The Battle Sylph

by L. J. McDonald

  The assembly stared at him, silent, none of them confident enough to speak.

  “Surely one of you has talked to the priests!” Alcor snapped.

  “They’re all dead, Your Majesty.”

  Jasar lifted his head. “Not all, Your Majesty. I spoke with Father Belican before I came here. He’s too old to attend the rituals, but his mind is sharp. I took the liberty of filling him in on what happened.”

  “And?” the king growled.

  “He says nothing like this has ever happened before.”

  “Of course not!” Alcor thundered. A woman gaining a battler? It was unthinkable.

  Jasar shrugged, amused. “While it has never happened, Belican could theorize. Somehow, the girl used magic to snare the battler, magic we’ve never heard of. Perhaps she was planted by our enemies, sent for just this reason.”

  “Bullshit.” Everyone looked up as Leon Petrule pushed himself away from the wall and walked toward the table. “The girl had a blade up her sleeve. She palmed it before she was stripped, and no one searched her.” He tossed a butter-fly-shaped barrette onto the table with a one-inch blade sticking out the end. “I found this on the altar. She cut her rope and stuck His Highness, the prince, before he could stab her.”

  The king flushed red. “The bitch…How dare she!”

  His head of security shrugged. “She was saving her own life. I admire that. But the timing meant she ended up with the battler, instead of His Highness. She must have named him.”

  There were murmurs of discord. “A woman can’t control a battler,” one old man protested. “They don’t have the strength!”

  Leon shook his head. “I don’t think strength is what they need.”

  “What do you mean?” the king asked.

  Leon bowed. “With your leave?” he asked, gesturing toward the exit. When Alcor nodded, he went to the door, opened it, and whispered to the servant outside. The man bowed and hurried away.

  “This better not take long,” Alcor growled.

  “It won’t.” Leon paused. “Ah, they found one already. Wait a moment,” he ordered the servant and held out his arm. “Ril!”

  The battler appeared, folding his wings and landing on Leon’s forearm as he was brought into the room. The council gasped at the presumption, and even the king tensed, but Thrall merely tilted his head to one side, quietly regarding the other sylph. Ril stared back at him and the familiar aura filled the room. The two battlers hated each other, and they hated the council. The antipathy was palpable. Even after thirty years, it still made the king want to pull his cloak away from his neck and get some air. He resisted.

  “You feel it?” the head of security asked unnecessarily and looked at his battler. “You despise us, don’t you, Ril? As you despise Thrall. And he’d kill you too, if he could.” The bird blinked, glaring at him out of one eye, and Leon smiled at the council. “Ril is my glory. He’s worth the danger a thousand times over and I don’t regret him. But I’m a simple man. I live in a small house when I’m not working, surrounded by my wife and daughters, and I’ve noticed something interesting.”

  He nodded toward the door. A serving girl in a white and black uniform came into the room, curtsying nervously. Alcor raised an eyebrow. No woman had ever been in the council room, not unless it was empty and she was on her knees cleaning it—or perhaps on her back on the table. Alcor watched the girl enter visibly shaking.

  Leon took her arm. “Hold it out,” he ordered, and to everyone’s surprise he transferred Ril to her. The bird settled down, feet lightly gripping the servant’s arm, and bowed his head, his attention on the girl. She stared back in fascination, obviously not knowing what she held.

  “Does he scare you, girl?” Leon asked.

  “N-no, sir,” she managed. “He’s a pretty bird.”

  The council guffawed, Alcor joining in. They laughed at the girl, who smiled uncertainly as she held the battler on her arm and tentatively scratched his bowed avian head. Alcor would have thought he’d rip her arm off. He’d seen the thing mutilate a spoiled courtier’s son who’d tried to touch him.

  “Do you feel it, my lords?” Leon asked.

  The king frowned. The hate was there, the same as always, but it was lessened. Ril was actually ignoring them in favor of the girl. Alcor looked over his shoulder. Thrall was staring at the servant as well, his expression rapt.

