The Battle Sylph (27 page)

A small hand stroked Ril’s cheek, and Solie whispered his name. “Drink my energy. Please.”

Ril blinked at her sleepily and reached up, gently touching her face. Her energy was sweet, light. He drew it in, but he didn’t know how much she could spare and forced himself to stop.

“I’m the queen.” She smiled. “You can’t hurt me.”

Leon knelt beside her. “Come on, Ril.”

“I don’t want to kill either of you,” he whispered. “I might.”

He was so tired. Even alone he shouldn’t have been able to make the trip that fast, but the queen needed him. He would have killed himself for her. Only, that would mean he’d never see Lizzy again…

Mace leaned over him. “You think too often in extremes. Drink. I’ll stop you if you start to take too much.”

Ril sighed and drank, drawing from both: Solie sweet and light, Leon heavy and warm. They filled and restored him, and finally he was able to rest, sleeping in the queen’s chambers while he recovered his strength for the battle to come. Lizzy crept in to sit with him, but he didn’t know. He just dreamt of her, and that was enough.

They gathered in one of the larger rooms that hadn’t been allocated yet, light provided by a sunset shining through a large window cut into one wall and supplemented by Ash.

The glass in the window was oddly swirled in shape, making the image of the plains outside fluctuate and ripple any time a viewer changed their position. Leon found it nauseating as he sat down at the stone table. Ril had taken more than he ever had, from him and Solie both, and the girl was equally pale as she took her place at the head of the table. Leon hadn’t wanted to leave his battler, but Ril needed the sleep, and the rest of them had to plan. Lizzy would watch over him. Leon was sure she would have insisted even if he hadn’t suggested it.

The rest of the family was in the eating area, under the care of the Widow Blackwell. He never should have brought them, he decided guiltily—but if he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have had any warning. Four battlers! The Community had three, but Heyou was young and inexperienced and Ril was exhausted. Mace couldn’t take on four alone, even with no limits on his powers. Worse, while the battlers fought, Leon had no doubt that the king’s soldiers would move in to deal with the rest of them. There would be hand-to-hand combat in the hallways of the bluff by the end, and almost no one here knew how to use a sword as well as a soldier. Leon knew the abilities of the king’s men very well. He’d helped train a great many of them.

“We have to run!” one of the councilmen wailed in fear.

“Where?” Galway asked. “How? We can’t outrun an air
ship, and we won’t get far in these snows. They’d just follow our tracks, anyway.”

“We could scatter,” Borish suggested. “While some of us stay behind.”

“The same as your former leaders did?” Leon snapped. His head was pounding and all he wanted to do was sleep. He didn’t have that luxury. They didn’t know how much time they had. Hopefully, that air ship was at least a day behind. “The only ones who can fight battlers are battlers, and we only have two.”

“We have three,” Morgal corrected.

“Two,” he repeated. “The king won’t think you’re some simple little pirate band now. His generals will have brought fighting men as well. They’ll expect our battlers to attack theirs. While they’re fighting, soldiers will break in here and kill everyone they find, hoping to get the masters. We can try and hold them off, but they’ll have elemental sylphs too. These won’t fight, but they’ll be able to get the soldiers through the walls. We need to hold one battler back to fight them when they do. I suggest Heyou.” He looked at the boy. “You have the least experience. It’ll be up to Mace and Ril to defeat the king’s battlers. You protect the hive and the queen.”

Heyou beamed.

“Two against four?” Morgal gasped. “Can they do it?”

Leon honestly didn’t know. He eyed the biggest battler they had. “Mace? Can you?”

The sylph frowned, crossing his arms and looking at the queen. There was no fear in his face, but he was silent for a long time. At last he said, “No,” and all the men gave a low gasp of fear. Then the battler added, “I won’t wait for them to come here. As soon as Ril is awake, we attack.” He tilted his head and regarded Leon, the first time he’d looked any man in the face. “Your plan is good if they arrive before he recovers. Otherwise, we go to them. They’re locked into
one shape. We’re not. We’ll destroy the air ship before it reaches the cliff. If we kill their masters, the king’s battlers will vanish.”

“How long does Ril need?” Devon asked worriedly.

“Until dawn, at least,” Leon decided. “I’ve never seen him this worn out. He made it here in hours carrying my entire family. I still can’t believe it.” He shook his head in amazement. The attack likely wouldn’t come until tomorrow. Ril had bought them a lot of time, time they’d need to ready the hive. The odds weren’t in their favor, but things weren’t hopeless.

