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.
“How’s Artur?” Kestrel asked.
“He’s gone on to the next realm,” Arlen answered, keeping his head down as he held his dead companion’s hand.
Kestrel walked over to the nearly dead yeti, which moaned periodically while his limbs quivered randomly. Cautiously, Kestrel stepped in and placed both hands on the handle of the sword, then pulled the blade, giving a mighty heave to draw it free of the monster’s body. He skipped back a step as the yeti’s arms flailed weakly, then looked up, away from the immediate scene and took in the rest of the vicinity.
The woman was kneeling over the inert figure on the ground near the burning shed, and the two children were clinging to her skirts. He walked over to her, feeling pain in several spots on his body, and light-headed from the contact with the stony ground. He reached the small family tableau and dropped his sword, then crouched down by the woman. Her hands were holding the hands of the man on the ground, and one look at the gaping rip in his torso showed Kestrel that the man had died.
The woman looked up, her face tear-streaked, and she said something to Kestrel, something he couldn’t translate. “Say that again, and speak slowly. I didn’t understand you,” Kestrel told the woman.
He was studying her features, the first human woman he had seen.
“He’s dead, my Youkal is dead, and we would be too if you hadn’t saved us,” the woman said between sobbing gulps. “Thank you.”
Kestrel saw the pain and shock in her eyes, and he saw the tiny figures that shrunk away from him, trying to hide themselves in the folds of the skirt they clung to.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Kestrel replied. “Is anyone else hurt?”
“No, there are just the three of us,” the woman answered, her words and accent growing more intelligible to Kestrel as he listened. “What’s happening over there?” she nodded with her head to the mounds in the darkness at the edge of the fire’s illumination, the lumps that were the dying yeti and the grieving Arlen sitting over Artur’s body.
“The yeti is dying, and one of my partners is dead,” Kestrel replied. He looked down again. “Why don’t you take the little ones back to the cabin? We’ll help start preparing a burial plot for your man,” he suggested.
The woman obediently rose, and ushered her children away from their father’s body.
“Do you have a shovel?” Kestrel asked as they walked away.
“In here,” the woman replied as she entered the broken cabin. Kestrel trotted over, as the woman picked up the shovel from the spot where she had dropped it. She had been using it as a weapon, Kestrel realized. He took the implement from her, looking at her face in the firelight.
Her face was more angular than an elven maiden’s face, he realized. The lower part was more prominent, and her cheekbones were more pronounced. She reacted to his scrutiny by unconsciously sweeping her hair behind her ear, and he stared at her ear, her human ear, for a long second, before he broke from his immobility and turned away with the shovel in his hand.
He walked back to where Arlen was standing, still looking down at Artur.
“What’s the shovel for?” he asked.
“I told her we’d bury her husband,” Kestrel replied.
“That’s good. Go get a bucket first,” Arlen told him.
“Why?” Kestrel asked, surprised by the request.
“We need to save the yeti blood. The healers in Estone think that yeti blood gives strength and virility to people who drink it. The woman is going to need some money to recover from this,” Arlen said, looking up from Artur at last. “We can collect some of the blood, and cut off the head and,” he paused, “other things. She’ll be able to take them to Estone and make a good amount of money.”
Kestrel dropped the shovel and obediently walked back to the cabin. The fire in the shack was dying down, and the scene was growing darker around the farmstead, but the woman had a lantern lit inside the cabin, where she sat on the side of a bed and softly stroked the hair of the two little children who were snuggled together under a cover.
“Do you have a bucket?” Kestrel asked as she watched him approach.
“We have two, but they’re both in the shed where we kept the cow. They were our milk pails,” she finished her sentence and began to cry, pressing the back of her hand against her face to hide her emotion.
“I’ll try to get them, you just stay here and watch the wee ones,” Kestrel said sofly.
He walked out to the remains of the shed, hot embers all around the burnt carcass of the cow that had died there, and he spotted the pails. He got a long tree branch from the forest, and fished the pails out of the ruins, then carried them over to where Arlen waited.
“We’ll need a rope to do this,” Arlen said. “I’ll go back to the campsite and get our horses. We’ve got rope there, and we’ll need the horses anyway. You stay here and honor Artur,” he commanded Kestrel, then turned and was gone.
Kestrel gave a sigh, in physical pain and in shock from the events of the battle, then sat cross-legged beside Artur, and began to recite the good things that he remembered about his instructor, and called upon the gods to hurry his soul to the other realm. “Give him peace, Kere, and let all of us here who remain also accept his loss with peace,” he finished up his devotions just as Arlen returned.
“He was a good man. His wife will be heart-broken when we return,” Arlen said as he led the horses into the clearing.
“Here, tie this rope around the yeti’s feet,” Arlen told Kestrel who stood up.
“Wait just a moment,” Kestrel replied, as he went to his horse and pulled a water skin off. It was one of the skins from the healing spring, and he knew there was never a time when its effects would be more welcome.
“Here, take a drink of this,” Kestrel instructed Arlen, shoving the uncorked skin at him.
“What is it?” Arlen asked as he held the skin.
“It’s water from a special spring. It will help heal any wounds you may have gotten,” he explained.
Arlen held the skin upward and took a drink then handed it back to Kestrel. “I’m going to give some to the family. I’ll be right back,” Kestrel said, and crossed the yard again.
“Here, this water is from a healing spring. Take a drink,” Kestrel urged the woman.
She obediently raised the skin and took a drink. “It tastes refreshing,” she commented.
“Do the children need any?” Kestrel asked.
“No, they weren’t hurt. Their bodies weren’t,” she replied softly.
Kestrel held the skin up high and took a long drink for himself, a draught that left the skin half empty. He hoped it would help soothe the headache that pounded in the back of his skull, and take away the pain in his ribs that increased with every deep breath.