  “Ril plays with my daughters,” Leon told them seriously. “He’s never harmed them. Look at his feet. He’s dug into my leather pads so hard that they cut me. He’s not even touching her with his claws. Look at Thrall. I bet if we brought Mace in, it would be the same.”

  Jasar started in surprise.

  “Ril, come!” Leon commanded. Shrieking, the hawk spread his wings and flew back to his master’s shoulder. The creak of the leather guard as the bird dug in its claws sounded clearly to all the men at the table.

  “Go, child,” Leon added. Swallowing, the servant girl curtsied and left. The king shot a look at Thrall. The battler was staring at the council again, as disinterested and hateful as ever.

  “Battle sylphs like women, for some reason,” Leon continued. “Probably because they’re no threat. I have no idea what it means for one to be bound to a girl, but it makes me nervous.”

  Alcor frowned. Given what he’d just seen, the situation made him nervous as well, and he had enough other things to worry about. “Find the girl. Have her killed.”

  Leon bowed, not questioning the difficulty of the order. With the girl dead, her battler would be banished. Turning, he went out the door, Ril swaying on his shoulder.

  The king turned back to his council. Some of them looked upset, others thoughtful. Jasar was smirking to himself, about what, the king didn’t want to know. He had his uses, but he was perverted. Alcor didn’t care too much about the fate of his daughters, but he didn’t want to see any of them married to the man unless it became unavoidable.

  To change the subject, he commanded, “Tell me what Para Dubh said about our trade proposal.”

  Out in the hall, the serving girl shivered, rubbing her arm where the bird had sat. His feet had been warm against her skin, and he’d been so much lighter than she expected. She shivered again, almost missing him, but the servant who’d taken her away from her wash bucket flicked his fingers at her, dismissing her before he returned to his post across from the door. She knew better than to disobey.

  Curtsying, she hurried down the hall and around the corner. On the way, she’d had to pass the alcove where battlers waited during the council. Always before, she’d nearly run past. Now she slowed, looking curiously inside.

  Ril’s golden perch was there, empty, while beside it stood the seven-foot suit of armor that was Mace. She knew his name—everyone knew his name. He stood there, staring down at her, and she gaped in return. The hate she’d always felt before near the battlers was gone without his master. She felt…safe. Somehow, this massive creature, whose waist she barely reached, made her feel safe. She hadn’t felt so secure in years.

  Slowly she stepped toward him, reaching out a hand to touch his leg plate. It wasn’t metal she touched, though. It was warm, and it trembled under her touch. She peeked up at him.

  “The armor’s you, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  Silently, he nodded.

  The servant girl stared, licking her lips. Something about the battler made her very warm, and protected, and daring. “Mace,” she said, trying out the sound of the name.

  He shivered again.

  “Mace,” she repeated, stroking his leg and sliding her hand around it. There was no hate, but she could feel lust in the air, filling her, and she didn’t know if it was coming from him or her. It was there, though, more than she’d ever felt from the lords who had the right to take her whenever they wanted. She’d rather he took her.

  She whimpered. Mace reached down and lifted her, and she didn’t resist, his desire as deep in her mind as his hate was to men. He lifted her skirts and pulled her blo
omers off, and then he was inside her, holding her along his forearms as he entered her body, her legs spread wide around his hips. She cried out softly, wanting to scream but not daring to let anyone hear her, not even when no one would pass the area for battlers if they could at all help it.

