When Winter Comes | Book 5 | Into The White Read online

  “In our tribe, a boy only speaks when spoken to.”

  Cody blinked.

  A faint smile appeared on the woman’s lips. More of a twitch than a true smile. “My people call me many names.”

  “But you have to have one? One that you were born with?”

  “Chikuk.”

  “Cody.”

  “You have said this.”

  “I’m scared.”

  Cody blushed at the admission. He narrowed his eyes, realising for the first time that, as Chikuk spoke, her lips hardly moved—if they moved at all.

  Chikuk coughed into the ring of her fist, wiping the residue on her jacket. “You have come a long way, Cody. I can see that in you. There is much further to go.”

  “Where are you from?” Cody glanced around the igloo. “Where are we?”

  “In the end game, should the winds turn in your favor.”

  Kazu nestled into Cody, resting his head on his lap. Cody absently stroked his fur.

  “You mean, you know what’s out there?”

  “I know what plagues this land.”

  ‘What are they?”

  The woman coughed. Or maybe she laughed. It was impossible to tell. Her face creased in pain as she leaned forward and dug through a leather pouch, taking a scoopful of black powder and tossing it into the fire.

  At first, the fire hissed. Then it crackled. When Cody thought that nothing more would occur, the flames changed colour, morphing into a shade of crimson which was instantly recognisable, an image from earlier that evening, plaguing the Aurora pulsing across the night sky.

  “My people have lived in this region for centuries,” Chikuk explained, her words laboured and slow. Each syllable laced with emotion, spoken more with her eyes than her lips. Although there was a thickness to her accent, he could understand every word as though they were spoken through crystal clarity inside his own head. “There isn’t a time in living memory in which the Iñupiat tribe didn’t once roam these lands, living off the livestock and resources the world has to offer. Once, our existence was simple, bound on a turntable that continued to spin, granting us the ability to prosper and thrive in the frigid elements of the north.

  “Among the Iñupiat tribe there have always been chiefs and their brides—commanders and rulers of the Iñupiat people—assigned with the role as guardian, steward, and ruler. In the primitive days, there has always existed an alpha, and the chieftain was selected through a fierce physical competition, in which many died attempting to claim the throne.”

  The flames flickered and, to Cody’s surprise, he fancied he could make out the shapes of primitive figures fighting in the fire. Dark silhouettes of men with sticks and weapons scrapping through the flames.

  “The strongest and the first in recorded memory to to claim the role as chief was a man of great girth and fire. His name was Nukilik, meaning ‘one who is strong.’ Nukilik once led our people to peace, settling the disruptions of the early tribesmen and allowing our people to thrive. With each generation born from Nukilik’s seed came the successors to the Iñupiat throne. Aklaq—my spouse—commanded this tribe for nigh on seventy years, ruling with an iron fist and commanding the Iñupiat people into a new era, one of westernization and the plague of modern man. Akluq was a direct descendent of Nukilik, the spawn of a bloodline spanning seven generations, each with their own tales to tell, and their own wisdom to impart.”

  The fire died suddenly, as if a gust of wind had simply extinguished it in one blow. Cody looked in confusion at Chikuk, his throat dry as he asked, “You are the wife of an Inuit chieftain?”

  “Spouse,” Chikuk corrected, face souring. “We do not adopt your western rituals.”

  Cody furrowed his brow. “But, why are you telling me this? What have your people got to do with what’s out there? The creatures and the storm?”

  Chikuk smiled—a real smile this time—breaking her face into a thousand folds and segments. “Everything. It has everything to do with it.”

  She reached for another pouch and tossed a slip of meat to Kazu. The organ was slimy and dark, but Kazu readily ate it down. Cody stared at the dying embers of the fire and was about to ask another question, when Chikuk clapped her hands suddenly and the fire blossomed once more, this time flaming with a sickly green hue.

