The Battle Sylph

by L. J. McDonald

  Ril strode ahead, ignoring the men around him with a haughtiness only the most potent lord would affect. He did notice the women, but he didn’t go after any. Leon had heard rumors about Mace before the sylph ended up with that widow in charge of the youngsters, and he’d seen Heyou with Solie, but Ril didn’t show any of the same tendencies. Leon wasn’t sure if that was normal or not. Heyou certainly was devoted to Solie. Ril had never done more than look at females, and never for long.

  It didn’t really matter. Whatever Ril wanted, Leon wasn’t going to get in his way. He was just happy that the battler didn’t hate him, and more, that he was still willing to work together. That was a gift.

  They moved through the city, the residents going about their normal business and their sylphs mostly out of sight, just as usual. Knowing what he did now, Leon regretted them being bound. They had come expecting freedom, but all they got was another type of servitude. The ones within the Community had the right to speak and take whatever shape they wanted, but these others were as trapped as the battlers.

  Leon shot a glance at Ril, who walked blithely on. Ril, he figured, didn’t ponder overmuch about the plight of others. Free battlers didn’t seem predisposed to this. It must have been a simple life for them in their natural dimension—though if it had been that good, Ril would never have crossed over.

  Quietly the two of them traversed the city, walking roads that Leon had never taken Ril to as a bird, not wanting to frighten anyone. The battler dropped back beside him as a result, matching Leon’s pace. Whenever Leon had business in the city, he’d left the battler with his wife and daughters. Ril therefore knew the way to the castle and the main route from it or Leon’s manor to the city’s front gate, but that was all. Other battler masters had thought him mad for leaving himself so vulnerable, but Leon was no slouch at defending himself, and crowds made Ril too unhappy to inflict that on him. Or on the crowds.

  Or so Leon had thought. Ril didn’t react at all to the crowds now, his aura so neatly contained that no one even looked at him. Until Heyou, Leon hadn’t even realized the battlers could hide their auras. He looked sideways at the blond man. There was a lot he hadn’t realized.

  Ril’s eye darted toward him and his brow furrowed. “What?” he demanded.

  “Nothing. Just thinking about what a shit I’ve been to you.”

  Ril snorted. “Keep thinking that. Just keep it to yourself. I don’t want to feel it.”

  Leon smiled faintly. “Whatever you say.”

  Ahead, the road curved toward his manor, the wall high enough to block most of the building from view, and both sped up toward it. The time was past lunch, but not so late that the girls would be down for their naps. They’d probably still be playing in the big back room with the old tapestries on the wall, or finishing their lessons with their mother.

  There was a man in a cloak loitering at the front gate, a well-used sword on his hip. Leon didn’t need to hear Ril’s growl to recognize him as a threat. It seemed Alcor was acting against him, and Leon hoped the presence of the soldier was simply to watch for him, using his family as bait, and did not mean that Betha and the girls had been arrested or harmed. Leading Ril around unseen to another part of the manor’s surrounding wall, he pulled a wrought-iron key from his bag, unlocked a small secondary gate that was almost completely hidden by blackberry bushes, and let both himself and Ril in. They found the windows of the manor open to the fresh air, and they both heard female laughter.

  The battler behind him, Leon opened the door. “I’m home!” he shouted.

  For a moment there was silence, and then he heard the rapid footsteps and squeals of excited girls. Lizzy skidded around the corner first, her knees skinned and dirt on her cheeks, and Leon heard Ril’s breath catch behind him as the girl threw herself forward.

  “Daddy!” she shrieked. “Welcome home!” A moment later, the two younger girls ran after her around the corner. Betha followed with the baby. Leon grinned, trying to hug all of them at once.

  Lizzy pulled away, looking around. “Where’s Ril?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Cara echoed. “Where Ril?” Nali stuck her thumb in her mouth.

  “And who’s your friend?” Betha asked.

  Leon took a deep breath and straightened, stepping back against the wall so they could all see the battler clearly. “All right, no one be afraid. This is Ril.”

