Gamble King Chapter 35. Predator

Wendigos were creatures born from winter's cruelest appetites.

They stalked the deepest reaches of the northern wilderness, where civilization thinned to scattered settlements and lone hermitages. Most travelers who encountered one never lived to describe the experience, which made accurate information scarce and precious.

What the scholars did know painted an unsettling picture.

The creatures preferred the cover of darkness for their hunts, moving with unnatural silence through snow and undergrowth. Daylight made them cautious but not helpless—they would strike during bright hours if the opportunity proved irresistible. Their senses were acute beyond those of natural beasts, particularly their ability to track scent across vast distances. A wendigo could follow a blood trail for days, or detect the fear-sweat of prey from miles away.

They killed without clear purpose. Not for food, though they would consume their victims. Not for territory, though they defended their hunting grounds viciously. The killings seemed driven by something closer to compulsion, a need to destroy that went beyond simple predation.

Most disturbing was their intelligence.

Wendigos studied their prey before attacking, learning patterns and weaknesses. They showed tactical thinking, setting ambushes and using terrain to their advantage. Some accounts described them using tools or manipulating their environment in ways that suggested reasoning abilities approaching human levels.

The creatures possessed unnatural stealth, moving without sound even through dense undergrowth or over loose stones. Their natural camouflage was so effective that they could remain motionless within yards of alert sentries without detection. Combined with their patience, this made them nearly perfect ambush predators.

Once a wendigo marked prey, it would never abandon the hunt. Distance meant nothing—they would track their chosen victims across hundreds of miles if necessary. Time meant nothing—they would follow for weeks, months, even years until the opportunity arose. The only ways to end a wendigo's pursuit were escape beyond its territorial boundaries or killing it outright. Wounded wendigos became more dangerous, not less, driven by pain and rage to increasingly reckless attacks.

Fire was their one reliable weakness. Flames caused them immediate and severe pain, forcing even the most determined wendigo to retreat. The pain seemed to overwhelm their usual cunning, reducing them to simple flight responses. Extreme cold beyond their natural tolerance could slow their movements, but such temperatures were rare in their preferred hunting grounds.

Multiple attacks to the same location could cause permanent injury. Like any creature, they could be worn down through persistent damage. But getting close enough to inflict such damage typically required surviving their initial assault, which few managed.

The bestiary's final note was grimly practical: "Avoidance is the preferred strategy. If engagement becomes unavoidable, use fire and maintain group cohesion at all costs. Remember that a wendigo will never stop hunting once it has chosen its prey."

Max closed the leather-bound book and looked up at his three companions. They'd listened to his reading in increasingly tense silence, their expressions growing more serious with each detail.

The morning light filtering through the cave entrance seemed less welcoming now. Outside, the wilderness that had felt merely dangerous an hour ago now held the promise of something actively malevolent.

"So," Dan said, his voice carefully neutral. "What's your plan?"

Max reached into his pack and withdrew a small glass vial filled with amber liquid.

All three men went very still.

"Is that..." Skeld started.

"The Heightening," Max finished. "Yes."

"By Fel's balls," Dan breathed.

Marcus frowned. "The Aspect of Gluttony? Isn't she female?"

"Both," Dan replied matter-of-factly.

"Both what?"

"Both male and female. Depends on the moon cycle."

Bubbles shook his head. "That's not right. Fel's always been—"

"Always been what?" Varn interrupted. "You've seen the Aspect personally?"

"Well, no, but the stories—"

"The stories change depending on who's telling them," Dan said. "Some say balls, some say tits, some say both."

"That's disgusting," Marcus muttered.

"That's theology," Dan corrected.

Max was about to redirect the conversation when Bro lifted shot a long stream of fire at the cave ceiling. The sudden roar and burst of flame made both squires jump.

"Shit!" Marcus yelped.

"Seven hells!" Bubbles cursed, clutching his chest.

The small white spider on Max's shoulder turned toward him and glowed orange for a moment. Max patted him with satisfaction.

Attaboy.

In the sudden quiet that followed, Bubbles cleared his throat and looked back at the vial in Max's hand.

"Where did you get that?" he asked.

"Gerth," Max said simply. "The wendigo's been stalking us, waiting for the right moment to attack. When we're separated or distracted."

Dan leaned forward. "So?"

"So we give it what it wants. Make it think we're vulnerable." Max turned the vial between his fingers. "But we'll know exactly where it is."

