“I’ll go anywhere; just get me away from that mine,” Orren said. “The farther the better.”
He struggled to his feet.
“Come with me,” Kestrel advised, and began to slowly walk back north towards the camp.
“Did you see or hear anyone else out here?” Kestrel asked after they had started to walk, as he suddenly remembered he had left the camp to search for Passet.
“No, no one,” the miner answered as he limped along.
Kestrel stopped as they left the forest and returned to the open space along the river banks. The scenery was beautiful. The riverside was stark with piles of stone and drifts of sand that had been moved into place by the power of the flooding river, yet plants and small blooming wildflowers provided a gentling splash of color. The mountains rose on both sides, clothed in green, and the sky was blue overhead. Had he not experienced the past day and a half of horror, Kestrel could have imagined the scene as a peaceful place where he could retreat from the world.
They began walking forward. Kestrel wished he had brought a skin of water from the healing spring, but he had left it at the camp site, not expecting to need it while he fetched Passet back to camp. After a long half hour, as they reached the edge of the camp, Kestrel saw Putty kneeling on the river bank, looking down into the water. The yeti’s hand suddenly swooped down and pulled a large trout out of the water, throwing the catch up onto the river bank.
The monster turned gleefully, proud of its accomplishment, then saw Kestrel approach and gave a howl of greeting. It started to charge towards the two arrivals, making Orren howl in fear.
“Come to me!” Kestrel urged Putty, stepping away from the injured miner, creating space to give the man some peace of mind. He accepted the yeti’s hug and then moved back.
“Go eat your fish,” he gestured to the still trout that lay on the sandy bank top.
“Go sit down over there,” he then directed the miner, as Raines and Hampus came over.
“What’s this, Kestrel?” they each asked in their own language.
“Orren, you tell Raines why you’re here; I’ll tell my elf friend in his language,” Kestrel directed, as he rooted through the pack of supplies until he found the healing water. He explained briefly to Hampus what he had learned.
“The evil was still there? Will it follow the miner?” the elf asked Kestrel.
Kestrel paused. “I hope not,” he said softly. “I hope it had to stay in the mine, in the mountain,” he said. “Pray to Kere,” he added, then took the water skin over to Orren and Raines.
“Here, take a good drink of this,” he directed, then he worked with Raines to remove most of the man’s clothing, after which he dribbled the spring water over the burns and bruises and scratches.
“Should we stay here today so that he can recover?” Raines asked, as she looked at the man lying still, with his eyes closed.
Kestrel scowled quietly. He hated to lose yet another opportunity to travel. “We’ll wait until afternoon, and see what shape he’s in. I’m going to go hunting in the meantime,” he said.
“Hunting for Passet?” Raines asked.
“I didn’t find any sign of him,” Kestrel answered. “I’m going to go hunting for food.” He picked up his bow and arrow, and called Putienne to follow him, then went into the woods to look for game, noting that Hampus was heading out as well.
He began going north, choosing the direction that Passet had apparently traveled in, and he soon found boot prints that confirmed the man had fled in that direction. He paused, and decided that he didn’t really care if he found the man or not; Passet had deserted his family to foolishly run away with Raines, and then run away from Kestrel’s group, deserting Raines. The man wasn’t someone to be trusted or counted on, and Kestrel was just as happy to not retrieve him, he decided as he caught sight of deer tracks, and sent Putty after the prey.
He held his bow ready, and when the yeti flushed a young doe out of the undergrowth, Kestrel easily brought the game down with a single, clean shot.
Putty looked at him in annoyance as he arrived at the site of the carcass.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get at least half,” Kestrel assured her.
“But I’d like for you to carry it back to the camp site for me,” he added, then led his yeti-as-bearer back to the river side campsite, where he stoked the coals of the camp fire, and butchered several cuts of venison for roasting, much to the dismay of Raines.
“The rest is yours,” he told Putty. “Take it out into the woods to eat,” he directed his friend.
