The Wolf and the Huntsman

It all began in a small town, the tiny place known as Cedar Mill. No one knows who came first: the man, or the beast.
He was a quiet man. A logger, or woodsman. He looked just like any other man come to work in the mill. He said his name was Andrew; he didn’t speak of his past, and no one asked, as it always was. He was friendly enough, and eager to work. No one paid him much mind.
The farmers were the first to know of the beast. It attacked their flocks, and feasted in the dead of night. In the morning light, the farmers came out to find their sheep brutally killed, ripped open, limbs gone, blood drenching the grass. At first it was just one, then two. Farmers who tried to hunt or trap the beast caught nothing; those who sent their dogs out found their faithful companions as dead as the sheep. One man found near his entire flock murdered, the last few animals scattered and wild with terror. The beast’s hunger could not be satisfied. No one knew what to do, but it was the farmers’ problem, not the mill’s.
Two nights after the quiet man came to town, a woman was killed in the town. She was a harlot, alone, out plying her trade. Her scream echoed across the tiny town. The stranger was there first; he found the bloody remains of the woman, ripped apart like the sheep. It was horrible, between the blood and the smell and the fear. There was no trace of the beast. The sheriff arrived, and the doctor, along with the bystanders. The doctor confirmed that it was fangs that tore the poor woman apart, and there was no one who thought that it was anything but an animal that had come to the alley that night. The sheriff called for men to hunt down the creature before it got it into its head to return. I volunteered. So did the man.
We woke the next morning, set out with the sheriff and four others. One man brought his hounds, a man by the name of Bojan. The dogs caught the scent, left from where the beast had made its kill, and led us towards the forest. Never was there a more ill-fated hunting party.
The dogs led us into the woods, further and further. They pulled at their leads, straining like they knew that they had to hurry, long before any of us knew. Then they came to a point, stopped and ran about all confused. The two were of different opinions as to which way the creature had gone, and Bojan couldn’t get them to agree. The group split up then: Bojan, Andrew and I following one dog while the sheriff and the others took the other.
We followed that dog for hours, and every minute, it seemed to get more excited. Andrew, even from the beginning, was upset. He knew something, but what he didn’t say. Once he told us to turn around, that we were being followed, but the dog was so insistent, we didn’t listen, and he let us keep on walking. Eventually, the dog slipped its lead and tore off into the trees like it was chasing down the devil. Bojan yelled, but it didn’t stop, so we ran after it. I tripped then, fell and ruined my ankle. Andrew stopped for me; Bojan ran out of breath to run and came back. I couldn’t walk, the pain was so bad. Andrew said that we should go, that this wasn’t any good. I tried to wave him off. No sense ruining the whole trip, since we seemed to be close. He wouldn’t hear of it though, just like Bojan wouldn’t hear of leaving his dog. He stormed off, trying to catch his hound, calling the whole time. Andrew stayed, despite my telling him to go on without me; I certainly wouldn’t be here to tell this if he hadn’t.
We heard the dog’s wail first. Andrew pulled me up, put a stick under my arm and we pushed on. I hobbled as best I could, my ankle shooting fire up my leg with every step. It wasn’t long after, that we heard Bojan scream just the same. By the time we got there, there wasn’t anything left of the two of them but blood and bones. I was scared then; this wasn’t a proper animal, and it would come for us. Everyone knows that the beasts come for the broken and slow, picking off the flock’s edges, and whatever this thing was, it didn’t need a man to be lame before it was good hunting. I was going to be next, and I’d take Andrew to his grave with me. Bless him though, he wouldn’t leave. We started back, knowing that we wouldn’t make it back before dark.
When the sun fell and we couldn’t see, we stopped. Andrew built a shelter from the trees. We agreed to split the watch, hoping that whatever was in the woods at least wouldn’t take us by surprise. I was in a state though, what with my ankle, so he let me sleep first. It rained that night, pouring down from the clouds that had been gathering all day, but I slept right through it. All through the night. I woke up in the morning to see Andrew still there, sitting like a statue, watching over. I chewed him out, but there wasn’t anything to be done now. He said that he couldn’t sleep anyways, and for a man who had sat up all night after walking the whole day through, he certainly didn’t look tired. I didn’t take much mind of it; we had to get back to the town.
