Nahanni paused as soon as she reached the beaten path on the other side of the river. She wouldn't need her snowshoes from here on. She didn't take the time to untie them. She used her knife to slash the bindings free from her feet before she started to run again, discarding her mittens and parka as she went.
She could hear the sounds of the fight before she reached the village. The over-excited calls of men yelling to each other, the inhuman snarls of wendigo, the cries of frightened children. She paused for a moment at the edge of the forest, to see what was happening before she rushed in.
The village gate was standing open. She could see the light of a fire burning inside the stockade, and the black smoke rising from it. She saw someone stumble out through the gate, their clothes on fire. She thought at first that it was a man, but the fire suddenly flared brighter, and she heard the unmistakable sound of a wendigo dieing. She ran forward.
When Nahanni entered the village she saw several knots of men and wendigo fighting. Some of the men and older boys were armed with torches—using them to keep the wendigo back—while others with bows tried to shoot the wendigo with arrows. The largest group was protecting the longhouse, keeping half a dozen wendigo from setting fire to it, as they had apparently done to some of the smaller lodges.
Nahanni's quick count showed a dozen wendigo, and twice as many defenders. She could see several people were down, lying unmoving in the snow. She had no idea how many wendigo had started this attack, but another vanished as someone's arrow found its heart.
Nahanni charged at the backs of the group of wendigo in front of the longhouse, with a stake in each hand. She killed two of them before any of the wendigo knew she was there.
The remaining four wendigo snarled as they turned to face her. They attacked. Nahanni leapt into the air and kicked out with her feet at the two closest. Their heads snapped back and they fell to the ground. Nahanni ducked under the lunge of a third wendigo, and plunged one of her stakes into its chest. Her stake caught in its ribs, and she couldn't pull it free before the wendigo exploded into dust, taking her stake with it.
Nahanni transferred her remaining stake to her right hand while she backed away, keeping her eyes on the wendigo, waiting for them to come to her. The wendigo she had kicked came back to their feet slowly, all of their attention focused on her. One of the warriors took advantage of that, and put an arrow into one of their backs.
The wendigo knew that the tide had turned in this battle. A third of their number was gone. Some of them broke toward the gate. They were met by Ashiwut, Moguago and the others who had been running after Nahanni.
Nahanni kept her attention on the two wendigo in front of her. She struck at one of them, but this wendigo had learned from the deaths of its fellows, and dodged away from her. Nahanni whipped around toward the other, and sank her stake into its heart.
The last wendigo looked at Nahanni for a second before it turned and ran. Nahanni chased after it. She leapt, and landed on the wendigo's back. It stumbled, and fell to the ground. She drove her stake into its back.
Nahanni's stake vanished with the wendigo. She looked up and saw a knot of men and wendigo fighting by the gate. She heard cries behind her, coming from the longhouse. She heard Sebequa's voice crying out. "Mandokee! No!"
Nahanni looked around. The wendigo still alive in the village were surrounded by men. The hunters had become the hunted. There was little hope for any of them. She dashed into the longhouse.
Most of the village's women and children had taken shelter here. Nahanni's eyes probed the darkness, looking for Mandokee. She saw him near the back of the longhouse, his mouth on the neck of a child. Sebequa was lying on the floor nearby.
Mandokee looked up and saw Nahanni. He threw the limp body of the child aside and rose to his feet, snarling, blood dripping down his chin. "They say the blood of the Protector is sweeter than any child's!"
"You will never know," said Nahanni.
Mandokee growled and charged at her. Nahanni stood her ground, waiting for him. Mandokee leapt the last few yards, his hands reaching out toward her, his fingers crooked into talons. She grabbed him and pivoted, slamming his body down hard against the ground. If he had been a man, it would have knocked the breath out of him, but Mandokee had no breath. He rolled back to his feet and attacked her again. He was met by her foot in his face.
Nahanni looked around for a weapon with which to kill Mandokee, but there was nothing near her. She saw the cooking fire burning in the nearby pit. She looked back at Mandokee, who was rubbing his chin, and smiling at her. "It takes more than dancing to kill me."
"You're already dead," said Nahanni.
"And you're going to join me." Mandokee charged again.
This time Nahanni held on after she grabbed Mandokee, and they both fell to the ground together. She rolled with him, toward the fire. Mandokee seemed intent on getting his fangs into her throat, and didn't notice the flames until Nahanni pressed the back of his head into them.
Mandokee howled, and struggled to break free as his hair caught fire. Nahanni held on, ignoring the pain in her fingers from the heat, pressing his head down into the coals. Mandokee screamed, as he burst into flames, and turned into ash in Nahanni's hands.
Nahanni pulled back her hands, and looked at them. Her skin was red, and she saw some blisters starting to rise on her knuckles, but she wasn't badly burned. She turned to the child Mandokee had been feeding from and saw she was held in her mother's arms. The woman was crying, and holding the girl's head to her breast, and rocking her body in her arms. Nahanni knew that there was nothing that could be done for the child, and turned her attention to Sebequa. She was lying still on the ground, but Nahanni could see that she was breathing. She motioned to Kishegaequa. "Come, take care of Sebequa." she looked toward the door of the longhouse. She could still hear the sounds of fighting coming from outside. "I have more wendigo to kill."
The last of the surviving wendigo had just broken free from the circle of men who had surrounded them, and were running toward the gate when Nahanni got outside. They were chased by half a dozen arrows being shot by the warriors. One of the wendigo exploded into dust, leaving only one. Nahanni ran after it.
Nahanni snatched a stake from Ashiwut's hand as she passed him. He was too startled to follow right away. She heard his shout as she passed through the gate, but she ignored it. She wasn't going to let this wendigo get away again.
