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.
She saw the pleading look in his eyes, and glanced down, then looked back up at him. “Youkal would approve of everything you have done for us since the moment you arrived and killed the yeti. I trust you Kestrel; I won’t say anything further about this until you’re ready to tell me.” She turned and looked forward, then began to increase her stride, and Kestrel knew that the dangerous moment had passed.
They walked on until nightfall, then camped, and checked on Jacob’s condition as the fire died down. He was resting on the ground, unconscious, but apparently no worse than he had been earlier.
Kestrel woke first in the morning, and stooped to check on Jacob in the early sunrise’s red rays. His complexion seemed better and the cut appeared to have visibly healed; Kestrel got more of the healing water and dribbled some on the boy’s scalp, which he gently rubbed into the wound area, then dripped it slowly between the boy’s parted lips, until he heard a rustling behind him and turned to see Merilla sitting up observing the tableau.
Kestrel put the water skin away as Merilla rose to look at the boy as well, then he returned to stoop over her shoulder and look at him. “I think he looks better this morning,” Kestrel commented.
“I do too,” she agreed.
“I think we could just spend the day here, so that he could have a calm day to lie still and heal,” Kestrel suggested.
She turned to look at him, and Kestrel saw some of the trust in her eyes that he had seen before the incident. “Thank you, I’d appreciate that,” she told him.
“And thank you for saving him yesterday. When I saw him floating away down the river, I thought for just a second that I’d never see him again, that I was going to end up losing my whole family,” Merilla added. “I know that no other man could have saved him.”
Her words were meant to be generous, but ended awkwardly, and they both felt it immediately.
“If we’re going to stay here, I’d better do a couple of things,” Kestrel said, rising. He walked back to the horse and took his time unloading the animal of all its cargo, then took the yeti parts from their rancid bag, and set them out to dry in the sunshine. “I’m going to go hunting,” he told Merilla as he held up his bow and quiver soon thereafter, and he left the campsite in search of game.
He took his time in the forest, and after he finally shot a small deer, he gutted it in the woods, then dragged the carcass back to the campsite, where Merilla and Marco were playing. Kestrel re-dosed Jacob with more of the water, noting that his water skin was growing much lighter, then began to butcher the meat. He started a fire, and by midafternoon had several steaks on spits leaning above a bed of coals, roasting aromatically.
“How long do you think our journey will be?” Merilla came over to ask him as he sat and stared at the fire, thinking about Lucretia once again.
“I think it will take seven or eight more days,” he estimated, thinking of the maps and lessons he had studied during his time with Artur in Firheng.
“I shouldn’t say this, I know, after yesterday,” Merilla began, “but your ears look a little different today, I think. Maybe it’s my imagination.”
Kestrel looked at her with a blank stare, as he tried to imagine what might be happening. After several seconds, he finally responded. “Merilla, do you have a mirror packed away that I could use?” he asked, fearing the worst.
Without comment, she walked over to the pile of goods Kestrel had unloaded from the horse, and pulled a small velvet bag out. As she walked towards Kestrel she opened it and pu
lled out a shiny circle about as large as Kestrel’s palm, which she handed to him. He took the mirror and looked in it as he angled it to show his ears, and then his eyebrows. Without question, both features were returning to his natural state; his elven features were re-emerging, months earlier than Alicia had told him to expect them to. The changes were still subtle, but Kestrel knew what they were heading towards.
He sat back on his haunches, and dropped his head, as he handed the mirror back to Merilla. He had touched the healing water, and it was starting to work on him, he realized. He thought about the water he had used after fighting the yeti, and then the past two days when he had touched the water while applying it to Jacob. The water had worked on him, and had accelerated the healing of the surgical changes Alicia had made – changes that were expected to last for many months were coming undone in a matter of days because of the restorative powers of the water.
And he didn’t know if he was glad or unhappy. He hadn’t wanted the surgery; he had truly come close to harming Alicia in his anger and frustration over the changes she had made. Now her work was about to be undone, and he could return to his normal life as an elven guard. He should be pleased, he knew, by this fortuitous opportunity to retire from the spying business before he had even entered it. Yet he had already spent a great deal of time in his human guise, and grown accustomed to it. In these days with Merilla he had virtually thought of himself as a part of the human race, able to live intimately with this family and be concerned about their welfare, and feel no fears of entering Estone with them. He could be a spy among the humans, and he had already mentally made the transition to thinking appropriately for that mode, he realized.
He felt Merilla’s hand on his back, gently rubbing, trying to comfort him, and tears started to fall from his eyes. He wiped the tears away, then looked up over his shoulder at her and smiled. “I had surgery performed on my ears and my eyebrows to make me look this way,” he admitted. “But the healing water is doing its work so well on me that my body is overcoming the surgery. Based on this, Jacob should be back on his feet tomorrow.”
“Why?” Merilla asked simply.
Kestrel stood. “They ordered me to; they tricked me. They want me to spy on the humans who fight against elves. This was my training, to see if I could fight and speak like a human,” he admitted to her, feeling compelled to speak.
Merilla reached out and took his hand. “I never would have known. Your accent is a little odd, but not extreme. You really had me fooled, until I saw you running on the water; and I know you only did that for Jacob.
“I’ve never seen an elf before. I know they come to Estone, at least some traders do, and it’s not a big deal there. But I’ve never seen one before now,” she added.
“You’ve been at least as good to us as any human would have; you’ve got a good heart, Kestrel,” she told him. “Is that your real name, or is that phony too?”
“That’s my real name, my one and only,” he answered. He stood in silent thought, as Merilla watched him.
“I’m going to take you to Estone, that much is clear. Nothing’s changed about the fact that we’ve got all these yeti parts to sell to the market, and you’ve got two little boys you need to take care of,” he decided out loud. “And after that, I’ll go back home and try to figure out what comes next.”