"You're going to use Heightening to track it," Dan said slowly.

"That's the idea. Enhanced senses mean I can locate it before it strikes. We set up positions, let it think it has the advantage, then hit it from multiple angles."

The three young men exchanged glances.

"That stuff could kill you," Marcus pointed out. "If you're not trained for it."

"I've built up some tolerance."

"Some tolerance isn't enough," Marcus said. "Combat-strength Heightening is different. Stronger."

Max shrugged. "Then I guess we'll find out."

Bubbles shook his head. "This is insanity."

"Staying passive is insanity," Max countered. "That thing's getting bolder. Eventually it'll attack when we're not ready. At least this way, we choose the ground."

Dan scratched his chin thoughtfully. "It could work. In theory."

"In theory," Marcus agreed grimly. "Assuming the Heightening doesn't stop your heart first."

Max held the vial up to the cave's dim light, watching the amber liquid catch the glow from their small fire.

"Right then," he said, uncorking it with his thumb.

The others watched him like he was about do something potentially fatal. Which he was, to be fair.

Max tilted his head back and let three drops fall under his tongue.

The taste hit immediately—bitter, chemical, like licking a copper coin that had been soaked in pine sap and sadness.

He grimaced, corked the vial, and stood there.

The silence stretched.

"So?" Dan asked.

Marcus leaned forward slightly. "Feeling anything?"

Bubbles was frowning. "You're making a face."

"It tastes like shit," Max said, working his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "That's what I'm feeling."

"That's it?"

"Takes time," Max said, tucking the vial back into his pack. "The effects don't just—"

And that's when his heart kicked.

Not sped up. Kicked. Like someone had thumped him in the chest from the inside.

"—happen instantly," he finished, his voice tight.

The second kick came harder. His heart was suddenly racing, each beat distinct and forceful enough that he could feel it in his throat, his wrists, behind his eyes.

His breath caught.

It was exactly like plunging into ice water—that total, shocking loss of air that made your lungs seize. Max tried to inhale and got maybe half of what he needed. Tried again. Not enough. His chest felt compressed, like invisible hands were squeezing.

"Harek?" Bubbles's voice sounded strange. Too loud and too distant at the same time.

Max's vision sharpened all at once.

The cave walls snapped into crystalline focus. Every ridge in the stone, every shadow, every tiny variation in texture suddenly visible with impossible clarity. He could see individual grains in the rock face twenty feet away. The firelight wasn't just orange anymore—it was a spectrum, reds bleeding into yellows bleeding into white-hot cores that hurt to look at directly.

Sound hit next.

The crackle of burning wood became a symphony of tiny explosions. He could hear sap pockets bursting, wood fibers splitting, air rushing through the gaps. Beyond that, water dripping somewhere deep in the cave, each drop distinct. Dan's breathing, Bubbles's breathing, Marcus's breathing, all separate rhythms overlaying each other. The rustle of fabric as someone shifted weight. A mouse or something small skittering across stone fifty feet away.

His sense of smell exploded.

Smoke, yes, but not just smoke—birch wood, with traces of pine resin, and the lamb fat from last night's meal still coating the air in greasy layers. Sweat—four different people's sweat, each one distinct. Leather, wool, steel, the mineral tang of cave stone, something rank and musky that might be bat droppings. And under everything else, the clean sharp scent of snow and winter air flowing in from the entrance.

"Fuck!" Marcus lunged forward.

Hands grabbed Max's shoulders. He could feel every individual finger, the pressure points, the warmth bleeding through his cloak.

"Harek, can you hear me?"

Max tried to answer but his lungs still weren't cooperating. The cold-water feeling was spreading, his whole body seized with it. His heart hammered so hard it felt like it might crack a rib.

Control. Focus.

He'd experienced this before, months ago, but damn—this batch was strong.

Max forced himself to slow down. Not his heart, he couldn't control that yet. But his breathing. One breath. Hold. Release. Another. Hold. Release.

The world wasn't just sharp anymore. It was alive.

He could see the individual fibers in Bubbles's cloak moving as he breathed. Could track the pulse in Dan's throat. Could count Marcus's eyelashes if he wanted to. The fire wasn't a single flame but hundreds, each one dancing to its own rhythm while somehow staying part of the whole.

"Give him space," Dan was saying. "Let him—"

"He's not breathing right!"

"He's breathing fine, just let him—"

Max drew in a full breath. Held it. Let it out slowly.

