The Sylph Hunter (24 page)

The battlers groaned, feeling his pain and fear. If Zalia had been harmed due to his inattention, he’d destroy whatever hurt her and then never forgive himself. He should have made her his master first, so that he’d have known she was in trouble. Had she been calling for him without any way for him to answer? The thought was horrible. His brothers started shouting to their hive mates, calling the battlers and even the elementals into the search. Only minutes later, he heard the call.

Come to the exit.

I was just there!
he wailed, even as he raced there, skirting over buildings and around corners in his haste. She must have gone to the privy, she must have left for just a minute; when he found her he’d never let her go.

He raced back into the square, the women still milling around though they were mostly crying now instead of trying to get the old earth sylph at the closed wall to let them out. Half a dozen battlers floated before the gatekeeper and she nervously lifted her eyeless head toward One-Eleven.

Where is she?
he gasped, casting his senses everywhere in search of Zalia’s pattern.

A battler even older than One-Eleven looked at him, his own pattern sympathetic.
She let her out.

One-Eleven was stunned silent for a moment.
What?

The earth sylph. She let her out.

One-Eleven spun on the creature, one far more ancient than him but cringing now, afraid of what he would do. One-Eleven had no idea what he would do. Letting a woman outside when the Hunter was out there? What had she been thinking?

Why did you do it?
he squealed, rushing right up in her face. She recoiled, her pattern quivering as though she wanted to turn invisible and run from him. Earth sylphs weren’t as good at that as air and fire sylphs, and she’d never be able to hide her pattern from him. Not when he was this close and so utterly focused on her.
How could you let her out?

The earth sylph held an arm up between them, as if that would help.
She told me you said to let them out. She used your name!

One-Eleven was stunned speechless. The other battlers only watched, knowing it was his issue to deal with. He felt like he couldn’t think. Why would Zalia even want to go outside? She knew what the Hunter was. Even if One-Eleven hadn’t told her, those men she’d shown up with had seen the result of it firsthand.

The lightning flickering through the battler stopped for a moment. The men? Had she gone out with the men? Why would she do that?

She must have realized they’d be ejected from the hive, he realized in a flash of admiration. She figured out it was going to happen before the hive even reached the decision to do it. She would have gone with them out of misplaced loyalty. He had to respect her for that, but it was the wrong decision, so utterly wrong.

Wherever the men were was where she’d be, he thought. She’d be with the greatest target for the Hunter’s hunger in this entire city. The terror of that sent the lightning crashing through him again.
Open the gate.

The gatekeeper did so immediately, dilating the doorway open to show the wide corridor on the other side. Immediately, the women tried to push their way through the door, but the other battlers swooped down to press them back. One-Eleven darted through the gate and it closed behind him. The doorway at the other end opened just in time for him to shoot through.

The square on the other side was filled with angry and confused men. A lot of them were the men One-Eleven and his brothers had forced out, some so damaged from being feeders that they just stood there, or hunched to the ground shaking. Some were screaming in terror.

There were no women among them. One-Eleven flew upward so he could see all of them and be sure, but he didn’t feel the pattern of any woman at all. Cursing, he flew higher, looking for more gatherings of men.

He saw them a good distance away, a crowd of them gathered in the place where the entrance to the feeder pens and the concubine harem was located. One-Eleven couldn’t sense any women among them either, but he was too far away. It was still a good place to start looking and he flew forward, desperate to find her.

He passed within a dozen feet of the Hunter’s tentacles, but of course, he never knew it.

The Hunter watched the battler pass by toward the other group of food. It knew what the creature was looking for, having heard his conversation, but it didn’t care. The emotions of food were irrelevant.

It was feeling hungry, the human food not as nourishing in the long run as the sylphs it normally feasted on. It would have to glut and move sooner than it expected, but the food was thick on the ground, so long as it didn’t alert the battler to its presence. It wouldn’t, as long as the humans stayed distracted enough they didn’t realize it was there. They could see it, but not well, and they still died so fast it was easy for the others to miss.

Keeping that in mind, it drifted along the edge of the crowd, the ends of a few of its thicker tentacles waving gently across the ground, along the farthest edge of the crowd, and grazed quietly on stragglers that were dead too quickly to be seen.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Z
alia stood next to Devon and watched the men and boys file past. Devon didn’t seem to know it, but they drew strength from seeing him there, standing above them as if he were keeping guard and actually cared. Zalia wasn’t so sure there would have been such an orderly procession—even knowing their lives were in danger—if someone hadn’t finally stood up and taken charge. That’s all they really needed; the emperor hadn’t been much of a leader, but at least he’d been someone the rest of them could look to.

