Elf-Boy's Friends 13
The Troll War, Part IV
Sparky's Tale
by George Gauthier
[The further adventures of characters from the novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends']
Chapter 1. Convalescence
The Naval Hospital in the capital of the Commonwealth of the Long River was a center for convalescence as well as acute care. One of the patients recovering from his wounds there was a young veteran of the ongoing war against the trolls: Ensign Nathan "Sparky" Lathrop of the warship CS Petrel, a schooner operating out of the naval base of Alster on the Great Inland Freshwater Sea.
Less than two months after being wounded in the first major sea battle of the war, the young naval officer was up and about, walking nearly normally. Only the lack of spring in his step showed that he used a prosthetic. A troll axe had severed his left leg just above the ankle. Nathan would have bled out had not Warrant Officer Durban, the ship's surgeon, invoked his gift of magical healing to render Nathan unconscious while he expertly tied off his major blood vessels and stopped the blood loss.
Nathan owed his life to Surgeon Durban's ministrations yet Durban would not have reached Nathan in time but for the heroic actions of Nathan's lover Warrant Officer Liam, the journeyman war wizard assigned to their ship. The sight of his lover falling to the trolls attacking the foredeck of the Petrel had driven Liam into a killing frenzy. Invoking his telekinetic power, which was called Fetching on the planet of Haven, Liam had whirled a pair of steel spheres about the size of a peach at high speed in a short arc back and forth, one high one low, normally a defensive maneuver called the Shield. In the close quarters of the fore deck it became a devastating offensive weapon.
Caught up in a killing frenzy beyond all caring Liam scythed his foes down, ignoring the cries for quarter that came from the last to die. He was not about to spare trolls who had cut down his Nathan. Not by a long shot. It was only when all the trolls lay dead at his feet that Liam's rage abruptly left him, replaced by concern for his lover.
Now they had come together again. Nathan's journey to the capital had been by hospital ship to Alster and later by coastal ship and river boat to the capital. Liam had traveled overland by stagecoach from Flensborg, capital of New Varangia, a second homeland of the Frost Giants under the suzerainty of the Commonwealth of the Long River.
Both were mere youths, for Liam was eighteen and Nathan still only seventeen, a few weeks short of his eighteenth birthday.
The boy outfitted in his Navy blues stood just a shade under Liam's height with the willowy build and smooth musculature of an elf though he was fully human. Nathan was boyishly cute, a freckle-faced carrot-topped youngster who looked much too young to be an officer in the Navy of the Commonwealth. A walking wet dream, that was the only way to described the scrumptious sailor.
Liam was a well-set up lad himself with a fine healthy body. Just under medium height and on the slender side but with a strong upper storey, he had wide shoulders and muscled arms from handling teams of four for a living. Liam was blessed with good looks too, a real raven-haired beauty though you would have to describe him as pretty rather than handsome. His fine-boned features were accented by a light sprinkling of freckles. His was one of those open and honest faces seemingly without guile, though he had the mismatched eyes of a war wizard: his left eye was blue and the right brown, and there was no doubt that his eyes shone with what wizards call their moon-glow.
Nathan navy blues were lightweight silk garments suitable to the tropical climate. On his collar he wore a badge indicating the award of the Navy Cross for Valor. Liam was in his formal army greens; his collar bore the badge for a decoration even higher in precedence, the Shield of the Commonwealth, their nation's second highest honor.
Both awards were for their heroic actions during the initial sea battle against the trolls, the most remarkable single ship action in the history of the Navy. A schooner with a crew of seventy had destroyed a flotilla of fifteen longships each with eighty trolls aboard. Between its ballistas, fire globes, and the cutlasses of its crew, the Petrel had accounted for a thousand trolls. For his outstanding direction of that battle, their commanding officer, then Captain-Lieutenant Jan Dekker, had been promoted two ranks, knighted, and decorated with his nation's highest honor, becoming Commodore Sir Jan Dekker, Knight Commander of the Inland Sea, and Sword of the Commonwealth.
The infrasound dispatch Dekker had sent just before the battle was classic. In the laconic style favored by the Navy he had simply stated: "To Squadron Leader from CS Petrel, Captain-Lieutenant Jan Dekker commanding. Enemy concentration at the Scilly Isles. Fifteen longboats with a thousand trolls aboard. Am engaging."
Dekker had had every right to avoid battle against so overwhelming a force to simply shadow it and report its position or to rejoin his squadron which was cruising some two hundred miles away. Instead his final two works had electrified first his commodore, then the squadron, and later the nation:
"Am engaging."
