Sprite

The youngest of the hunters, Jordan, or Jordy as he liked to be called, pelted after Neistah without regard for the terrain which gouged his sensitive feet with every jouncing step. “Where are we going?” he asked, out of breath. His eyes shone with excitement.

Neistah barely slowed, calling back over his shoulder, “To find the rest of the hunters.”

Jordy had been the first to cast off Neistah’s glamour. Brom, the unspoken leader of their little splinter group and the one who had threatened Neistah with the gun, also ran determinedly after the sprite, but his eyes remained glazed and unfocused. Pete and Rolf, the final two, were somewhere in between. It had been this way for the past three days.

Shivering over nighttime fires, the boys copied Neistah as he methodically set up makeshift camps each evening. Their guns, their knives, even their sleeping bags were long gone. Bare feet and legs bruised and bloody from the fast pace Neistah set, they had no choice but to follow him. Jordy liked it. He thought he really was one of Neistah’s Sprites.

Neistah grimaced at the thought. His plan had been to lead these hunter boys back to their main group and then abandon them. With any luck, the more seasoned hunters would mistake them for mutants and kill them on sight. Problem solved.

Except Jordy wanted to be a Sprite. Neistah could read it clearly in the boy’s thoughts. He slowed his pace, causing the boy to nearly crash into him. Up ahead, Pup waited with several of the boys from one of the other hidden villages. That meant Will must have gone on ahead with sweet Leane. Neistah grinned. The poor kid had no chance against her charms.

“Any fires?” Neistah asked, moving in with his new recruits behind him. Brom slowly turned his head back and forth, trying to get his bearings. When he noticed Pup, his eyes widened and he froze, rigid with shock as he regained awareness. Neistah watched him carefully, ready to reinforce his compulsion if necessary.

“One, west of the river,” Pup replied. “It’s out now.” He eyed the four boys with Neistah curiously.

“The hunters who set it?”

“Taken care of.” Pup did not elaborate. “Who are they?” He nodded his chin in Jordy’s direction.

Neistah grinned slyly. “Hunters,” he replied.

Pup did not rise to the bait, much to Neistah’s disappointment. He shook his head, taking it as one of Neistah’s jokes, and not a very funny one.

Brom’s eyes cleared and he frowned when he saw the company he was keeping: every last one wore cut-off trousers and nothing else, despite the chill weather, just like they did. He plucked at his own shorn trousers, his eyes wildly seeking out Pete, Rolf and Jordy, who were also shirtless and dressed only in ragged trousers like the group now ranged in front of them. He stared at the strangers with growing horror. The one with the furred torso and stubby tail took a step towards him.

“Mutants!” he yelled, throwing himself backwards and right into Jordy, who steadied him.

“It’s all right. These are Neistah’s Sprites,” Jordy said confidently. “And we can join them. Right?” Jordy looked to Neistah for confirmation.

“I told you. Hunters,” Neistah remarked jauntily to Pup.

“No!” Jordy stood defensively in front of Brom, who stiffened as Neistah’s Sprites all turned towards them with hostile glares. “I mean, we are, we were,” Jordy clarified, pushing Brom into Pete and Rolf’s arms. “But we don’t want to be, right Pete? Right, Brom?”

Brom nervously shifted from foot to foot. These were mutants! Who knew what they could do? When he and his brother Pete had been conscripted off their farm to join in the hunt for Datro’s Sprite, they’d had nothing against mutants. And when clumsy Jordy attached himself to their group, along with Rolf, all four of them commiserated with each other over the unfairness of their situation. So they had sneaked away into the forest and pretended to look for mutants, never expecting to actually find any. “We can’t join them,” he muttered aside to Jordy. “We’re not mutants, remember?”

“Well, we can’t go home,” Rolf said in frustration. It would have been different if they had captured the sprite called Neistah. Then they would have been able to go home in triumph. But instead, it seemed that Neistah had captured them. He stared sullenly at the odd-looking people in front of them. Neistah was the most odd-looking of all of them. As if he had heard Rolf’s unspoken thoughts, the green-tinged sprite turned towards him and grinned with uncannily sharp teeth. Rolf blanched.

“Go ahead. Go home. I won’t stop you,” Neistah said softly with menace. The four hunters had only the torn pants they stood in—no weapons, no supplies. “The hunters are that way.” He pointed.

Brom, Rolf and Pete hesitated, suspecting a trick. Neistah stepped back, and beckoned to Pup. “Take me to where the fire was set,” he decided. The hunter boys could make their own blundering way until they either died of exposure or the main group of hunters found them. Already, Neistah tired of the game he played with them.

Pup nodded and sprinted away, followed by his troupe of changeling sprites, and Neistah.

Jordy started running. “Come on!” he yelled to his friends.

Brom glanced in the direction Neistah had pointed to earlier, the direction which would lead them back to the hunters from Datro, then back to where Jordy was fast disappearing. He swore, and started off after Jordy.

