Hour of the Wolf – Chapter 2

Baxter stood a few steps back behind Gideon as they walked down the muddy path around the farm, listening to the distressed owner as he described the event of his own encounter with the creature they were tasked with hunting.

“I sent my wife for the gun and then told her to keep the kids in the house, but by the time I reached the sheep pen, by God Almighty, t’was blood from here to kingdom come.”

“Did you happen to look upon the beast itself? A glimpse at least?”

“Aye, but t’was not much more than that, I’m afraid. I had my lantern in hand and when I raised it I saw its eyes, bright as fire, looking straight at me. It had dark fur and a bloody muzzle, all teeth… And quick as that, it ran into the night, ‘fore I could see more.”

“Could you tell which manner of creature it was? Mayhap a wild mongrel or a wolf?”

“T’was no wolf, Master Payne. That much I know for sure… That thing was no wolf.”

“What was it then?”

“That I cannot say, something the devil himself put together.”

Baxter watched as Gideon’s shoulders stiffed in his walk and he knew his master was trying his best not to lose his patience and snap at the farmer. Master Payne was a man of faith himself. He had a wooden crucifix inside his tunic and he prayed over meals. But he did not see the hand of God nor the Devil in most of his work and was often quick to correct those that thought otherwise. That said, he didn’t snap at the farmer. Gideon knew that witnesses to such things would often prefer not to speak of what they saw, and often their testimony was all they had to go on. So as harsh as Master Payne could be, he knew how to rein it in when he needed something from people.

“And this… Not-wolf creature. Did you happen to see which direction it ran to?”

“Aye, come, this way…”

The farmer led them away from his home and past a small wooden gate through the cobblestone waist-high wall into an open area where wicker fences separated a few patches of vegetables from a larger pasture area. Following along the piled stones, they happened upon a pen where about a dozen sheep were densely packed together in a corner, occupying perhaps a third of the available space. The farmer tapped a plank of wood on the enclosure’s wall that looked fairly newer than the rest and then indicated the nearest post to which it was attached. As they stopped, Gideon looked around briefly and pulled out a notebook from his pocket, along with a small and sharp piece of coal. He sketched something with basic geometric shapes and simple lines and blew on the page to remove excess dust before moving to close the gap between him and the farmer.

“That’s where I saw it… I was over there, perhaps ten, twenty paces that way…” He indicated the direction they had come from. “Of course, it was night so I can’t really be sure.”

“Of course,” Gideon said, approaching the post to look closer.

If it wasn’t for that, Baxter would’ve missed the scratch marks there. They were barely visible, but as Master Payne leaned forth, he noticed the trio of lines through the wood pole across the top.

“And how long ago was all that again?”

“Little over a week ago, I reckon,” the farmer offered with a shrug.

Master Payne still asked him a couple more questions, but at that point, it felt clear that they had obtained all the useful information they would out of the simple man, and gave him a single shilling as a thank you for the information. That seemed to brighten the man’s otherwise sullen mood for being made to think about the lost sheep and frightful night.

Master and apprentice left the farm to begin to make their way back to the Golden Hind Inn on foot. Despite the roads across Heatherdale and the connected settlements being in poor condition, and being little more than beaten dirt, at least the locals had dug a ditch on either side, preventing the rainfall from forming too large of a puddle that could obstruct traffic and take longer to dry. The ditch was complexly filled and flowed like a small, red and muddy creek, but the farmer had left a long plank near the point where the trail up to the farmstead connected to the road, and the two men could cross over it without getting their boots wet. The walk to the Golden Hind was long and it would be a miserable one if they had to do it with soggy boots sloshing at every step. The road was starting to dry and while the surface was still wet, their feet at least wouldn’t sink deep into it as they walked, which was an improvement compared to the early morning when they first set out.

They had talked to perhaps a dozen farmers, and most of them were of very little use. As little as the last one had been able to contribute to their information-gathering mission, it had still been more than most. A great many men seemed to have tales of how they had single-handedly scared the beast away or fought it, and a few more had fanciful descriptions of it that were likely not a good match for what they actually saw. It was common practice in the countryside that if you had a good story to share by the fireside of an inn or tavern, folks would pay for your beer as you told it. And many creative men could invent tales in order to keep the mugs and tankards flowing. Surely they had some merit in providing entertainment for people in these forgotten backwaters of the country, but they did make truth-seeking a much more difficult endeavour, especially because these storytellers seemed to have some unspoken code of honour to never go back on the stories they shared as truth in the pub, even when in private. Admirable ethics, but ultimately a hassle.

