Wendigo Wars (18 page)

“No. You’re something special. I hope to be able to fight like you one day Mathilde. When we left Bucharest, when I said goodbye to my family and friends, I truly didn’t think that I would ever see them again. But now, seeing the way you fight and hearing the way your father talks about you being destined to save everyone, well...I think everything will be just fine.”

Mathilde almost stopped walking. “My father has been talking about me?” Though her ‘destiny’ was well known in her own home settlement it was not widely known within the Bucharest settlement and, other than Paul, none of the Bucharest Protectors had known of it before; or if they had they had never mentioned it to Mathilde.

“No, not really. I mean the stories are all around the monastery. I never knew you were so important, that your destiny was so great.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear Louisa. It’s wishful thinking, that’s all. There is no way that one person could bring down the wendigo.”

Louisa looked at Mathilde and held her tongue but Mathilde could see that her speech had done nothing. She had yet another believer on her hands.

They reached the meeting room and went in. Everyone had already arrived and settled down, chatting quietly among themselves with Jean Louis sat at the head of the table in silence next to Tobias. Fleur chatted and laughed with Seb and Dash stared at them with, what Mathilde shivered to realise, was a cold, emotionless look. He smiled at Mathilde when he realised she had come into the room. She smiled back, forgetting her doubts for a moment as their eyes locked. Also around the table were Paul, Jewel, and Alan; along with ten members of the Brotherhood (each with the same hair, same calm expression and same fighting tunic and pants, looking like peaceful clones of each other).

Mathilde sat down next to Dash. She caught a frustrated look from Seb but ignored it. Dash gently reached for her hand under the table and gave it a small squeeze, as if testing the ground with her. She squeezed back to reassure him and the smile he gave her in return was dazzling. Jean Louis coughed gruffly and the room slowly fell silent.

“Thank you all for coming,” began Tobias. “Jean Louis would like to share some developments with us from the Cree tribe.” All eyes turned to Jean Louis.

“The tribe’s elders have been working for many years on a way to battle the wendigo,” Jean Louis said. “They have run many tests and created many serums which they believed would weaken the wendigo. Some worked a little, they slowed the wendigo down or made them disorientated, but they were all slow working and often the wendigo had killed more than one Protector by the time the serums began to take effect.”

Mathilde looked around the room. Every person at the table had leant forward and an air of anticipation rippled around the group at the promise of something new. Looking back at her father she saw what the others must see every time they looked at him; a huge, powerful and formidable bear of a man, a man who seemed to promise a chance of victory.

“Six years ago the elders decided to take a different approach. If we couldn’t weaken the wendigo then we should try to strengthen ourselves. They produced this.”

Jean Louis held up an orange liquid in a vial. A series of whispers went around the group and he waited for quiet before he continued. “It is not yet ready to be tested but it only needs three more weeks to mature and then it will be ready.”

“What does it do?” asked Seb.

“It evens the odds. It gives us the strength, speed and agility of the wendigo. We have tested it on animals and it seems to work. We will need to test it on a human to make sure that the results are the same.”

“What is it made from?” asked Costin. He looked excited and Mathilde had no doubt he would be one of the first volunteers to try it out.

“Various herbs and plants mixed and boiled with wendigo blood. In three weeks it will be more stable and the herbs will have had chance to fully infuse.”

“Father, this is a great offer and one which will help us in our long term battles but we need to move soon; in a week at the latest. The wendigo watched us all the way here from the clearing, I’m sure of it. We need to attack before they attack us or move the captives.”

“You are too impatient Mathilde. You need to wait for the best time to strike and the best time is when you and your army are at their strongest.”

“No. We need to strike while we still can. We need to strike within the next week. What will happen if someone takes the serum now? Could it work?”

Jean Louis paused before he answered. “Yes it could work. It is not the strength of the serum which worries me, in fact it is the opposite. The serum will be too strong, it may harm whoever takes it. There is a herb in it called butterbur which will dampen and control the effects of the serum to stop it from being harmful or lethal. The butterbur takes time to infuse. We must wait a little longer to ensure that it has taken effect fully.”

