She sat and watched him eat, then took the bowl wordlessly when he finished scooping out the last spoonful and handed it back to her.
“What are your thoughts about leaving today?” Kestrel asked. “I’d like to find some way to prepare the yeti goods for transportation. If you want to pick out the things you want to take with you, we’ve got the horse to carry a fair amount of goods.”
She sat silently looking around the cabin. “Kestrel, I’m not going to leave this place,” she said at last, as he sat with her and fidgeted nervously.
He looked at her in astonishment. “I’m not going to leave. Youkal is still fresh in his grave; I can’t just leave him here all alone to watch his dream fall apart. Once we leave, this homestead will crumble away, and it and my boys are the only thing on earth I have to remind me of what a good man he was.”
“He took me from my home in the middle of the night when I was fifteen years old,” she said softly, looking down into her lap. “We fell in love and my parents didn’t approve, so he came and stole me away and we got married the next day.
“Youkal brought me and a cow out here into the wildness and he built all this. We’ve started our family, and this is all we ever wanted. Why would I want to leave him alone now?” she looked up and challenged Kestrel with her stare.
“I don’t know,” he said softly.
“Have you ever lost someone you loved?” Merilla asked him. “It’s so hard to imagine that he’s not going to laugh at my next joke, or pinch me when I’m not expecting, or take one of the boys up in his arms and make then laugh.”
She needed time to accept the tragedy that had befallen her, he understood. He realized he could grant her some time; he was under no strict deadline. “I’ll stay a few days to help around here, if you want me to,” he said. “Maybe in a couple of days Youkal’s spirit will be satisfied, and ready for you to go,” he suggested.
She looked back at him, and nodded her head, although he saw doubt in her eyes. “You’re being a good man to try to help, and I’m being stupid not to leave,” she dabbed at her eyes, and tears started to fall. She raised her apron to her face, sobbing, as Kestrel sat quietly, uncomfortably beside her, unsure of what to do.
A minute later she lowered the apron from her face, her eyes and nose red. “Let’s stay here a couple of days and I’ll give you an answer. Can we?”
“Of course,” Kestrel replied, relieved that she hadn’t refused to consider leaving. He stood up, still feeling uneasy about the woman’s open display of grief, for which he could offer no comfort. “I’ll go tend to my horse,” he said awkwardly. “Is there anything you’d like for me to do today around here?”
“I’ll go get the boys,” she also stood. “I don’t have anything in mind. If I think of something I’ll let you know,” she answered, and they went their separate ways.
Kestrel brushed his horse, then mounted it and rode into the woods. He ate a few crickets, always a favorite snack of elves, to satisfy the hunger that Merilla’s oatmeal had not addressed, then strung his bow and shot a brace of squirrels to take back to the cabin and offer for the next meal. He returned before noon, and found Merilla sitting on a chair in the sunshine, watching the boys play in the yard.
She was delighted to see him return, and took the squirrels enthusiastically; he wondered if she had doubted his return. Kestrel gave the boys turns riding on his horse, going gently around the yard to their unending delight, then he led the horse and the boys down to the pasture so that his mount could graze, while Merilla had time to herself in the cabin all afternoon.
They ate a delicious pie with squirrel and potato filling that night for dinner, and after the boys went to bed, Merilla came out to talk to Kestrel under the stars in the yard.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I’m here to wait for you,” he answered.
“No, why were you and your friends out here in the wilderness? This is not on any road or any route from one place to another. We never see strangers around here,” she said.
“We were here to check on the yeti,” Kestrel told her. “And we found it.”
“You came looking for the yeti?” she asked in astonishment. “What sane person does such a thing?”
“We were told there was a yeti that had come down from the Water Mountains and was terrorizing settlers in this area. We were told to come check on the reports. It was a test as part of my training. We just happened to come to the right place to find it and fight it right away,” Kestrel explained.
