Shadows of Gévaudan: The Winter of the Beast

Jean-Baptiste, thank you for speaking with me. It’s freezing out here.

(Voice gravelly, accented, weary) The cold is the least of our worries, stranger. The cold just numbs the fingers. The Beast... it takes the head. That is how you know it is not a wolf. A wolf eats to fill its belly. This thing? It kills to punish us.

You’ve seen the tracks?

Seen them? I have followed them until they vanish into thin air. Broad as a plate, claws that dig deep. Captain Duhamel and his dragoons... they look at the mud and see a big dog. I look and I see a devil.

Let’s talk about Captain Duhamel. King Louis XV sent him here specifically to end this. He has the Clermont-Prince Dragoons. Why haven’t they caught it?

(A short, bitter laugh) Duhamel. He is a soldier, not a hunter. He rides through our forests with his men dressed in bright red uniforms, beating drums, shouting... hoping the Beast will challenge them to a duel. They trample the crops, they demand food from starving farmers, and they scare away every wolf in the province except the one that matters. The Beast is smart, my friend. It hears the drums and it circles behind them. While the dragoons are marching north, the Beast is killing a shepherdess in the south.

There are rumors reaching Paris—and indeed, the future—that this isn't just a wolf. Duhamel himself wrote that it might be a hybrid. A lion’s father and a mystery mother. What do the people here believe?

In the taverns, after enough wine, they whisper of a loup-garou. A werewolf. Or a punishment from God for our sins, as the Bishop says. But I have seen it once, from a distance, through the mist near Saint-Alban.

Describe it.

It is not a wolf. It is... long. Reddish fur, with a black stripe running down the spine like a stroke of ink. A tail that moves like a cat's, thick and heavy. And it has a chest as wide as a horse. When it moves, its belly scrapes the snow. It does not run like a dog; it bounds. It is something from Africa, perhaps? A hyena brought by a rich man that escaped? I do not know. I only know that when you look into its eyes, you do not see an animal. You see intelligence.

The attacks have been brutal. I heard about the tragedy of Jeanne Boulet last summer. But recently... there was a glimmer of hope? The boys at the village of Villeret?

Ah, young Jacques Portefaix. Yes. A boy with more courage than the entire dragoon regiment. He and his friends, they fought it off with sticks! Sticks! Imagine that. Seven children standing back-to-back while the monster circled them. The King has rewarded them, they say. But rewards do not bring back the dead. Just last week, another body was found near the river. The snow was red for fifty paces.

I understand the King is losing patience with Duhamel. Word is he’s sending the d’Ennevals—professional wolf hunters from Normandy.

(Scoffs) The Normans. They say they have killed a thousand wolves. Let them come. They will bring their bloodhounds and their arrogance. But the Beast of Gévaudan does not behave like a Norman wolf. It does not fear the scent of man. It hunts us. And until someone understands what it is, the snow will keep turning red. You should leave, stranger. The sun is dipping below the pines. You do not want to be on this ridge when the shadows stretch.