“Have you lived in a city all your life?” he asked Raines, who had her back turned to him to avoid seeing the butchering, as he skewered the meat and set it roasting over the fire.
“A village outside Narrow Bay growing up, then in the city after I was married,” she agreed.
“You can look. I’m just cooking the meat now,” Kestrel told her.
“So when we deliver you to Narrow Bay, now that we know you’re not a wilderness girl, will you stay in the city?” he asked as she came and sat next to him.
“I don’t know,” she moaned. “I wish I knew where Passet was.”
“He’s headed north,” Kestrel revealed. “I saw his boot prints while I was hunting.” He leaned forward to turn the pieces of roasting meat over.
“He’s heading home without me?” she asked incredulously. Kestrel saw her eyes grow moist. “He’s going back to Janek, his wife,” she said piteously.
“A pretty thing like you? He’s crazy to walk away from you,” they heard the miner speak for the first time since being treated for his wounds.
“Thank you,” she sniffed, embarrassed that her abandonment had been discovered by Orren.
“How do you feel?” Kestrel asked.
“Somewhat better,” Orren allowed, stretching and flexing to check his condition.
“Will you be able to leave this afternoon, to start hiking north?” Kestrel asked him.
“If you’re ready to go, I’ll come along. You saved me at least twice already, I figure, so I’ll stick close to you,” the miner answered. “Isn’t that something? Relying on an elf to save me from I-don’t-know-what.”
“I’d feel better getting as far away from that mine as possible too,” Kestrel agreed. “We’ll cook this meat and eat something to tide us over, then head north.”
Hampus came back to camp soon afterwards, as did Putty. They ate and packed, and proceeded to depart northward. Clouds moved in during the afternoon, and they were rained upon, but Kestrel kept them moving north.
The clouds were low, and came sweeping down from the north. They brought not only rain, but gloom as well, and so, despite Kestrel’s fear of what was behind and his eagerness to reach the goal that was ahead, they ended their march early. To avoid any problems from the river rising, they climbed up out of the floodway, and camped in a damp dell. Kestrel tied the corners of his blanket to the tree branches overhead to give them a small degree of shelter. They ate very little that night, and lit no fire in the dampness.
When the sun rose the following day in a lighter sky without any rain falling, they immediately resumed the journey, and by midday they began to pass cabins, tended fields, and people – people who screamed at the sight of a yeti walking down the trail that followed the river.
At first the screamers and the other people who simply ran and hid at the sight of the yeti were no inconvenience while in the lightly populated countryside. But by the end of the day they had reached a village that sat on a bluff overlooking the now-substantial river, and Kestrel called a halt.
“Raines, would you and Orren want to go into town and get a room at an inn?” Kestrel asked. “I think Hampus and Putty and I will go around to the other side of the village and spend the night in the woods.”
Raines’s hand shot out and slapped Kestrel’s face. “You think I want to spend the night with this man?” she hissed.
“No!” Kestrel replied. “I didn’t think that at
all!” he protested as he rubbed his cheek. “I’m sorry. I was thinking that Orren needed to sleep in a bed to recover, and I thought you’d like a bed and maybe a bath,” his voice trailed off. He truly had failed to think about what his proposal had implied. He’d been in the mountains, away from civilization, for too long.
“What was that about, Kestrel?” Hampus asked, unable to follow the conversation.
“I would like a bath,” Raines admitted. “But I can’t share a room with a man!” she adamantly declared.
Putienne gave an anxious moan, sensing the strong emotions among the members of the group.
“Hold on!” Kestrel said to them all, holding up his hands in a universal gesture of silence.
“Everyone will stay here, except Raines and me,” he said in human, then repeated in elvish. “We will go get a room at an inn with a bath tub. Raines will take her bath, then the imps will bring her and I back here, and take Orren to the inn so that he can spend the night there, while the rest of us go around the village.”
He started to repeat the same explanation to Hampus, when Orren interrupted.