“If hunting a yeti is training, I’d hate to imagine what the full job must be,” Merilla exclaimed. “Who are you? Are you some part of the army?”
“I can’t tell you, Merilla,” he answered, knowing that they had stumbled close to the secrets he had to keep. “And it doesn’t matter now. I’m just Kestrel, and I’m here to take care of you.”
She stood up. “I’ll go to bed now,” she said abruptly. “Good night Kestrel,” she added, then walked into the cabin and turned down the lantern, leaving only the faint starlight to illuminate the yard.
Kestrel crawled into his covers, remorseful for having offended the woman with his secrets, but knowing he had no choice. “Goddess, let her find peace, and let her choose to leave this place,” he prayed to Kai, seeking the human goddess for the first time since the rain storm.
“I will watch over her as one of my own, young one, just as I watch over you,” he perceived a reply from the goddess, and then he fell asleep.
Kestrel awoke soon after sunrise the next morning, and quietly went to check on his horse. A movement on the far side of the yard surprised him, and he turned to see Merilla kneeling on the ground beside her husband’s grave. She saw him and stood, then dusted the grass and dirt off her nightgown, and came stalking across the yard to stand directly in front of him.
“I dreamed that the goddess spoke to me last night, and said that Youkal wants me to go with you,” she said hesitatingly. “I know that it is the right thing to do; I’ve known that since you first said it, I just couldn’t speak it aloud. If you can wait until tomorrow, I’ll pick and pack today, and tell the boys that we’re going to go on a journey. Is that acceptable?” She pulled her nightgown tightly around her, her arms crossed on her chest as her hands clutched the material.
“Tomorrow will be fine for departing. I’ll do anything you want me to do to help you today,” he answered.
She dropped her arms to her sides. “Would you hold me, just this once? I want to feel a man’s arms protect me here one more time.” She looked up at him, and he saw that tears were flowing once again.
He held his arms wide, and felt the curves of her human body press against him as he enveloped her in a hug. He thought of Lucretia, the girl he had wanted to know, who had died in battle against humans, and he thought of Cheryl, whose father had also died in the same battle. He should hate this woman, a member of the race that was attacking his homeland, the race that he was supposed to infiltrate and undermine. Yet after the short time he had spent here with her, he felt only sympathy for her, with her life being torn apart.
“Thank you,” Merilla said, speaking into his chest. “You feel so good right now. I wish it was all a dream. I wish I could look up and see Youkal looking down at me with his crooked grin. Oh Kestrel, how will I ever be able to live again?” she sobbed.
“You’ll live one day at a time, and you’ll live to remember Youkal and to raise your boys every day as best you can, to be as good as their father was,” he replied, not sure where the words came from, but sensing they were right.
She raised her head up to look at him. “I will; I’ll raise the boys to be as good as Youkal was,” she agreed, then pressed herself away from him, and hurried back to the house.
That day she sorted through her belongings, and made a large pile of the items she wanted to take with her, then sorted again and shrank the size of the pile. Kestrel gently told her it was still too much to take, and they argued about the need to carry the yeti
remnants, which were growing pungent in their odor, but Kestrel insisted that the yeti had to go with them, and her pile had to grow smaller. That night, after she prepared a simple dinner, the last one she would cook in her ruined cabin, she stood by the final selection of items she would take back to Estone.
“We used to always watch the sun set above that mountain,” she pointed to a tall, singular mountain with a very steep and pointed peak. “Youkal said that it pointed up to heaven, but that we had a little bit of heaven right here,” she told Kestrel with a sigh, but without breaking into melancholy tears. She put her boys to bed, then came back out and sat in the darkening yard with Kestrel.
“Do you believe we’ll make this journey without troubles?” she asked.
“I’m sure we will,” Kestrel assured her. “With the horse to carry things, we’ll only need seven or eight days to reach Estone,” he guessed.
“How were the roads on the way here? Did you have any troubles?” Merilla asked him.
