Kestrel turned his horse and walked away, back to Arlen and Artur. “He says there’s talk of a yeti a few miles north of here,” Kestrel explained to both of them, in both languages. Translation skills came relatively easy for him now, and Artur was pleased with his progress.
They rode north until they reached a river. The faint trail they followed reached a bluff that looked out over the river, and they followed the trail as it followed the river bank, moving west towards the mountains. The trail descended to a spot that plausibly provided an opportunity to ford the river, and they rode their horses through the wide, rippling spot in the river. It was a larger stream than Kestrel had ever seen before, and neither Artur nor Arlen knew what river it was.
“Can’t we just run across?” Kestrel asked, referring to the elven ability to run atop water for short distances. Sprinting at their highest running speeds, and with their light frames, agile elves could cross over a hundred yards of water surface before they sank. It was an ability they delighted in, and was often a fiercely competitive sport to see who could reach furthest across a lake or pond before going under.
“We can. The horses can’t,” Arlen pointed out the obvious to the sheepish Kestrel, and so they forded slowly through the cold water that flowed from the mountains.
That night they settled into a camp spot, but made no fire. Kestrel was assigned first watch. Two hours into his shift he heard an unearthly scream, and the horses nickered uneasily. The scream came from some distance away, and Kestrel stood up, unsure of what to do. The scream seemed too far away to be in their immediate vicinity, yet it was close enough to hear.
He decided to awaken Arlen, the armsman who knew something about the yeti. Arlen had described the monsters to Kestrel during their ride. “The creatures are immensely tall, incredibly strong, cunning and deceitful, and full of hatred. You seldom manage to avoid a fight with one if it knows you’re around. They don’t like to let any challengers survive in their territory, and they each claim a very large territory,” the elf had told Kestrel, who had translated for Artur.
Arlen sat up in the darkness in response to Kestrel’s prod, but before Kestrel could even explain the reason for the untimely awakening, there was another scream, and then immediately a third scream, a different voice, one that sounded full of fear, not anger. “It sounds like you’ve found our yeti, Kestrel,” Arlen said softly. “And it sounds like he’s on the attack. Can you tell what direction the screams came from?”
“Yes, over there, away from the moonrise,” Kestrel pointed west.
“Awaken Artur, and get your weapons. We’ll see if we can do something tonight,” Arlen directed him as he rose from his bedroll.
Kestrel awoke the linguist, then gathered up his bow and arrows, his staff, and his sword, then went to wait by the horses.
“Come over here, Kestrel. We’re going to go on foot,” Arlen said, standing next to Artur, and holding a small lantern. “The horses won’t be able to travel quickly in the forest at night, and it’s not far anyway if we can hear the screams. We’ll use the lantern to try to find the path. I’ll take the lead, Artur will follow, and you bring up the rear. Let’s go,” he commanded as they started heading west, relying on the lantern to show them a narrow forest path that went in that direction.
Five minutes later there was another yeti scream, much closer now, as well as the sound of breaking timbers. They redoubled their pace for three more minutes, then stopped suddenly when a woman’s scream came from their left, very nearby. Kestrel looked and saw a light visible less than a hundred yards away, and Arlen started leading them through the brush and the forest, crashing through the undergrowth on a pathless charge towards the yeti’s apparent location.
Within a minute the trees abruptly halted on the edge of a small opening in the forest. A small shed was on fire on one side. Its blaze illuminated three things that stood out in Kestrel’s mind: a body lay still in the ground nearby, a cabin had suffered such a violent assault one wall had been virtually torn away, and a huge creature, a dark malevolent entity, was entering the cabin, threatening a woman who pitifully attempted to protect a pair of small children using only a stick.
Kestrel pulled his bow and strung an arrow, then released a shaft that hit the yeti in the back. He’d pulled his string taut, and the force of one of his shots, at such close range, should have been enough to deeply penetrate the flesh of any living creature. The yeti roared its displeasure and turned away from the small family, then plucked out the arrow that had barely penetrated its fur near its kidney, as it spotted the three elves on the edge of the clearing.
