18

My body was numb, though whether it was from the raging storm or from the sickening touch of the Shadowlands, I couldn’t tell. If forced, I would say it was near dawn, but my sense of time was unreliable. For the longest time, I wondered if my body would still work when the wendigo showed up. Now I was starting to wonder if it would show up at all.

The passing hours allowed me to survey the surrounding terrain and my available weapons. The chaos blade was unchanged by shadow sight; it still randomly flickered across the spectrum. If I had hoped that it would seem more magical, more potent in the Shadowlands, there was nothing evidenced to reward that hope.

The faux spear of destiny had changed. Its shaft hummed with a thin red aura, the color on a Nazi armband in living Technicolor. The spear tip was lost under a coat of midnight black slime. Neither effect was overwhelming: it was indeed magical, but barely. It might have been copied from the Spear of Destiny, but its makers could only forge a spear of spite. On the other hand, steel and burning hate was not a bad option for this particular foe.

The Necronomicon’s endless fount of shadow magic seemed impressive…but I remembered who was supplying my shadow sight. He may have been altering my perceptions in favor of his weapon of choice.

The world outside the circle steadily shrank as night went on. At dusk, my vision was limited only by the spectral trees blocking my line of sight. Now the blizzard around me was so intense, I could not see beyond the candlelight glow of the circle. I thought the storm was real, material, but not a single flake landed inside my circle, leaving me to wonder.

“Hey, wake up.”

“Yeah, I feel it, too.”

I slowly shifted my vision a little further south. At first, I thought I could see nothing but snow. Fifty feet out, though, the flakes swirled in funny patterns, painting shapes in the night air. Most were unrecognizable, but suggestively anatomical: a nose here, a tail there, a claw there. One I did recognize, and I involuntarily shuttered as I saw the face of the old curse woman, staring wickedly out at me from the storm.

I called out in that nameless, ancient tongue. “Wolf-mother, you came.”

I could not pinpoint the growling voice that replied. The sound seemed to echo off every snow flake. “Step out of your circle and face me, white boy. Stop hiding and fight.”

“I will fight if I must, Hungry Winter. But I would ask you to sleep, wendigo. Go back to sleep. I will return to the Shadowlands no more.”

A blast of arctic wind answered me, “No sleep. It is time to eat.”

My right hand crept free from my lap, ready to act if needed. The strange shapes still danced in the air, concentrated in the direction the gust had come from. No real target presented itself. “Then come, beast. I am right here. My book and I will teach you a trick the Faceless Men didn’t—how to play dead like an obedient doggy.”

I hoped for a quick, angry rush provoked by my words. None came and the shapes vanished from the air only to reappear twenty feet to the North. “Those you speak of will soon fill my belly, too. But they did teach us many things... Leave your circle, Atlantean, and I will give you the death you crave.”

Atlantean? I focused on the new area of icy ghosts. “Afraid of circles? That’s not old knowledge. I had to teach your mate that lesson myself.”

That did it. For a split second, the wendigo’s rage triumphed, the snow forming a giant wolf body on the ground near the center of the swirling faces. It leapt towards me, its humongous body clearing the gap between where it was and the circle’s edge effortlessly. It regained control mid-flight, but too late. With sheer will and a twitch of my hand, I forced the spear into flight, catching it in the flank. If it hadn’t broken its charge, the spear would have plunged straight through its throat.

I grabbed for the chaos blade and tried to stand. My legs were used to long hours of abuse, but this night had been too much. They refused and left me eye level with its massive snout. Up close, the creature was enormous, easily six foot tall and fifteen feet long. Bright blue blood poured from its side in thick, frozen chunks.

Its breath was fetid. “Leave the circle.”

I slashed out with a katana-like blade but it bobbed back just enough. It pawed at the edge, dancing around the circle, searching for an entry point, ducking whenever I brought the sword close. “You cannot hide forever, Atlantean. The cold will take you.”

I shouted back, “And you’ll bleed to death soon enough. That spear will kill you.”

In answer, it reached back and wrenched the spear free with its teeth. A gout of its strange blood sprayed the freshly fallen snow. It looked right at me, spear in jaws, before reducing the relic to toothpicks. “A mere flesh wound, Atlantean. Leave the circle and I’ll make it quick.”

I swung at it again, this time willing the blade tip a foot longer in mid-swing. It bobbed back, but not enough and the lime green crystal slashed through the meat of its nose. The wound smoked and sizzled, cauterized instantly to angry scar tissue.

It roared, more in annoyance than in pain. The creature darted back into the storm, away from the circle. “Hungry Winter is not without her weapons. Die, Atlantean, die.”

She turned back to charge. With each fall of her paws, the wind gathered strength. She stopped with a roar that turned into wind shear beyond anything I had ever known. My feet found it in them to stand, then kept on rising, the hurricane blast carrying me up into the air.

I crashed back down, not on my legs or my sword, but squarely on my head…and well outside my circle of protection. I’d record what happened next, but the blow was an instant knockout.