Gamble King Chapter 36. Prey

Huff. Huff.

Pain.

The wendigo's lungs burned with each breath. The flesh around its ribs had been cooked, turned brittle and cracked. Every expansion of its chest felt like tearing wet paper.

It stumbled over a root it should have seen, caught itself against a tree trunk. The bark scraped against exposed bone where the fire had eaten through muscle and hide.

But it was away. Finally away.

The forest had gone quiet around it. No sound of pursuit. No crackling flames. No shouting in those sharp-edged sounds the two-legs made.

Just the rasp of its own breathing and the drip-drip-drip of fluid from its wounds.

The wendigo slowed, then stopped completely. Its legs shook. When had its legs started shaking? It looked down at them. The left one had an arrow still lodged in the muscle, the shaft snapped off short. The right was covered in burns, the skin blackened and split like overcooked meat.

It leaned against a tree, trying to sort through the smells. Its own charred flesh dominated everything, thick and nauseating. Underneath that, pine sap. Old snow. A fox den somewhere nearby.

But no smoke. No leather. No steel.

They were gone.

The wendigo felt something that might have been relief, if it had the energy for such things. It had outrun them. Left the burning ones behind. They were slow, those things. Awkward. Built wrong for the forest.

It closed its eyes.

Just for a moment. Just to—

Flap, flap, flap.

The sound came from directly overhead, heavy and deliberate.

The wendigo's head jerked up and several vertebrae in its neck cracked from the movement. Pain flared, but duller now. Everything was getting duller.

A harpy perched on a thick branch fifteen feet above, folding wings that looked too leathery to belong to anything that could fly. It had the shape of a female two-legs, but wrong in all the details. Talons instead of feet. Wings instead of arms. A mouth that opened too wide.

The wendigo recognized it.

This specific harpy had been circling since sunrise. Higher up, where the air was thin and the thermals were good. But always there. Always waiting.

The harpy smiled down at it.

"Tired?" it asked.

Its voice was pleasant. Almost friendly. That made it worse.

The wendigo's lips pulled back from its teeth. The gesture sent fresh pain through the burns on its face, but it didn't care. "Yes," it managed. The word came out broken, rasping through a throat that had inhaled fire. "But. Not. Dead."

The harpy tilted its head, still smiling. "No. Not dead yet."

...Yet?

Rage bubbled up through the exhaustion. The wendigo knew harpies. What they did. They never hunted. Never took risks. They just circled overhead, patient and persistent, waiting for something else to do the killing. Then they'd drop down and eat you while you were still warm.

Scavengers.

Cowards.

"You can stop following," the wendigo said. It pushed itself upright, away from the tree. Standing on its own even though its legs wanted to collapse. "I'm not dying. I'll survive this."

The harpy shifted its weight on the branch. Didn't respond. Just kept smiling that patient smile.

The wendigo's rage built. "I'll survive," it repeated, louder now. "And I'll heal. And when I do, I'm going back for those things." The concept for the burning ones came out as a growl. "I'll make them pay. I'll tear them apart slowly. Make it last for days. I'll—"

"You haven't gotten away," the harpy interrupted.

The wendigo stopped mid-sentence.

"You know that, right?" The harpy examined one of its talons with apparent disinterest.

"What?"

"You haven't escaped them."

A lie. Obviously a lie. The wendigo had been running for... for how long? Long enough that the forest had changed around it and the terrain had shifted from rocky slopes to dense pine. Long enough that it couldn't hear them anymore. Couldn't smell them through the overwhelming stench of its own cooked meat.

"You're wrong," the wendigo snarled. It took a threatening step toward the tree. The movement made black spots swim across its vision. "I have escaped. I've been running. They're slow. Clumsy. They can't—"

"No," the harpy said. Still calm and pleasant. "You haven't."

The wendigo wanted to climb up there and tear that smile off the creature's face. "I can't hear them. Can't smell them. They're gone—"

"I've seen this before." The harpy preened one of its wing feathers. "Many times. They always catch up."

"You're lying—"

The wind shifted.

It was subtle. Just a change in direction, bringing new scents from the east.

And there, underneath the pine and snow and fox den, was something else.

Sweat.

Leather.

Steel.

Smoke.

Them.

The scent was faint. So faint it could have been imagination. But the wendigo knew it wasn't. Its kind could smell blood from miles away. Could track prey for days based on scent alone.