Now Devon stepped into that spot and Zalia was so proud of him she felt she must be glowing. She’d made love with him and she didn’t feel dirty at all. After everything that had happened and all the confusion of the last few days, she felt free. Devon had taken her doubts into himself when he held her and when he asked her to marry him—that ultimate act of acceptance—she’d wanted so much to cry and understood that if she had, they would have been happy tears. She hadn’t thought there was such a thing as happy tears outside the stories people told to entertain.

Men continued to pass, many of them glancing at her as they did, now that she was rare in Meridal, though none approached her. No one said much to Devon either, all of them likely too numb to even want to think beyond getting to safety. Devon reached up to gently touch her cheek and he smiled at her. His hair swirled abruptly into a look that made him seem almost shocked.

A moment later, Zalia actually saw another woman and blinked in amazement that she hadn’t been snatched by the battlers, especially a woman like this. She was wrinkled and frail, her hair gray, and she was being carried by a man young enough to be her grandson.

Devon stared at the man carrying her instead, his eyes wide with sudden fear. Zalia gaped at him and looked at the man again. He had a battler’s beauty. He walked up, carrying his woman, and stopped, looking critically at Devon. Devon shook, visibly forcing his fear back under control.

“What do you want?” he asked.

The battle sylph looked at him and then glanced at Zalia, his eyes quiet and thoughtful. Zalia couldn’t find it in herself to be afraid of him—certainly she couldn’t after One-Eleven—and she saw he wasn’t quite as calm as he looked. He was as unsure of himself as Devon and she smiled at him. The battler nodded back at her a moment later.

“We’re moving in,” the battle sylph told Devon, turning back to him.

“Oh,” Devon squeaked. “Okay.”

A hint of a smile crossed the battler’s lips and he continued on, joining the men filtering into the stairwell, not trying to push his way through. Zalia peeked at Devon, standing there with his hair sticking straight up, and giggled. “You’re cute.”

He shot her a wry look, his own mouth quirking with amusement now that the battler was gone. “Thanks.”

Zalia ducked her head, still smiling. She didn’t worry that she’d upset Devon, she found. She felt comfortable, and truly happy. They were all still in terrible danger, but that didn’t affect how she felt. Her life was good.

Sand swirled behind Devon, forming into a floating face and hand as Airi pointed up into the air behind Zalia, her face rigid with terror. Startled, Zalia turned around.

The cloud of another battle sylph was heading straight for them, his lightning raging wildly inside him. He was still far enough away and high enough that the men hadn’t noticed him, but he was closing fast.

Shocked realization shot through Zalia, accompanied by a remembrance of passion that made her belly clench with sudden desire. It was One-Eleven, come to bring her back. She shot a look at Devon, who was only now turning to track his sylph’s terror to the incoming battle sylph.

If One-Eleven realized that Devon had slept with her, he’d kill him.

Zalia backed away from her lover, not wanting to see him hurt, and his eyes locked on hers, wide with fear and joined understanding. She saw that he knew exactly the danger he was in, and in an instant, he reached toward her anyway, not wanting to let her go.

There was no time for an explanation and the terrible fear of an argument starting with him. Zalia bolted, running toward One-Eleven and waving her arms while she prayed Devon wouldn’t follow her, or rather, that he wouldn’t follow her in time. He would follow, she knew. Despite his terror of battle sylphs, despite how he’d logically needed her to go back to the hive anyway, he’d get his fear under control and come after her anyway, no matter the cost to himself. That left her only seconds to keep him safe.

She could only think of one way to guarantee that. “Over here!” she shouted, the men looking at her in confusion as she continued waving her arms. One-Eleven dived and she had an instant’s vision of a lightning-streaked wall coming toward her, fronted by a pair of eyes formed by swirling ball lightning and teeth of electricity about to consume her. She flinched, hearing Devon shout behind her, and suddenly she was surrounded by darkness and being lifted upward, the sounds of the city and men muffled.

Zalia opened her eyes, not sure when she’d closed them. She was sitting on an oddly soft surface, surrounded by darkness. It was warm and the lightning she’d seen before was nowhere in sight. She couldn’t see the walls all around her, but she felt the movement of their flight and her stomach lurched as One-Eleven turned, dropping down and moving forward with what felt like increasing speed.

“One-Eleven?” she whispered, though she couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to talk to her in this form.