Indeed.
Helping to even the Petrel's odds in the battle were the magical gifts of her war wizard and her sailing master. With his Fetching powers Liam had dropped boulders from a hundred feet high onto four longships, holing them fatally. Then with water magic he raised a giant wave than overwhelmed two more, and then, at the very limits of his strength unleashed white fire to slice the bows off two more longboats. Sailing master Crawley was a Master of Magnetism as the journalist Drew Altair had dubbed him. He invoked his gift and ripped two longships apart by tearing the nails out of their planks. The trolls dropped into the water and were pulled under by the weight of their armor.
Nathan had only a modest magical gift but one he put to good use defending the foredeck, snapping electrum sparks at the trolls engaged with his men, distracting them at the critical moment of contact with the electric jolt and the burning heat of his sparks.
"I cannot tell you how much it means to me Liam to see you here today. Oh the staff here has kept me busy rebuilding my strength and stamina, deliberately not leaving me much time to feel sorry for myself, and they are all nice enough folks, but I have missed you Liam, you, your presence, your friendship."
"And my body too, I hope?"
"Definitely!"
They hugged as chastely as they could manage under the circumstances. With their bodies pressed together and only thin silk between them, their physical reaction to each other's presence was unmistakeable.
"Now I know for sure you still want me." Nathan said a little giddy with relief.
"I suppose a degree of doubt is understandable in the circumstances, but don't ever doubt me again, Nathan Lathrop. You and I are life-bonded. Should the gods preserve us through this damnable war, we will face the future together, even if duty frequently pulls us apart."
"Ah yes, duty. You know I am to rejoin the Petrel after a month's convalescent leave with my family here in the capital. You must meet them."
"Of course. I take it that you are no longer the black sheep of your Army family for joining the Navy."
"That's right. Six generations of military tradition had to yield to the Navy Cross for Valor. Captain Dekker's letter helped too, making my actions sound more heroic than I remember them myself. My folks are genuinely proud of me. It's a good feeling."
"Then it will be your turn Sparky to meet the boys I share rooms with, Drew Altair and Axel Wilde, Sir Willet's aide."
"Ah yes, you share not only their rooms but their beds. I shall strive manfully not to be jealous."
"You'd better not be. They are both great guys, as you will soon find out for yourself. Drew wants to interview you about the sea battle for a book he is writing. Oh and at some point you will also meet the Frost Giant Finn Ragnarson who likes to pretend to be fiercely jealous of everyone who even looks at Drew that way."
"I have read about him in the Capital Intelligencer. He is not one I would care to cross, being an avatar of a thunder god and all."
"Especially since your electrum sparks wouldn't bother him in the least. But not to worry. Any friend of mine will be a friend of his. He is really a terrific guy once you get past his intimidating size and that war hammer that flies back to his hand after he throws it, and the lightnings crackling about him when in battle array, and all the rest. I have to tell you that at Flensborg Finn was magnificent, throwing his powers onto the balance at just the right moment."
Liam went on to say:
"People focus on the result and overlook the fact that our victory was far from a foregone conclusion. The trolls might have defeated our three forces one at a time; first the giants, then the naval landing force, and finally the Army cavalry. Also the thousand trolls we sent to the bottom earlier might have tipped the scales at Flensborg if they had joined up with the rest. With seven thousand instead of six, the trolls might have won the battle and established themselves in New Varangia."
"Then it is a good thing, Liam, that the High Seas Fleet destroyed another invasion force of fifteen thousand off the Barren Coast. And the small naval squadron of the maritime republic of Jenova destroyed yet another flotilla while the Alliance of the Far West annihilated the infantry the flotilla had put ashore to invest Jenova from the landward side."
"I am sure this is not the last we will hear from the trolls. I only wish we knew what they were after. They seem to attack everyone they encounter, without preliminaries or parley. They depopulated the Ashokan Archipelago. It's as if to them we were not people at all but merely vermin who need to be exterminated."
Liam's dinner to meet the family was a success. Even Nathan's crusty great-uncle, retired colonel Tomas Lathrop had something nice to say about him. It didn't hurt that Liam was in his army uniform sporting the badge of the Shield of the Commonwealth. Nathan's two older brothers were deployed with distant field armies, but his irrepressible younger sister Tatiana livened things up with her charm and good humor. All in all it was an evening well spent.
And afterwards, no one thought it untoward that Liam stayed the night, sharing a room and a bed with his lover "Sparky", the cute pet name Liam had bestowed on his friend.
