Shadows of the Dark Crystal by J. M. Lee Page B

shrouded the village, she paused to sit, digging out her handmade sandals from her pack. She held them in her hands, pride full to the brim as she compared them to the expertly crafted moccasins gifted from the Spriton. She didn’t need their charity—yet they were beautiful, in a way, with delicate beadwork and finely cured leather dyed a deep red. The inside was lined with clover fleece, soft and insulated.
    Swallowing her pride, she slipped the new shoes on, pullingthe laces taut so the shoes fit snugly. The toes and heel were open, and she imagined she could climb in them—feats impossible in her clunky sandals. Reluctantly, without room in her pack, she left her old sandals on the side of the road behind her. There was no point in holding on to two pairs when she only needed one.
    The dirt path cut through the grassland, something she hadn’t been able to spot from the long route she’d been taking from Sog. The path had mostly footprints in its sandy wake, though here and there were long ruts made by wheels of wagons and carts. Once and again, Naia heard the voices of Podlings in their Podling tongue, working in the grass and digging up tubers, tossing them into the carts, singing and laughing. The prairie was maintained by them, it seemed. The grass was shorter here, less wild, the flowers growing in rows. As she rounded the big thicket, she saw posts circling a wide field, and far across the gently rolling acres she glimpsed a fleet of white wing-eared animals loping in the distance on legs as tall and narrow as saplings.
    Naia’s ears perked at the sound of Gelfling voices, calling to one another in the early morning. Up ahead, she saw a second cleared area in the field where the grass had been rolled flat. Several target posts had been driven into the earth there, each painted with different-colored stripes. Four Spriton Gelfling were standing about, three with rope-and-rock
bola
in hand. The fourth was standoffish, eventually dragged closer by one of the boys.
    Naia stopped to watch one of the girls hold the
bola
by the handle-weight—a fist-size rock at one end. She swung it over her head so the two counterweights—one at the middle and one atthe far end—whipped around in a quickening circle. Finally, she let out a yip and released it. The rocks cartwheeled through the air and snapped around a distant target, the counterweights tying the rope in knots and securing it midway up the post.
    The girl cheered and gave a little jump of victory. Two of her companions cheered with her, though the fourth was not so enthusiastic. Squinting, Naia recognized Kylan the Song Teller as the last, stiff like a stalk of grass as a
bola
was shoved into his arms
,
pushed up to the toe line from which he was to swing. The others chided and hooted at him, and from the way he held it in his hand—at the wrong spot, with the wrong hand—Naia could tell
bola
swinging was not one of his gifts. Reluctant, but jeered into it by his companions, Kylan twirled the weapon. When he let it loose, it was at the wrong time, before the counterweights had fully reached their peak—the
bola
went crashing into the earth, blowing up a chunk of dirt before falling to a pitiful rest not ten paces away. His companions exploded into laughter.
    Naia shook her head and re-shouldered her pack, looking ahead to the mountains. She had a long way to go, with no time to waste teaching Spriton youth how to swing a
bola
. She’d had a
bola
in hand since she was a child. One of her first toys, her father had often joked, was a tiny
bola
made of floating wood and vine. Kylan the Song Teller had plenty of his own people to teach him.
    The Gelfling voices drew her attention again as the curved road brought her abreast of their target field. The three Spriton had gathered around Kylan, and though Naia couldn’t make out all the words, she could hear their tone nudge from teasing tomean-spirited. Kylan went to