“We came a roundabout way, through the forest mostly, but everything was fine,” Kestrel assured her, worried about being pinned down in facts he didn’t know. “I’m going to go say good night to the horse,” he stood up to end the awkward conversation. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he told her, then walked away.
Chapter 18 — The River Crossing
The next morning they spent several hours loading and rearranging their goods on Kestrel’s horse, and on their own backs, then stood motionlessly in the yard for five minutes as Merilla looked at the remains of her lost life.
“I’m ready,” she said finally, her head down, and they began to trek eastward. They passed no other habitations that day, and camped atop a small hill that night. Kestrel did not think he and Merilla could maintain watch all through the night with just the two of themselves, so he set no watch, and they all awoke refreshed the next morning. At noon they came to a large river, a different location on the same river Kestrel had crossed before, he suspected, with Arlen and Artur. Their trail was atop a bluff, and so they followed the trail along the south bank of the river until early evening.
He shot several squirrels easily, and they roasted the meat on small sticks held above their fire that night. Kestrel unpacked his horse, and set the yeti remains at some distance from the camp that night to protect them all from the unpleasant smell the rotting flesh emitted.
The next day their trail descended down to a wide sweeping turn in the river, an obvious spot to ford through the current. The little boys had taken turns variously walking and running with them, riding on the horse, and riding on Kestrel’s back up to that point in the journey, so Kestrel piled them both atop the horse, Merilla pulled her skirts up high and tied them around her waist, and they began to cross the flowing water.
Despite its width and shallowness, the water travelled in a surprisingly strong current, and Kestrel held Merilla’s hand with one of his, while he led his horse with the other hand, allowing them to forge through the water together, taking small steps to keep their balance, and letting the strength of the horse help lead them across, though Kestrel could see the current was pressing them towards the downstream end of the ford.
There was a sudden muffled cry from atop the horse where the two boys were tussling, and then a splash on the downstream side of the animal. Kestrel maneuvered around the front of his steed, and saw one of Merilla’s boys floating rapidly away, carried by the river’s current out of the ford and around the bend of the stream.
“Kestrel! It’s Jacob! Please get him! Save my baby!” Merilla screamed.
“We’ve got to get the horse to the other side, and then I’ll go after him,” Kestrel answered, urgently pulling Merilla and his horse towards their destination on the far side of the river. He led them into the stony shallows on the far side, watching downstream as the boy rapidly floated around the bend in the river below them.
“Take the horse up onto the beach and wait for me!” he shouted, then he ran up onto the bank of the river and began to race downstream, trying to catch up to Jacob. Once he was out of sight of Merilla he intended to enter the river bed and run across the water, in the elven way, to pounce on the boy and carry him to safety.
Around the bend though, there turned out to be rapids, and as Kestrel caught sight of the small body, he saw it bounce off one rock, then strike another ferociously, and continue to float rapidly down the stream. The elf leaped down to the surface of the stream and began to sprint, running atop the water and jumping across the tops of boulders as he raced to reach Jacob.
He caught up with the boy just before he struck another stone, reaching down into the water and snagging him with a motion that flung the heavy wet body up into the air, and then into Kestrel’s two-armed grasp. Kestrel hugged his load tightly as he continued across the stream and reversed direction, heading back upstream, still atop the foaming waters as he angled towards the far shore.
The river bank on the far side was steeper than he expected, causing him to remain atop the water, sprinting desperately with all his might to maintain his speed so that he would not sink below the surface. Kestrel was one of the least effective water-runners because of his human heritage, and his heavier body structure, but he ignored the growing, burning pain in his thighs and focused on pushing his speed to his utmost limit in order to reach a sandy beach he saw not far ahead.
Three steps away from the beach his speed diminished enough that his feet began to sink, but he only splashed thigh deep before he reached his goal and stopped, head down, gasping for air as he held the baby boy against him. After several seconds he looked at the boy, and grew frightened. The boy’s face was very pale, he was unconscious, and there was blood pouring freely from a serious scalp wound.