Chapter 2. The Institute of Wizardry
"Ah there you are Liam. I take it that this is your friend and fellow naval hero Ensign Nathan Lathrop."
"Yes Sir Willet. I am showing Nathan around the institute. The way Axel sings your praises he just had to meet you."
"Axel has told me so much about you sir, and how lucky he is to work here as your aide."
"I am the lucky one really. I wonder now how I ever got along without him and his gifts of eidetic memory and unerring direction. Axel takes dictation flawlessly and on recent maneuvers kept me from getting lost in the mountains. And if you ever need a trained healer's aide to render primary care with a wound or injury in the field, Axel is your man. Just don't tell him I complimented him, or he will be hitting me up for a raise."
"I heard that!" Axel said coming into the room, a grin on his face. "Seriously though sir, Sparky, that is Ensign Lathrop, does need to consult you about his gift."
"What I'd like to know is whether I can do more with my electrum sparks." Nathan explained.
"Hmm. I have some time available now. Let's step into the laboratory and see what you can do."
The laboratory wing included a test chamber walled with thick planks and partly open to the sky to contain, redirect, and disperse forces released by magical gifts. At Sir Willet's direction, Nathan snapped several sparks of static electricity at a block of wood, charing the surface slightly where they hit. Nathan also explained how he used his sparks in combat to distract his foes with the electric jolt and the burning sensation they delivered.
"I wish I could throw lightnings bolts, but this is the best I can manage."
"Sorry Nathan, but your sparks are discrete balls of static electricity and thus quite distinct from lightning which is a flow or current of electricity, as from a cloud to the ground. You will never be able to throw bolts of lightning. Nevertheless, you have already proved that even your modest gift can be useful in combat. Let's see if we can make you more effective."
Sir Willet had been watching Nathan's moves. Like many of the gifted, Nathan gestured when he invoked his gift. In his case Nathan held his index finger with his thumb then snapped it at his target. The spark shot from the tip of his finger at considerable speed, much too fast to dodge at close quarters. The young ensign's maximum range was about that of a crossbow after which the spark dissipated.
"Now try it with two fingers."
The results were underwhelming. Two smaller sparks spat across the room at the block of wood. Nevertheless Sir Willet was encouraged by what his magical sight showed him was going on under the surface. Nathan had more potential than he gave himself credit for.
"It is just as I suspected. Right now you are dividing your energy between two sparks, but you can increase your power level by consciously visualizing two large sparks. If you keep at it and practice with visualization every day you will soon be snapping two sparks as strong as your single shots earlier. It will soon become as automatic as what you do now. Eventually you should be able to snap all five fingers at a foe or any enemy formation. Let them try to dodge or shield themselves then. Once you have them distracted, you can finish them off with a cutlass. I understand you are quite good with a blade."
"That's right, sir. Coming from an army family I started training early under the tutelage of my father and older brothers. I got to be pretty good by the time I enrolled in the Naval Academy."
"Remember, like the Army the Navy is about team work. Use your gift to distract your foes and let your men do most of the blade work."
"Thank you, sir for your observations on my gift. What you said just now is very encouraging. I cannot direct the trajectory of my sparks except in a general way, but by flinging five at once I will be sure to hit bare flesh or the blade of a weapon. Hitting a foe in the face or arm is the best tactic since it delivers both a jolt of electricity and the heat of a burn. A steel weapon conducts the charge to the wielder's arm, but dissipates its heat."
"One thing more, Nathan. Don't forget the incendiary effect of your sparks. You can set an enemy's sails on fire or the oil splashed about from broken fire globes. On land, you might set fire to a meadow to block an enemy advance. Our library here at the institute has after-action reports indexed by the particular gifts used. Liam can help you find them and study how sparks were employed in the past. And don't forget Drew Altair's newsletter. Write an article about your gift and see what its readers have to suggest."
"Come on Sparky. Let's go out onto the practice field so you can get right to work." Liam urged his friend.
"I am right behind you, Liam. See you later, Axel."
It wasn't entirely Nathan's imagination that by the end of practice, his two sparks looked a little larger than when he began. By the time his convalescent leave was over, Nathan was well on his way to being able to snap five strong sparks at once with either hand.
Nathan's family and friends were glad that between his gift and his sword fighting skills, Nathan would be able to protect himself in future battles against the trolls. And to protect the sailors serving under him as well.
It was not all work and no play. The six friends: Nathan, Liam, Axel, Drew, and the twins got together many an afternoon after work to fling the Gemini Zinger around. The athletic game helped Nathan recover his strength and stamina. The young sailor was fairly agile with his prosthetic though handicapped in making sudden changes of direction. Still, in a straight sprint and with his lithe build he could run pretty fast. You would hardly think he had lost the lower part of his leg at all.