“But you aren’t certain that it hasn’t infused enough already?” asked Costin, still looking dangerously eager.

“No but the elders of my tribe believe it would still be unstable. It is a risk I would not ask anyone to take.”

“But if someone offered?” The room fell silent as Costin spoke. In the pregnant silence eyes flicked from Costin to Jean Louis and back again.

Finally Jean Louis spoke. “If someone offered to test the serum now then I would administer it. Mathilde is right that it would be best to attack now but without the serum I fear for your chances of success. If the offer of a test subject was given then I would accept.”

“Then I offer,” said Costin.

“No! You cannot allow this to happen. He could die,” cried Mathilde looking at Tobias.

Tobias looked at Mathilde then Costin then closed his eyes for a painfully long time, fingers together as if praying and pressed to his lips, his brow wrinkled. Finally he opened his eyes and his face was calm and definite.

“Costin has made the offer in full knowledge of the possible consequences. We do not always choose our path; our destinies are written by God. We can choose to do his will and follow the opportunities presented to us or we can choose to reject him and live a selfish life. Costin has chosen to do this for the good of his Brotherhood and the good of mankind. I will respect that choice as God would want me to do.”

Jean Louis beamed and, not for the first time, Mathilde wondered how much the death of her mother had hardened his heart to the value of human lives. “Then we shall administer the serum this afternoon,” Jean Louis said.

Mathilde looked around the room, at the calm but smiling Brotherhood and the less confident faces of the Protectorate and felt a terrible sense of foreboding which even the squeeze of her hand from Dash could not quell. The group broke up and went their separate ways, arranging to meet after lunch to support Costin as he took the serum. Mathilde and Dash made their way to the Protectorate sleeping quarters but when they arrived they just lay together in silence; each absorbed in their own very different thoughts about what was to come.

Chapter Twenty Three

Mathilde sat in the church with the gathered Brotherhood and Protectorate. The church was full and everyone spoke at once. The noise of the conversations going on around her pressed heavily on Mathilde making her feel claustrophobic. The lunch of eggs, cheese and meat sat heavily in Mathilde’s stomach. She had not felt like eating but after her unsuccessful breakfast her body had rebelled against her mind and her stomach had cramped, forcing her to eat. Now the food sat like lead in the pit of her stomach, making her feel lethargic and nauseous.

Dash sat next to her, he had not left her side since they had reached their truce earlier in the day. Seb sat behind them and she could feel his eyes on her. Dash was in high spirits and had been talking non-stop since entering the church, about the serum and how it would ensure their triumph in rescuing Suzanna. Seb had not spoken since the meeting but Mathilde could see from his face that he had the same doubts about Costin taking the serum as she did. It did not surprise her; after spending almost their whole lives together they often felt the same about Protectorate matters.

Tobias and Costin entered the church and walked to the front, followed by Jean Louis and Fleur. Fleur looked as uncertain as Mathilde felt but Mathilde doubted she had raised her concerns; Fleur did not tend to talk back to Jean Louis. When they reached the front of the church Tobias addressed the audience.

“Brothers, guests, this is a truly historic day. One of our own has chosen to sacrifice himself for our cause. We trust in God that this sacrifice will be successful and that our dear Costin will emerge a stronger, faster warrior. We hold in our hands our salvation from the torment of our enemy. With this serum we will truly be a match for the wendigo.”

Tobias held up the small vial. The serum inside looked thick and sticky and the light coming through the windows behind Tobias shone through it making it glow like amber. Curiously appropriate, thought Mathilde and for a moment the synchronicity gave Mathilde a glimmer of hope that this could work. A few people clapped or cheered and Costin smiled, lapping up his moment in the spotlight. He looked small and wiry, too young for any of this. Mathilde’s heart ached for the childhood he had probably never had, just like her. Tobias passed the serum to Costin who pulled the wax stopper from the top then drank the liquid. He held the bottle upside down at his lips for some time to allow the last drops of honey like substance to crawl from the vial and into his mouth. Everyone in the church collectively held their breath. Nothing happened. Costin smiled then started to look unsure.