He looked over at Solie, sitting pale and frightened at the head of the table. “These aren’t ordinary people trying to make a life for themselves,” he told her. “They’re soldiers. They’ll kill everyone here, and those battlers will turn this bluff into a pile of dust. If you don’t give your battlers free rein, they’ll lose.”

She startled, staring at him. “What?”

He leaned forward, his head still pounding, his legs trembling, and everyone watching as he stared her down. “Lift the restriction that they not kill, and do it now, or everyone in this room will die.”

Solie’s eyes widened with horror and she glanced at her battlers. Heyou looked with interest, Mace without expression. She turned back to Leon. “Do I have to?”

“Yes,” Galway interjected. “This time you do. We’re outnumbered as it is.” He went over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Just say it.”

“And make it an order,” Leon added. “Make it clear.”

Solie sniffled, wiping tears away as she stared at the table. “Heyou,” she choked. “Mace. I order you to do whatever you have to do to protect the Community and everyone in it, even if it means k-killing.”

“Ask them if they understand.”

“Do you understand?” she whispered.

“Yes, my queen,” they said together.

Leon leaned back in his chair. “Give the same order to Ril when he wakes up.” He watched her cry for a moment, but Heyou was hugging her, Mace stroking her hair. They’d have to be the ones to comfort her. He still had too much to prepare.

“Now tell me what weapons the rest of you have, and we’ll see if we can prepare a defense.”

“But we have the battler,” Morgal protested.

“Any man who relies only on his battle sylph usually ends up with a sword in his guts.” Leon clapped his hands. “Let’s get busy. I want a weapons count, a list of names of reliable fighters, and most importantly, I want to know when our enemies will get here.” He turned to Devon, who’d stayed silent and was present in the room only because of his oath to Solie. “For that, I want to talk to you.”

On the foredeck of the ship, the three generals watched the air-sylph master sing to Tempest, cajoling more speed out of her. Tempest was immense, larger by far than any other sylph on the entire ship, and old. She’d been passed down through ten generations and took the shape of a whirlwind, spinning at the head of the vessel she suspended. Her master sang in a clear, practiced voice, rewarding her efforts.

She traveled immensely fast, other sylphs struggling to keep the winds she created from blowing her passengers off the deck. Her master encouraged this with his song, obviously wanting to impress, and from all accounts they’d arrive at their destination only a few hours after sunset on the day they’d departed.

The generals didn’t mind. Each of them were nobles who’d earned their rank before they received their battler, as such creatures were never wasted on men who hadn’t already proven themselves. Except for the prince, they were careful not to say, or political threats that needed to be appeased,
like Jasar. Or Leon. Of course, Leon was unique, an independent with no noble blood, whom the king used for his subtler work, who’d been given the title King’s Head of Security only because it was better than King’s Dirty-trick Man. Each of them were secretly pleased that he’d turned traitor. The king would turn more to them now, instead of relegating them to baronies far outside the city, where it would be harder to rebel.

“This shouldn’t be a long fight,” one of them grunted. He was a heavyset man named Flav, and a veteran of over twenty years. The pirates wouldn’t be expecting them. Even if they had a spy at the castle, Tempest could outrun nearly any sylph, even carrying the ship as she was. They could never prepare a defense in time, and they’d be easy to track if they fled.

“We’ll definitely be there before midnight,” noted a second man. His name was Boradel, and his hair was as red as Solie’s—as was his face, weathered from many years of outdoor service. “Tempest has saved us a day’s travel. It’s too bad.”

“Oh?” asked the third, Anderam. “You like this ship that much?”

“Nope. It’s just the view won’t be so good at night. Claw is eager for this fight. When the king asked who wanted to come, he nearly picked me up and carried me to the castle himself.” Boradel laughed. “I’ve never seen him so excited. The damn thing cowers almost all of the rest of the time.”

The other two joined him in laughter. “It’s too bad Poison isn’t like that,” Flav said. “He doesn’t give a damn if he fights or not.”

“Must be nice,” Anderam chuckled. “Yanda will fight his own shadow if he can’t find anything else.”

“Yanda is crazy,” Boradel said.

“Aren’t all battlers?”

The generals all laughed again.

A short way distant, Jasar sniffed and pulled his cloak closer around him. The other three had left their battlers farther down the main deck, but Shield crouched at his feet, panting. He knew the other men thought he was a coward, but he didn’t care. Battlers or not, he had more power and money than any of them. He looked away, trying not to think how fast they were traveling across the Shale Plains. In another hour, they’d be able to see the cliff where he’d been deserted by his first battler, and where Leon had made his terrible promise. Jasar shuddered and looked down at his new battler. Shield was much better than Mace. He knew his place—as a dog.