They walked up across the quickly drying mud road, and Baxter looked with some suspicion at the forest which grew right up to the very edge of the road, sometimes with tree roots reaching into the ditch by the side of the road like an animal bending its neck to drink water. How easy it would be, at night, for something in these woods to jump a traveller, he thought to himself, wondering how it had not happened, as the creature seemed to be focused on livestock more than anything. Aside from one hunting hound and a couple of guard dogs that had been mauled but not consumed, the only victims of the beast lurking in the dark had been sheep, and an injured young would-be hunter, who thankfully would live.

As they reached the top of a gentle incline, they could see Heatherdale in front of them. The settlement was formed mostly by scattered farmsteads and small rural properties, and what passed for a village centre was right downhill from where they were; half a dozen buildings formed around a small plaza with a well and a small rural church with an adjacent cemetery. The village was located at the fork where one road split in two and everything was made with the same grey stone, which looked even greyer under the cloudy afternoon sky. The village would appear utterly lifeless if it wasn’t for the dozen scattered people moving by, pushing wheelbarrows full of sacks of grain, carrying baskets on their hips, or in the case of two youngsters, running around with little purpose beyond mirth. And if Heatherdale was this small, well, the surrounding villages had even less of a centre. No wonder they had passed onto Mayor Harland Fletcher the task of hiring and hosting the hunter. Compared to the surrounding areas, Baxter reckoned, Heatherdale was a metropolis.

The Golden Hind was not located in the village centre properly but a few minutes up the road by the cemetery, and past the ruins of what once had been a little stone house and barn, not completely overgrown and reclaimed by nature. During the day, the two stories lodge structure seemed much more impressive, and it was clear that the Hind was the largest and most expensive structure around, and perhaps the most prosperous business, though given Baxter had not seen another guest yet, he reckoned that that wasn’t worth much.

As they entered the Hind’s main room, Gideon stood at the threshold and took a moment to beat the excess mud off his boots with his cane and then with the help of the door frame. Baxter mimicked him, out of consideration for the two Grover kids who seemed to work the inn. He was a little disappointed to find that the young man who had helped the driver wasn’t in the main room that afternoon, and instead it was the bulky, old and hairy Grover patriarch that came to their table.

“Master Payne, how was your outing?” he asked without seeming really sure that was what he should be asking but compelled by politeness to show some interest in the guests' activities.

“It was sufficiently useful,” Payne said dismissively, “I would like some tea, bread and bacon if you have it.”

“I do, sir. We also have some fresh sausage I could fry if you wish.”

“Aye, then do that too,” Payne said, “and for the boy as well.”

He indicated Baxter with his head as the young apprentice took his seat across from the master. Gideon waited for the innkeeper to retreat to the kitchen to fetch them their food, and then reached out for his ledger, opening a page where he had scribbled with a charcoal tip a crude map of the settlement, with little rectangles representing the different buildings on the farmsteads they visited, lines for the roads and blotches for the treelines.

“So, we know that sheep got taken here, here…” Gideon began circling the affected properties. “Here and here.”

“That’s right, master. And the beast was seen here and here along the road…” Baxter said, pointing out two spots on the map where some travellers had sighted the beast, according to the people they interviewed.

“Yes, yes… Allegedly,” Gideon said with a dismissing tone but still marked the spots.

And then he grunted. As if he had just noticed something. Baxter leaned forth over the table, looking at the page and trying to figure out what Gideon had realized, but he couldn’t see anything beyond the sketchy map they were studying.

“What did they call this patch of forest here again?” Gideon placed his finger on one of the large, wooded areas right in the centre of the constellation of farmlands between Heatherdale and two of its neighbours.

“I believe it’s Briarwold or something to that effect,” Baxter tried to recall.

“Yes, Briarwold. You see, almost all the farm attacks happened around these woods. Always at spitting distance from them. Even your roadside sightings aren’t that far…”

“So, do you think that’s where we will find the beast?”

“I believe it took residence there, yes… But we won’t find it there, Baxter. Have I taught you nothing all these years?”