  Lizzy frowned. “But he’s a man.”

  The other girls stared. Betha looked at the battler, and then at her husband in confusion.

  “He can be anything he wants to be,” Leon told them. “Right now, he wants to be a man.”

  “I like him as a bird!” Cara wailed. “Be a bird! Be a bird!” Nali started crying, as did Ralad.

  Lizzy walked toward the battler, inspecting him intently. As she neared, he dropped down into a crouch, so she had to look down at him instead. Her brow furrowed with concentration, she reached out a hand and he closed his eyes as she poked the tip of his nose, pushing it in. Then she giggled. “I like it!”

  “Thank you,” Ril said.

  “You can talk!” she shrieked. “When did you start talking?”

  Ril looked past her at Leon. “When I was allowed to.”

  She spun and glared at her father. “You didn’t let him talk?”

  Leon shook his head. This was not an argument he wanted to get into. “Not now, Lizzy. We have to go.”

  “Go?” Betha asked, startled. “Go where?”

  This was not going to be easy. “Away from here,” Leon told his wife. “Right now, and all of us. There are things I’ve learned since I left, about Ril and myself. We can’t stay here anymore. I know it’s dangerous for me, and I suspect it’s going to become dangerous for you. There’s already a guard watching the front gate. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a battler.” He took a deep breath. “Ril and I have betrayed the king.”

  Betha’s eyes saucered, her skin white. The other girls didn’t understand, but Lizzy glanced at him with fright in her eyes, and reached fumblingly to take Ril’s hand. He held it gently, still crouching at her side. Leon had never seen his expression so soft.

  “You…how could you?” Betha wailed, clutching the crying baby to her breast. “What are you saying?” She shook her head frantically, backing away from him.

  “He ordered us to kill a girl,” Leon told her bluntly, stepping forward to lay his hands on her shoulders. “A girl hardly older than Lizzy. She was supposed to be sacrificed to bind a battler, but instead she bound him instead. The king wanted her killed for that. We failed. But Betha, the things we learned…Ril is free now. There are more battlers where we’re going, and they’re all free. All the sylphs are. Here they’re no more than property, and I can’t be a part of Ril’s slavery anymore. The king will never accept that.” He surveyed his wife, his daughters, and finally the battler himself. “None of us are safe.”

  He let go of his wife and stepped back. “Gather together whatever you can carry, but no more. We can’t take much.”

  Betha’s bottom lip trembled, her eyes filling with tears, but a moment later she turned and hurried away, taking the baby with her. Nali waddled in pursuit, still crying.

  Lizzy and Cara both stared, dumbfounded. Cara was sucking her thumb in confusion, Lizzy studying the battler. At last she addressed her father. “Where are we going?”

  “To a place north of here,” he said. “You’ll like it—it’ll be an adventure. Now go gather your things. Hurry now, and take your sister.”

  Grasping her sibling’s hand, Lizzy walked off, looking back periodically as she did.

  Leon approached Ril where the battler had moved to stand at the great windows fronting the manor. The turrets of the castle were visible, along with a huge air ship tethered at the top. Ril crossed his arms and studied the distant ship, his expression pensive.

  “What’s wrong?” Leon asked. “Has that guard realized we’re here?”

  Ril shook his head. “There are four battlers on
that ship.” He regarded his former master evenly. “I want to go now.”

  Four battlers? No one had sent four battlers to anything less than a major war, and then not for centuries. Leon flushed cold and turned, running back into the hallway. “Girls! Move! Forget everything but a change of clothes. Hurry! We have to leave now!” His daughters yelled in protest, but he turned back into the front room. “Can they sense you?”

  “Hidden like this? No.” Ril paused. “They will once I change to carry you.”

  “How much can you lift?”

  “Enough,” Ril replied. “Unless one of them is in a shape that can fly.”

  Leon could think of at least three battlers in the king’s service with that ability. “Move!” he bellowed again. “We leave in five minutes!”

