As the hunting party sat around their fire for the second night, Ivon still, was unable to shake his worries of Zephyr. He stared down at his food and suddenly a thought came into his mind. When Zephyr was younger, he had a friend who Ivon had only ever met once. Her name was Elizabeth, but Zephyr always referred to her as Elle when she wasn't listening. He had no idea why he'd thought about her now but looking back on everything Zephyr had told him about this girl, he started to realise that there was something off about her. The one time he'd seen her, there was a strange inhuman aspect about her that Ivon couldn't quite place his finger on. It also felt like the moment he stepped into her eyesight, his mind had become foggy, and he couldn't think like his normal self. Needless to say, he didn't want to be around her anymore. Then, one day, Zephyr had just stopped talking about her, he never mentioned her again, it was so sudden that Ivon thought they must have had a huge fight and parted ways. Ivon thought of mentioning the strange girl but decided against it, he didn't want to seem insensitive.
Once all the hunters had finished their dinner, they shared stories of the day. Ellisar praised Ivon and Zephyr for their first hunt going incredibly smoothly. The excited chattering and compliments that followed boosted Ivon's mood and he joined in the conversation. Some time had passed, Unexpectedly, an eerie silence filled the camp and swore he felt a soft shiver down his spine, though, it was unnatural. It felt as if someone had run their fingers down his back, breathing ice-cold air down his neck, and whispered bloody murder in his ear. He glanced to his left, towards Raven, a young boy -the youngest in the party- who is named after his jet-black hair, and the look on his face answered Ivon's question. Raven had felt it too. Clearly, everyone in the camp had aswell.
"What in the name of the Goddess?" Raven whispered.
"Captain," Ellisar murmured "Do you think..." He trailed off, slowly sliding his hand down towards his dagger and flicking his eyes back and forth, scanning the area in front of him.
"I do think." The Captain replied. A scream erupted from somewhere deep in the forest, scaring the everliving shit out of many of the less experienced hunters such as Ivon and Zephyr. A scream shouldn't have scared them that much, it was a forest for Goddess's sake, things scream all the time. No, it wasn't that. It was the fact that the scream was human.
"What's a person doing out here?!" Raven exclaimed then caught himself when he realised that the fourteen of them were in fact people, "I mean a normal person, that sounded like a little girl!" He jumped up and grabbed his bow, ready to charge into the densely packed trees to rescue this mysterious, screaming girl. Then Ellisar grabbed him by his wrist and spun him around and push him down, pinning him to the ground with Ravens hands pressed down above his head. Raven yelped and tried to squirm his way out of Ellisar's tight grip.
"Shhhhhh," Ellisar soothed, "Please, if you move too much or make too much noise, it'll come this way and kill us all. I promise I'll explain everything later, but for now, please just calm down." He pressed down harder on Raven's wrists, pinning him harder and restricting his movement. The small boy ceased his struggle abruptly and turned his head to the side to stare out into the pitch-black void that was the forest.
Then, it all happened so quick. Faster than Ivon could process it. It was one of those, blink and you'll miss it moments. The Captain spun around and flicked his dagger forward at a speed too fast for Ivon to track it. The intricate design on the dagger glinted in the firelight, it's path to the tree behind the captain was cut short as it stopped and floated mid-air. Not even a second later, a soft shimmer of light appeared and revealed that the dagger had sailed through the air and landed in the chest of a sickly creature that Ivon identified as a Wendigo. A monster with a what looked like a deer or elk skull attached to its skeletal wolf like figure. It staggered back, walking on its hind two legs like a human and gripped its long, serrated claws around the handle of the dagger It roared a distorted version of a deer's cry that slowly developed into a small child's scream. Ivon's blood instantly turned to ice as he shivered at the sight of the disgusting creature he identified as a Wendigo. It was creatures like that, that were the reason he ageless to be a hunter in the first place. To protect Shvatar from things like that. The Wendigo slammed back into the tree and pulled the dagger out of its chest and threw it on the ground, but it was too late. Ivon knew the dagger was laced with a special poison designed to take down beasts like this. It started to thrash its limbs about as the Captain and Ellisar pounced on it and -with much effort- held its arms and legs to its sides. Black lines were spreading from the wound in what looked like the Wendigo's veins, the more they spread, the weaker its movements got. Eventually, after some time, the poison spread up its neck and to the Wendigo's head. It fell over and onto the ground with a loud thud which was sure to attract unwanted attention and would cause a problem for the hunters on watch that night.
"Jakah, Helix and Insoh, you take this back to the Kingdom in the morning," The Captain turned to the rest of the group, covered in the Wendigo's blood, "I want you back by tomorrow night, if you don't make it before sundown, don't keep riding in the night, set up a temporary camp and then continue again the next day. Do you understand?" He gestured to the motionless Wendigo and then the three horses that they had brought with them for situations such as this one. The three men nodded and after the Captain's dismissal, they all headed for their tents to hopefully get a good night's sleep, though Ivon doubted it after what they all just saw.
Ivon and Zephyr sunk into their beds- well the closest thing they had to beds out here was a mat and some rough, wool blankets- and closed their eyes. Not daring to utter a sound. Though after a while, Ivon was still unable to sleep, his eyes refused to stay closed for more than a minute at a time as he was haunted by visions of the Wendigo tearing through their tent walls and ripping Zephyr to pieces in front of him. The screams were horrible, he couldn't tell if they were his friend's or the creature imitating a human. As he lay there, staring up at the ceiling of the tent in silence, Ivon started to wonder if he should risk talking to Zephyr. He opened his mouth to speak, but just before he could say anything a chill ran down his spine. The same comforting yet eerie melody that he had heard on the previous night rose again. Only this time, less faint and in the distance as it was. Therefore, closer.