Baxter's cheeks flushed and he felt a tightness in his throat. He should be used to such reproaches by now, given how often they happened, but still, they felt like a heavy weight was suddenly placed on his chest.

“Sire… I…” he began but was never allowed to finish.

“Listen to me, boy, you don’t go into the beast’s territory, not if you can avoid it… That’s where it’s most at home and where it knows the grounds better than you do.” Master Payne shook his head, impatient to go over it again. “We know where it lives, though, so we know where to set out a trap… There’s a barn here, on that second farm we visited, which the farmer isn’t using presently, I believe…”

“Oh yeah, the old one on the top of a hill.”

“Precisely. It has stone walls and no windows. If we can trap the beast in there, it has nowhere to run and we can kill it…” Gideon's eyes narrowed with focus as he tapped onto the small square representing that barn. “You can kill it,” he added.

“Master…”

“You can tell me how happy you are about that later; we have but a couple of hours of daylight to burn to set out a trap and…”

Before he could continue, father Grover walked into the room carrying two large wooden plates filled with bread, eggs, bacon and sausages, and placed them down in front of them. A moment to scratch his head as he told Gideon:

“Your tea will take a while, master, the water needs boiling.”

“Of course.” Gideon nodded. “Say, Master Grover… Is there a butcher in town?”

“Yes, Master Payne. Down the street and across from the church. She’s the one that makes our sausages…”

“Thank you, Master Grover… I shall be back shortly for my tea then,” Gideon said, standing up.

Baxter moved to do the same, but the old master shook his head and gestured for him to sit back down.

“You should eat, we might be out all night and we can’t afford to be weak or distracted, you hear?” Master Payne said firmly. “Once you are done here, fetch the weapons from the black trunk and ready them.”

Payne pulled a key ring from his coat and separated one of them from the rest, to place it on the table in front of Baxter. The young apprentice took the key with some reverence for the rare privilege of being given unsupervised access to what perhaps were some of the more dangerous and expensive items they hauled around.

“I… I shall, master.”

“Good. Now if you excuse me, I need to purchase some bait…”

And with those words, Gideon rested his weight upon the cane and began to walk back outside. For someone his age, Baxter was always surprised with how much energy he seemed to have; unshaken by a whole day trekking around the countryside, he was willing to do the trip to the village centre and back without a blink of hesitation and with nothing in his stomach besides their modest lunch, many hours before. There were men half his age who would not have such disposition. But Baxter noticed how these bursts of energy seemed to become more frequent and more intense whenever they were close to the decisive moments of a hunt.

It was almost like Master Payne wasn’t simply doing what he did for monetary compensation, or a sense of purpose of defending men from dark and dangerous things. No, if Baxter didn’t know any better, he would think that the old man actually enjoyed the hunt for the hunt’s sake. And then Baxter turned his attention back to his plate of hearty food, cutting a large chunk of sausage and shoving it in his mouth ravenously. Master was right, and he better eat up. It would be a long night.

Baxter found himself crouching in the hayloft inside the old stone barn on the edge of the Fenton property, hiding partially behind one of the wooden poles that supported the main hand-hewn beam across the roof. It was partially collapsed, and blessedly the skies had parted revealing a bright full moon that night so that Baxter wasn’t completely blind in the absence of torches or lanterns. He held a crossbow in his hand. Not just any crossbow, but a hefty one with a steel bow and foot stirrup, as a strong man would need to rest it on the ground and use both hands to pull the strings. Baxter was not a strong man, however, and because of that, he had a cranequin hanging from his belt. The device could be attached to the back of the crossbow so that he could use a pair of levers to load it instead. It was a slow process, and he was unlikely to be given a chance to reload and shoot again if the beast wasn’t pinned in position. And that was what the bait over the leghold trap was there for.

The smell of blood was nauseating, and Baxter was grateful whenever the inconsistent night breeze would blow through the roof gap and the barn doors which were thrown open wide to flush it away, even if just for a brief seconds. The massive pig head was sitting like a macabre centrepiece among a feast of guts, bones and other less edible parts of the animal, and Gideon had also purchased two buckets of blood, one of which he splashed down onto the gruesome offering for their quarry, and the other he had punctured a hole at the bottom and walked it from the edge of the woods to the barn door, leaving an aromatic trail to seduce any predator into the barn. Baxter had manifested some concern that such a bait could attract a different, more common predator than the one they were hunting, but Gideon was sceptic about that. ‘Predators don’t like to share hunting grounds,’ he said, explaining that he thought their beast would’ve scared away most foxes and wolves from the area long ago. But in the worst-case scenario, he told Baxter, they would simply shoot the wolf or fox that came into the barn, sell the pelt and set the trap again the next night.