At first Nathan was self-conscious about exercising in the nude though not from any shyness about displaying his body. As a youth of the Commonwealth of the Long River he was used to public nudity. It was his prosthetic that was the source of his concern. But his friends treated him no different than before, and soon everyone else was doing it too.
Nathan was happy about the way Liam's friends had included him in their circle. They were a great bunch of guys. Intelligent, inventive, and loquacious and driven by an insatiable curiosity the twins were always pestering people with questions. Their stated justification was that questions were how you learned things not written in books. Drew was a tiny powerhouse both physically and professionally. An engaging conversationalist, correspondent, editor, and writer of award winning non-fiction, he was a bon vivant and a social butterfly.
Axel was the quiet one, a bookworm like Drew, and not much given to rough housing. He was content to spend his free time in sedentary pursuits like playing games of strategy, particularly a board game whose pieces represented cavalry, infantry, chariots, and olifants all of which moved in different ways. The object of the game was to capture the opposing army's general.
Many an evening the group visited Twinkle Town. Named for the twinks who were its prime denizens, Twinkle Town was a district or rather a cluster of drinking and dancing establishments favored by those who fancied pretty boys and by pretty boys who favored being fancied.
One of Liam's acquaintances saw him come in to a place with Nathan and asked:
"Another red-head for your collection?"
It was true enough that Liam had a thing for boys with red hair of all shades. Drew's locks were auburn, Axel was a fresh faced youth with a head of hair the color of copper, while Nathan was a true carrot top. But he wasn't into merely recreational sex the way Drew Altair was. He had really bonded with the three red-heads.
Nathan and Liam watched their friends whirl themselves through the dances with a fast tempo, but contented themselves with slow dancing, their bodies pressed together, their moves languorous and sensual. Everyone agreed they made a fine-looking couple.
To the extent possible life had returned to normal, as normal as things could be with a war on. Soon enough Nathan would travel back to Alster and take up his duties on the Petrel.
In bed Liam was ever the attentive and eager lover, not the least bit deterred by the fact that one of Nathan's legs was shorter than the other. Nathan and Liam made love with as much energy, athleticism, acrobatics, and noise as ever. For all their slenderness their bodies were strong and limber allowing the lovers to adopt all manner of naughty positions to engage in sexual congress.
Being much the same height, they found it easy to trade mutual oral service either lying side by side or with one lover on his knees and elbows straddling the one who was on his back. Or they covered each other, Liam's stallion to Nathan's colt or Nathan's sire to Liam's bitch, descriptions drawn from their family backgrounds. Nathan was a natural horseman, born and raised among the nomads of the Western Plains. The Lathrop family raised hunting dogs in the kennels of their country house.
"It's too bad that in this tropical climate we cannot enjoy the full experience of a classic Frost Giant sauna" Liam observed while stretched out on a wooden bench in the steam filled room. "Finn swears that the contrast between the heat of the sauna and the cold of an icy pond is what makes the sauna experience so invigorating."
"Brrr! He can keep that part thank you. I see no point in cycling between a hot room and an icy pool. And why take a birch switch to yourself as if you were a naughty child?"
"Actually they just rub bunches of birch leaves and twigs on the skin rather than strike it. And you don't have to plunge into an icy pool; you can ease yourself into it slowly."
"Thereby prolonging the agony? No thank you. Just think what that freezing water might do to your manly parts. It's a good thing you are not interested in engendering offspring. That's all I can say!"
"Well you don't have to immerse yourself in ice water. You can roll around in the snow instead."
"Right! I can just see myself rolling in the snow stark naked and likely getting it packed into my ass crack. No thanks. I'll pass on that one too if I ever travel to their land in the far north." then he added:
"Some of the customs of our friends the Frost Giants are perverse though the basic sauna is fine with me. For one thing I like the way you look Liam, that slender nude body of yours laid out for my delectation, one bent knee high, the other low below those narrow hips of yours, a posture that emphasizes the chevron of your ribs, the hollow of your belly, and the slenderness of your limbs."
"You don't look half bad yourself, Sparky, stretched out on your belly, the curves of your delightful rump on display. If it weren't considered bad manners in a sauna, I would throw myself on top of you and have my way with you right here and now. Especially since it won't be long now before you leave for Alster. I will miss you. These last weeks have been great. I don't know when I myself will rejoin you on the Petrel."
