Chapter 9
An owl hooted as the wolf left his day hide — a grove of thick trees and bushes — far to the east of Founsel. The forest was in complete darkness; sun long ago gone down, and moon not yet risen. Through the trees he walked, toward the town. His two injuries from the previous night had healed over. His withers were tight and the left forearm gave him a slight limp.
Still a distance from the town and its clearing, the wolf noticed the lights. Lanterns shined past the border of the forest but his gnawing hunger spurred him onward and closer. Noises of many people also followed the light out of the village. These creatures were always so loud.
Creeping forward by the inch, the wolf saw how many people were out walking the perimeter and watching the forest. He had provoked a strong reaction in Founsel. Tonight would be more challenging.
No matter. The wolf backed up and swung north, toward the cove. He neared the water, which lapped right at the forest’s edge. Two sheep grazed in a patch of tall grass. With a silent swiftness, the wolf was upon them. He took the first in his mouth and broke its neck, while he used a free front claw to slash at the second. The sheep fell over, kicking at the air, with three long gashes opening its side. The beast brought death to the second sheep by clasping its neck.
The moon rose over the rim of the world. As the wolf bit into the carcasses, moonlight shone into his eyes. He growled at the orb and moved to the other side of the bodies. He would not let the moon spoil his meal. The last bits were bloody and satisfying.
From the shore, the wolf edged into the water. He swam out into the cove and made his way around the docks. A few boats were tied there and their ropes squeaked as the vessels rocked. A wind came out of the north and rolled waves into the shoreline. The moonlight didn’t menace the wolf from this angle, and, by the light of the lanterns, he saw several groups of armed people. The cove’s wind-blown surface helped conceal his position, though the guards’ attention was mostly focused on the forest border.
As he neared the far western side of the cove, the wolf spotted a pyramid of logs sitting a few yards away from the water. He swam to shore, shook off without a sound, and crept behind the logs. His mouth and neck were still coated with blood, and his wet fur lent him a gaunt look. Peering around the logs, he saw guards moving in groups of three. Many more people than last night were in various positions around the town. The wolf wagged his tail; the risk would make these kills more rewarding.
Ahead of him, beyond the logs, was a bonfire. Two people sat near it but paid more attention to the flames and stoking the coals than to their surroundings. Their slack was their ruin.
The wolf leapt over the logs which rose over ten feet high. He landed on the opposite side of the fire from the guards, obscured by flames and smoke. He crouched, wagged his tail, and let out a low growl. Those around the fire pit first looked toward the woods for the source of the sound.
The wolf bounded over the flames. Water sizzled as it dripped from his fur onto burning logs. The two people caught a glimpse of him in mid-air. The beast used a similar tactic on them as he used on the sheep; he took first the woman by the neck and the man he knocked over with a sweep of his claws. The fire popped and sparks swirled into the dark sky.
The sound drew the attention of two groups of watch folk. Each person raised their musket but did not have a shot. The woman at the fire fought against the wolf as she was drug around to the far side of the burn pit. A last cry carried in the air and the wolf dashed into the woods. A single musket roared with authority but the shot lead a foot too much. Smoke from Hantle’s barrel carried south on the wind through the town as people rushed toward the fire. The musket shot was sharp and jarring; the weight of it sat upon the town.
The injured man lay in a pool of blood with his intestines spilled out of his gut. On the other side of the fire, the partially devoured remains of the woman lay sprawled out. Hantle sent a person to fetch the doctor, and tried to pack the man’s stomach with clothing to stop the flow of blood. But the damage was too severe and the man’s gasps subsided as he bled to death.
The moon rode higher into the night sky, so its light filtered through the canopy to dapple the forest ground. The wolf dodged the larger light patches as he swept around the western side of town, heading south. His attack at the north drew most of the guard toward the cove. Now, Founsel’s southern flank lay exposed.
Two homes here stood out in the lantern light. Windows and doors on the first floors were boarded up. In the upper story of the house on the west, a man stood at an unobstructed window. One hand drew the curtain back as the other grasped a candle. He was curious to know what the shot meant, but the orientation of his house prevented him seeing north. The man looked from side to side along the street but saw nothing extraordinary through the waves in the glass. His family lay in bed, whispering for him to come back to bed.
The wolf, sitting inside the forest’s edge, noticed the man and the creature licked its lips. The wolf stepped forward and looked around. Only a few people were off to either side. None stood between him and the house. With determination, the wolf sprinted out of the trees. His shoulders grazed the lower boughs, ten feet off the ground.
Too late did the father catch the moon on the wolf’s pelt. The wolf had already jumped from the grass. The creature sailed above the porch’s roof and crashed through the upper story window. Teeth were in the man’s neck before he hit the ground. His wife and two young children jolted up in surprise and screamed at the commotion. From the wolf’s jaws, the father slumped to the ground and the beast pounced on the bed. Within moments, all was silent once more.