  Despite his order, it took ten before they were downstairs, all the girls crying, save for Lizzy. Betha sobbed in confusion as she tried to bundle her children in cloaks, the baby swaddled in blankets. She was desperate with terror, and the girls picked it up from her. Only Lizzy was unafraid, her eyes shining as she shifted from foot to foot.

  “Are we traveling by carriage? I always wanted to travel by carriage.”

  “Not quite,” Ril said. He stood by her side, waiting patiently.

  Leon ushered his family out. The afternoon air was cold. It hadn’t yet started to snow as it had on the Shale Plains, but he sensed it would soon. Snow was probably falling again where they were going, relentless, and he hoped his wife and family would forgive him. And he hoped the rest of the Community wouldn’t make their lives hell just to get back at him.

  Likely not, if they thought it would irritate Ril.

  “Ready?” he asked the battler. Ril nodded, his eyes on a cloaked shape at the closed front gate who was staring in at them.

  “We’re not expected to walk, are we?” Betha whimpered, holding the youngest girls close. Ril stepped forward—and suddenly he was changing, surrounding them with smoke and lightning. The girls screamed as the darkness lifted them. Leon felt Ril hesitate, adjusting himself, and then the battler was moving upward, much slower than he had before.

  “Ril!” he shouted. “How are you doing?”

  You don’t have to yell, Ril grumbled in his mind.

  Leon felt his way through the darkness, finding his wife’s hand and squeezing it. She pressed against him, weeping, and he wrapped his arms around her and the girls, hugging them all close.

  “It’ll be okay,” he promised. “It will.”

  His family drew close, all except for Lizzy. She squirmed free instead, struggling forward to press her hand against the solid darkness that was her father’s battler. He felt warm and solid.

  “Are we flying?” she asked.

  Yes, he answered, his voice echoing in her mind.

  “I want to see!” she demanded.

  There was a moment’s pause, and then she felt him shift around her, a wave of shadow pushing her forward and up. The darkness parted, and suddenly a strong breeze caught her hair, blowing it back while she squinted into the wind. They were high above the ground, the trees and houses tiny as dollhouses below.

  Ril flew through the cold air, his body huge and nearly shapeless, bulbous and dark. His wings were massive, stretched out to either side. Behind them the castle and the city retreated into the distance, while above the sky was a beautiful blue. Distantly Ril sensed the battlers, and something else he hadn’t told Leon. Tempest was on that ship: the second-oldest sylph in the kingdom and almost the most powerful, an air sylph who could carry that entire ship faster than Ril had ever flown.

  Lizzy squealed in delight, clapping her hands excitedly as she leaned into the wind. Ril held her gently, almost dancing in his own joy as he carried her and her family, pushing himself beyond endurance and fleeing faster than he ever thought he could toward the wasteland, with his love in his embrace.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Galway stood at one of the windows the sylphs had made, looking out over the endless snow. It was a wide window, letting in a lot of light but no cold. Some of the fire sylphs had taken and heated sand until it turned hard and clear. This distorted the view in odd ways, but was better than shutters by far. There were so far only a dozen of them on the cliff’s sheerest face, but they were popular, and several other people jostled him for the chance to look outside.

  He’d waited too long. His curiosity about Heyou and the others had trapped him. He’d have to wait for spring now and leave his family wondering if he’d died. For ten years he’d kept his promise to return before the snow fell. At his home it likely wasn’t falling yet, but it would be soon.

  Around him, the people suddenly scattered like birds, and Galway straightened, looking at the distorted reflection of a teenage boy behind him. Those who’d been gazing out the window regrouped a short distance away. Heyou was respected, but he wasn’t the most frightening of the battlers. They didn’t leave completely.

  “You left your lady?” Galway asked, turning around.

  “Mace is with her.” Heyou tilted his head to one side. “You’re unhappy, aren’t you?”