X X X X X X X X

Neistah surveyed the wide swath of burned forest on the other side of the river. Charred tree trunks stuck up like black spikes in the stark landscape. “Why?” he asked no one in particular.

Pup answered. “From what we can tell, the purpose is two-fold. The hunters from Datro are determined to track down Datro’s Sprite, whatever it takes. Rumor has it that the granddaughter of one of the big-wigs on Datro’s Council was kidnapped by Datro’s Sprite. Why, I have no idea.” He shot Neistah a wry glance. “The descriptions of Datro’s Sprite are pretty specific. They’re after you, Neistah.”

Neistah barked out a laugh. “I’m not Datro’s Sprite,” he said, amused by the irony. The hunters hunted the very thing they sought to protect.

“It’s the other one, isn’t it?” Pup asked shrewdly. “The red-headed girl. She’s Datro’s Sprite.”

Neistah shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. You said the reason is two-fold. So the hunters think to burn the forest to flush out Datro’s Sprite, and if they kill the rest of the mutants at the same time, so much the better. What is the second reason?”

“Apparently, this big-wig Council member, Avery something-or-other, has plans for expanding his business interests. He’s burning down specific areas, and sending out crews once the areas are secured to start clearing the debris. They’re building roads, Neistah. They plan to expand into the forest.”

“So the granddaughter is just an excuse?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Why don’t you ask your little friends the hunters?” Pup said, raising one eyebrow. “They seem to have followed us.”

“Let them.” Neistah dove into the river and swam across, followed by Pup and the rest of the changeling sprites, leaving Jordy and his companions on the other side. Neistah didn’t think they would follow, since they had balked every other time Neistah had tried to lead them into the water. But after a moment’s hesitation, they plunged in and swam across to climb, shivering, onto the far bank.

Pup shook his head, but he sent his scouts out to find firewood that would still burn, and started a bonfire so that these newest Sprites, who hadn’t yet built up a tolerance to the cold like the rest of them, wouldn’t die of exposure. It was safe enough. Pup had made sure none of the hunters who had been tasked to burn this section of woods would ever make it back to the main group. Their blood soaked the charred earth, apt recompense for the damage they caused.

Neistah squatted by the fire, idly tracing circles in the black dirt with one finger, aware that Jordy stared in fascination at the webbing between his fingers as it shimmered in the firelight. He ignored the boy and his hunter companions, who had made themselves a place among the other Sprites around the fire. “Where is Leane?” he asked. “And Valin? Have you heard from his group?”

“Still making contact with the other changeling villages,” Pup replied. “Will went with Leane to the east. Valin went north, last I heard. He sent one of the changelings back to tell us he found something there. We are supposed to meet up in a week at the great lake. I sent the boy after Will and Leane and came back to find you.”

“Good.” Neistah stood. “Pup, walk with me.”

Jordy glanced up nervously as the two moved off and left him and his friends with the other mutants, but he made no move to follow Neistah. One of the mutants handed him a grilled fish on a stick and smiled. Jordy smiled back, accepting the fish, and tried not to stare at the crabbed, fused fingers of the boy who handed it to him.

On the edge of the river, outlined in black by the light of the moon, Pup and Neistah paced out the area destroyed by the fire. “The river stopped it,” Pup said. “If not for the river, who knows how long it would have burned.”

Earl’s new camp lay on the other side of the river. “I have a job for you,” Neistah said, clasping Pup’s shoulder. The small boy who idolized him had grown into a tall young man. Pup, not Neistah, was the true leader of the changeling sprites. “I’ll go with the rest of your group to meet Leane and the others at the great lake. I want you to go back to Earl’s village. Keep an eye on Norah, the one you thought might be Datro’s Sprite.”

Pup slapped his thigh. “I knew it!” he exclaimed. “She looks too much like you. I knew she had to be Datro’s Sprite if it wasn’t you!”

Neistah frowned. “She may resemble me in outward appearance somewhat,” he said, “but she’s one of yours. She doesn’t have the experience to wander around in these woods like we do, although she thinks she does. So I’m asking you to keep her safe.”

“What is she to you then?” Pup asked. “If she is not the same as you, then what is she?” Pup had grown up around Neistah. He had always believed Neistah was more than just another mutated human. Meeting Valin and Leane reinforced that belief. Whatever they were, Neistah and his relatives were not human. Did that mean that Norah was?

Neistah gave a predatory grin. “Why? Do you want her?”

Pup blushed. The girl Norah was incredibly beautiful, even more so than Leane in Pup’s opinion. Everyone thought she belonged to Neistah. If that was not the case, then . . .

“Be careful. She is young yet,” Neistah cautioned. “Let her make up her own mind.”

With that cryptic piece of advice, Neistah strode away, leaving Pup to wonder if he had been given permission to take an interest in Norah or not.