The wendigo was making for the river, hoping to escape into the water. Nahanni had no intention of letting that happen. She put all of her effort into her running. She knew she would catch it before it could escape.
The wendigo seemed to know it too. It suddenly stopped, and turned to face her. Nahanni recognised her father's face beneath the brow ridges and fangs. She saw the ridges and fangs fade, and she saw him smile at her.
She knew that this time, she wouldn't be fooled into hesitating. This thing in front of her wasn't her father. It was a monster, whose kind had killed her friends, and a little child. She snarled as she leapt at him, sounding like a wendigo herself.
The wendigo who had been her father Makee, was ready for her attack. It shifted its weight, and twisted as she struck. Her stake sank into its chest, but it was wide of its heart.
Makee continued to twist, and grabbed onto Nahanni as he did so. Her stake was wrenched from her hand, still stuck in the body of the wendigo. It slammed her down onto the hard packed snow of the path, stunning her for a moment. The wendigo was on top of her before she could recover, its fangs sinking into her neck.
Part of Nahanni wanted to stop. Just lie there, and let the wendigo steal her life. She knew that that was part of the wendigo's magic. Their victims stopped struggling when the wendigo's fangs entered their bodies. She felt at peace. She just had to do nothing. It was so simple. She felt herself slipping away.
A vision flashed through her mind. A dark skinned girl, with straggly curls of hair hanging from her head. Her face was painted with grey. Nahanni heard her snarl. She remembered the hunt: chasing through the forest. She remembered the feel of a stake sinking into the heart of a wendigo. She felt the pain of the wendigo's fangs in her neck.
Nahanni brought her knee up into the wendigo's crotch with all of her strength. The force of the blow was enough to lift the wendigo off her, even without the effect that blow had on a male.
Nahanni rolled to her feet, and drew her knife. She ignored the feel of her blood, still running from the wound in her neck. She looked at the wendigo, with her blood running from its mouth.
The wendigo's eyes flicked to her knife, and she saw it smile. "I gave you that knife, Little Bird. Now you think you will kill me with it? I'm not afraid of a blade."
Nahanni's knife slashed through the air. It was a moment that she had dreamed about a dozen times. The blade cut into the demon's throat. "You should be," she snarled.
Makee stopped, looking stunned. Nahanni knew that her knife hadn't cut all the way through his throat, not enough to kill the demon, anyway. It was enough to stop it though, and make it unable to avoid her next slash. This time she felt the obsidian blade of her knife break as it struck the bone in the wendigo's neck, but it had finished its job. The wendigo dissolved into a cloud of dust, that vanished on the night wind.
Nahanni looked down, and saw the broken blade of her knife lying in the snow. For some reason she felt that it was essential that she pick it up. It was a good blade, she could still make a new knife with it. It wouldn't be as good as the knife she had broken, but it would still make a good knife. She knelt down to pick it up.
Nahanni staggered as she stood back up. She felt dizzy, and felt something sticking her jacket to her skin. She looked down and saw a red streak running down the front of her jacket, across her breast. She wondered for a second what it was, before she felt another twinge of pain from her neck, and she knew it was her blood.
She knelt down and grabbed a handful of snow to press against her neck. Another wave of dizziness washed over her as she stood up again. She stood still, swaying on her feet a bit before it passed. She started back down the path to the village.
The village seemed to be much farther away now, than it had been when she had been chasing the wendigo. She had to stop a couple of times to lean against a tree to keep from falling over. At least her neck had stopped bleeding. Her first handfull of snow had all melted away, washing the blood from her neck as it did so. She didn't notice any more running down from the wound. Her skin felt clammy, and cold. She found the parka and mittens that she had discarded earlier, and pulled them back on. They made her feel warmer, but it still seemed to be a long way back to the village.
Nahanni woke up in the warmth of her bed, she lay still for a moment, trying to remember how she got there. She had a vague memory of having fallen into a snowbank, and then the sound of Ashiwut calling her, but at first she couldn't remember why she had fallen. The memory of her fight with her father suddenly came flooding back. She sat up quickly, and winced in pain, both from her head, and her neck. Her hand went to her wound, and she felt the dressing that had been placed over it. She was naked, but she could see her clothes were hung by the fire, as if to dry. They looked like they had been washed, but she could see the stains from her blood on them. She got out of bed and felt them, expecting to find them still damp, but she was surprised to find them dry. She got dressed quickly, and went out to go to the latrine.
Nahanni looked around the village when she was finished in the latrine. With that taken care of, she was feeling hungry, and thirsty. The village was strangely empty, and silent. She wondered where everyone could be, but then she heard a faint sound carried on the wind. She forgot about her stomach. It was the sound of a funeral chant.
When she reached the funeral grounds, Nahanni saw that there were several bodies on raised platforms. She could see the villagers gathered around them, and she saw Ashiwut placing the torch into the wood piled beneath the platforms. She wondered why he was doing this. Conducting funerals was one of Grandmother's duties, but then she recognised the robes that one of the bodies was wrapped in: Grandmother's finest. She couldn't recognise any of the other bodies before the rising smoke obscured them, but she had seen that one of them was very small, and she remembered the child, Eshshawwat, that Mandokee had cast aside before he had attacked her.
Nahanni moved up beside Ashiwut. He was surprised to see her, for a moment, but he didn't say anything. She joined the rest of the village in their wailing for the departed.
They stayed until the fires started to burn down, the bodies consumed by the flames. Nahanni hadn't brought her broken knife with her when she left the village, so she borrowed Ashiwut's for what she needed to do. She used his knife to cut off the long braid of her hair, and then she threw the braid into the burning fire, to be burned with Grandmother's earthly remains, so that part of her would go with her Grandmother's spirit.