His heart was still racing but the panic was fading. The compression in his chest eased. He could feel his body adjusting, compensating, finding equilibrium with whatever the Heightening had done to his nervous system.

It had been a while since he’d taken this stuff, but holy shit, this was stronger than what he’d used before. Which… was to be expected, now that he thought about it, given that the one he’d taken before was a diluted version.

Reality felt sharper. Every sense cranked past normal human limits and still climbing.

Bubbles was staring at him, face close, eyes wide.

"Your eyes," he said.

Max blinked. The movement felt strange, like his eyelids were moving through something thicker than air. "What about them?"

"They look like..." Bubbles trailed off, searching for words. "Like an eagle's."

Max could feel it now—his pupils had dilated so far they'd probably swallowed most of his blue iris. Everything was too bright and too detailed at the same time, his eyes drinking in light and information faster than his brain could fully process.

If this was a game, Max thought distantly, this item would be legendary-tier at minimum. The kind of consumable that dropped from raid bosses and sold for obscene amounts of gold.

Max wasn't sure how long the effects would last. The Heightening varied from person to person—some maintained peak enhancement for an hour, others for five or six. But judging from his experience with the other version, they had at least three hours. Probably.

His body was already adapting to the sensory overload. The initial shock had faded, leaving behind a strange new baseline where every texture, every sound, every scent was simply more. Not overwhelming anymore. Just available.

"Alright," Max said, his voice sounding strange in his own ears—he could hear the vibration in his throat, the way air moved past his teeth. "Time to start."

***

The snow crunched under Max's boots with a sound like breaking glass.

Each footstep was a sounded like tiny fractures—ice crystals shattering, compressing, grinding against each other. He could hear the individual grains shifting beneath his weight and feel the cold seeping through the leather even though it shouldn't be able to penetrate that quickly.

The plan was simple in the way that terrible plans often were: separate, make himself prey, wait for the wendigo to commit, then burn it to ash before it could kill him.

The others were behind him somewhere. Not close enough to spook the wendigo, but close enough to intervene if things went catastrophically wrong. Probably. That was the theory, anyway.

Max kept walking when suddenly something moved in the sky.

He stopped, tilting his head back.

High above, almost invisible against the pale winter sky, a shape circled. At normal human vision it would've been a dot, maybe not even that. But Max's enhanced eyes caught every detail.

A harpy.

The creature's wings spread wide. Its body was roughly humanoid—woman-shaped, if you were generous—but the details were all wrong. Arms that ended in talons instead of hands. Skin that looked like it had been stretched too tight over bones that weren't quite the right shape. And the face.

God, the face.

It was smiling.

Not a pleasant smile. Not even a predatory smile. Something worse—anticipatory, patient, like it knew it just had to wait for gravity and mortality to do their work.

Harpies were scavengers. Opportunistic carrion-eaters that followed the scent of blood and waited for things to die. They didn't hunt. They didn't need to. The north provided enough corpses that patience was always rewarded.

There was a belief, Max remembered from the bestiary, that harpies only circled prey that was already doomed. Like an omen.

Max looked at the ugly thing wheeling overhead and thought: Not me.

A sound reached him.

It was soft. So subtle that without the Heightening he would've missed it entirely. But now, with his hearing cranked past human limits, it registered as clearly as a shout.

Footsteps in snow. They were lighter than his own, more careful, the sound of something trying very hard not to be heard.

Max kept walking, maintaining his pace, giving no indication he'd noticed.

The smell hit him next.

Musk and rot, sweet decay mixed with something sharper, more animal. Like a predator's den that hadn't been cleaned in years, where old kills composted in dark corners. The frigid air should've killed the scent, frozen it out of the atmosphere entirely, but Max's nose caught it anyway.

The wendigo.

It was walking upright. Two feet, human gait, trying to pass for one of the lost travelers that sometimes wandered these woods. The footfalls were quite measured.

Female, Max supposed. It made sense judging with his senses. The pattern of weight distribution, the slightly narrower spacing between steps. Wendigos could take human form when it suited them, though the bestiary hadn't been clear on whether they actually transformed or just... wore the shape like a costume.

Max didn't particularly want to find out.

He kept moving, angling gradually toward a small clearing he'd scouted earlier. The wendigo followed, staying just at the edge of his hearing. Patient. Waiting for the right moment.

The trees thinned.