  He was surprisingly gentle, his size just enough to stretch her without tearing, to fill her without harming. He seemed to know what she wanted and he gave it to her, even as he kept the desire firm in her mind. It did come from him—his need penetrating her mind until he overwhelmed her inhibitions—but she’d invited him, just as all those serving girls and courtiers who sneaked to his side did, entranced by his danger and his size. His master had only told Mace to wait when he was busy and come when called, nothing more. Nothing about not letting women come to him. And come they did, all keeping the secret of his attraction, as he knew this one would, for her own safety if not for his. She wasn’t a queen to him in the way the girl who’d died to lure him through the gate would have been, but she was enough to keep his sanity intact in this place. He didn’t know how Ril and Thrall and the other battlers kept theirs, but this was how he maintained his: in the bodies of any women he could reach without his master finding out, many of whom returned to him repeatedly.

  He plunged into her as deeply as he dared, bringing her to orgasm over and over again before finally letting himself finish. Then he shook, there in the alcove, holding the girl to him like all the others and wishing one of them could be his queen.

  Chapter Four

  Heyou landed by the edge of the hot spring to find his queen sitting in one of the cooler pools, her head reclined against the side. She was asleep, her breasts poking up through the steam. Remembering her order, he tried to look at her face without seeing the rest and finally had to stand with his back to her, holding out at arm’s length the clothes he’d brought.

  “I’m back, my queen,” he told her. Predictably, she shrieked, and he heard splashing behind him as she fell into the water. He sighed. He really didn’t understand queens.

  “Th-thank you,” she managed, coughing, and snatched the garments out of his hand. He heard rustling, and finally she told him he could turn around.

  He did so. She stood before him dressed in a tunic made from much the same material as his, though hers was a faded green instead of brown and reached to her ankles. Her dress had no sleeves, but she had a worn blouse on under it, the waist tied with a rope belt. Her hair was a tangled mess and her face still dirty around the ears, as was the neck where she’d missed when she’d bathed.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  “Beautiful, my queen,” he told her truthfully.

  She blushed. “Thanks. You know, you don’t have to call me your queen. My name is Solie.”

  She’d told him her name. Heyou’s eyes widened in gratitude. “Solie,” he breathed.

  Solie blinked, not sure about the tone he’d used, and glanced around. “Um, now what?”

  Whatever she wanted.

  “Can you take me to my aunt’s house?” she asked.

  He didn’t have the faintest idea where that was. Nonetheless, he said, “Absolutely,” and reached for her. She flinched back and he frowned. He pointed out, “I have to carry you.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Laughing nervously, she stepped into his embrace. It nearly undid him. She smelled so good, so female, so much his queen that he shuddered, wanting nothing more than to take her in his arms and…His hands closed around her slim form and he swallowed, afraid to look into her eyes and show it. She didn’t want him that way. At least, he didn’t think she wanted him. He didn’t want to see the fear in her eyes, so he held her and changed form and rose up, flying over the springs with Solie cradled gently within him.

  The air sylph from earlier tracked them, following a distance back. Suddenly suspicious, Heyou blasted his thoughts at her. What are you doing?

  Following, following, she answered immediately, not stupid enough to try a denial. Only that. My master demands it.

  Why?

  Curiosity, I suppose. It didn’t sound as if she knew.

  Heyou kept flying, thinking. Solie had said not to harm anyone. That, to him, included sylphs, but this one wasn’t from his hive. Well, stay back, he decided.

  The air sylph increased the distance between them.

  Heyou rose up over the mountains, looking downward at slopes of trees and rocks. It was cold up here, but Solie was warm, cradled in his embrace. She couldn’t see where they were going, surrounded by his darkness, but while she was nervous, she handled it well.

  Where is your aunt? he asked, sending the words directly into her mind, the same as he’d spoken to the air sylph.

  Solie jumped. “Um, northeast of the castle where you found me. There are crossroads there. She’s north of the crossroads in the first town, at the bakery. Can you find it?”

  Probably, though he didn’t like the thought of going close to the gate again. There was nothing for it, however, so he banked his turn, headed back in that direction. “I can find it,” he assured her. He’d have to.

