The Night Hunter

There was a time in the deep past when the wolves roamed these mountains like gods. They were bigger then, almost as large as bears and twice as deadly. Some say that the first men mated with the great she wolves and their children were shapeshifters who could change to wolf or man at will.

Even though the mighty wolves disappeared long ago, a few shape shifters still hunt in the forests and race across the valleys tirelessly with their wolf brethren. They are the night hunters, the objects of the terror rising in men's hearts when the moon is full.

In the lean years, starving wolves sometimes descend out of the mountains to the villages in the valley and kill livestock. The seasoned huntsmen know to never resist or hunt the wolves for fear that a night hunter might travel among them.

But when harvests are poor and the cattle’s skin clings loosely to their ribs, men fear starvation more than the wolves. And sometimes even more than the true creatures of the night.

I was reminded of this truth when I stopped late one evening at a waystation in the high country where hunting parties would rest after returning from the mountains, or to outfit for the arduous trek into the depths of the range.

Though it was high summer in the outer Carpathian's, the nights were already growing cold, and the beardless youngsters gathered around the flames shivered in threadbare cloaks. They kept elbowing one another to draw closer to the fire only to retreat moments later as the wind shifted and the heavy smoke from the pine boughs drove them back again.

The seasoned huntsmen like myself wore bison pelts and kept warm by smoking long pipes while taking turns telling the sort of tales hard men share when sitting around the fire in the midnight black.

Bone weary, I had hardly spoken a word, listening in silence as first one and then another told tales of hunting the heavy tusked boar or huge bears, ancient and scarred by numberless battles. But one among us had said even less than I, keeping his counsel, sitting well outside the circle surrounding the flames. He wore the heavy pelt of a Carpathian wolf, its head covering his brow like a Norse warrior's headdress.

The ancient ones call such men wolfskins due to their ferocity in battle. But I call any who kill a wolf bad fortune. Gazing with malice at the silent stranger, he returned my stare with the glare of one who had long since forgotten the tickle of fear on a dark, moonless night.

Leaning forward, I lit my pipe in the flames and asked him in a cold voice, Hunting wolves, or do they hunt thee, Wolfskin? But he answered with a dismissive grunt.

Some say Muma Padurii wanders these woods, I persisted, the goddess who names the wolves her precious children. Maybe thou should hunt somewhere else.

Rubbish, he finally replied, but when he said nothing else, I leaned back comfortably against my pack to smoke, the silvery moon beginning to pierce the trees on the otherwise darkened horizon.

Eventually, the moon rose above them, its full, bright face silencing all but the most stout among us, each thinking of one none dared name. A white beard cleared his throat, and as if on cue, a wolf howled and several of the youngsters flinched with fear.

Then the white beard spoke.

Not far from where I was weaned and raised, after a bad harvest, the winter cold crept down from the mountain during a harvest moon, and starving packs of wolves followed it, raiding and killing cattle and goats in several of our villages.

Our shaman warned us to retreat to the safety of our homes after nightfall and bolt our doors, telling us ‘Worse things than wolves are known to follow their animal brethren out of mountains.' In all of the villages save for one, we stayed in our homes and so lived to tell this tale at the sacrifice of only a cow or a few goats.

But the men in one village tried to protect their livestock by killing the alpha leader of the pack and wounding a few others, scattering the rest. The second night four of the five men sent out to guard their animals did not return in the morning. Their neighbors found them outside the village gate, their skeletons stripped bare save the tendons still holding them together and bits of red meat clinging to their shattered and splintered bones.

When the white beard paused, a wolf howled in the distance and I smelt the faint scent of urine in the night air.

The wolf's call was soon echoed by another.

Then another.

And then another.

The wolf skin spoke with a snarl in his throat, The wolves hunt man tonight, and the smell of urine grew abruptly stronger.

Quietly, I placed my left hand on the axe at my side, and I heard every seasoned hunter around the fire do the same.

Who told you this story, old man? I asked him sharply.

No one did, he replied quietly. I saw their skeletons with these eyes when still a man of only twenty winters. The doomed village huntsman led a hunting party of every man in the village who could wield an axe or handle a bow into the forest but when I saw them the following morning, all that remained was their scattered bones.

Stirred by his memory, he spoke no more, and the howls began in earnest, the entire pack joining in, even louder and closer than before.

I quickly realized the scent of the Carpathian wolf pelt had drawn them. But every soul around the fire wondered if it had called something worse. All of us stared with hardened eyes at the wolfskin and he simply glared back.

The wolves grew quiet when the glow of many eyes appeared in the darkness surrounding us. A bareface boy near me began to whimper in fear as I gripped my axe and prepared for the attack.

My eyes welled as everything slowed to a crawl, the wolfskin picking up his battle axe with one hand while thrusting a brand in the fire. I knew that there was no stopping what was sure to follow when the wolfskin leaped to his feet, his face a mask of killing rage, a half dozen of us bounding up to meet him. Before the terrifying transformation could begin, my axe penetrated his armor and drove into his broad chest just as his did mine.

Then the full-throated battle cry of a night hunter filled every man and boy with terror. With a few feverish strokes of deadly claws, the sound reached every living ear of wet intestines spilling onto the ground, the stench of fear, excrement and vomit assaulting every nostril till the black maw of Hell swallowed every Jack man one of us and I knew no more.

When I awoke with a start, the sun had already ridden high into the sky, the wolf pack lazing around me on their belly's and licking their chops. The beta got up and walked over to me, first sniffing and then licking my wounds. Lifting my hand, I stroked the fur on her head and she closed her eyes with pleasure.

Getting gingerly to my feet, I limped down to the pond below the campsite and entered the water to wash blood and offal off my flesh.

Returning I surveyed the site where eight stripped skeletons lay on the blood-soaked earth with shreds of clothing surrounding them. The wolfskin lay near the still smoldering wood from the fire, my axe sticking from his chest. When I approached him, he turned and gazed at me, his eyes wide with terror.

Not like them, he pleaded hoarsely.

They did not need to die, I replied with a hook of my thumb at the bones already drying in the sun. But the wolves knew you would not wait.

Please, not like them.

When I roughly yanked the wolf pelt off of him, it jerked him onto his side and his guts spilled out of his belly onto the earth.

Please, I'm beggin' thee, not like them, he moaned.

I laid the pelt gently on the ground as if the wolf it once clad only slept. Each member of the pack soundlessly padded to their former alpha and lowered their heads submissively.

Then I kneeled at the wolfskin's side, his breath rasping in and out of his throat in trembling terror.

Not like them, he whispered again.

The wolves are sated, I replied, they'll eat no more today. He looked at me with bitter hope in his eyes till I yanked out the axe that still cleaved his chest and a flood of blood gushed out of the wound.

Shaking with the rage and snarling pain of alteration from man to mighty wolf, I showed him my true form in the light of day. It was my turn to feed.

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See Sam's fabulous challenge here:

https://todaysurvey.today/writers/unofficial-challenge-more-howls-for-halloween%3C/em%3E%3C/a%3E%3Cem class="css-ak7tmt-Italic">

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I would appreciate a critique, Sam. I rarely write horror and find it is not a great match for my storytelling style. Any suggestions are welcome. The artwork is mine. I never use AI.