It was an elegant plan in its simplicity. The leghold trap concealed under straw and bits of butcher refuse would snap, hopefully pinning the creature in place. A piton and rope had been attached to it, alongside a counterweight. When it snapped, the piton would be set loose and drop the counterweight, which would pull the sliding door of the barn closed through two cleverly positioned pulleys. So if the leghold failed in trapping the beast, at least it would be prevented from fleeing back the way it came through the door. Baxter would take aim and fire into the trapped beast below, while Gideon, hidden behind debris towards the back of the barn, had his Prussian flintlock rifle prepared to take the shot should Baxter miss his, or should the beast not go down with the impact of his crossbow’s quarrel.

All they had to do, after taking their positions, was to wait, and since the beast seemed to only come out at night, they set everything in place before twilight and then sat down for a long wait. That was the part of the job that Baxter liked the least, waiting. But he was at least used to it by now. Many times, often at night, they had set a trap for whatever they needed to hunt and then hunkered down for hours, very often from sunset to sunrise, waiting for it to be sprung. Not rarely, they had spent multiple nights watching the same trap before their quarry fell into it. And there were times when it simply didn’t work, and after several nights watching the same spot, fighting sleep and trying to remain focused for hours and hours of inactivity, they simply had to pick up and rethink their strategy.

But that night, crouched in the haylock of a barn, listening to the buzzing nocturnal insects and the distant hooting of an owl, it was the first time Baxter was holding a loaded weapon, and expected to use it. Generally, he stayed back, tasked with keeping watch alongside Gideon, making sure his master was awake and carrying the tools needed for the job. If Gideon's first shot missed, he was in charge of reloading while Gideon reached for a spare to use, and when the hunt was finished, sometimes he was trusted with the important but gruesome task of collecting a trophy. But not that night. That night he would be the one doing the killing. And that caused a twist in his stomach.

He was squeamish but he recognized the need for the services Gideon offered and that he was being trained into. Things were lurking in the dark that would prey on humans, and consume and destroy if they weren’t stopped. And there were only a handful of people with the knowledge of what they even were. But even as he recognized the need for blood to be spilt, Baxter had never enjoyed watching it being done, and while he knew that one day he’d be called to be the one doing the spilling, he had never really thought that that day might come so soon. And now he was holding a heavy crossbow and listening to the crickets in the night while watching a pile of pig gore glisten under the full moon. The only sounds in the barn were the creaking of the old wood, adjusting to the night temperature and his weight, and his own quiet breathing. It was a mild late summer night, and there was a nip in the air, yet he found his hands were sweating.

‘Maybe nothing will happen tonight,’ he thought to himself, ‘probably nothing will happen tonight.’ And even with those self-soothing words repeated again and again inside his mind, he tightened his grip on the crossbow's engraved body, and moved his trigger finger just slightly, to feel the tension of the metal lever aching for release. He could almost feel it, the tension on the steel bow, all that energy stored there, pulsing silent, teetering precariously on the edge and needing nothing more than a tiny pull of the long metal trigger to erupt in abrupt and sudden violence. To burst into the air with incredible speed and find flesh to bury itself into. It was scary to hold such force, but also thrilling, in a slow-burning way.

The first hours of the evening came and went, and after the first few times being startled by a sudden snap or crack across the old wood beams or the boards on the hayloft beneath him, Baxter was starting to find his calm. If his sense of time wasn’t too distorted, it should be close to midnight when he suddenly realized he wasn’t hearing crickets anymore, all of a sudden, and a strange sound came from outside the barn. It was distinct from anything else he heard that evening. It sounded like heavy footsteps, and yet, they also sounded padded. A quick thumping like something sprinting, but it stopped. His heart was racing and he could feel it beat in his temples as he watched the shape of the door cast by the moonlight on the floor, the matted straw and the trail of blood leading to their bait pile. And then, the shape of pointed ears and a furred head formed from the shadows, as the sound of vigorous sniffing came from the outside.