  He flew slower than he had when searching for clothes, not wanting to risk her and content just to hold her anyway. Carrying Solie felt strange, but she was light, and there was a sweet aura of energy around her that he knew he could drink from. It tasted soothing to him and good, unlike the rest of the foul energies in this place. Those, he knew, were inedible to him, poison. Only Solie had energy that could sustain him.

  Below, the mountains and forests were replaced by farmland, and he saw the castle he’d taken her from, surrounded by its walls and city. East of that, the road she’d mentioned led away in a snaking line, crossed by another road after a few short miles. Heyou glided far above these, following the northern fork into a shallow valley surrounded by fruit orchards. A small town lay there, the streets cobbled and the buildings made of clean stone.

  He swooped in, keeping behind trees, where no one would see him. He sensed no new sylphs. Most of them seemed to inhabit the castle, which was another good reason to avoid it. The air sylph still followed, keeping about a league back. He thought about it again and decided to keep ignoring her for the moment.

  Landing behind a copse of apple trees long since empty of fruit, he shifted, settling Solie on her feet and reluctantly letting go of her. She looked around herself, eyes widening at the sight of the orchard. Pushing her way through the low-hanging branches, she looked down the slope at the backs of the houses.

  “This is my aunt’s village! It took so little time to get here!” She turned, throwing her arms around him in thanks, and Heyou immediately embraced her, his face buried in her neck. Solie froze, her breath catching in fear.

  Heyou closed his eyes and breathed through his mouth against her throat, his hands flat and open against her back. He fed on his queen’s energy, and the taste of it only increased his desire. He could feel her heart beating with increasing speed against his chest and pulled her closer, his body pressed against hers from chest to hips. She shivered, and he pulled his head back to look at her, eyes heavy lidded. Her own pupils were immense, shaken by a need she wasn’t ready for, despite the bond between them. Heyou couldn’t let go, though—not without her order. It was all he could do not to push forward into her. Such was his desire.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” she whispered, and he heard the longing in her voice.

  His mouth was only inches from hers. He could taste her breath. “You’re my queen,” he answered, his hands moving slowly up and down her back. “I’m yours.”

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” she gasped, her nipples hard against his chest.

  Oh, he thought they should. Her body thought they should also. “Please,” he whispered, and licked her neck. “Let me.”

  In answer, she shoved him back, gasping. Her face was flushed and beautiful. “No! I hardly know you. Women…we don’t do that! Not when we don’t know the man.” She stared at him. “You’re not even human!” />
  “I’m human enough,” he tried, but she shook her head.

  “My aunt is waiting,” she told him. “Come on.” She headed off through the orchard, nearly running.

  Obediently, Heyou followed.

  Solie shuddered at how close she’d come to doing something she never would have imagined of herself before. She’d looked at boys, certainly, and daydreamed with her friends, but she’d barely known Heyou a few hours and she’d nearly…She blushed red and tried to tell her body to forget the idea. None of the stories she’d heard about battlers mentioned behavior like this.

  She didn’t dare look back. She didn’t know what she was going to do about Heyou—maybe she could get him to leave? But she knew one thing: she was never going to touch him again, even to pass him anything. Some aspect of him woke too many things inside her, and that was one storm by which she had no intention of being swept away.

  Breathing hard, trying to settle her mind, she found a little bit of peace as she made her way out of the orchard and along a back lane into town. She’d been here hundreds of times during her childhood and knew the way very well. Her aunt’s bakery was only a short way off, and there was no one to see them as they crept down the road except children like the child she herself used to be, playing in the bushes and the trash and staring at her old clothes and tangled hair.

  They were only children, but Heyou moved between them and Solie, intently watching a group of tow-headed boys. “They’re fine,” Solie told him, almost reaching out to touch his arm but stopping herself. He relaxed slightly, but still kept an eye on the boys, who ended up screaming and running off.

  “What did you do to them?” Solie asked, confused.

  “I don’t like men,” he snorted, his eyes narrow.

  “They’re children!” she protested.