“Okay, you’ve made it mad. Now what do we do?” Artur asked.
“Yeti’s have the toughest hide I know of,” Arlen answered quickly. “They’re vulnerable in the groin, the eyes, the mouth, and not much anywhere else.
“Spread out. I’ll try to attract him towards me,” Arlen said as the yeti began to leave the cabin and approach them. “Kestrel, you try to put an arrow in him wherever you can. Artur,” he added as he started to go right, “see if you can go help that woman get her kids somewhere safe, out of that cabin, so they’re not trapped in there.”
Kestrel strung another arrow, and took aim at the yeti’s groin, then released the arrow and immediately pulled another arrow from his quiver, and let it fly too.
The yeti screamed in pain as the first shaft hit it. The arrow was close to the target, hitting the inside of the upper thigh, while the second arrow arrived a second later only to bounce off the monster’s hip. The yeti paused as it reached down and pulled the successful first arrow free from its flesh, screaming its outrage upon the removal. It looked up at Kestrel, and started limping towards him.
The monster demonstrated that despite its injury it could cover ground quickly. Kestrel had time for only one more arrow shot he realized, and he strung a new shaft, took aim at the open mouth that was screaming furiously, and let the arrow go.
Just as he released the shot, Arlen jumped at the beast, cracking his staff against its head, trying to distract it from Kestrel. The yeti’s head jerked in response to the strike, and Kestrel’s arrow feebly scratched its cheek before dropping to the ground.
Arlen backed up quickly, as the yeti turned towards him, but in the process he somehow tangled his feet, and fell backwards. The yeti kicked at the fallen elf, punting him several yards away, but was diverted from further attack when Artur threw a rock that hit the back of the monster’s head.
It turned and ran towards Artur, but stopped when Kestrel fired another shot that penetrated its cheek. Confused by the multiple sources of attacks, enraged, and in pain, the yeti abruptly changed direction to run at Kestrel, who panicked and climbed a tree to escape the charge, rising above the monster that stood at the base of the trunk, In response, the yeti grabbed the trunk of the tree and began to shake it wildly, causing Kestrel to hang on fearfully, sure that he was going to be dislodged.
Arlen arose from his prone position on the ground, and flicked two knives simultaneously at the yeti. One bounced off the monster’s back, while the other weakly penetrated the skin of its buttocks, doing no great harm, but causing pain that distracted the creature from its pursuit of Kestrel, and motivated it to lumber back towards Arlen once again.
Kestrel jumped down from his tree haven, dropped his bow and pulled his sword free, running to help Arlen, but not as quickly as Artur did, who emerged from the darkness with his staff, and thrust it between the running monster’s legs, tripping it up and causing it to fall.
The force of the yeti’s fall snapped Artur’s staff as easily as if it were a toothpick, and when the monster rose again, the linguist was defenseless as it pounced upon him with a blow to the chest that made him crumple to the ground with a pitiful moan.
Arlen jumped on the monster’s back at that moment, and Kestrel reached it as well. The yeti screamed triumphantly at the defeat of one of its feisty opponents, and reached back over its shoulders to rip the second one away, when Kestrel placed both hands on the hilt of his sword and ran at the creature, thrusting his blade deeply into its groin. The yeti gave a scream, and swung its arms forward, backhanding Kestrel with a powerful blow as it tried to reach the weapon that had dealt it a mortal wound.
Kestrel flew several feet through the air and hit the ground hard. His head flew back and hit a stone, stunning him for seconds, as the flames from the shed fire luridly lit the scene, and the yeti screamed in agony. Kestrel finally looked up to see the monster down on its knees, then he watched as it fell on its side and moaned with decreasing volume. Arlen was off the monster’s back, kneeling over Artur, and Kestrel braced himself to rise and walk over to his companions.
“Get your blade out of the yeti and go check on the family,” Arlen said as Kestrel approached him.