That was no mere wolf, Baxter knew immediately. By size alone, he guessed that his master's initial hunch about a dire-beast was correct. He heard of such beasts before, large and more aggressive versions of their kin; they were rare but rather deadly. As the beast loomed closer to the door though, he started to doubt his original assessment. The broad shoulders upon which the head sat, and the way its forelegs moved were just wrong in ways he couldn’t explain. And as the beast moved finally past the threshold and he could see more than just its shadow, he had to suppress a gasp, or perhaps a squeal of fear, by biting his lip.

It was much larger than a mere wolf, larger than a man even, but with a form somewhere between the two. The long hands ended in clawed fingers, and its torso was flat and broad like a human's, though if the beast was a human, it would be walking upright rather than crawling. The fur seemed to be deep black, but at night, it would be hard to tell if that was the case. It sniffed the air, seeming almost suspicious of the offered feast, and then it moved further in until it was past the barn door in its entirety and the size of that monstrosity was evident. Baxter slowly raised the crossbow, training it on the centre of mass of the beast, reckoning that in its man-like shape, it was where the heart ought to be.

As he lifted the weapon, however, a glint of moonlight on the tip of the quarrel glistened from the wolfsbane oil smeared across it. And even the subtle glint was enough for the monster to turn its head, and stare towards the hayloft, directly into Baxter. He gasped, seeing those amber eyes catch the moonlight through the collapsed roof and seemingly flash brightly for a moment. There was no doubt in his mind that he had been made, and as his eyes met the beast’s, he was also certain that it had some measure of intelligence there. He could swear that he spotted something close to recognition. And out of fear more than anything, he pulled on the trigger and loosened the quarrel.

He did so in a jerking motion, even though he had trained with the weapon enough to know he should’ve squeezed with constant pressure until release. The crossbow was quieter than a musket but on a silent night like that, in such a confined space, it sounded brutally loud. The distance between him and the beast was short, but his aim was bad, his motion on the trigger wrong and the creature was gifted with reflexes beyond what Baxter could believe. It shifted, hopping aside to let the projectile land on the straw and miss it entirely. But in doing so, its long and strangely humanoid arm pressed onto the leghold trap and it clenched with an even louder clang of steel and the wet, squishy sound of its teeth stomping on flesh. Like a dog, it whimpered in pain and shock and tried to pull free, loosening the piton and causing the suspended bag of dirt to drop. Ropes were reeled, pulleys spun and the barn door was brought shut with a violent impact as the beast reared up and whimpers turned into a violent growl. A deep growl that seemed to rumble across the whole barn and inside Baxter’s very soul.

He froze, for a moment, holding the empty crossbow and staring in a mix of fascination and horror as the rearing turned into standing, and the beast loomed, seven feet tall even in its hunched-forth posture. And grasping on the edges of the trap with human-like dexterity, it began to pull on the iron, with enough strength to cause it to creak and open. Baxter should’ve been drawing his spare pistol, and perhaps moving to a different position, raising from his crouch so he could better run; but instead, he just watched as the creature freed itself, blood dripping from where iron teeth had bit onto flesh. It discarded the removed trap away with a furious toss, sending it clattering loudly against the stone walls. And then Gideon’s rifle sounded its report in the now claustrophobic quarters of the barn, with a thunderous roar and sudden flash assaulting Baxter's senses before the sulfuric scent of powder filled the air. The distance in the barn was too short for the familiar whistling of the bullet to be heard as it crossed the air. Immediately after the bang, Baxter heard the sound of thumping and another pained bestial sound, between a growl and a whimper. The huge creature stumbled backwards, crashing onto the wooden beam with all its weight. Being exposed to the elements in the absence of proper roofing had made the wood both mushy on the inside and brittle on the outside, and it cracked without offering much resistance. The whole hayloft then tilted at first, dropping Baxter from his perch onto the straw below, which was far too thin a layer to really soften the drop.

And as he fell, he found his face inches away from the blood-covered pig head, from which he recoiled in irrational and startled fear, reaching into his waist as he tried to raise to his feet, to reach for his wheellock pistol. The little moonlight that made it through the gap on the roof was suddenly extinguished as the beast stepped forward, looming over him, towering like a colossus of muscle, fur and fury, and raised its paw. Baxter turned around and raised the pistol to aim squarely at its chest at point blank. A sure shot if he ever saw one, but he was far too slow. That clawed paw came whirling down and knocked the weapon off his hand, sending it flying towards the closed barn door.

