The first camp is set, now, and we're waiting to see all the latecomers joining. What worries me the most is Kalf: his daughter Asatrid is here with us, but he's still nowhere to be seen. The last news were about him wreaking havoc in Bree once again: where is he now? Is he still alive? Truly... the poor child should have a more responsible father, or at least a mother to take care and comfort her. We all do what we can, but it is not the same.
˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
It was the day after when I went hunting not too far from the camp, that I saw a wolf sleeping peacefully in the middle of the path. Queer sight, no doubt, and Béma must have hold my hand back, when I was already to shoot my arrow, because upon further investigation it was no sleeping wolf: it was Kalf, horribly wounded and with a dead wolf on him, its fangs still clutching at Kalf's neck.
The man was still alive, althought barely: an impressive feat, given the kind of wounds and injuries he had suffered. I tried to remove the wolf, but Kalf stopped me, murmuring something about the wolf's fangs cutting deep in his neck, and the possible danger of removing them to an unstoppable bloodflow.
Queer possibility, if you ask me, but I didn't want the poor deranged man to worry even more than he already were, so I did my best to patch him up without removing his wolf-cork from his bottle-neck.
I stitched the largest cuts with my needle and thread for leatherworking, and eventually severed the wolf's head, securing it then to place with some stripes of fabrics I cut from my undershirt.
It was gruesome and painful, but Kalf endured it all with great courage and willpower. I still think he's mad like a box of frogs, but his endurance is in fact remarkable. Perhaps he might even survive. Time will tell.
˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
I still look, longingy, toward West.
I didn't know it would have hurt so much. The pain, the suffering... it's physical, even. I do not know how I can bear it further.
The days before we left, in the village, one of the elders told me that "Your home is where your heart is."
Am I really going home, I wonder?