Chapter 3. The Scilly Isles
The Petrel approached the Scilly Isles cautiously and set a landing party ashore on one of the outer islands. The Scilly Isles were the southernmost of the islands in the the Great Inland Freshwater Sea within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of the Long River.
The landing party made its way across the island to reconnoiter the roadstead in the middle of the archipelago. Sure enough, a flotilla of troll longships was beached on the shore of one of the other islands. So the Petrel's earlier encounter with trolls at the isles had been no accident.
The trolls were hard at work, building a pier and store houses for what they obviously intended to be a base of operations against the the Commonwealth Navy. Besides the longships two cargo ships captured by the invaders were anchored in the roadstead, unloading supplies into lighters alongside which were then rowed onto the beach. Supplies would be landed much more easily once the pier was finished.
Their human crews had not been slaughtered outright but were kept alive chained to the trunks of trees. This was not out of mercy. Far from it. The hapless captives were a living larder for the trolls, a source of fresh meat to supplement the fish caught locally and supplies the trolls had brought with them. The landing party watch in horror as the trolls selected their latest "meat animal" and butchered him, turning his flesh into so many roasts and chops to cook on their grills. Here was one more reason then to hate the foul creatures.
Captain Dahlgren called a council of war which included Ensign Lathrop and the sailing master Crawley and a weather wizard name Varney who was responsible for infrasound communications with their squadron.
"I'd like to disrupt their plans, but I am not sure how to go about it. We cannot simply sail into the roadstead and engage the enemy directly. Wide as the roadstead is, there is simply not enough sea room to keep us away from their longships and out of the clutches of their boarding parties. I am open to suggestions. Ensign Lathrop, you look like you have something to say."
"Yes, sir. A small party in the gig could slip in at night under the cover of darkness and set the longships and cargo ships on fire. I could ignite the inflammable oil from our fire globes with my electrum sparks. Instead of a couple of fire arrows at a time, I can snap sparks ten at a time again and again, setting fires in so many places at once that even their best efforts to put them out will come to naught."
"And sir, leave the navigation to me," the sailing master said, "I'll take the gig through one of the inlets and sail right past the line of longships, giving Ensign Lathrop his opportunity to destroy them."
Dahlgren nodded. It was a good plan. Now they had to work out the details. The crew of the gig used lamp black to darken the gig's white sail. The men in the gig would apply lamp black to their faces and hands for the same reason. Meanwhile Warrant Officer Varney sent Dahlgren's dispatch to Commodore Dekker outlining what they were about to attempt. Dekker directed his squadron to regroup on the flagship and sail for the Scilly Isles.
Try as they might though, the navy men did not see a way to rescue the human captives, lodged as they were in the midst of the troll encampment. Anyway the gig was very small, just large enough to transport its crew of five. It could never take on twenty more passengers. Here was one of the hard lessons of war. Sometimes there is just nothing to be done.
The gig slipped away from the Petrel in the wee hours of the morning, when the night sky was at its darkest. For stability when he snapped his sparks, Axel knelt in the bottom of the gig, his rump braced on one of the thwarts. As you would expect of a sailing master, Crawley's night vision was excellent. He expertly threaded his way through the inlet, helped by the natural phosphorescence produced by the sea swells as they flowed over and around shoals and hidden rocks. The gig moved entirely by the power of its single sail. Oars would stir up the phosphorescence too and give away their position. The light created by the bow wave and wake would not be noticed in the normal chop created by the wind. In this operation, stealth was everything.
Fortunately the night breeze was strong enough to move the small boat along at five or six knots. It blew parallel to the shore the longships were drawn up on, which was ideal for their purpose. The gig moved past the first two longships before two men slung fire globes onto them. The glass globes broke and splashed inflammable oil around which Axel ignited with fistfuls of sparks. Then it was the turn of the next two longships and then the next pair and so on.
Now the trolls could follow the trajectories of Nathan's electrum sparks back to their source much like with fire arrows. But the yellow flame of a fire arrow does not burn particularly bright but the white light of sizzling electrum sparks was intense and concentrated. To look at them was to ruin the night eye's adaptation to dim light. So ironically the brighter light of Axel's sparks made the gig harder to make out in the murk. This was where his research in the after-action reports kept in the library of institute really paid off.
By the time the raiders reached the tenth longship the enemy was up in arms, trying desperately to throw water and sand on the fires. Water only made things worse for the flaming oil floated atop the water and spread the conflagration. There was plenty of sand on the beach but only so many buckets. Some trolls scooped up sand with their shields. At one longship the trolls formed a line to pass buckets of sand up to those fighting the fire, but Axel disrupted their coordination by snapping sparks at the trolls themselves. It was soon clear that the conflagration would result in the loss of all ten vessels. All the trolls would have left were a few jolly boats and lighters.