And this scent was getting stronger.

"So what if they do?" The wendigo rounded on the harpy, snarling. "So what if they catch up? They're slow! I'm faster! I'll just run again—"

The harpy laughed.

It was a tired sound. Like it had heard this exact conversation before and knew how it ended.

"What's funny?" the wendigo demanded.

"You'll run away again." The harpy cocked its head. "Then what?"

The wendigo opened its mouth.

Closed it.

What kind of question was that?

"Then I'll be away from them," it said. "And they'll give up. They'll—"

"They'll find you," the harpy finished. "Again."

"Then I'll run—"

"And they'll find you." The harpy spread its wings slightly, refolding them. "Again. And again. Don't you get it?" It gestured with one wing at the wendigo's ruined body. "Look at yourself. They know how you smell now. They know you're weak. They can track you. And they are never going to stop."

Something cold settled in the wendigo's chest.

That couldn't be right. When you hurt something badly enough, it ran away. When you made yourself too dangerous, too much trouble, creatures decided you weren't worth the effort. That was how hunting worked. That was how everything worked.

"They have to stop," the wendigo said. Its voice sounded strange. Hollow. "They can't run forever. They'll get tired. Need to rest. Need to sleep. They' cannot run forever."

"Neither can you," the harpy said quietly.

The wendigo's head snapped back to face it.

"They'll get tired," it insisted.

"Not before you do." The harpy extended a wing, pointing east. "See? Look there. Up on the ridge. Under those tall pines. Where you stopped to rest some time ago."

The wendigo looked.

At first, nothing. Just trees and snow and the late afternoon light casting long shadows through the forest.

Then movement.

Small. Distant. But there.

The scent hit stronger now. The wind was carrying it directly to where the wendigo stood. Four of them. No, five if you counted the spider-thing.

The wendigo's heart kicked faster.

It squinted, trying to focus through the pain and exhaustion. The figures were still far away. Maybe half a mile. Moving down the ridge in a loose formation.

They weren't running. Weren't even moving particularly fast.

Just walking.

Steady. Unhurried. Like they had all the time in the world.

"Here they come," the harpy said. Something almost like sympathy crept into its voice. "You understand now? They may be slow, but they're relentless. They wear you down. Chase after chase. Hour after hour. Until you're completely spent." It settled back on its branch. "I've watched it happen before. Eventually all you can do is stand there, drooling and gasping for air, while they walk right up to you. And then..." It chuckled. "Well. You know how it ends."

The wendigo stared at the distant ridge.

Three sunrises.

It had been running for three full sunrises, and they were still there. Still coming.

The figures were clearer now as they descended. Four two-legs moving. And at the front, leading them...

The burning one.

The one with the spider. The one who had looked directly at the wendigo through its perfect camouflage and known exactly where it was. The one who had made fire appear from nothing, fire that burned hotter and brighter than any natural flame.

The wendigo watched them come down the slope. They moved carefully but steadily, navigating the terrain patiently.

They were talking to each other. The wendigo couldn't hear the words, but it could see their mouths moving.

"For what it's worth," the harpy said, "I take no pleasure in watching this unfold." It preened another feather. "But I've got to eat too, you see."

The wendigo's legs trembled.

The burning one stopped at the base of the ridge, maybe a quarter mile away now. It raised one hand to shade its eyes, looking directly toward where the wendigo stood.

Could it see through the trees? Could it smell the wendigo from there?

The burning one pointed.

Directly at the wendigo.

The others nodded. Started walking again. The wendigo's breath came faster. Harsher.

This was wrong. This was all wrong.

"They'll tire," the wendigo said. Its voice sounded desperate even to itself. "Eventually. They have to."

The harpy didn't respond. It was watching the approaching figures with focused interest.

The wendigo could see the burning one's face now.

It... it smiled.

The wendigo felt something it hadn't felt in a very, very long time.

Fear.

Real fear. The kind that locked up your muscles and turned your thoughts to water, whispering that you were already dead and all of this was just delaying the inevitable.

This was how it ended, then.

They were going to walk right up to it, just like the harpy said. And it was too tired to run anymore. Too damaged to fight properly.

It was going to die here, in this forest, killed by things that should have been easy prey.

