Decemberland

Chapter 14: Tongue of the Beast

“Where are they all going?” Phillip whispered. He and Nico crept behind the side of a building, watching the wendigo slowly walk down the dirt path of the villa. There were three of them, and they all had a distant look in their eyes, as if they were hypnotized.

“It sounds like they’re headed towards the rest of their pack,” Nico responded quietly, “It’s like they’re being called.”

Nico poked her head a little further around the corner, but Phillip grabbed her by the hood of her cloak and pulled her back.

“Wha-?”

He put a finger to his lips and pointed to the side. Two more of them came down from the opposite end of the road. Unlike the first three, they seemed to be struggling against the mental invasion. Their limbs shook and they leaned against the side of the wall, inching forward like the subliminal forces told them to.

“They look like they’re in pain,” Nico whispered, “What’s going on?”

“The hell if I know,” Phillip whispered back.

Suddenly, one of them threw its head up in the air, crying out in pain. Falling down on its knees, it writhed violently, struggling against itself. Not a moment later the other did just the same, clasping its head between its hands and falling to the ground. Nico turned back to Phillip to ask him to do something, but he already had his bow positioned, aiming it straight at the closest one’s head.

But before he let go of the notch, the wendigo jumped up from the ground, wildly swinging its arms at the other completely defenseless wendigo, slitting its throat with its claws and sending it flying into the closest wall. Nico gasped in shock, stepping back into a trash can and clanging it.

“Uh oh.”

The wendigo’s head snapped back, catching the both of them before they could hide. It wildly veered in their direction, stumbling due to its crippling mental state. This gave Phillip enough opportunity to step out in front of it and aim his bow at the monster’s chest, sending his arrow flying without a moment’s hesitation. It pierced the beasts heart and it fell in front of them, just out of arm’s reach.

Phillip turned it over to pull the arrow from its body. It was so long and thick that he had to use both hands. He tugged on it just a little bit and the beast screeched in pain. Nico jumped back in surprise.

“It’s still alive!” she yelped.

“Yeah, it won’t be in a second though,” Phillip retorted, tightening his grip on the arrow.

“Kluvs danya...”

Nico widened her eyes at the sound of those foreign words. She knelt down beside the wendigo, listening intently. There’s no way it could have come from...

Another tug, another agonizing scream of pain, almost human like.

“Dammit, this thing is really stuck,” he said, adjusting his grip once more.

“Wait!” Nico shouted before he could attempt it a third time.

“What? Why?”

“Just shut up for a second!”

“Don’t tell me to-”

“Shhhh!”

Phillip crossed his arms, silent aside from the angry grinding of his teeth. The wendigo struggled for its breath, and its body shook. Nico felt pity for it, and may have shed a tear under different circumstances.

“Kluvs danya...” it said again, and this time, Phillip heard it.

“What in the black hell?” he said. “They can talk?”

Nico leaned closer it its head to listen to its voice better.

“Careful,” Phillip warned.

With her ear just inches away from its mouth, she could make out the barely audible sentence it was speaking.

“Kluvs danya... deshkt mi ferr circlum... himder me...”

Phillip suddenly pulled Nico back and yanked the arrow from its chest with such force that blood shot out of the pierce wound like a fountain. It laid there, motionless, its own blood pooling around it.

“What was that for?” shouted Nico.

“It’s claw was reaching behind your head, smart one!” He wiped the blood off of his arrow with his cloak, grimacing at her and her lack of gratitude. “Besides, it’s not like we could understand what it was saying anyways.”

She hesitated before saying it, but knew she would have to tell him sooner or later. “No, I could understand it.”

He stopped. “I thought you didn’t know any other languages?”

She pointed to the tiny golden ball and chain earring dangling from her right ear. “See this? It’s a magic item. This allows me to understand multiple different languages that I hear, among other things.”

“That thing dangling from your ear has been a magical item the whole time?”

“Yes.” She didn’t normally tell anybody about her treasures, as all thieves had an unspoken rule to treat everyone else as a thief as well, lest their spoils be at risk for being stolen from them. But Phillip she knew she could trust. Or at least he could trust that he wasn’t an advocate of her own practice.

“So?” he asked.

“Well, surprisingly enough, it was speaking to me in the tongue of the beast. That’s something no one has heard in a long time. Especially down here where there are little to no animals to speak of.”

“And what did it say?”

She hesitated, remembering how sad the words were. “It told me to save it.”

Elliot and Clarity hustled along the outer perimeter of the villa until they reached a forked path, the left which led them back to the center of town. Elliot stopped and turned back to Clarity. It was clear to her what a foul mood he was in. Fate seemed to tempt him.

Clarity hesitated. “Which way do we go?”

“You know which way,” Elliot grumbled, “To the right. That’s where the school is. That’s where you should go.”

“You don’t look like you want to go, though.”

“It's not that. It's just we would have gotten here sooner if that idiot let us cut through the center of town. Anyways, that’s where your friend is, so that’s where you need to go.”

“But we don’t know that.”

“It’s obvious. She wasn’t at the train station, so she’s alive, and anyone who’s alive is at the school.”

“That’s not true.”

Elliot looked at her, puzzled. “What in the black hell do you mean?”

“Nico would be out there, looking for me, if she were alive.”

It slowly dawned on Elliot what she was implying. “In the center of town...?” Clarity nodded.

“That’s where you want to go, isn’t it? Because that’s where we should look.”

A slight grin spread across one side of his face. He shook his head as if he knew it would regret this decision, but he held out his hand. “I can’t vouch for your blind faith in that girl, but you may just be right. C’mon. Stay close to me.”