Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2015 12:53:52 -0400
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthierdc@gmail.com>
Subject: Elf-Boy's Friends 13

			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
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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.