  “You can tell?” He’d gone to pains to hide it. No one else needed the added stress, provided it even mattered to them.

  “We can feel emotions. Makes us better guards.”

  He smiled. “I suppose it would.”

  “I don’t know what you’re unhappy about, though. I can’t tell that unless you’re my master.”

  Galway shrugged. “I intended to be back with my family by now. Don’t think I regret helping you—I don’t. But I miss them.”

  “Why don’t you go home?”

  The trapper gestured to the window. “The snow out there is too deep. It would take me weeks to get through, and it’s dangerous. I might not make it at all.”

  “Oh.” Heyou frowned, considering. “I could take you.”

  Galway blinked. “What?”

  “I could carry you. I could take you home. The horses would probably be upset though.”

  Galway laughed, the winter suddenly not appearing so bleak. “I’d appreciate that,” he admitted. “I really would.”

  Heyou nodded. He stared out the window, his lip twisting.

  “Is there something else?” Galway asked.

  “Yeah.” The boy grasped his hands behind his back, pulling them away from his body and arching his spine. “Mace says he doesn’t want any of us tied to the queen only. He says we should all have someone else to draw on and who can keep us here, just in case. I don’t think anything will happen, but he’s bigger than I am, and old. It’s weird. I’m the lead battler, but everyone else is older than me. I doubt Ril cares, but I think it bothers Mace a bit. He’d like to have Solie, too, but she won’t let him. So he’s got that widow instead. She kind of makes me nervous, but he likes her bossing him around. Kinda queenlike and all, even if she is just a master.”

  Galway crossed his arms and leaned against the stone wall. “What are you trying to ask? I assume there’s a question in there somewhere?”

  “Oh.” Heyou let his arms drop. “Mace wants me to get a master. Someone other than Solie who I can get energy from if I have to and who’ll be another link for me to stay here.” He frowned. “But if I take you home, I won’t be able to get energy from you. You have to be here. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “You want me to be your master?” Galway asked, genuinely surprised.

  “Well, sure. You’d still hold me here, even if you went home. And you can come visit us again in the spring.” He sounded hopeful.

  Galway gaped. Never in his life had he thought he’d gain a sylph. He’d had the childhood dream, of course, as did most boys, but he’d never imagined a battler. Even for the rough boys he’d grown up with, they’d been too frightening. The thought of Heyou asking him now was so ludicrous he almost had to laugh.

  “I thought you didn’t like men,” he said.

  Heyou made another face. “I do. I don’t. I mean, I don’t really like m
en, but Solie says they’re not like battlers. We don’t have to fight you all the time like battlers from other hives. And I don’t want a woman as a master. I have Solie. It would feel weird to have another woman. I don’t want Solie to get jealous or think she might have to. I only want her, so I need a man for a master.” He hesitated and regarded Galway directly. “And Mace says to be careful. If you’re my master, you can control me. I don’t want that. But I…trust you.”

  Galway was silent, moved. There was only one answer he could honestly give to a confession like that. “I’d be honored,” he told the boy. “And I swear to you, I’ll never take advantage.”

  Heyou smiled, tension going out of his shoulders. It must have been hard for him to ask, Galway realized, probably alien to everything he was used to. He’d already seen what having a master had meant for the other battlers. But he’d also seen what they were like now. Mace was happy with the widow, presumably, and Ril had deliberately kept the same master. Of course Galway saw how Leon tiptoed around him, even as he manipulated the rest of the Community into doing what was necessary to ensure their survival, but there was affection there on both sides. Galway would have to talk to him about how he managed that sometime, now that he had a battler of his own. Sort of. Heyou wasn’t his. He had no delusions about that. He wouldn’t allow himself.

  “What do I do?”

  “We have to do it through Solie,” Heyou explained. “We can’t just make someone our master on our own.” He gestured at the door and Solie came in, accompanied by Mace.

  The girl shrugged. “It’s okay, Galway. I’ve done this before—for Loren and the widow.” She made a face. “It feels kind of weird.”