Max stepped into open ground—a natural depression in the landscape, roughly circular, maybe thirty feet across. Snow lay thick here, undisturbed except for a few animal tracks that crossed and recrossed each other. On the far side, a fallen log provided the only real cover.

Perfect.

He could still hear the wendigo. Closer now, maybe twenty yards back. Still on two feet, still playing at being human.

Max walked to the fallen log and sat down with a heavy sigh, like someone grateful for a rest. He unslung his bow, laid it across the log beside him. The quiver followed, arrows within easy reach but not in hand.

Bro shifted on his shoulder.

"Just a quick break," Max said quietly, pitching his voice to sound tired. "Then we'll keep going."

The spider didn't respond, but Max felt the tiny body tense. Bro knew what was happening.

The clearing was exactly where Max wanted to be. Open ground, good sight lines, nowhere for something large to hide. And more importantly—he strained his hearing, filtering through the ambient noise of wind and creaking trees—he couldn't quite make out the others.

Which meant they were far enough away not to spook the wendigo, but close enough to reach him when things eventually start.

The trap had worked. The wendigo had followed the separated prey, away from the safety of the group, into terrain where it could strike without interference.

Footsteps.

Closer. Still two feet, but the rhythm was changing. The careful human gait becoming something else.

Max sat very still, eyes half-closed like he was resting, but his awareness was completely focused on the sounds behind him.

Ten yards.

Eight.

The footsteps stopped.

For a moment, nothing. Just wind and the distant call of a bird and Max's own heartbeat hammering in his chest.

Then the sound changed.

What had been two feet became four. The soft crunch of boots in snow became something heavier, clawed. Max heard joints popping, bones grinding, the wet sound of flesh reshaping itself into something that had never been human. The breathing changed too. Deep, rasping inhalations that pulled air through a throat not designed for it.

Five yards.

Max began building the Thoughtshape.

Purpose: Create methane gas. Form: CH4 molecular structure. Source: Atmospheric carbon and hydrogen. Volume: Maximum he could manage. Distribution: Concentrated stream, directional.

Four yards.

The breathing was louder now. Anticipatory. The wendigo knew it had him. Prey, sitting with its back turned, weapons laid aside, completely vulnerable.

Three yards.

Max compressed the Thoughtshape into its final form. The framework crystallized in his mind, ready to activate the instant he reached for the Source. Two seconds from thought to execution.

Two yards.

He could hear its heart now. Massive, slow beats that shook the air between them. Could smell the accumulated filth of countless kills. Could feel the displacement of air as something very large moved very carefully toward his unprotected back.

One yard.

The wendigo coiled.

Max felt it more than heard it—the shift in weight, muscles bunching, joints tensing for the leap. Every enhanced sense screaming that something was about to happen.

The creature launched.

Max spun.

His hand came up, palm open, already reaching for the Source as he turned. The Thoughtshape activated instantly—methane streaming from his palm in a concentrated column aimed directly at the airborne monstrosity.

The wendigo was huge. Easily eight feet of muscle and bone and wrong angles, arms that ended in claws like daggers, a face that was deer-shaped but stretched and distorted into something that grinned with far too many teeth and nightmarish antlers. It hung in the air for what felt like forever, close enough that Max could count the individual hairs on its chest, close enough to see the intelligence in its eyes shift from triumph to confusion as it registered what he was doing.

"Flame on, Bro!"

The spider's abdomen blazed blue-white.

The jet of superheated flame shot straight into the methane stream.

The gas ignited.

A roaring column of fire erupted from Max's palm, engulfing the wendigo mid-leap. Orange and yellow flames rolled over the creature's body, spreading impossibly fast as the methane found every surface and ignited in sequence.

The wendigo's scream was inhuman.

It hit a pitch that shouldn't have been possible, a sound like metal tearing and animals dying. The creature crashed into the snow ten feet from Max, still burning, thrashing and rolling as fire consumed it.

Max didn't stop.

He kept the methane flowing, kept Bro's flame concentrated, pouring fire onto the writhing mass. The wendigo tried to run but its legs wouldn't work right. Tried to pat out the flames but its hands just spread the burning methane further. The smell was apocalyptic—burning fur and flesh and that underlying rot all cooking together into something that made Max's enhanced nose scream for mercy.

The creature rolled. Thrashed. Screamed in that terrible voice that echoed off the surrounding trees. It burned.

And burned.

And—

The thing suddenly moved.

