Sprite

It took Neistah the entire week to reach the great northern lake where Valin and the others waited. He wanted to see for himself just how much damage had been done to what he had come to think of as his forest. Whether he wanted them or not, he now had four human changelings in addition to the ones Pup had left him. He didn’t even bother reinforcing his compulsions on the four; they followed him now because they had nowhere else to go.

The first night the four hunter boys huddled miserably together, shivering, until Owen, one of Pup’s crew, took pity on them and threw them a blanket. He squatted down beside the largest youth, Brom, and cast him a considering look. “You’re not used to being out in this weather,” he observed.

Brom scowled at him. “It’s not the weather,” he muttered. “I’m out in it plenty when I’m tending to the livestock or plowing the fields.” He turned his reddened, calloused hands over to prove his point. “But I had clothes on then.”

“You’re a farmer?” Owen raised his eye ridges. He was hairless, including his eyebrows, and was the only Sprite present without raggedly long hair. “So am I—so was I.”

“We both are.” Brom indicated his younger brother. “Or our Pop is.”

“Why did you leave your farm?” Owen’s voice was mildly accusatory. The harvest would be just winding up about now, and all hands should have been pitching in.

“Wasn’t my idea,” Brom said, looking away. “Pop wasn’t too happy about it either, but Datro’s council said go, and we went.”

Neistah, across the camp from the boys, glanced up. Jordy and the others nodded vigorously.

“Where was your farm?” Owen asked. “Do you know Old Max from South Datro?”

Neistah stopped listening as Owen and Brom talked about farmers they both knew, crops, markets, and other things they had in common. Before long, Brom moved over to the other group, with Jordy, Pete and Rolf quick to follow his lead. Now that they had had time to get used to it, the boys from Datro seemed less intimidated by his Sprites’ mutations. Neistah shook his head at his own musings. They were all boys from Datro.

After that, things went more smoothly. Neistah let the boy hunters try to keep up. He couldn’t truly call them hunters. They were not the mercenaries who preyed on weaker mutants. If the city was conscripting more people for its own nebulous agenda, then perhaps the situation warranted a closer look.

His Sprites had more compassion for the newcomers than Neistah did, however, taking the four boys under their wing and making sure they did not get too cold or fall too far behind. Owen even produced a thick shirt, which he offered to Jordy, who would have none of it. The shirt was passed down the line, from Jordy to Rolf to Pete and finally to Brom. He didn’t take it because none of the younger ones would. “We’ll get used to it,” he said stubbornly.

Neistah snorted, and pressed on. As long as they were moving, the chill did not bite so deeply, and in the evenings even Jordy gratefully accepted a blanket, once he saw that the other Sprites also used blankets. Neistah didn’t, but the boys were fast learning that Neistah was unusual even for a mutant.

They came across the first burned patch a day later. Sodden tracks led away from the area, although it had not rained lately. Neistah led his Sprites in a wide circle around it. He glared at Brom and Owen, who were currently arguing over whose way of life was better.

“How do you expect to feed all of the changelings unless you plant some crops?” Brom asked in exasperation. “Oh wait—you don’t need to plant your own because you already steal ours!”

“How do you expect us to have time to grow crops when you hound us from place to place?” Owen countered. “If we stayed in one spot long enough to reap a harvest, we’d all be slaughtered by the hunters!”

“I’m no hunter!” Brom huffed, offended.

“Quiet!” Neistah snapped, holding up a hand. Owen instantly went still, letting his eyes dart from left to right in an attempt to track what had alerted Neistah. Brom, who had been just about to add a point, fell quiet also. He heard it then, too, a rustle in the bushes and low voices from somewhere up ahead.

Neistah motioned for Owen and another of Pup’s Sprites to go ahead of them, and they swiftly disappeared into the dense underbrush. A few minutes later they returned. “Hunters,” Owen confirmed. “Two of them.”

It would have been easy to bedevil the hunters, even kill them. They deserved it for what they had tried to do to these woods. But Neistah beckoned for his group to follow him away from the hunters. If Valin or Leane had let these hunters live, they must have had a reason.

“You two, no talking,” Neistah said, when they were some distance away.

Owen reddened, nodding, while Brom jutted out his chin. But Brom kept quiet, too, thinking of the two hunters they had left behind. He wondered if he had known them. He hoped not.