  “There is magic in this world, boy. A magic that your people could never embrace, but which my kin have lived beside for millennia. While the stone cities grew and your connection with the natural world was lost, tribes such as mine maintained our connection with Mother Earth, blessing the gods and choosing to respect the unseen forces in this world. We have our rituals, designed to appease the gods and grant us peace, but there are those in the world whose corrupt hearts have the power to stain those around them.”

  The flames danced, turning through a kaleidoscopic display of colour as first the aurora came, and then the forms of eagles, bear, and fish swam through the fire. The souls and majesty of the natural world pirouetting in wonder before a dark spill of shadow erased them from sight.

  “I know this story,” Cody said softly, furrowing his brow. Brandon had once told them, in an age long, long ago, his friend sat with his head against the wall, explaining to Cody and the others the origin of the wendigo legend. “Your people were starving, hit with a harsh winter. Some of you turned to cannibalism, and from there the wendigos were born?”

  Chikuk gave a curt nod and sighed. Her face wobbled through the fire, mouth unmoving, the words without distortion in his head. “That is indeed how they were birthed, a tale which one would never wish to tell another. A dark time for the Iñupiat people, and one that has caused untold misery for generation after generation.

  “The wendigo are the ever-hungry. The gods punished them, casting the curse of eternal famine as recourse for their sin. They will never be satisfied, not as long as they exist on this planet, their stomachs will never be full. The first to taste the flesh of man was one called Tulimaq. A man so foul that it was a wonder no one saw it coming. Tulimaq saw deceit and pain as a means of life and that pained my great-great-grandfather, Tulok. Story tells that, when the great winter hit, Tulimaq lured children away from the camp to sample at their flesh. Reports came of the missing ones, and a great hunt was set forth. They found ragged tears of Tulimaq’s clothing stained with blood by the half-buried corpse of the fallen. They tried to kill him, hunting him down like the monster he was, but somehow he escaped.”

  Chikuk took a few recovering breaths, the fire resuming its normal hue and casting eery shadows across her face.

  “Are you okay?” Cody asked. “Do you need some water? Some food?”

  Chikuk held up a hand. “Over the next few months, Tulimaq lived on the borders of discovery, recruiting contributions for his tribe. He brought the meek and suffering to the dark side. It was said that a parasite had found its way into his body, a tapeworm unlike the world had known. But we knew better. We knew the gods were upset and that Tulimaq was paying the price. What we didn’t know was how far he would take it all, just how far he would degenerate and fade from the man he had once been.”

  Cody tried to imagine it, the transformation from man to creature. The wendigos were disturbing enough without trying to imagine the metamorphosis. As Chikuk spoke, he struggled to understand how any of this could be real, could it really be that he had simply been shielded from the impossible by Western civilization? Could the stories of ghosts and monsters running around London’s streets have any grain of truth to them? What lay on the other side of the ‘known?’

  He truly didn’t know anymore.

  “You’re distracted.”

  Chikuk’s stare was intense.

  “I’m sorry. I’m tired.”

  “Here.” Chikuk drew some jerky from her bag and tossed it to Cody. He rolled it over in his hand and sniffed at the meat, wondering to which animal it once belonged. “Don’t worry. It’s not human.”

  Cody wanted to laugh, but nothing came. He nibbled the edge of
the dark purple strip, a tang of salt teasing his tongue. His next bite was more enthusiastic, and after that he ate the whole thing without further thought.

  “There’s more if you like,” Chikuk offered.

  Cody was desperate for more, but he was also scared. All this talk of human flesh and the wrath of the gods unsettled his stomach and made him long for home more than ever.

  “What happened to Talamak?”

  “Tulimaq,” Chikuk said. “What many of your historical records won’t tell you was that the Iñupiat tribe were on the brink of civil war. Tulimaq and his band of devourers continued to pick off our tribe one-by-one, until such a point as that we could take no more losses. Some of our people they killed, while others they converted, and in the middle of one wintry night Tulok saw his brother, a stick-thin shadow sneaking into the camp for his next meal.

  “The stories tell of his sickness, his body turning inwards on itself as it ate away at his own flesh. Eyes dark as the void, teeth stained purple from their diet of meat and flesh. At that point it was clear that something larger was at play. Tulok drove Tulimaq and his followers into the forest, and it is there that they hid away, biding their time before their next attack as they attempted to regain strength.”