Flights of arrows reached out toward the gig seeking revenge, but the shore curved away from the course of the small boat, helping the raiders put distance between themselves and the enraged troll archers. On the way out of the roadstead Axel and his crew set fire to the defenseless cargo ships, destroying most of the food stores and other supplies the trolls would need to survive. All that was left for them was what had already been unloaded and put into the storehouses ashore.
As the raiders sailed away they could hear the human captives cheering the heavy blow struck against the trolls. Their defiance cost them their lives for they were slain out of hand, but at least their quick deaths and put an end to their long nightmare of dread and torment. They died with hope and defiance in their hearts.
The gig slipped back through the inlet to rejoin the Petrel, its crew having emerged from the encounter unscathed. For their signal accomplishments, the ensign and the sailing master were Mentioned in Dispatches. Infrasound messages indicated that the squadron would reach the Scilly Isles in a day's time.
And so it proved to be.
Only the Petrel and the flagship sailed back into the roadstead. The rest of the squadron remained out to sea in case an enemy fleet arrived at what the trolls would expect to be a functioning naval base. As a firecaster, Braeden the war wizard on the flagship easily destroyed the pier and storehouses with great balls of fire. With all their supplies gone, the trolls would starve.
The Petrel sailed in close enough for the sailors to fling fire globes to set the few remaining jolly boats and lighters on fire. Now the trolls would not even be able to fish in the roadstead save from shore.
Commodore Dekker realized that the Commonwealth had to occupy the Scilly Isles to deny their use to the enemy. Via infrasound he asked the Admiralty to send a force of engineers to build a proper naval base on a second island including a high lookout tower atop one of the low hills. Lookouts stationed in the tower and equipped with far-viewer tubes to help them distinguish friend from foe would give a squadron based in the roadstead sufficient warning to put out to sea to face an approaching enemy force. Land defenses alone could never secure the archipelago, though the base itself would have a garrison of naval infantry.
Meanwhile the Petrel was ordered to make soundings in and around the islands from which proper naval charts to be drawn and printed. The ship's longboat and gig were used for this purpose.
Over the course of the next two months as a small town and naval base arose on a second island, the trolls were driven by hunger to resort to cannibalism on their own island. The strong preyed on the weak as starving trolls fought each other in an ultimately doomed battle for survival. In the end, a force of naval infantry swept the island and wiped out the last few trolls still alive.
One morning as he awoke in his cabin aboard the Petrel, Ensign Lathrop suddenly remembered something that had been nagging at him.
"Huckleberries!"
Nathan sat up so abruptly he knocked his head on the upper bunk but hardly noticed in his excitement. Getting dressed he made his way to the quarterdeck and told Captain-Lieutenant Dahlgren about the stand of huckleberry bushes he and Liam had discovered on their last visit to the Scilly Isles months earlier. Why not send out a party to gather the fruit and also forage for other fresh foodstuffs on the various islands? That would also let them ensure that all the islands were clear of troll stragglers.
An hour later Nathan lead a party of sailors and a squad of naval infantry onto what he privately dubbed Huckleberry Island. They filled their baskets at the patch of huckleberry bushes and sent them back to the ship. The rest of the party pushed on into the interior.
Now the island was fairly small, about five miles long and three wide, but that was a lot of territory to cover on foot. Still they were not in any hurry. They did find some edible tubers in abandoned gardens and fruit trees in overgrown orchards. The islands had been sparsely and intermittently populated in the past by solitary types or even fugitives from justice, but eventually abandoned. They were simply too far off the beaten path for regular commerce with the mainland.
Chapter 4. The Waif
The landing party made its way down a low hill onto a sandy beach and came upon a naked deeply blond youth who was cooking a fish spitted on a greenstick and set above a fire. Small in stature and deeply tanned all over, he sat facing the sea, which was why the boy was taken unawares by the visitors. He sprang to his feet a long knife held at the ready in his hand.
Nude and skinny from his recent growth spurt, the youth looked healthy enough though a little underfed. He was wary of the armed men who had him virtually surrounded though much less alarmed than if they had been trolls. Nathan waved his men back, giving the boy his space. He did not want to provoke either fight or flight from the youngster.