“I don’t feel any different,” he said, looking at Jean Louis.

“Give it time. You will begin to see some effects by the end of the day.”

Everyone started to talk again. The excitement of earlier had changed to an air of disappointment. The promised show having gone with a blip rather than the explosive wonder that everyone had been expecting. They began to leave the church in small groups to go about their normal business. The rest of the day passed slowly. Mathilde slipped away from the over watchful eyes of Seb and Dash and explored the monastery. She found store rooms, more sleeping quarters and more exercise rooms. Most impressively, in comparison to the small reading areas in Succeava and Bucharest, she found a large library in a tower almost as tall as the church, hidden away at the west corner of the settlement. Inside books lined the walls from floor to ceiling with ladders running up the shelves and four balconies which allowed access to the rows of higher shelves.

Mathilde browsed the books, some looked quite modern, less than two hundred years old, but others looked ancient and she was afraid to touch the crumbling covers and thin delicate paper. She picked up two of the newer books, reprint dates of 2012 were inside the hard covers. One was called The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli and the other The Art of War by Sun Tzu. She found a padded armchair and started to read through the books, picking out the bits which looked most interesting, but her reading was slow and clumsy, never having had much time or need to practice it. She put the books back on the shelves and hoped she would have time to return some day to read them properly, sure that they would help her plan some way of dealing with General Zhu.

Mathilde went to the dining hall for her evening meal. When she arrived she saw that people weren’t scattered around the many tables as usual but were in a tight crowd in the centre of the room.

“What’s going on?” Mathilde asked, as she pushed through the crowd and found a space next to Alan and Louisa.

“Costin...the serum is starting to work,” said Alan, craning his neck to look.

Mathilde pushed further forward, her diminutive height working in her favour for once. As she reached the front of the crowd she caught a glint from the corner of her eye, then another. She focused on the movement and realised that they were knives, sharp ones of different shapes and sizes and they were flying in the air. Costin was juggling eight knives and fast, almost as a blur. Mathilde stared with the rest of the crowd as he tipped his head back and caught one of the knives between his teeth, snapping it from the air. Then he did it with another and another, flicking each one from his teeth to drive itself in a wooden stool stood by him before catching the next. The crowd whooped and clapped. Costin finished with a somersault which jettisoned him high in the air, above the height of even Seb’s head. The crowd cheered again and Costin grinned. Friends moved to him, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back.

The throng slowly dissipated and everyone moved off, one by one to get food and settle down. The air was filled with levity and a sense of the group now being indestructible. Mathilde tried to remain cynical but the mood penetrated her defences and she began to feel optimistic too. An army with advanced skills and the restraint and a clear headedness that a wendigo could never have, could secure their victory.

After eating Mathilde went to the central courtyard, where anyone wanting to draw the evening out usually went after their evening meal. A few fires had been lit and they burnt a warming marmalade orange in the inky black night. Fireflies of embers danced in the air and mixed into the buzz of conversation. The reassuring musky smell of smoke raised Mathilde’s mood further and for the first time in months she felt happy and relaxed. She found Alan, Louisa and Jewel sat at a fire with Seb, their chatter and laughter was loud and carefree. Mathilde sat with them and join in the conversation. It was a new experience to chat like this with the Bucharest Protectors but to chat like this with Seb brought back comfortable familiarity and memories of happier and less complicated times. Mathilde moved closer to Seb and smiled warmly at him. He smiled back and for a second everything felt simple again but he kept eye contact for just a bit too long and Mathilde began to feel breathless.

“Earth to Seb. Mathilde...helloooo!” Alan’s voice broke into Mathilde’s thoughts and she felt herself blush as she looked back to the rest of the group. Jewel giggled quietly to herself and shared a knowing look with Louisa.