  “It sounds awful,” Cody breathed, fingers locked into Kazu’s damp fur.

  Chikuk nodded solemnly, eyes glazing over. The fire swelled, increasing its heat around the igloo. For the first time since he had set forth that night with Kyle, Cody was satisfied with his internal temperature. Parts of him that he didn’t know were frozen thawed out and he grew drowsy in comfort. Chikuk faded across the flames of the fire, her form turning into an illusion as great as the shapes cast into the conflagration.

  “We were forced to turn our hands to the gods.”

  The igloo melted around them. He could hear the roars of battle, the groans of the dead. His mind’s eye shaped and manifested the dense forest and tracked the shapes of Iñupiat and wendigo alike.

  “Tulok chased his brother into the woods, fighting the wendigos as he went. The chieftains of the Iñupiat people are great warriors, and his strength was put to the test. He battled valiantly, Tulok and his band of fighters eventually making their way into the hollows of the Drumtrie Forest.

  “It should have ended that night…”

  Cody’s eyelids grew heavy as waves of heat washed over him. The trees surrounded him, great monoliths of nature pressing in from all sides. Ahead, a broad-shouldered warrior approached the clearing.

  “They were waiting for him. At least two dozen strong, their bodies like paper skeletons, their cheeks gaunt, their eyes keen. Tulimaq stood among them, and it was then that Tulok discovered the truth behind the creature that had once been his brother. The dark gods had intervened and bestowed onto Tulimaq an unholy power. As the aurora pulsed and glowed in colours of green and blue above them, they faced off, a span of eternity stretching between the two worlds. It is said that Tulimaq had grown, standing almost double the size of his brethren. His arms stretched to the floor, the skull placed on his head was the size of no creature they had ever seen, antlers stretching from tree to tree. A desperate bloodlust formed a cloud around them and the Iñupiat people trembled.”

  Cody saw it all, the terrifying creature with his army flanking his sides. No longer human in any way other than his bipedal state. Fingers as long as scythes, hunched over his own anatomy as the skull leered at his brother through the gloom.

  Warm tears stained Cody’s face as the vision rumbled and warped before him. “How did they escape?”

  “Tulok made a pact with the gods. Under the glow of the Aurora, he drew a captured wendigo into his grasp and spilled its blood on the hollow. The wendigos watched with gleeful curiosity, not understanding the magic at play in their own home. The blood darkened the grass, and as Tulok chanted and pleaded to the gods, the Aurora morphed above them, turning from its vibrant hues to the colour of the wendigo’s blood. Tulimaq grew afraid and came for Tulok, finding that he could not cross the barrier of blood. The other wendigos tried to scatter but found they could not leave the hollow. They were bound in blood, and there they would lie.

  “Or so it was thought.”

  The wendigos panicked as the Iñupiat stalked out of the clearing and into the trees. The howls and screams of rage ensued, creating a mind-bending din that only emphasised the strange hue of the Aurora.

  “Peace reigned in the years following the wendigo’s imprisonment, and all was thought to be right. It would be thirty years later that the truth would reveal itself. For, though the gods are kind, they also speak balance, and light cannot exist without darkness.”

  A trail of drool fell from Cody’s lips. His breath deepened.

  “On the eve of Tulok’s death, after forty-three years of reign, the sky signaled the coming attack.”

  Shamans and herbalists knelt at Tulok’s bedside, his cheeks gaunt and his face pale. Each laboured breath rattled in his throat as the sky above shifted and morphed. The Aurora bled. A storm brewed on the horizon.

  Visions flashed in Cody’s mind. Wendigos leaping from the forest. A blizzard coating their arrival, narrowing their vision. Blood staining the snow. Dozens of creatures using the storm for their cloak, feasting hungrily on the flesh of their kin. A furious frenzied feast as the wendigo were unleashed once more.