“My elf lord Kestrel, let’s all just go around the village together. This isn’t worth the trouble,” he expressed his opinion.
“He’s right,” Raines said mournfully. “I’d like a bath, but it’s not necessary just now.”
“We’ll all go around the village together, and spend the night outside the village together,” Kestrel quickly told Hampus. He shook his head ruefully. “We’ll wait here until it’s completely dark, then we’ll make our way around.”
They settled into the woods outside the village, as the sky overhead darkened, and when the stars overhead were clearly visible, they began their trek through small fields and patches of woods to arrive at a spot near the road north of the village.
Having a yeti along was going to prove to be a problem, one that couldn’t be avoided much longer, Kestrel realized, and he wasn’t sure what to do. Putienne was still growing rapidly, but was still just a juvenile. He didn’t feel that he could turn the monster loose, or send her back into the wilderness to live on her own. But her presence was going to be a real problem in moving through any heavily populated area.
“What are you going to do with her?” Orren asked as Kestrel stood abstractedly staring at Putty.
“I don’t know,” Kestrel answered.
“What if you disguised her?” Raines suggested.
“How do you disguise a yeti?” Kestrel asked skeptically.
“A long dress and a big floppy hat,” Raines replied. “And a scarf,” she added.
“There’s no way that could possibly work. You can’t be serious,” he said.
“It might work,” Orren spoke up.
Kestrel stared at Putty, who seemed uncomfortable with the scrutiny she was receiving.
“If the hat was a big floppy one that hid her face, and you bunched the scarf up around her neck,” Orren tried to support Raines.
“Just let me try it,” Raines said. “If you can give me some money in the morning, I’ll see if I can buy some clothes for her. We may not find anything here, but in a larger town I’m sure there would be something that would work.”
Kestrel rolled his eyes. “We’ll see,” he agreed. He’d not spent any money on the trip through the wilderness – he’d not had any opportunity among the mountains, rivers, and trees. He had enough money with him to be able to afford to purchase clothes, but the concept seemed ludicrous.
“We’ll see,” he repeated to his yeti friend as he reassuringly patted her on the arm, then went and explained the proposal to Hampus.
“How wonderful!” the elf responded. “She looks a lot like human women anyway, doesn’t she?” Hampus asked. “They’re all kind of thick and rugged looking compared to elven maids.”
Kestrel arched an eyebrow as he looked at Hampus, then looked at Raines and Putienne.
“The difference seems pretty obvious to me,” he replied.
“You look at them with a different eye,” Hampus persisted in his theory. “You’re an elf who likes to pursue human women, so you pay special attention, and you know what you’re looking for. But a human who’s only seen human women won’t notice the difference,” he explained.
The logic escaped Kestrel, who decided to argue no more, and simply gave a shrug.
The three men took turns standing watch that night, and in the morning, Raines went through with her proposal, accepting money from Kestrel, and going into the village to shop for a potential disguise.
She returned empty-handed, and Kestrel was relieved. In the light of day, the idea seemed even more preposterous than it had the night before, and so they started walking along the riverside trail.
“What about a boat?” Orren asked suddenly.
“We could all ride in a boat and go right past the villages, and travel all night long,” he explained, and pointed to a large fishing boat that was idly floating in the river not far away.
“That could work,” Kestrel agreed instinctively. He looked at the fishing boat; it appeared large enough to carry a dozen people, he guessed. The five of them would easily fit on it for a voyage down river.
“Let me go ask the captain,” he said. “I’m going to go talk to that boat,” he snapped a quick explanation to Hampus, then scrambled down the river bank, and ran across the top of the river to reach the boat.
“Ahoy the ship,” he called loudly as he reach the side of the boat and grabbed hold of the railing.
A man’s head popped up from a cabin doorway, and the man looked at Kestrel in amazement. Without saying a word, he reached down and picked up a wooden club, which he threw at Kestrel.
