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