  Cody grimaced, his head lolling on his neck as he fought away the images. “Make it stop. Please… Make it stop…”

  Chikuk’s face swallowed his vision, her floating head taking up every inch of space inside the igloo, her wrinkles and folds wobbling in the unbearable heat. “There is no end. The wendigo curse lays upon our people. Generation after generation has fought and lost, and it is there that this tale ends. What occurs tonight is nothing but the way of things. The truth that those who call themselves ‘modern’ ignore. The storm claims. The wendigos come. For one full turn of the moon and sun, the world is theirs, and that is the reward for their patience. Our father, and his father before him, and his father before him, all have learned that, upon the night of the passing of the great chiefs, they come. We feed them, and we cower in our homes. It is only in the coming of your Western blood that you have placed yourselves in harm’s way. The wendigo feast, and you have chosen to settle in the crossfire, mere inches from the forest’s edge. You have no idea what you have awoken, for my spouse’s reign stretched for the longest in recorded history of our people. He kept the threat at bay while you all grew comfortable, thinking you could brave the elements and make a home where you were not wanted…”

  The woman was terrifying, imposing. The weight of her visage pressed down on him, consuming all that Cody knew. He babbled, trying to plea his innocence, “I’m not from this place. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just want to go home…”

  He became aware that he’d wet himself, his pants clinging to his leg. He shrunk against the walls of the igloo while Kazu barked noisily, a wet tongue occasionally licking his cheek. Chikuk bore down on him, eyes lit with fire as she melted into the spectacle of the aurora.

  “There has to be a way to end this…” Cody bit his lip. Warm blood filled his mouth. “There has to…”

  The Aurora shifted, its colours turning into autumn as it took the shape of a great eagle. It swooped across the sky, leaving a trail of fire and gold in its wake. The spectacle consumed Cody’s vision until it didn’t, and the hollow of the Drumtrie forest came into view.

  The forest was dark. The world fell silent. Cody took a step and the crack of dry bracken rang through the trees. There was something nearby, without seeing it he knew, he just couldn’t tell what it was. He squinted, barely able to breathe in this constricting dark. A great mound lay before him, and it took him some time to realise it was gently rising and falling.

  Another step. Another crack.

  A great white eye snapped open.

  Cody lost himself in that eye, falling towards the great orb of white, dropped from the enormi
ty of the universe and pulled into its gravity. Nothing existed in that moment but the white, and as he tumbled in the forever, the forever stretched like taffy, until time was nothing and life was futile. Head over heels, swirling and swallowed by the infinite stretch of white, taking him back to the storm, to the womb, to the moments before death when all that is known is a singularity of virgin snow, the purest forms of light when all other colours merge their rainbow, and what was once known is lost.

  Cody fell.

  Until he didn’t.

  10

  Naomi Oslow

  The woods were exactly how she remembered them.

  They had played a starring role in her dreams over the years, the towering jack pines surrounding her like dark monoliths. While she fought through the grieving process in the wake of her husband’s passing and raised an infant son on her own, her sleep was plagued with her memories of her time spent in here. Though her visits had been brief, they had left a permanent scar on her mind. It had been in here that Donavon used to collect firewood, clinging to the edges of the forest to evade the dense unknown within. It had been here that she and Donavon had kissed and reconnected, Naomi finally finding herself in a position where she could forgive Donavon for the vice of his drinking and almost killing their son, picturing a future that was brighter than it had previously been.

  It was in here that her husband had disappeared, never to be seen alive again.

  The forest held an enchantment, she knew that from the moment they had chosen to live on the outskirts of the city. She had never been a believer before, ignoring the tales of the other townsfolk of monsters and creatures and supernatural events. To her, the forest was misunderstood. There are many dark, unexplored places of the world, and all it took was one brave voyager to shine a light on what was previously unknown. Look how they’d ended up here, for example. Denridge Hills was built in the frozen unknown, in one of the farthest reaches of the planet. At one point a region such as this would have thrown out some horror stories. Tales of bears and wolves and uncivilised strangers in thick hoods made from animal skin and fur.