Kestrel looked up, and saw that Merilla, the horse, and her other son were not far away, across the river at the nearby ford. He had come farther than he realized atop the water, and had nearly run them all the way back to their beginning point. There might have to be some explaining to do, but that would wait. Looking ahead he saw that the river had a shallow shelf along the shore, and he started to run along that shelf until he reached the ford, then began to cross, aiming up river in order to counter the current that was flowing across his path, trying to sweep him back down towards the rocks.
“He’s hurt!” Kestrel shouted as he approached the anxious mother. “Get my skin of healing water!”
She stood motionless, staring at him with her mouth hanging open.
“Merilla! Get the water!!” he shouted, just before he arrived.
He placed the boy on the ground, as Merilla came to life, and they met at the horse, as she gazed at him in astonishment. “Your son — tend to him,” he snapped hastily, and she turned away from him as he began to paw among the items on the back of the horse, looking for the half full skin that held the healing water.
Moments later he found the skin and ripped it off the horse’s back, still panting in exhaustion from his own efforts. He turned and crouched next to Jacob, where Merilla knelt, holding the boy’s hands and praying for miraculous intercession to Kai.
“Amen, Kai. If this doesn’t help him we hope you will,” Kestrel muttered as he began to pour the water on Jacob’s wound, then combed the moisture back into the boy’s already wet hair. He gently placed the skin’s spout against Jacob’s lips and let a tiny trickle flow into his mouth. After a moment the child reflexively swallowed, and Kestrel released a second trickle.
“Do you have dry clothes the boy could wear?” Kestrel asked.
Merilla’s whispered prayers stopped, and she opened he eyes to look at Kestrel. “Yes,” she answered after a moment’s hesitation, “Of course.” She looked at Kestrel from the corner of her eye, then stood and returned to the horse, where her other son was pleading to be carried down.
“No, stop it,” she snapped at the boy sternly as she tried to find the dry clothes for his brother, then returned to Jacob with her findings, and began to make him comfortable in
his dry things.
“What do we do now?” she asked. “Oh Kestrel, I should know what to do. I can’t think straight — with Jacob falling and you running on water and his injuries, I’m just so confused,” she sighed deeply.
“Let’s get Marco down, and then tie Jacob up on top of Rosey’s back,” he referred to the horse. “Then we’ll just have to wait and see how quickly he heals,” he tried to sound optimistic.
“Is he going to heal?” she asked, stroking the damp hair back from the nasty-looking wound.
Kestrel poured another small dose of the healing water onto the wound, then tipped a few more drops into the boy’s mouth. “The water helped me recover from the yeti attack,” he answered obliquely. “I think it will help him heal, but I just can’t be positive. You ought to keep praying to Kai,” he advised.
He helped Marco down, then lifted Jacob’s limp body atop the horse, and used a strap across the boy’s waist to keep him stable. He lifted Marco onto his own shoulders, and looked at Merilla. “Are you ready to go?” he asked.
“Kestrel, I saw you running on top of the water, the way they say elves do,” she answered.
“Let’s at least start walking while we talk,” Kestrel suggested, and they both began to climb up away from the ford and followed the trail away from the river.
“It may have looked like I was on the water, but there was a shelf along the river bank, and I used that,” he explained, conscious of how closely he was evading the truth. “Look at me; do I look like an elf to you?” he asked rhetorically.
“Not really,” she agreed. “I’d never say so unless someone suggested it.
“Kestrel,” she looked directly at him as she started to say something more, and he gazed steadily back.
“Merilla, please don’t ask me anything more about this,” he said. “It’s better that we just not say anything else, to each other or anyone else. I will take you safely to Estone, and I will treat you well along the way. Isn’t that enough?” he asked, hopefully. He did not want to experience an erosion of trust with this human woman. He didn’t even think of her as a human any longer — just a person, one who he was responsible for tending and protecting, and who was a good person in a bad situation.
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