to the death,” Baptiste spoke, “with whatever skills you possess. No weapons are to be used or engaged during this battle. Should you attempt to slay your opponent with anything other than your hands or blood-born gifts, you will be silenced with a silver bullet.”
The audible crack of a rifle being loaded echoed from the highest point in the room: a security tower whose windows had been shattered. But one Howler could be seen there—crouching, taking aim with a military-grade sniper rifle.
I swallowed.
Pierre chuckled and gestured me with a black claw. “For the Republic,” he smiled.
The Howlers cheered in response.
Stepping forward, I prepared myself for the worst.
There was no crack of a whip to assume the contest.
Pierre simply lunged.
I threw myself to the side just in time to avoid the Howler’s deadly black grasp and collided with the corner of a table.
I stumbled.
Someone laughed.
I turned and raised an arm just in time to shield my face from being torn in half.
“Scared, Wendigo?” Pierre asked, jumping back with such finesse that I could hardly believe he bore even an ounce of humanness. He licked blood from his claws and grinned as I took note of the flesh damage that had been inflicted on my arm.
I imagined it a stream taken by the effects of winter—coursing, slowly, from the highest depths of a mountain. From the points in which it emerged from my body to where it began to drip from my wrist I willed my blood to freeze. Fueling, through the rage of pain, the aspect of my being, I crafted a dagger whose sharpened edge ended in a wicked point at my middle finger. “No,” I replied, fighting through the pain. “I’m not.”
Pierre grunted.
I smiled.
The Howler lunged and I ducked, twisting my arm around just in time to puncture and draw blood along his ribcage.
The man—whose person had progressively begun to disintegrate—spun and uttered a deafening roar.
“You face something that is not your own,” I replied, flicking blood from my wrist and freezing them to solid points as they flew at Pierre.
The werecreature shook his head as the shards of frozen blood hit him. Though not injured, he roared just the same.
He started forward.
I started back, then began to circle him.
His rage was consuming him, slowly but surely crafting a wicked creature whose bloodlust would turn him into a monster. His chest heaved, his lips snarled, his eyes flickered back and forth to watch every movement I made. Always, though, his back remained arched, the joints in his arms ramrod. Soon enough he would turn.
He jumped, propelled by lengthening lupine limbs, and collided with a table as I rolled to evade.
I threw a fist.
My flesh was rende
red along his teeth.
I screamed and formed a glove of ice from the tears in my skin before throwing a second punch.
Screaming, the creature that had once been Pierre lashed out.
My chest was carved within moments.
I stumbled back as the Howler stalked forward on all fours. Head spinning, breath stolen, I willed my Kaldr body to heal that which had been harmed and watched in amazement as my flesh began to mend itself.
Pierre reared his back and screamed.
I smirked.
The werecreature jumped.
I formed a chest plate of spikes from where my blood had spilled and took the brunt of Pierre’s tackle.
He screamed.
I punched.
My ice-gloved hand scalped him, while the dagger on the finger of my other hand caught the flesh on his cheek and ripped his face open from cheekbone to lip.
The werewolf shrieked as I dragged my dagger along his throat.
Blood sprayed my face.
Pierre fought to retaliate.
But it was done.
I reached out, snared my free hand around his throat, and channeled everything I had into his blood.
Ice crystals began to form at his pulsing flesh wound almost instantly.
“You thought you could kill me?” I asked, laughing, stabbing the dagger into another part of his neck and turning the blood that flowed there into solid ice. “After everything you’ve taken from me, you thought I’d let you kill me?”
Pierre convulsed as the flow of blood to his brain was staunched by the expanding ice.
“You ruined my life,” I said, stabbing him again, but this time through the eye, which prompted a scream that nearly deafened me. “Now…I ruin yours.”
He succumbed to convulsions as I pushed the dagger into the fine matter of his brain.
“Your reign is over,” I whispered. “Mine begins.”
His skull cracked.
His body stopped moving.
In moments I’d frozen the entire inside of his head.
I ripped the dagger out and watched his misshapen skull explode.
I leaned back, trembling, unable to believe what had just occurred.
Then I remembered—my curse.
After straddling his waist, I curled my hand into a fist, looked at the dagger of ice enshrouding my middle finger, then at his chest.
There was no hesitation.
I stabbed through bone.
I carved his flesh.
I ripped from his ribcage his unbeating heart.
Then I forced it to my lips and ate with fervor unimaginable.
The first bite lit my brain.
The first swallow made me tremble.
The moment it hit my stomach, I fell—twitching, then convulsing as the beast within reacted.
I watched as the image of a pure-white wolf emerged before my eyes.
It bowed its head.
It touched my face.
I screamed as the Howler was ripped from my being and the Kaldr assumed what had wrongfully been taken.
It was over within minutes.
I lay there, shivering, watching as my glacial weapons melted into a mixture of waterr and blood.
It didn’t seem real.
This couldn’t be happening.
But it was.
I watched as, around me, the Howlers fell to their knees.
At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening. Then it dawned on me.
I had killed their leader, and by trial through combat, had rightfully taken his place.
I was not a Howler, yet on their knees bowed dozens.
Will perhaps there be another when the Moon does pass? the Kelda had once asked. It as we know, and fear, and love, and if trifled, will rise to stake its claim.
Before me was the answer, the proof, the riddle in which my future had been told.
I was the Wendigo.
And I’d ended my war.
About the Author
Born and raised in Southeastern Idaho, Kody Boye began his writing career with the publication of his story [A] Prom Queen’s Revenge at the age of fourteen. Published nearly three-dozen times before going independent at eighteen, Boye has authored numerous works—including the short story collection Amorous Things, the novella The Diary of Dakota Hammell, the zombie novel Sunrise and the epic fantasy series The Brotherhood Saga. He is represented by Hannah Brown Gordon of the Foundry Literary + Media Agency.
You can visit him online at KodyBoye.com.
You can subscribe to his mailing list by clicking here.
And if you enjoyed this book, consider becoming a patron on Patreon by clicking here.
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