The attack caught Kestrel unprepared, and at such close range that the club struck a glancing blow on his skull, knocking him unconscious and into the water. He was vaguely aware of hitting the water, and then remembered nothing until he found himself coughing and retching river water as he knelt on a wooden surface.
“Are you okay Kestrel?” he heard a voice asking, and he felt a hand on his back. He continued to gag for several seconds. He took a breath and shook his head, looking down at the puddle of water beneath him, and the falling drops of water that continued to stream off of him and hit the gray wood of the deck.
He looked up and saw Hampus kneeling beside him, then he saw a man’s body sprawled on the deck beyond Hampus, blood streaming from an arrow in the man’s chest.
“What happened?” Kestrel gasped.
“We were on the river bank and saw what happened. I shot an arrow, then ran down and lifted you out of the water,” Hampus explained simply.
“Is there anyone else on the boat?” Kestrel asked.
He stood up, and together the two examined the boat. They quickly found two dead men in the cabin, both stabbed with a knife.
“What does this mean?” Hampus asked.
“We may never know,” Kestrel answered. “The one left must have killed the other two.”
The two of them threw all three bodies into the river, then looked at the shoreline, where their companions were watching anxiously.
Kestrel waved at them. “We can carry Orren and Raines to the boat, but I don’t know about Putty. And I don’t know how to maneuver a ship like this into the shore line; I’d be afraid of getting it stuck,” he said.
“Can the yeti swim?” Hampus asked.
“Let’s go get the humans and find out,” Kestrel said. The two elves hopped off the boat and began skimming lightly across the surface of the river water and returned to the shore.
“Oh Hampus, that was so fantastic!” Raines said glowingly to the elf as he climbed up the river bank. She embraced him in a hug.
“Tell the elf he did a great job,” Orren agreed. “He whipped that bow around and released that shot in about half a second; I never saw anything so impressive.
“Well, with a bow, I mean,” he added.
“They’re very impressed with you,” Kestrel told Hampus
, as Raines released her grip on him.
“Let me see your forehead,” she said to Kestrel, pushing his hair back from the knot where the wooden club had struck him. “You’ll be okay,” she said after looking closely.
“We have a plan – to carry you two across the water to the boat,” Kestrel explained.
“What happened on the boat?” Orren asked.
“There were two dead men in the cabin,” Kestrel said simply. “There wasn’t anyone alive.”
The humans were duly carried out to the boat, Raines asking to be carried by the heroic Hampus.
Putty bugled in distress as the four of them departed from the shore, promptly plunged into the river, and began to awkwardly swim to the boat.
Kestrel released Orren at the ship railing, then held on to the boat and turned to watch his animal friend struggle towards the boat. Putty was doing it, but it was as distressful to watch as it appeared to be for the monster to do. Taking a deep breath, Kestrel ran out in a circle around Putty and then raced past her, grabbing her arm as he went by.
The weight of the animal brought him to a nearly complete stop, as the yeti shouted in surprise and stress. Kestrel began to sink, and he churned his legs mightily, trying to regain momentum and drag his friend towards the ship. The monster was heavy, and try as much as he could, Kestrel felt himself sinking further, and Putty barely moving any faster.
Suddenly the load seemed to lighten, and he began to pick up momentum, as he heard a great deal of splashing, and then, from the corner of his eye, he saw Hampus grabbing the other arm of Putty and helping to move the great beast forward. Kestrel began to regain momentum, and in a matter of seconds the trio arrived at the side of the boat.
The ship tilted noticeably as Putienne grabbed onto the railing and lifted herself upward. Raines gave a momentary squeal and grabbed hold of the sailing mast, until Putty was completely on board and centered, allowing the ship to return to level.
“Thank you again,” Kestrel told Hampus, as the two elves hung onto the boat’s railing, gasping from their exertions.
“Glad to help,” Hampus responded. “It feels good to be useful after all the time we’ve traveled together.”
The Guided Journey (Book 6) Page 23