Jacob kills the hollowgast

Jacob kills the hollowgast in the bog in a reversal of the chase that had left him trying to outrun a creature he could barely see. He deliberately draws it away from Emma and the others, then, trapped at the cairn entrance, turns the shears in his hands into a weapon. The hollowgast dies, but victory does not bring immediate safety: Jacob is left struggling in the bog that has swallowed his opponent.

The decision to draw the hollowgast away

As the group flees, Jacob judges that they cannot simply outrun the hollowgast. He proposes splitting up so it must choose a target: he will lead it on the longer route and try to lose it in the bog, while the others hurry to the loop. Emma objects that she should stay because her fire might let her fight it. Jacob answers that the rain would make that plan ineffective and that she cannot see the creature. His decision therefore rests on the immediate conditions of the pursuit, not on a belief that he can confront the hollowgast safely.

Jacob later acts on that plan by putting Emma behind a large sheep and running out of the shelter himself. He shouts at the hollowgast to draw its attention, waits until it follows him rather than Emma, and heads toward the bog. The choice gives Emma a chance to escape, but leaves Jacob alone with the pursuer. The flock pouring through the doorway marks the abrupt change from concealment to open flight.

The chase to the cairn

The hollowgast follows Jacob across the rain-soaked ground. He cannot bring himself to let go of the shears he is carrying, and the terrain becomes soft underfoot as he reaches the bog. Twice the creature comes close enough to lash at his back with its tongues, but each time it stumbles. Jacob’s familiarity with the route matters: Emma has taught him where to place his feet, so he can run toward the cairn even in darkness and severe weather.

Jacob reaches the cairn mound and dives into its stone entrance, expecting that reaching the chamber will put him beyond the creature’s reach. He crawls because standing would cost precious time. Just as he is halfway through the tunnel, a tongue catches his ankle. The hollowgast braces two other tongues against the capstones at the entrance, using them for leverage in the mud, and blocks the opening with its body. Jacob is pulled backward toward it.

The reversal and the hollowgast’s death

The shears fail as a tool of escape: Jacob tries to cut the tongue, but they are too dull for the tough muscle. With the hollowgast drawing him toward its entrance-blocking body, he grips the shears in both hands. Their collision sends both of them out of the tunnel and down the cairn mound into the bog. When Jacob sees that the shears have entered the creature’s eye sockets, the object he had been unable to release has become the means of his survival and the hollowgast’s defeat.

The creature thrashes in the mud as Jacob feels its tongue loosen around his ankle. It eventually stiffens and sinks beneath the bog’s surface, leaving dark blood on the mud as the only visible trace. The death marks the end of this immediate pursuit, but not a clean escape: the same bog that swallows the hollowgast begins to pull Jacob down as he struggles toward solid ground.

Outcome and significance

The episode turns on Jacob’s decision to accept the risk of being pursued in order to divert the hollowgast from Emma and the others. His knowledge of the route, acquired with Emma’s help, gets him to the cairn; when the creature catches him there, the plan to reach shelter fails and the chase becomes a direct confrontation. The fatal reversal comes not from a prepared weapon or a controlled fight, but from the shears already in Jacob’s hands and the collision at the tunnel entrance.

The outcome is deliberately unsettled. Jacob has killed the hollowgast, yet the immediate danger has shifted from predator to landscape: the bog is pulling him under, and his attempts to paddle toward firm ground only deepen his predicament. The scene therefore closes the pursuit without resolving Jacob’s survival in the marsh.