Nahanni held her stake clutched tightly in her hand. "Fa— No! You are not my father!"
The wendigo smiled at her. "Of course I'm your father, Little Bird," he said, using the name he had called her when she was a child. "You can see it is me."
"No!" said Nahanni. "My father is dead. You are a demon wearing his face. You are the creature that killed him!"
"What nonsense!" said the wendigo. "Your grandmother has been filling your head with her tales, hasn't she? I am more alive now than I ever was when I had a heartbeat. Am I not stronger than I ever was? A heartbeat is a small price to pay for such strength. Of what use is a heartbeat? You can join me. We can live forever, together."
"Never!" said Nahanni. "Become a creature that lives off the blood of others? Something that will kill my friends? I will die first!"
"True," said the wendigo, "first you must die!" It lunged forward at Nahanni.
Nahanni hesitated for a moment, unable to bring herself to strike at her father, but she saw his face change as he closed on her. His eyes turned yellow, and his mouth opened, showing his fangs. She started to bring her stake up. Her hesitation cost her though. The wendigo was on her before she could get the stake into position and it knocked her over onto her back. She struggled as its hands ripped at her hood, trying to pull it open so it could get at her throat with its fangs.
She got her hand with her stake clear, and struck against the side of the wendigo, but her awkward position gave her no leverage and the thick leather of its parka was too tough to penetrate. She shifted her arms to break its grip on her collar, and punched it in the face.
The wendigo was rocked back, enough that Nahanni was able to shift its weight and roll it off her. She rolled with it until she was on top, and punched it in the face again. She pulled back, and struck at its chest with her stake, using all of her strength.
The wendigo was saved by its parka again. The thick leather was strong enough to deflect the point of her stake. It still penetrated into the wendigo's chest but the stake missed its heart. The change in angle made it break in Nahanni's hand, leaving several inches stuck in the wendigo's chest.
The wendigo howled in pain and threw Nahanni off. She rolled to her knees in the snow and drew her knife, ready for its next attack. The wendigo was gone. Nahanni looked around, and listened. She could see nothing, and only heard the faint whisper of the wind through the bare branches of the trees. Then she heard something else, another whisper in the wind. "I'll see you again soon, Little Bird."
Nahanni gathered up her dropped bow, and the arrows that had been spilled from her quiver. She looked around for the tracks of the wendigo, but they vanished once they left the area of their fight. She couldn't spend much time looking. She still had to get back to the village before Ashiwut and the others.
She almost didn't make it. Nahanni was climbing over the back fence of the stockade when the village was roused by the shouting of the men arriving at the front gate. The commotion of their arrival created enough confusion for her to slip to the lodge she shared with Ashiwut, and toss her snowshoes and bow inside. She also left her parka, with its telltale water soaked sleeve. It had frozen stiff during her journey back to the village.
Everyone was talking and shouting at once when Nahanni reached the crowd gathered at the gate. Everyone had a different version of the story about how they had been attacked by the wendigo, and their descriptions of the creatures that attacked them varied greatly as well. Nahanni couldn't help but smile as she heard how the wendigo had grown, both in size and in numbers. The way the men told it, they had been attacked by a dozen ten foot tall monsters. They also told how they had been rescued by some unseen spirit.
Ashiwut was shivering too much to give his own version of what had happened. Nahanni made her way through the crowd, and put her arm around him, hoping that anyone who noticed that her jacket sleeve was wet would assume that it got that way from its contact with Ashiwut. "Come," she told him. "We must get you warm." She helped him through the crowd toward their lodge. She asked one of the village girls to bring him a bowl of hot stew from the pot kept warm in the longhouse.
Once inside their lodge Nahanni stripped the wet clothes off Ashiwut. She wrapped him in a fur blanket, sat him on their bed and went to get the banked fire in the pit burning again, to quickly raise the temperature in the lodge. She was hanging his wet clothes near the fire to dry when Rezekash arrived with a bowl of warm stew.
Ashiwut was still shivering too much to easily feed himself. Nahanni knew that this was a good sign: he wasn't in real danger unless he got so cold he stopped shivering. The warm food and warm bed would help him recover quickly. She helped him eat the stew, and then slipped him into their bed. She finished hanging his wet clothes by the fire, adding her own parka and jacket, stripped out of her own clothes, and slipped into bed beside him. She wrapped herself around him to warm his body with her own.
Nahanni lay with Ashiwut until his shivering stopped, his skin started to feel warm against hers, and he fell asleep. She got carefully out of their bed, so as not to disturb him and got dressed. After tending to the fire to make sure it would stay burning slowly she left their lodge to go speak with Grandmother.
Nahanni told her grandmother about the fight by the river, and that four of the wendigo were dead. The old woman was not pleased that Mandokee was one of the survivors. "He has been invited into the longhouse. He can enter it now at any time."
"Perhaps he will stay trapped in the ice," said Nahanni.
"That is not likely, child," said Grandmother. "The ice is still thin, and much of the river is open. Mandokee probably left the river before you pulled Ashiwut out."
"There is more bad news Grandmother," said Nahanni. "On the way back from the river, I met another wendigo. We fought, but it escaped before I could kill it. It…it was Father."
"Oh, child, I am so sorry," said Grandmother, "but you must not let your feelings for him cloud your judgement. Your father is long dead."
"I know," said Nahanni. "I…I hesitated at first, that may be why it still lives, but I have seen its true face now. I will not hesitate again."
"Do not err the other way, either, child," said Grandmother. "Do not let it goad you into a foolish attack." She smiled at Nahanni. "Now go back to your lodge. Keep Ashiwut warm."
Nahanni did not go straight back to her lodge. She took a quick patrol around the inside of the stockade fence. What she saw both pleased and worried her. Moguago had set sentries all around the perimeter. It would make it difficult for any wendigo to sneak into their village. It would also make it difficult for her to sneak out. No one would venture outside the stockade tonight, but in the morning they would be checking the outside perimeter too, and it was likely that someone would find the tracks she had made in the snow. She hoped for more snow to fall, but a glance up at the myriad of stars in the sky told her that wasn't likely. She was still pondering the problem when she slipped back into bed with Ashiwut.