Looking to be no more than fifteen, the youth was slender and smooth muscled with the tawny skin of someone who habitually went about in the nude. Slight of build and with a face far prettier than any boy's rightly ought to be, he had a flawless complexion and fine boned features. His face was preternaturally lovely with a broad brow, high cheekbones, straight nose, and chiseled jaw line. Slightly pointed ears and chin gave him an elfin appearance and his large green eyes were set wide apart under finely arched brows, their lashes too long to have ever have been meant for a male.
Conspicuously handing the scabbard with his cutlass to Bosun Ward, Nathan ordered his men back twenty paces then held up his hands to show they were empty. The boy slipped his knife into its scabbard and set it aside.
Nathan nodded then in an even voice he asked the boy who he was.
My name is Karl-Eike Thyssen but my folks always called me Eike."
Nathan held out his hand in friendship. Somewhat awkwardly the lad took it and shook Nathan's hand, though that was the extent of his social graces. Nathan offered Eike some of the huckleberries they had collected which the boy accepted readily enough, flashing his first genuine smile.
Under gentle questioning Nathan got the boy's story out of him. He parents were family retainers of a ship owner whose fortunes had crashed after a string of bad luck at sea which claimed three of his four ships. Faced with the sale of his assets to pay off his debts, the man made off with a small hoard of gold coins, seed money for a fresh start, plus his most prized possessions including five small cherry wood sculptures and a considerable personal library.
His remaining ship had dropped a party of four off on Huckleberry Island: the shipper himself, Eike's parents and young Eike himself, then only six. Eike's father was the man's gardner, gifted with a Green Thumb. The four of them planted a garden and fished in the local waters and gathered fruits and vegetable from overgrown gardens in abandoned homesteads. Their life was simple, easy, and pleasant and was intended to last only a couple of years, long enough for the man's creditors to give up on looking for him. The proprietor had arranged to return to the mainland and start over in a new town with a new identity, but no ship ever came for them. Meanwhile illnesses and an accident with a hatchet carried off all three adults by the time Eike was ten.
Over the next five years with his few garments rotted away, Eike lived as a wild child of nature. For a time it was a good life for a boy despite his loneliness. Then the trolls showed up forcing the boy into hiding. Since then he had been skulking around Huckleberry Island, having little trouble avoiding the occasional troll foraging parties on ground he was intimately familiar with.
"That is quite a story, Eike. You must have been incredibly lonely."
"Yes, I was. At first it was liberating being a boy with no grownups to tell him what to do, what chores to attend to, but soon I missed not only my folks but other people generally. I am pretty self-reliant, but I wanted friends too. Talking to yourself makes for a very one-sided conversation."
"At least I had my books. The collection was strong on history and natural philosophy. That is all the education I ever really had. My folks did make sure I had my letters, and I can figure well enough. Still I think it is past time I returned to the wider world of which I know so little save what I read in books. Can you take me off the island?"
"Of course we can. In fact it is our duty to do so. These islands are a war zone now. The Navy has to evacuate civilians like yourself to a place of safety."
"Where would I go? How will I live? I'll need a job won't I, if not right away then soon."
"Good questions, Eike, but leave those answers for another day. Meanwhile since you are familiar with the island, could you show us around?
With Eike in the lead the sailors tramped all over the island, including the empty beach the trolls sometimes landed on. On their way back they packed up Eike's books and sculptures to be picked up later by a boat that would sail around the island to a landing point nearby. Afterwards they all returned to the ship.
Captain Dahlgren called a council on what to do with the young castaway. Ensign Lathrop reported on what had been done so far.
"For now Eike will bunk with the sailing master, purser, and surgeon, taking Warrant Officer Liam's vacant bunk. I have had Bosun Ward speak with the men and put out the word that this boy is not to be touched. With him it is strictly hands off. Eike is a total innocent and knows nothing of the world, of society, and certainly nothing about sex."
Surgeon Durban nodded.
"I took the boy aside and explained why he must be careful of men who would use a comely lad like himself to gratify their lusts. At first the boy could not understand what I was getting at. Then he was incredulous that anyone would want to do any such thing with his body or theirs, for that matter."
"When I went on to explain about how babies were made, how he himself was conceived, he was astonished and more than a little disgusted, exclaiming: 'Eeyew! My folks would never have done anything like that!' and shook his head in denial. He is someone we must protect from others and from his own naïveté and innocence."
"Now as to his assets." Warrant Officer Wyckham the purser ventured. "Since the Scilly Isles are under the jurisdiction of the Navy, I don't see why Commodore Dekker cannot declare that small box of gold coins and the statuettes and books to be a treasure trove. That would make them lawfully the property of their finder, Karl-Eike Thyssen. The former owner's creditors could never successfully challenge the commodore's ruling."
