“The sprite came through here,” Kardent said. He pointed at the snow. “See? He tried to disguise his tracks as hare footprints.”
“I don’t know,” Galla said dubiously. “Looks like bunny tracks to me. If that.”
Kardent rolled his eyes. “That’s the point, innit?” He set off after the tracks, and Galla had no choice but to follow, lifting her skirts to keep the snow off them. Kardent kept stopping and sniffing the air, as if he could smell a creature that stood no higher than his knees. Once he even stripped some bark off a birch and licked it. She was pretty sure that was for show. Aye, he had no idea what he was doing and was lucky it had snowed so at least he had tracks to follow.
Suddenly, he stopped and pointed to a scrubby jumble of branches and leaves and said, “He’s in there.”
Startled, Galla peered at the burrow. “You sure?”
“Sure as a tax man,” he said firmly.
She frowned. “How do we get him out?”
Kardent didn’t reply. He pulled his tinderbox out of his tunic and struck his flint behind the burrow. It was damp, so it kept going out, but he was persistent, and eventually it was aflame.
They waited.
And then the sprite leapt out of the burning burrow and into Kardent’s waiting arms. He struggled, kicking and biting and flailing like an angry cat. He had flaming red hair and a scrunched-up nose. “What’re ye doing tae me home, ye filthy buggers?” he screeched.
“We’ve caught you,” Galla said serenely. “Fair as pie. We want the gold.”
The sprite stared up at her, his big green eyes comically round. “There’s nae gold here, ye dunderhead,” he squeaked. “Ye don’t see any rainbow, now, do ye?”
Galla looked around. “No, but we want the gold anyhow.”
The sprite laughed. “You burned my house, ye blaggards! There’ll be no gold for you, not now, not ever!”
The air shimmered around the sprite, and, though Kardent visibly tightened his grip on the creature, the sprite transformed into a hare and wriggled out of his captor’s arms. He bounded away, white tail twitching indignantly.
“Ugh,” Galla said. “Now we have to start all over again.”