They criss-crossed the forest in a steady arc around the burned area, looking for more evidence of hunters. They found a hunter’s camp about a mile out, campfires kicked over, and the remnants of a hastily abandoned meal scattered in the coals. Jordy knelt beside a dented cookpot which was cold to the touch. The others spread out, looking for signs of a struggle. There was no one here now; Neistah would have ‘heard’ them. Still, he let his Sprites scout the area.

“Over here!” The shout came from beyond the campsite, deeper in the woods. Neistah and the others sprinted towards it.

Half submerged in a swampy lake was the figure of an older man, his heavy clothing pulling him down among the reeds so that his face was partially hidden. A broken rifle lay nearby. This was the first body they had come across, and apparently the first dead body Jordy and his friends had ever seen, because they blanched and quickly turned away. Owen turned the body over.

Neistah recognized him. Dave, he thought. This one was truly a hunter. He hadn’t aged well, and his weight might have led to his downfall. Neistah smiled grimly. He should have taken care of Dave long ago when he had the chance. Apparently Dave had not learned his lesson back then. He should never have gone near the water. Either Valin or Leane had lured him in. Probably Leane.

“Leave him,” Neistah said shortly.

He cast about with his mind for Leane or Valin, but sensed nothing. They were too far ahead.

Neistah made camp at the branch of two small streams. Where they overlapped, a deep pool of water formed between two big rocks. Neistah escaped to the water, to think, and to drown out the incessant verbal sparring between Owen and Brom, which even the others had begun to join in.

Soon it would be winter. Neistah thought of home and Lara. She was steady where he was not, unchanged no matter how long he was gone. Once this business with the humans in his forest was settled, perhaps he would return to her dependable arms and perhaps even let her weave him a garment of her own soft hair.

Could he leave Norah in this dark world? Would she wish to remain behind? She might; she was more of this world than of his, although Breyan might not agree, nor would his father, her ancestor. They wanted the girl for their own reasons while he—Neistah paused—what did he want? He twisted in a tight circle under the water, but his thoughts circled right along with him. He wanted Norah to do what she wanted. She was young yet, as everyone but Breyan and the two mortal boys pointed out again and again. She could have her choice—of partners, and of worlds.

Neistah was determined to give her that choice. What had started out as an onerous duty imposed on him by his Lady Mother had become a responsibility that he no longer owned the power to ignore. Nor did he want to. Norah was a delightful child, for a half-mortal creature. He liked that she looked up to him.

“Neistah! Neistah!”

Neistah came to the surface reluctantly to find Jordy peering down at him from the top of the rocks. The boy had a slightly glazed, slightly horrified expression on his face, and Neistah remembered that none of these new ‘Sprites’ had yet seen him in his element. It might also have had something to do with the fact that Jordy had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his breath frosted in the evening air. Grinning cruelly, Neistah shot straight up out of the water, shooting droplets all over the startled boy as he landed on the rocks next to him. “What?”

“Uh--,” Jordy fell back, stunned to silence as Neistah loomed before him. Freshly wet, the fins on his neck and ankles glistened in the moonlight, which also caught and threw back the green highlights in his dark hair. “They’re fighting.”

Neistah looked beyond Jordy, his eyes easily piercing the darkness to see Owen and Brom locked in combat on the forest floor. He didn’t have to see them; he could hear them grunting and growling at each other, as the rest of the Sprites, separated once more into the hunter boys and the changelings, slung taunts at each other across the two rolling bodies.

“Who’s keeping watch?” Neistah asked as he stalked over and easily pulled the two combatants apart. Both were breathing heavily. When Brom tried to break free to go after Owen again, Neistah threw him into the pool. Owen had more sense. He let himself go limp until Neistah released his grip.

“Sorry,” Owen muttered.

Brom climbed out of the water, his teeth chattering, and climbed up the tumbled rocks to the ledge where they had made their camp. He snatched the blanket Owen held out to him and wrapped it around himself. “Sorry,” he said under his breath, but he addressed his remark to Neistah, not Owen.

“Who’s keeping watch?” Neistah asked again. All the rest of the boys still stood on opposite sides of the camp. At Neistah’s words, two of them, Pup’s Sprites, not the newcomers, trotted off without a word to take up stations outside the camp. It wasn’t that critical; Neistah would have ‘heard’ if anything approached. Then again, he had been so caught up in his own musings that he had not ‘heard’ what was going on in the camp until Jordy came to fetch him.

Neistah did not want to be their leader. He left that to Pup and Will. What did these children expect him to do about their petty differences? It was Owen’s idea to welcome the four hunter boys into their group. Neistah would have been happy leaving them out in the woods to find their own way, or die trying, which was more likely. He glanced at Jordy’s anxious face. “What happened?” he asked in resignation.