The burning one was close enough now that the wendigo could see the spider on its shoulder move, see the steam rising from the others' breath in the cold air, hear the crunch of their boots on frozen ground.

The distance between them was maybe the length of ten deer strides. Then five. Then three.

The wendigo's heart hammered against its broken ribs. Its legs shook so badly it could barely stand. Every instinct screamed to run, to flee, to get away from these things with their wrong eyes and their casual certainty.

But where would it go? They would just follow, again and again, until there was nowhere left to run and the wendigo was so exhausted it could barely stand, let alone fight.

The burning one smiled wider. Said something to the others. They spread out slightly, forming a half-circle. Cutting off escape routes.

The fear in the wendigo's chest twisted, coiled, changed shape into something else entirely.

Rage. Pure, absolute, incandescent rage.

Fine. If this was how it ended, so be it. It wouldn't die cowering or whimpering like something weak and broken. It had been the perfect hunter once—faster than anything in these woods, stronger, more dangerous. Maybe it couldn't win. Maybe it was too damaged, too exhausted. But it could still make them remember this.

The wendigo threw its head back and screamed.

The trees shook with it. Birds exploded from branches in every direction while small animals scattered, fleeing from the promise of violence in that terrible sound.

The burning one stopped smiling.

The wendigo screamed again, louder this time. The pain didn't matter anymore. The broken ribs, the burns, the arrow still lodged in its leg—all of that was distant now, unimportant compared to the rage burning through its chest.

It charged.

The fear was gone, burned away completely. If it was going to die, it would die as it had lived. As something to be feared.

The distance vanished. The wendigo covered the ground in massive, loping strides, its claws tearing gouges in the frozen earth. Its vision narrowed to a tunnel focused entirely on the burning one's face, on that expression shifting from confidence to surprise.

Good. Let them be surprised. Let them remember what it meant to hunt something truly dangerous.

The wendigo's scream turned into a roar of pure, mindless fury as it closed the final gap.

This was the end.

***

The wendigo charged like a living avalanche, eight feet of fury and burnt flesh closing the distance faster than something that injured had any right to move.

Max's hand shot up.

The Thoughtshape formed in an instant—methane, concentrated, aimed. The gas streamed from his palm in a pressurized column.

"Bro!"

The spider's abdomen flared blue-white. The jet of flame ignited the methane mid-stream.

The explosion caught the wendigo mid-leap.

Fire engulfed its face, its chest, its reaching claws. The creature's momentum carried it forward another few feet before the pain registered. Then it screamed.

It crashed into the snow ten feet from Max, rolling, thrashing, clawing at its own face.

Max didn't wait.

He reached for another arrow, nocked it, drew, and fired in one smooth motion. The shaft punched into the wendigo's shoulder. Bro kept the flame going, a continuous stream that followed the creature's movements like a blowtorch.

"How is it still moving?!" Marcus shouted from somewhere to Max's left.

The wendigo lurched to its feet, half its body on fire, and charged again.

Max sidestepped, fired. The arrow took it in the ribs. Dan came in from the side with his sword, a quick slash that opened a long cut across the creature's flank. The wendigo spun toward him with shocking speed.

Bro's flame caught it square in the face again.

Another scream. The wendigo staggered backward, shaking its head violently.

"Three days!" Bubbles yelled, his voice cracking with disbelief. "We've been hunting this bastard for three days and it's still this fast?!"

Max drew and fired. Drew and fired. Each arrow found meat. Each one should have been fatal. The wendigo kept moving.

It lunged at Marcus, who barely got his spear up in time. The antlers caught the wooden shaft and snapped it like kindling. Marcus threw himself backward, hit the snow hard.

The wendigo raised a clawed hand.

Bro's flame stream hit its arm. The creature jerked away, howling. Dan came in again with his sword, a solid strike to the back of the knee. The joint buckled. The wendigo dropped to one knee.

Max put an arrow through its neck.

The creature tried to stand. Its leg gave out. It caught itself on one hand, pushed up—

Another arrow. This one in the spine.

The wendigo's back legs stopped working properly. It dragged itself forward with its front claws, still trying to reach them, still trying to kill.

"What manner of beast is this?!" Marcus scrambled to his feet, grabbed a broken piece of his spear like a club.

Bro kept firing. The small spider's flame never wavered, just poured superheated death onto the wendigo's ruined body.

