“Mathilde, Jean Louis, I think you need to come with me,” said a voice, urgently. Father and daughter looked up to see the panicked looking face of Alan at the doorway.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Mathilde stared at the figure standing just inside the settlement gates. The ghost she had only just come around to accepting she would never see again.
“Mathilde,” said Dash with a slight but weary smile.
“What happened? I thought you were...” Mathilde broke off as she felt the salty welling of tears at the back of her throat and gulped them away. “Where have you been?”
Dash looked paler and thinner than ever. The shadows under his eyes were such a deep blue black and he had become so thin that people could be forgiven for thinking that he was little more than a corpse.
“I followed them as far as I could but couldn’t catch up. Suzanna is still alive. There were human footprints among those of the wendigo and when I followed them I found this caught in the trees.” Dash held up a clump of long black hair. “It is Suzanna’s hair. I would know it anywhere.”
Mathilde was too relieved to have Dash back to want to upset or anger him by pointing out that the hair could be anyone’s.
“We will find them sooner or later then Dash. Zhu will not give up that easily. I have no doubt our paths will cross again.”
“No,” Dash shouted. “We must follow now whilst there is still a trail to follow. I came back to ask for your help.”
Mathilde looked around at the few members of the Brotherhood that had gathered along with the Protectorate, Tobias, Jean Louis and Fleur. They were all standing far back enough to make Mathilde realise that they were wary of Dash, with his barely contained frenzy of desperation. Again she faced a choice - duty or love – but this time the choice seemed easier. Perhaps because of the memory still fresh in her mind of her conversation with Jean Louis. To choose duty and protect her family at the same time, at least for now, or to choose love and to go with Dash and leave her family to face the wendigo without her.
“I’m sorry Dash,” she said quietly as she walked towards him and reached for his hand. “I can’t help you. Not now. Give us time to go back to Bucharest and Succeava to plan. We will help you to find Suzanna but it would be a bad move to do that now. We need to be more considered about our next move.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Dash spat out childishly at Mathilde as he snatched his hand back. Mathilde looked at Dash, no longer her Dash but a Dash consumed by his search. “If you won’t help me then I will change and eat then I will set out on my own. I will find another way to fight if you and your friends won’t help me.” Dash glared venomously at Jewel, Louisa, Alan and Seb. He saved most of his anger for his look at Seb.
Dash stormed off towards the dining hall and Mathilde felt a gentle squeeze on her shoulder. Looking over her shoulder she saw it was Seb and behind him stood Jewel, Louisa and Alan. Mathilde looked at Dash’s retreating figure until her view was blocked as he entered the settlement building. Mathilde tried to avoid Dash as he made his preparations to leave. Her bags were packed and ready for the journey back to Bucharest but she did not want to set off until Dash had left, still hoping he would change his mind but sure that he wouldn’t. She was proved right in her guess as he left the settlement two hours later without a single look back. He had ignored her attempt to say goodbye and to end their time together on a peaceful note, instead glaring at her without speaking then turning his back.
It was only twenty minutes after Dash had left that Father Tobias rushed into the courtyard with an empty, wooden box held out in front of him. “The serum is gone,” he said. No-one needed to vocalise what they all knew, that Dash had been more desperate than any of them had thought. The gathered group of Protectorate friends and Jean Louis looked sadly towards the hills and trees which had now hidden Dash from view.
Epilogue
Mathilde shot an arrow from the crossbow which she held at her shoulder. Again she had left it a bit too late and the wendigo had come too close to get a good shot. The arrow had lodged in its shoulder instead of its heart and had caused it to slow a little but then launch itself at her with renewed fury. This was turning into a very bad habit.
Seb leapt in front of her and slashed with his axe, taking the wendigo’s head clean off. Around them the twelve strong Protectorate fought with wendigo which attacked from all sides. It had not taken long for Zhu to build up his army again and launch the now regular attacks on the Bucharest settlement. The war had truly begun now – humans against wendigo – and the Bucharest settlement had become the centre of the war. It was now more like an army base than the calm spiritual settlement it had been when Mathilde had first visited it almost two years ago to try to find out more about the mysterious General Zhu.
Mathilde and Seb had never made it back to Succeava. They had arrived just days after the death of Paul from old age and Mathilde had stepped into the role of Protector Superior temporarily while a new one was being chosen. It was only two days later that the first wendigo attack had come – twenty wendigo throwing themselves at the settlement walls and trying to leap over them to get into the settlement. It took all night to kill the full twenty and many of the inhabitants of the settlement were lost to the fight. Since then the settlement had been forced to change and previously peaceful folk were now highly trained fighters all fighting under Mathilde and Seb’s command with Jewel, Alan and Louisa each working as seconds in command and being in charge of troops of their own.
“Tilly, pull it together,” Seb shouted, throwing her a worried look.
“Sorry. I will,” called Mathilde. In two years she had not seen or heard anything of Dash yet, with the missing serum always at the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but looking into the eyes of every wendigo she fought – trying to see if any of them could be him. With all of the serum gone they had never found out whether it had stabilised or whether anyone who took it would suffer the same fate as poor Costin –now more wendigo than man and still held in the cell at Polovragi in the hope of some antidote being found.
Mathilde still had not decided whether to give in to the prophecy. She had had little time to do anything but act over the last two years and it was this lack of time to think or dwell on things which had allowed her to follow her heart and begin a relationship with Seb. Though their love was still young, having only given into it a few months earlier, it was easy and comfortable. It made Mathilde happy and was everything she thought she had been searching for with Dash yet she still couldn’t push the last shards of Dash from her heart or thoughts.
“Mathilde –behind you,” yelled Alan.
Mathilde turned around and drew her sword, holding it ready to cut down the wendigo leaping towards her.
Just as soon as it got close enough for her to look into its eyes. Just as soon as she had made sure it wasn’t Dash.
Read the terrifying conclusion of Wendigo Wars in book two, ‘Devastation’, coming soon….
Devastation
It has been over two years since Mathilde Fidellfirst fought the sadistic General Zhu and a war is raging.
At the centre of the war sits the Bucharest settlement, under attack day and night from a legion of wendigo yet Zhu has not been seen since the day he fled his last battle with Mathilde.
The fate of the human race now lies with Mathilde. Can she win a war in which her army is the weakest and can she do it without losing the loved ones which the prophecy says she must lose?
Due out September 2012
To be updated on the release of ‘Devastation’ follow Dulcinea on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DulcineaWrites
Cover image courtesy of Telemack at iStock Photo
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Wendigo Wars Page 19