The wolf walked back to the hole he had created in the window frame. Glass splintered under the pads of his paws as he looked out. Across the street, a husband and wife rushed to the window to investigate the sounds. They stared with huge eyes at the wolf through their second story window, which also lacked boards. Moonlight glinted off the glass panes and the beast growled with annoyance.
The couple darted away from the windows toward the bedroom door. The beast watched them fling aside a drawer and chairs that blocked the doorway and their access to their stairway. The husband grabbed their three children and rushed them out of the bedroom. Guards ran from the cove toward the new set of screams.
From the window, the wolf dropped to the ground, heavy with his meal. Into the air again and the wolf came through the window the parents fled. After sniffing out the room, he was sure none still hid there. The wolf was too large to fit through the inner doorway, so he thrashed through the frame and along the hallway, toward the stairs. Wood buckled at his clawing and a wall slumped from the weight of the roof on damaged timber. The family had scurried to the ground floor and their shaking hands pried at the boards across door and window. The family was partly through freeing one exit when the wolf extricated himself from the tight stairway.
With a low growl, the wolf shook himself again to cast off wooden splinters and water. The father fumbled for a pistol on his hip but dropped it. His wife reached out to catch it, but the wolf lunged forward. He bit her arm and shook his head before letting the mother go. She sailed through the air and collided with her husband, where they both collapsed to the flood.
The children screamed and scattered to a corner of the room. A window stood next to a stove and before a dining table. They overturned the table in their hurry to get at the window’s boards. Their mother sat clutching her broken arm. Blood leaked from her wounds with intensity. The man yanked off his shirt and tied a tourniquet around her arm. He cast his children a glance and shouted, “Hurry out that window.”
The wolf enjoyed the scene for another moment before making a move. In the still, a crackling filled the air. The sound grew louder, until evident that a fire roared upstairs. The wolf had overturned a lamp which caught flame to the bedroom. Guards, now in the yard, shouted to others about the wolf and growing fire therein.
The fire, surprisingly, brought the children to focus on their task of escape. They pulled at boards with renewed vigor. The wolf stepped forward and his growl filled the room.
Finished tying the tourniquet, the father looked about for his pistol but it had scattered out of sight. He instead leaned back and drew a knife from his belt. The wolf lunged at the man and swallowed his arm. With a sickening snap, his arm was devoured. His eyes grew wide just before he fainted from pain and blood loss.
The mother pulled herself away, but the movement only alerted the wolf. Within seconds, she was in his mouth again. The children turned to see their mother silenced by powerful jaws.
One of the girls ran to her father, trying to rouse him, but he lay unresponsive. The wolf swallowed the mother in pieces and turned toward the young. His eyes reflected a candle; pupils dilated. The children turned back toward an opening in the boards nearly large enough for them to fit through.
A shattering of wood split a brief silence and a mass tumbled into the yard. The wolf burst out of the home, destroying most of the porch in the process. Debris followed him into the lamplight flooding the grass. Sparks overhead rushed into the night and the fire enjoyed a breath of oxygen as the structure slumped. Within a blink, the creature sprinted and bowled over guards along the street as he ran toward tree cover. Nearby guards followed the action with surprised looks; their weapons lagged behind.
Just minutes had passed between his attack on the north of town, mutilating two families, and disappearance into the woods.
The second floor of the burning home collapsed upon itself. Flames soared twenty feet above the roof timbers, glowing amidst smoke.
Hantle and Rounfil arrived in front of the attacked homes and looked at those guard lying injured in the street. The house ahead of them coughed more sparks from its wounds.
Hantle knew a family of five lived there. Motioning to Rounfil, he began toward the house. “There may be survivors.”
Searing flames had spread and checked the men at the hole where the front door had been. With shirts raised to their faces, they peeked in but saw no human figures. The stairwell was engulfed in flames and shingles from a fractured roof clattered to the wooden planks before them. Rounfil placed a hand on Hantle’s shoulder, to keep him from rushing in. They moved back to the street just as a wall listed and burning timber tumbled into the gap between homes.
“Fetch water!” Rounfil shouted to the group. He looked around for any sort of bucket. “We must wet down the surrounding houses and fences.”
Several homes in town had troughs to water pigs, horses, and cattle. The guard used water from these sources first and splashed it over the fences separating the burning house from its neighbors. A line of people extending to the cove delivered additional bucketfuls to douse adjacent homes. With those buildings doused, they turned attention to the burning house. Portions had not yet caught flame. Heat drove the guard back, however, and the entire structure was lost.
The entirety of the night’s guard was preoccupied with preventing the spread of the house fire. This stroke of luck was not lost upon the wolf. He took advantage of the chaos and moved through the woodlands. Swung from the south, around to the east, and then up north again. The eastern trees had a thinner canopy and the beast saw more of the moon, climbing towards its zenith. A deep roar built in his chest as he lapped his lips. The moon would be far more satisfying a meal than these humans. Leaping into the air, he snapped his bloody jaws at the distant circle.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins and the thrill of the night spurred him to devour more. Along the cove’s shoreline, he saw into town. Smoke, tinged red, thickened at its southern side. The northerly breeze carried the haze beyond the town’s end.