They never talked about Kestrel’s heritage again. The next morning Jacob was substantially recovered, and they returned to their journey across the rough lands. Four days later they began to see scattered settlements, and their woodland pathways became county trails and lanes. After another two days they saw villages, then passed through small towns, and on the eleventh day of their journey they reached the walls of Estone in the middle of the morning.
“We’re supposed to go see a trader named Castona,” Kestrel told the guard at the gate, one who provided lax security for the traffic that entered and left the bustling city.
“Sure, he’s on the square by the north wharf, a big square with a statute of a mermaid in the middle. Ask around when you get there and someone will show you his shop,” the guard said idly, examining Merilla as he spoke.
They walked through the city, traveling slowly as they navigated the horse through the urban traffic that was crammed into the narrow streets. By the time they reached the northern square, they were past lunch time, and Merilla took her two boys in search of a food vendor as Kestrel entered the shop he had been directed towards.
The shop was shallow but wide, well lit by windows, and lined with shelves behind a counter. Kestrel banged the door noisily as he entered with the keg of blood on one shoulder and his bag of artifacts in his hand. He was thankful that the various extremities and organs had dried enough on the journey to no longer stink as badly as they had. In the open air they had been barely tolerable; inside a shop, before they had cured, they would have emptied the room.
Several patrons in the shop turned to look, as he found an open space along the counter and gladly placed his goods there in relief. A man behind the counter, one he assumed was Castona, looked up from another patron, then looked back to his business without comment, letting Kestrel wait uncertainly.
Many minutes later, after Castona and an assistant had helped the traders ahead of Kestrel, the proprietor came to see Kestrel. “You’re looking a little wild and wooly,” the shopkeeper said laconically, looking at Kestrel’s dusty traveling clothes.
“Arlen said that I should come to see you,” Kestrel replied. “Are you Castona?”
The shopkeeper seemed to weigh Kestrel, then looked to see how close the other customers were, to judge what they might overhear. “My name’s Castona,” he agreed. “Where did you see Arlen?”
“I’ve been training with him in Firheng the past few months, then he and I were on a trip towards the Water Mountains a couple of weeks ago. That’s where I last saw him,” Kestrel explained.
“And why were you on your way to the mountains?” Castona asked, switching suddenly to an accented pronunciation of the elven language.
Kestrel also looked around, but saw no unusual interest in the language. “I am in training,” he replied in elvish. “We were on a training expedition to test my skills.”
“Your language is good,” Castona switched back to the human tongue. “You could pass as a southerner from Uniontown or Lakeview with no problem, there’s that little accent. And your ears aren’t extraordinarily elvish, but you ought to wear a hat,” he told Kestrel.
“So how is Arlen, and what do you have here?” he indicated the items piled on the counter.
Kestrel decided to switch back to Elvish. “We were traveling with a companion, Artur, to check on reports that a yeti had come down from the mountains and was plaguing the settlers in the area.
“We found the yeti,” he said.
“Yeti?” Castona repeated loudly, in the human tongue. “You saw one?” Many heads turned to look at the two of them, and there was a sudden silence in the shop, as other conversations ceased.
Kestrel waited, and the others slowly returned to their own business. “Sorry,” Castona muttered.
“The yeti was attacking a settler’s homestead, and we happened upon the scene,” Kestrel continued. “It killed Artur, and I killed it.
“Arlen took Artur back so that his spirit could join his ancestors,” he explained. “We gutted the yeti, and these are what I was told to bring to you – a keg of blood,” he tapped the container, “and the head, the hands, the liver, the heart, some glands, and the,” he paused, “stick and balls.
“The settler’s family survived, and I want to sell these to support them,” he finished his story as Castona stared at him with widened eyes.
“Let’s go to a back room,” the merchant suggested in elvish. He motioned for Kestrel to come around the corner of the counter.
Kestrel followed, grabbing his goods as he turned the corner. “If Merilla comes looking for me, would you tell your staff to tell her I’m in here?” he asked Ca
stona.
“Barler,” he called, then turned to Kestrel. “What does she look like?”
“A human,” Kestrel said impulsively. “Her hair is light brown, and she’s wearing a red vest over a white blouse,” he added.
“Barler,” Castona repeated in his louder voice, “if a woman with brown hair and a red vest comes looking for my client, tell her to wait out here,” he instructed, then led Kestrel down a dim hall to a small room with three chairs and a table.
“Let me see what you’ve got,” the merchant said as he closed the door behind them.
“Kestrel put the goods down, then reached into the bag and pulled out the head first. The lank, dark hair hung limply from the skull, while the wizened features of the face were shrunken but intact, darker, but still discernible.
“Growelk take me!” Castona swore, picking up the large item gingerly, turning it around. “It is a yeti head! What else is in there?”
Kestrel proceeded to pull out the items, laying them all out on the table, covering its surface with organs and remains. Castona reached for the keg, and struggled to raise it with both hands, surprised by the weight. “May I taste it?” he asked Kestrel.
The elf shrugged, and Castona used his knife to pry the cork out of the opening. He poked a finger down into the dark hole, and pulled the finger out, then popped it in his mouth.
The merchant squeezed his eyes shut and shivered, then slowly pulled his finger out of his mouth.
“You killed the yeti? You personally?” he asked Kestrel.
“There wasn’t any choice at the point in the battle when it happened; it was kill or be killed. I put a sword in his groin,” Kestrel answered.
Castona sat at the table, and ran both hands through his hair without knowing. “I can give you,” he paused as he calculated, “twenty golds today for all of this.”
The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 01 - The Healing Spring Page 21