"Excellent suggestion!" Dahlgren declared then added:
"Now, Ensign Lathrop, I'd like you to take the boy under your wing and bring him along. More than anything else our young castaway needs a friend. And only a friend. Understood?"
"Yes sir. I would never take advantage of him that way. I'll treat him like the kid brother I never had. Anyway I am sure his own feelings at meeting people are much too mixed for him to recognize whether he is attracted to boys or girls. Perhaps when we reach land and he spots a couple of pretty girls on the street, he will suddenly realize that maybe, just maybe, there is something to be said for sex after all."
His interlocutors grinned and nodded.
In the days that followed, Nathan and Bosun Ward introduced Eike to the routine of the ship. As a civilian they did not put him to work but Ward literally showed him the ropes and taught him some basic knots and nautical terms.
"I never realized there were so many ways to tie things together, Bosun Ward. And some of these knots are really intricate."
"Just call me Bosun, Eike. My rank is still recent enough that I enjoy hearing people address me that way. Like many in the crew I stepped up a rank after our losses against the trolls. I stood with Ensign Lathrop on the foredeck as he lead us against the trolls who had boarded the Petrel. I even have a manly scar to prove it," Ward said pointing to a thin white line on his forearm.
"As for knots, you haven't seen anything yet, son. Wait till I teach you the difference between a slipped buntline hitch and a regular buntline hitch. It's really tricky," he added with a wink to Ensign Lathrop who had once demonstrated to Ward just how easy it was to mix them up.
The sailing master showed Eike how they navigated the ship while Nathan filled Eike in on the situation in the war against the trolls. Eike already knew them for enemies. He had seen for himself how human captives were butchered for the pot. Eike was also full of questions about life on the mainland amid so many hundreds and thousands of people. His own memories of life in the small port his folks hailed from were hazy. Nathan also described his relationship with Liam, the instant overwhelming attraction between them, their friendship, and the perils they had shared. That gave the young castaway an understanding of what a close relationship with another boy could be.
Since Eike wasn't in the Navy he saw no reason to wear a uniform of navy blues or any other clothing for that matter. He had gone about naked for years and he didn't see any reason he should start in with clothes again, especially since quite a few of the crew went about their duties naked themselves. With Eike nudity was not a tease. He just felt comfortable that way.
In their relationship with Eike the crew were on their best behavior. Here was a boy who had lost his folks and lived through a sailor's nightmare: being stranded and castaway on a deserted island. The sailors came accept the personable youngster as an unofficial ship's mascot, someone they all felt protective of. For Eike the crew and their company was a good reintroduction to the society of other people.
A couple of weeks later the Petrel was sent back to base at Alster with the data from the soundings so that cartographers could get to work on a set of charts of the Scilly Isles.
Captain Dahlgren's brother Heflin owned a ship chandlery in Alster. He agreed to take Eike into his household and employ. Heflin and his wife had two sons about Eike's age, so the waif would fit right in. The local school made an exception, taking in a boy past the age of fourteen, the usual age for leaving school. From his reading Eike passed tests in several subjects, needing remedial work mainly in mathematics and the fundamentals of natural philosophy.
Meanwhile Eike's nest egg was safely invested for when he came fully of age and had an better idea of his interests and what he wanted to do in life.
In the security and company of a new family the former castaway waif flourished. And wouldn't you know he discovered that sex was not so odd after all and that he, the once solitary Karl-Eike Thyssen, liked both boys and girls rather a lot.
In time a magical gift might manifest in Eike, providing him with new opportunities. But that is another story.
Author's Note
This story is entirely fictional, with no resemblance intended to any person living or dead.
If you have enjoyed this story and others like it, consider making a donation to the Nifty Archive. It is so easy. They take credit cards. Point your browser to http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
This story is one of an occasional series about the further adventures of the characters introduced in the fantasy novel 'Elf-Boy and Friends' and published by Nifty Archive. The chief protagonist of the novel, Dahlderon, elf-boy and druid, will appear in these stories in a supporting rather than starring role. Each story in the sequence stands on its own, with the focus on one or just a few of the original characters.
Readers who like these stories might want to try my two series 'Daphne Boy' and 'Naked Prey' in the Gay/Historical section of the Archive. My 'Jungle Boy' series of Hollywood tales is posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section. The recent series 'Andrew Jackson High' relates the trials and tribulations of five of its gay students. For links to these and other stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors on the Archive.
Comments and feedback welcome.