Max drew his last arrow. Fired. It punched clean through the creature's chest and out the other side.

The wendigo finally stopped moving.

Its front legs gave out. It collapsed face-first into the snow, breathing in wet, rattling gasps. But it was still breathing.

Max dropped his bow and drew Dusk and Dawn.

The obsidian blades sang as they cleared their sheaths—that low, musical note that Jorik had promised. Max walked forward, both swords ready, muscles coiled.

The wendigo's head lifted slightly. Its remaining eye fixed on him with pure, undiluted hatred.

"Should've stayed down," Max said.

He struck.

Dusk came down in a diagonal slash that took the wendigo across the throat. Dawn followed immediately, a horizontal cut that went deeper. The blades moved like extensions of his arms, perfectly balanced, impossibly sharp.

The wendigo made a sound. Not a scream. Something quieter. Almost surprised.

Its head dropped back to the snow.

The breathing stopped.

Max stood there for a moment, both blades still raised, waiting to see if the thing would somehow get back up again. Because at this point, he wouldn't be surprised if it did.

It didn't.

The wendigo lay still. Dead. Finally, actually, genuinely dead.

[Number of rerolls remaining: 12]

Max lowered his swords. His arms were shaking. His legs were shaking. Everything was shaking.

"Is it done?" Bubbles asked from behind him.

"Yeah," Max said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. "It's done."

For a moment, nobody moved. They all just stood there, staring at the massive corpse, breathing hard.

Then Marcus started laughing.

It was a slightly unhinged sound, high and breathless. "We killed it. We actually bloody killed it."

"Three days," Dan said. He was grinning like an idiot. "Three days tracking this bastard through the woods and we actually brought it down."

Bubbles let out a whoop and tackled Max in a hug that nearly knocked them both over. Marcus joined in a second later, then Dan, and suddenly they were all just a pile of exhausted, laughing young men who'd somehow survived something that should have killed them.

"That was madness!" Bubbles was saying. "Complete madness!"

"Your spider was the best," Marcus said, pulling back to look at Bro with newfound respect.

Bro sat on Max's shoulder, looking extremely pleased with himself.

The celebration lasted maybe a minute before Dan's expression shifted. He glanced up at the sky where the harpy was still circling.

"We should move," he said.

The others followed his gaze. The harpy had descended slightly, close enough now that they could see the details of its face. Still smiling. Still patient.

"Aye," Marcus agreed, his own smile fading. "I've always hated seeing those things circle overhead."

"The wendigo's dead," Bubbles pointed out.

"Doesn't matter to them. They'll wait for anything that might die." Dan shook his head. "This was a necessary hunt—wendigos never forget a scent once they've marked you. Had to deal with it now or it would've followed us for months. But that doesn't mean we need to stand here while that thing waits to pick our bones."

Max nodded, still catching his breath. He reached up to pat Bro gently on his tiny head. "Good work, buddy."

The spider glowed orange briefly in what Max had learned to recognize as contentment.

"Wait."

Bubbles's voice stopped them all mid-turn.

"What?" Max asked.

Bubbles was staring at the wendigo's corpse. More specifically, at its head. "You made the kill. That means the prize is yours by right."

"Prize?"

"The antlers." Bubbles walked closer, crouching near the creature's head. "Look at them."

Max looked.

Despite everything—the fire, the prolonged fight, the arrows, the burning—the antlers were intact. Not just intact. They looked almost pristine, the bone gleaming dully in the afternoon light.

"How do you know they're worth taking?" Dan asked.

"I read about it," Bubbles said. He reached out to touch one of the antlers, running his fingers along the surface. "There was a knight who made his name with archery. Crafted a weapon from wendigo antler—it became famous. A named weapon. They have magical properties, apparently. Very durable. And they work especially well for those who can channel Fanga."

Marcus and Dan exchanged glances.

"You just happen to know this?" Marcus asked.

"I read when I can," Bubbles said. "And Harek uses a bow. This could prove useful."

Max approached the corpse, still breathing hard from the fight. The wendigo looked smaller now that it was dead. Less terrifying. Just a broken thing lying in the snow.

He knelt beside its head, pulled out one of his short swords, and positioned the blade at the base of the first antler.

"Might take a moment," he said.

The obsidian blade bit into bone.