Its head snapped up, one eye melted shut, the other wide and wild and fixed on Max with an intelligence that should've been burned away. Its mouth opened—half the jaw was exposed bone—and it screamed.

Then it lunged.

Max cut the spell, threw himself sideways. The creature's claws raked the air where his head had been a second before, close enough that he felt the displacement.

He hit the snow, rolled, came up with his bow in one hand and the quiver in the other. Muscle memory from weeks of practice took over—nock, draw, loose.

The arrow punched into the wendigo's shoulder.

It didn't slow down.

The creature thrashed in the snow, flames still eating at patches of its hide, movements erratic but fast. Another lunge. Max sidestepped, drew and fired again. This arrow caught it in the ribs, sank deep.

The wendigo screamed and charged.

Not at Max this time. It ran straight at the tree line, head down, antlers lowered like a battering ram.

It hit an old pine dead-center.

The impact was enormous. The tree exploded—trunk shattering at the point of contact, splinters the size of daggers spinning through the air. The upper half toppled sideways in a shower of snow and broken branches.

The wendigo staggered back, shook its head, wheeled toward Max.

Still dangerous. Still very, very dangerous.

Max could hear them now. The others, crashing through the forest at a dead run. Maybe a minute away. Less.

He drew and fired. Drew and fired. Drew and fired.

Each arrow found its mark—throat, chest, gut. The wendigo absorbed them like they were annoyances rather than fatal wounds. It came at him again, slower now but no less determined.

The creature got within ten feet.

Bro's abdomen flared blue-white and the spider breathed a concentrated jet of flame straight into the wendigo's ruined face.

The thing recoiled, shrieking, pawing at its head with claws that just spread the burning methane residue still clinging to its fur.

"Attaboy, Bro!" Max shouted, already nocking another arrow.

He fired. The arrow sprouted from the wendigo's neck.

Drew. Fired. One in the shoulder.

Drew. Fired. Deep in the chest, maybe close to the heart if it still had one.

Drew. Fired. Through what was left of its ear.

Drew. Fired. Another in the chest.

Drew. Fired. Gut shot.

Draw.

Nothing.

Max's hand closed on an empty quiver.

He looked down. Every single arrow was gone. Twenty-three shafts, all of them now decorating the wendigo like the world's most violent pincushion.

The creature swayed on its feet, smoke rising from a dozen different wounds, flames still licking at patches of exposed flesh. It was close to death—had to be—but it was still standing, moving, and furious.

It fixed its remaining eye on Max and shrieked.

Footsteps, very close now.

Dan burst into the clearing first, sword drawn, breathing like he'd just sprinted a mile. Which he had. Marcus came right behind him, spear ready, eyes wide. Bubbles emerged last, looking between Max and the flaming, arrow-riddled monstrosity with an expression of profound disbelief.

They spread out automatically, forming a loose circle around the wendigo.

"What the fuck," Bubbles said.

The wendigo was somehow more horrifying in its current state than it had been at full strength. Burned flesh hung in strips. Bone showed through in patches. The arrows stuck out at odd angles, some broken off, some still intact. Flames flickered in spots where the methane hadn't fully consumed itself. And through it all, the creature stood, breathing in wet rasps, its one good eye tracking between the four of them.

"That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen," Dan said, not lowering his sword.

"It was prettier before I set it on fire," Max replied.

The wendigo's head swiveled toward Marcus, who was trying very hard to look confident despite the fact that his hands were shaking.

"Is it... is it supposed to still be alive?" Marcus asked.

"Apparently," Max said.

The creature took a step forward.

Then another.

Its gait was wrong—limping, unsteady, joints bending at angles that suggested most of its bones were broken from clashing with the trees earlier. But it was moving.

"Spread out!" Dan called.

They did, widening their circle. The wendigo's head tracked between them, trying to decide which one to kill first.

It chose Marcus.

The creature lunged with a speed that shouldn't have been possible given its injuries. Marcus dove sideways, barely avoiding antlers that tore furrows in the snow where he'd been standing. The wendigo overshot, momentum carrying it past the group entirely.

And kept going.

Not toward any of them. Away. Into the forest.

Running.

"No!" Max shouted. "It's getting away!"

The wendigo crashed through the underbrush, leaving a trail of blood and melted snow and the occasional dropped arrow. It was wounded, maybe dying, but it was moving.

"Come on!" Max grabbed his bow, pointless as it was without arrows. "We chase it! Now!"

Dan didn't argue. None of them did.

The hunt had begun.