His ears were still ringing from the first shot when he heard a second one and saw from the corner of his eyes Gideon rising from his hideout, brandishing his own spare weapon and taking another shot at the beast. This one struck it on the thick fur around the neck, and while Baxter couldn’t tell whether or not the bullet had found flesh there, the beast reacted as if it did. Instead of mauling down the scrawny lad at its feet, the monster roared and tossed itself against the barn door, making its own body a battering ram. The stone wall shook and the collapsed roof and the rest of the hayloft were precipitated by the impact. The door was shattered into splinters as the black mass of the monster shot through it. Gideon was rushing towards Baxter as the beast escaped from the kill zone through sheer brute force, reaching down for the young lad’s collar.

Gideon was strong for a man his age, and he yanked Baxter to his feet while shouting furiously:

“How could you miss that shot! How could you miss it!”

His ribs were still aching from the drop, as were his legs and hips. His forearm was cut from the claws that swooped down and knocked off his gun and yet, the harsh, furious words of his master seemed to cut deeper and hurt more than all his physical wounds. His fear wasn’t any lesser than when he was laying down on the floor and looking up to certain death, but a mix of anger and shame boiled inside him and compelled Baxter to push his adoptive father and mentor away, shoving him with almost enough force to cause him to stumble and fall. He recovered his balance, but barely, and by then, Baxter had rushed towards the broken door. The metal of the wheellock reflected the light of the full moon, and he grabbed it on his way out of the barn, rushing across the meadow while tears struck down his face and he sniffed and did his best to push down sobbing. He had failed, but this was his kill, and he could still get it.

“Baxter! Lad! Come back here!” Gideon said, trying to rush after him, but even with his cane, he would never be able to catch up with the sprinting youngster, let alone without it.

Baxter kept running, looking at the black form that ran ahead of him across the grassland pastures and towards the treeline. Even in his turmoil of shame, fear and anger, he could appreciate the majestic ballet of muscle that compelled it forth in a Plutonian gallop ahead. He realized that it ran much faster than him, even injured. He couldn’t take the shot running, and if he stopped, it would get further away. But the distance between them increased at every step anyway. And then the beast passed the treeline and entered the Briarwold to disappear into the darkness, as the moonlight couldn’t make it through the canopy.

Baxter continued to run, slowing down towards the edge of the forest and stopping there for a moment, squinting and hesitating. And then he found out that stopping was a big mistake. As soon as he did, he began to shake. Or perhaps that was just when he realized that he was shaking. The dense woodland was dark, but not pitch black, he reckoned, and the beast was rather large and wounded. He could go back and face Gideon’s fury and disappointment without a prize, or he could venture deeper, and maybe bring the beast’s head and show that he was a competent hunter, even if he missed the first shot. Or he’d die. That was always in the cards, Baxter reckoned, but still, he stepped forward.

He walked through the thick woods and quickly realized why the locals called it Briarwold. The prickly bushes were everywhere, and they scratched and punctured his legs through his pants as he pushed through. The pain was distracting, but his whole body seemed to be moving on thrill alone, and he found himself able to dismiss the pain rather easily as he carried on. Still, as soon as he spotted a more or less clear path through the prickly underbrush, he began to follow it, reckoning that the beast would do the same. He passed through large old oaks and sycamores and realized that some of the trees there must be far older than Heatherdale. He wondered if any of them was around before, in the time of knights and before yet, during the Roman occupation. And perhaps some old enough to have seen the druids before that. There was something utterly primaeval about these woods, different from most forests he had been to. The ground was irregular, with rocks popping here and there and plenty of long, thick and arched roots for him to trip on, yet he did his best to keep moving, keeping the pistol raised and keeping his balance. He listened to the sounds around him, imagining that such a lumbering beast would be quite loud when moving around, and trying to guess how deep into the woods he was at any given moment. But the truth was, he had long lost any sense of distance or direction. His courage to move ahead was greatly aided by the fact that he didn’t know when to turn back.

And that was when he heard the snapping of a twig, and a group of nocturnal birds took flight not too far to the right of where he was. The wind was rustling across the trees and causing branches to dance, and Baxter froze, listening to his own breathing for a while, and then he heard a noise much like dry leaves crushing underfoot, coming from the same direction. It was uphill from where he stood, as the whole forest seemed to be a little sloped, so he began to climb. First with careful steps, and then as the incline got steeper, using his hands to grab onto trunks and roots for balance on the floor.