They all started talking at once.

“Stop!” Neistah glared at them all equally.

“They said we were mistakes.” One of Pup’s Sprites, the boy with the fused fingers that at first glance approximated Neistah’s webbing, said morosely.

“I did not,” Brom replied. “That’s not what I meant, anyway. “ He sought Neistah’s gaze. “I only meant that mutations were mistakes. Not the mutants—I mean changelings.”

“Why do you think that?” Neistah asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

Brom reddened, and stuttered, “E-everybody knows, it’s because of what happened a long time ago, when the world nearly got destroyed. A lot of people died. The ones who were left, well, there was something wrong with their blood. Some of their kids were born normal, but some had—things wrong with them. It still happens today. That’s all I meant. I don’t think it’s right that mutants have to go into the factories, and I don’t think they should be hunted, that’s all I was trying to say.”

“What if you were born with a mutation?” Owen asked. “Would you still think the same way? It’s only luck that you were born normal.”

“Luck?” Jordy, who had been listening intently, suddenly spoke up. “It isn’t luck at all. I wish I had been born with a mutation.”

“No, you don’t,” said Owen and Brom at the same time. They glanced at each other and away.

“Yes, I do. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” Jordy protested.

“Nor do I,” Neistah said firmly. “Now, what’s this really about?”

It slowly came out that Brom thought the changelings should live openly in villages, cultivate their own crops, and generally live as the people in the cities did—just apart, and Owen tried to explain how that would never work. Part of the reason Owen was so upset was because, deep down, he wished it could work that way. Neistah sighed. “If that could work, there would be no reason for the changelings and the rest of the people to live separately at all. You.” He pointed to Owen. “You are responsible for Brom. Take him with you everywhere you go. I don’t care if you kill each other; just do it quietly. You.” He pointed to Jordy. “Go with him.” He indicated the changeling with the fused fingers. “You are his shadow. You two.” He indicated Pete and Rolf. “Go pick out someone to shadow. Until you can move as quietly as they do.”

“But what about--?”

Neistah shook his head. “Those are not my concerns,” he told them.

The next morning, they pushed on, heading northward towards the rendezvous at the great lake. Another burned patch of forest stretched in front of them. This one was cold and deserted. Nevertheless, Neistah followed the burned path for most of the afternoon. There was very little cover, so the group of Sprites were completely exposed as they trotted after him. Neistah dismissed their concerns. “Nobody’s here,” he said with assurance.

He finally stopped when it became clear that someone had been there, and recently. Charred and broken trees had been dug up and dragged to the sides of a wide area which in turn had been packed down to a hard surface. Piles of black dirt mixed with soot had been dumped at even intervals, ready to be spread.

“They’re making a road,” Neistah said, narrowing his eyes. The fires weren’t random, and the changelings weren’t the only target. This was what Neistah had come to see with his own eyes. Had Valin or Leane stopped this fire, or had it burned itself out as was intended? Where were the hunters?

It was time to meet up with Valin and the others. Neistah headed directly north, wishing he had come alone so he could have used the nearby lakes and rivers as waterways to the great northern lake. They took one more day to travel overland to the edge of the northern lake. Neistah cast out with his mind. “This way,” he said, moving quickly.

The great northern lake was vast, even bigger than the great southern lake at the other extreme. Wind howled off it, sending whitecaps scurrying to land where they dashed themselves to pieces. The forest dropped off some distance from the desolate shore.

Will, with Leane leaning comfortably against him, waited for Neistah by the shore. Leane’s grass green hair was neatly braided and hung down her back past her knees. She still wore Norah’s old practical clothes, but even in them it was apparent that she was as exotic as Neistah. Jordy goggled at her. “Another one!” he said in awe.

Neistah shook his head. It was becoming harder and harder to keep up the myth that he was just another mutant. “Pup couldn’t come,” he said, looking pointedly at Will. “He’s with Norah.”

Will’s eyes widened, as Neistah figured they would, and he grinned at the little pout that formed on Leane’s lips.

“This one keeps asking me to bring him to our home.” Leane wrapped both her arms possessively around one of Will’s.

“He would die,” Neistah said bluntly. “Leave him alone.”

Jordy gasped, and the rest of the changelings who had accompanied Neistah stared in confusion, as the green-haired woman gave a tinkling laugh and extricated her arms from Will’s. “Then perhaps one of these lovelies would care to keep me company?” she asked, with a wide smile that revealed teeth just a little too sharp to be normal.