It would be over soon, Jasar promised himself. The pirates would be destroyed, the girl killed, Leon would be tortured to death, and he could go back to Eferem and use his new victory to help parlay his way into a marriage with the king’s eldest daughter. He only had one thing he needed to be sure of: that none of these men saw Mace and realized he wasn’t dead. If they did, it would be simple enough to wait until their three battlers defeated the traitor and then turn Shield loose on them. He’d look very good indeed if he was the only survivor of such a battle. He’d just have to exaggerate what happened a bit. Smirking, he reached down to pat Shield’s head, ignoring the creature’s heightened loathing.

Suddenly, the battlers roared a warning, and Jasar’s eyes widened in panic as he backed toward the stairs leading down into the bowels of the ship. The three generals simultaneously moved forward, searching for the enemy in the growing darkness, and a group of air sylphs raced past, arcing up toward nothing that Jasar could see.

To his shame and disgust, the others saw his fear and laughed again. “Don’t worry, my lord. It looks like we have a spy,” one of them chuckled.

“Not for long,” Flav promised. “Poison!” The massive spider moved forward, passing within feet of Jasar, who
flinched, and Flav ordered, “When they drive it above the ship, destroy it.”

His heart pounding, Jasar turned and headed downward, no longer interested in what the generals thought of him. His status was higher than theirs anyway, and he’d been given the honor of two battlers. Only, none of theirs had needed a replacement, a treacherous voice whispered inside him. Jasar ignored it and returned to his quarters.

Airi raced across the sky, riding the winds as fast as she could and so terrified that she could barely think. She could feel her master and the hive behind her, but she could distantly feel the hatred of the coming battlers as well. They were far closer than anyone expected.

They must have left the city shortly after Ril and traveled almost as fast. Faintly, Airi could feel the sylph who bore the ship. It was Tempest, one of the oldest of the sylphs here and older than any Airi had known in her original hive. That age gave her power, and the weight of her burden was nothing to her, even as Airi pushed herself to intercept.

She didn’t get close. Too close, and the battlers on board would destroy her. She did get close enough to sense the number of people aboard, though, and to search for one very important thing—the one piece of information Leon had asked her to get—along with determining just how close the enemy really was.

It was hard to discern. The ship flew toward her, trailing clouds as it hurtled through the sky. There were dozens of men on board, crew and soldiers both, and the battlers, always the battlers. She felt elemental sylphs as well, among them the air sylphs who kept Tempest’s winds from scouring the deck and the earth sylphs who would break into the hive. Before they could detect her, she raced under the ship far closer than she would have preferred, searching even harder.

There were six—no, more than six. She hoped, prayed, and moved ever nearer, desperate to find what she must and get back to the hive to warn them that their leeway was nearly gone. As it was, she didn’t know if she could outrun Tempest, even with nothing to carry.

Suddenly she felt it, just as she skimmed below Tempest’s winds, and she wanted to cry out in success. There was one on board! But at the same time a roar of hatred sounded, men yelling above her on the ship. Immediately Airi dove, for other air sylphs were racing after her. They were smaller than Tempest, but many were stronger than Airi, and they outnumbered her anyway. They swarmed her, buffeting her with their winds and forcing her up above the ship. They wouldn’t kill her—none of them could be ordered to do something like that—but she knew they would bring her up to where the battlers could.

Airi wailed in terror, fighting. She had to get her information back to the others, and she didn’t want to die. She screamed as loud as she could, echoing it along the hive line, but none of these sylphs were from her original hive—and even if they had been, they wouldn’t be able to help her. They had no choice but to obey their orders, just as she had no choice but to obey hers—though Devon had given her the option of not going.

Desperate, she slammed into the weakest sylph as hard as she could, gaining enough room to twist and dive back beneath the ship before she could be targeted by a battler. Immediately the sylphs dove after her, circling her again and buffeting her upward. They were stronger; there were too many. Airi screamed again and flipped over, tossed upward helplessly toward her death.

Just as she reached the level below the edge of the sails, something arced up through them and caught her, knocking the surrounding air sylphs in every direction and bearing Airi away. Stunned, she felt herself carried down toward
the plains and away, incredibly fast. Behind her, the air sylphs reeled, crying out into the sky their pain.