It kept raining the whole miserable walk, my ankle no good without the water and mud and leaves to slow us even more. Andrew kept watch the whole time, looking about like he knew where it was coming from. I never saw the beast, but I could feel it, same as any rabbit surely feels when the dogs are coming. We kept going. I’ve never felt fear like that before, and never since. Every step was pain, but it didn’t matter. It was nothing to the fear of what was coming.
We made it to the hill, out behind town. Terror had us, by then, and if I could have been running, I would have. Andrew started yelling, trying to get someone to come out, then he carried me down the hill. Mrs. Finrey came out with her daughter, and they all got me to the doctor’s. My ankle wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed, he said, but no one had heard from the sheriff or any of the others. It didn’t take long for everyone to fear the worst. The worst hadn’t even come yet.
I slept like the dead right through the night. The doctor ordered me off my feet for a few days when he sent me home the next day, so I was in bed for the rest of it. No one needed to be out to feel it though, the fear in the air. The sheriff and the other men didn’t come back. You could hear people locking their doors and barring their windows. The rain had stopped, but the wind was picking up, and the clouds hung heavy in the sky. Everyone was scared.
Andrew came over that night, to see how I was. He was a good sort. The old landlady, though, she didn’t like him. She wouldn’t let him in, and chased him out soon after. I asked her what she was doing, after she had locked him out, and she got a sharp look in her eyes. She stared at me, and said that the beast will come for the hunter when the hunter comes for the beast. With nothing else, she left me with my thoughts and broken ankle.
The weather was bad that night. I thought the house would blow over a few times in that wind, but it held. The next night was worse.
I wasn’t there for the end of it. Stuck in bed all day, fear hanging like a shroud on the town that even I could feel. Some folks stopped by, wanting to know what was going on, like I had some better idea from being out in the woods. I didn’t know. I still don’t know. The night came, wind howling even worse than before. The way I heard it, what they found the next day, was worse than anything before.
The Meyers, older man and his wife, were found murdered in their bed, the doors to their house nearly blown off of their hinges. The door was blown open to Nicols’ house as well; they found what was left of his body by his hearth. That house though, everyone agreed there was a fight there. Furniture broken. Effects thrown around. And the blood. They said that there was so much blood the house was slick with it. More than one man’s. More than five mens’. They burnt it down, afterwards. No one could stand to clean it.
Andrew was gone. No body, no trace. He just wasn’t there in the morning, like he’d never been in Cedar Mill at all.
The sheriff and his men never came back. The beast never came back. The weather cleared, and the fear was replaced by mourning, to be replaced by work. Whatever it was, it had taken nine lives, before it was stopped. Ten, if it got Andrew too.
There was one story, from Peter, a young kid who had moved in a year or two before. He said that he had heard a yell that night, and stuck his head out. He said he saw Andrew going in to Nicols’ house. Peter ran over; he said inside, he saw the man fighting what was, and what could not have possibly been, a giant black wolf. They were bloody, and fierce, and terrifying; Peter admits that he fled, certain that he was in a nightmare. In the morning, there was no wolf, and no Andrew.
No one really knows what it was that attacked Cedar Mill, whether it was a wolf, a monster, or something else altogether. No one knows if it really was Andrew, the good man who left as quietly as he came, that stopped the beast. I know that I’m alive thanks to him, and I couldn’t repay him even if he let me.
There are children’s stories of wolf-beasts: black, terrible creatures that haunt the lonely places of the world and hunt the poor people who would live there. Many of them have a huntsman, the quiet, good man who kills the beast to help its victims. When the beast returns, wherever that will be, I can only pray that the hunstman returns to send it back.
Category:Tiny Books