‘Baxter, you did it. You’ll be lost in the woods and, if not killed by that beast, you shall fall, break a leg and starve to death. Good show, chap,’ he thought sardonically. Another crunching sound, way too close. He stopped, and then when he began to move again, he did so painfully slowly, almost not moving at all. He placed his free hand on a moss-covered rock and pulled himself up, to spot a small clearing ahead. Basking in the moonlight, the beast stood still, panting on its fours, it paced on occasion, turned around and then looked over its shoulders. It seemed almost scared. Baxter found himself watching it for longer than needed to take aim, seeing how it seemed uncertain of whether or not it was followed, and tried to ensure no one was coming. Baxter was downwind from it, and it would not be able to smell him. It stood in the light and he was in the dark. The light of the moon wasn’t there to bounce off the metal on his pistol. He had it.

Baxter raised his right arm and took his shooter stance, remembering his time practising with Gideon, firing on much smaller targets, like clay pots, at similar distances. He controlled his breathing and looked down the barrel. A smoothbore flintlock wasn’t the most precise of weapons, but the creature was less than twenty paces away. It was a shot he could make, easily. Nothing fancy, just train the barrel onto the centre of its body and squeeze gently on the trigger until the weapon went off. Spewing hot lead, fire and smoke and rending flesh. Baxter's eyes narrowed, and he saw the blood on that fur. And he hadn’t noticed it in the barn, and maybe his eyes were now better used to the darkness, but that fur wasn’t purely back, lighter grey emerged here and there. And on those light grey areas, he could see the dried blood from the previous shots. 

Baxter found himself once again fascinated by the beast and only became more entranced as it stood, in its hunched yet magnificent form. The fur across its chest didn’t hide the muscles below. The strong form of its chest, the massive neck and the powerful legs that carried it. And then Baxter's eyes were drawn to what was between its legs. Only the silhouette of large fur-clad orbs. Not a surprise to find such a component of the male anatomy on the beast, but given how human it looked, even just the silhouette cut against the background was enough to cause Baxter's cheeks to flush deep red. And seeing the blood running down that neck through a very human-like chest, he suddenly decided, against all logic, he would not take the shot.

He lowered the gun and breathed out quietly. He would just make his way back to civilization, undetected as he had come there, and tell Gideon he couldn’t track the beast. He’d face his anger, and the shame of ruining the hunt, and then he’d resume his apprenticeship. Maybe next year he’d be given another chance. He just had to get back.

And as he took half a step back, his feet slipped on the moss and he felt his chest leaning backwards. He tossed his arm forward for balance, but a startled yelp had parted from his lips. And that was enough for the beast to turn its head and see him. And he was still teetering on the edge of the rock, out of balance. He couldn’t find his footing to run, even as the monster began to charge towards him.

It all happened in a second, but it felt so much slower. The beast was but a couple of paces away from him and closing fast when he lost his balance for good and he began to fall down. As luck would have it, the beast had lunged with its claws forward, trying to slash across his chest, and missing, for the most part. The tip of its claws still grazed through, cutting his shirt and skin, but Baxter was falling down, moving away from it. The ground wasn’t far, and he crashed back first against the incline he had been climbing, soft dirt soaking some of the impact but the gun flew from his hand and his body took on a spin. He kept rolling, falling downhill, hitting rocks and roots and tumbling down until the slope became less steep and his body lost enough momentum that the impact against an old root stopped him for good.

Baxter had hit his head a couple of times on his way down, and as he tried to get up, a sharp pain on his ankle and knee across the leg prevented it. He screamed, not even thinking about the beast nearby, only of the present pain. And by the time his lungs were empty, he realized he was fading fast. His senses were dull, his vision was blurring and it was harder and harder to stay away. He heard the crushing of leaves. Something heavy with padded feet approached him. And Baxter knew his fate was sealed. He only prayed to God for the mercy of falling unconscious before the beast began to feast. And as he became unable to keep his head up and it thumped onto the soft dirt below, he realized that his wish might be granted.

The full moon, now a little more than a blurry silver light in the sky, filtered through the canopy. Until something came in between him and it. A large darkness loomed, smelling of blood and fur, with a growling breath. The moon was gone. And everything was darkness.