The wolf’s eyes widened at the expanse of exposed, distracted, and vulnerable prey. All the guards had laid down their arms to form the bucket brigade. From the forest came the creature to creep past the log pile again. Flames gasped in the distance and shouts rebounded through Founsel. His muscles burned as he sprinted toward a woman next to the docks. His jaws closed over her midriff, as he lifted her skyward. When he loosened his bite, she flew two dozen feet into the air before hitting the ground with a sickening staccato.
The wolf deftly snapped up the next nearest woman. She hung from the wolf’s mouth and swung her hands at the beast’s skull as life seeped from her; down the creature’s fur, onto the ground. With his victim waning, the wolf ran down the line of people, toppling them over has he impacted with heavy momentum. Those further down the row had time to dodge and moved out of his reach.
Hantle and Rounfil grabbed muskets and aimed at the wolf. Their fellow guard clenched in the beast’s mouth stayed their shots. It was impossible to tell whether she was alive. Neither would have desecrated her body even were she expired. All the guard, only able to watch the wolf dash away, were taken aback by the amount of blood in his fur. They watched the wolf stay his course down the cobblestone street and, once past the houses, dart into the western forest once more. The uninjured moved to the wounded. Two near the cove were knocked unconscious and a third soon perished from head trauma sustained while hitting the ground. A few after suffered broken arms, wrists, legs. The injuries decreased in severity as they had more time to react.
A rustle of branches in the forest drew the attention of muskets. The wolf erupted from the shadows and charged toward the injured. Dashing through the field from which he’d taken Hantle’s sons, the wolf was unprotected.
Hantle and Rounfil, arms steady, lead the wolf and their muskets rang out in fiery opposition. The beast’s head jerked and he veered off course. Hantle’s heart pounded with the anticipation of whether their shots connected.
Rounfil pointed. “We hit one of his ears.”
Indeed, Hantle saw the remains of an ear hanging from the beast’s head. Blood streamed from the wound and colored the fur on the left side of his head. But the wolf did not slow down. He closed in on the wounded, screaming souls.
No further muskets shots called out; the risk of harming a fellow citizen was too great. Hantle dropped his firearm and drew a long knife. The town aglow with moon- and lantern-light filled him with hope. He charged the wolf.
The beast had swallowed two others before Hantle reached him. He scooped up a third before tearing his head side-to-side. The man fell limply to the ground as the wolf squared up with Hantle.
The enraged father raced in, raising his blade high; poised to strike. Hantle brought the knife down, aiming for the eyes. As the wolf lunged at the arm holding the blade, Hantle changed his strike and brought his hand out wide. The blade arced in and toward the wolf’s side. The canine lurched his body, in mid-air, in an attempt to lessen the blow.
The knife sank into the blood-matted fur near the shoulder just as the wolf’s teeth sank into Hantle’s arm. As paws landed on the ground again, the wolf sidestepped, letting his bite go. The blade ran along bone and muscle leaving a long, channeled tear in the flesh just below the destroyed ear. With a yelp, he ducked his shoulder away from the knife.
Rounfil stepped forward with a hand axe, and, with a growl of his own, dared the fiend to approach.
With a final, sweeping look around the growing, armed crowd, the creature thought twice. He backed up, turned, and sprinted out of town, grabbing the dead man as he took off. The ground shook under his girth.
Hantle could not tell the severity of the wolf’s injuries. They had done some damage, at least. Blood flowed thick from both wounds. But would it be enough? The bereaved man, blade still in hand, ran to the forest’s edge where his foe’s trail soon dissolved into darkness.
As his adrenaline subsided, Hantle felt pain creeping up his right arm. It bled freshly from puncture wounds the fangs left behind. Gore from the wolf’s pelt also covered his non-dominant hand. He walked back to the group and tended to the gravely wounded as his nerves settled.
Hantle posted a small group of uninjured guard, armed with reloaded muskets. But the wolf was seen no more that night. The wind died down and smoke from the burning house rose high into the sky, shimmering with an odd quality from the moonlight.
The doctor finished tending Hantle’s arm and left to care for others. The reality of the night settled over Hantle and he broke down. His family had been broken up by the wolf, and other families tonight had suffered a similar fate. Gazing toward the meadow, Hantle saw Hultier and Dolcium playing there as they had countless times before. His thoughts produced a broken coop before him, topped with the graying skulls.
The beast took Hantle’s sons that first night. How many had died since? More each night. He tugged at his brown hair with a clenched fist. His life, his town, and now his body were bloodied by the ghastly thing that would continue to terrorize. The canine was less predictable than a human opponent and impossible to comprehend. What drove the wolf? Could he be sated? Was it bleeding out in the deep woods?