Apparently he either couldn’t or chose not to. Zalia felt him wriggle around her and a tentacle made of what almost seemed to be solid black smoke came out of the wall toward her. She jerked back, but it pressed forward and caressed her cheek in a loving gesture.

Her stomach lurched again, flip-flopping as the sensation of rising came to her. Not sure what to do now or how she was going to get back to Devon, she huddled down, her arms around her knees, and felt the tentacle stroke her hair while One-Eleven took her away.

Devon gaped in horror and confusion as Zalia ran away from him, waving for the incoming battler to take her. He couldn’t understand why. Hadn’t she said she loved him?

She’s protecting you,
Airi told him.
The battler will kill you if he thinks you’ve taken her from him.

Protecting? Going with a battle sylph to protect him? Devon’s mind wailed at the idea of the woman he loved surrendering herself to his worst nightmare.

“No!” he shouted, intending to keep her with him no matter what it took, but the battler was already there. He swooped down, taking Zalia into his mantle, and arced upward again, men ducking to keep from being knocked over. He passed over Devon closely enough that he could have reached out and touched the creature. Devon scrabbled for his sword, drawing it, and the blade glistened as he swung it upward, just missing as the battler lifted out of reach. The creature didn’t even acknowledge the swing and Airi cried against Devon’s neck.

“What a dung heap,” one old man in beggar’s clothes groused. “Guess they figured out they missed one. Sorry about that, son.”

“Yeah,” another man added. “Real sorry.”

Devon stared the way they’d gone, already vanished around the buildings. His fear was frozen inside him, deep underneath something else that was even stronger. “Don’t be sorry,” he muttered. “I’ll get her back.” He’d wanted her to go back to the hive and force the women there to fight against what was happening, but not if it meant her going with that monster. Not him.

Devon?
Airi asked.

“Keep moving inside!” Devon shouted, pointing at the entrance to the stairwell. “Get everyone underground as fast as you can and shut the door!”

“Where are you going?” one man asked incredulously. “You can’t seriously think they’ll give her up.”

“Oh yes I do,” Devon growled and started up the road, striding as fast as he could in the intense heat. Airi hugged his neck, wildly ruffling his hair.

The men watched him go in amazement, though many nodded in agreement, and a few even followed, all of them understanding why he was going, if not how he ever hoped to succeed.

One-Eleven raced back toward the hive with the precious cargo he carried, so relieved he’d found her that he couldn’t articulate it. Nothing else had mattered so much as finding her: not duty, not queen, not life. He felt her moving around inside him, her hands soft against his sides, and longed to tell her how he felt. There were no words though, just as there never were words when he was with her, and she couldn’t hear his mental voice anyway. Not until she was made his master.

One-Eleven returned to the hive, but didn’t swoop down to the entrance. Instead he lifted up, following a steady stream of sylphs carrying their own passengers to the palace directly overhead. There were a great many sylphs needing to be bound to their new female masters and only one way to do it. The bond had to be made in the presence of the queen, using her pattern. Now that he had Zalia back, One-Eleven wasn’t going to risk waiting any longer.

He flew up to the palace, flanking a few air sylphs who could carry their own future masters and some battlers carrying the other elementals who couldn’t, along with the women chosen to replace the men who used to own them. None of them looked as happy as One-Eleven felt, but he guessed the elemental sylphs didn’t much care what gender their masters were. They were asexual after all.

One-Eleven darted around them, flitting up and onto the balcony that was being used as a landing zone for the newcomers. Yahe stood there, looking a bit put out while he watched them arrive and guarding against danger. He’d probably hoped to still be with Kiala, One-Eleven supposed, but didn’t care. Sylphs needed new masters to feed from, now that the men were gone, and someone had to guard the queen, even if no one here was an actual threat to her. The Hunter certainly wasn’t. Not even the elementals believed the Hunter could reach her this high in the air.

Shifting as he came in, One-Eleven landed in human form and caught Zalia before her momentum could tumble her to the floor. She crashed against him, staring up into his face with her eyes wide, her lips open and pursed, her hair tangling around her face. She looked so beautiful that he wanted to take her away and make love to her now. Five minutes, he promised himself with a grin.

“Come on,” he told her, taking her hand in his own and running down the hall with her trailing behind him, fighting to keep her feet and match his pace. Her emotions were a riot of a thousand different feelings, all jammed up so much that they were hard for him to sort out. He was more interested in what she’d be feeling in a few minutes anyway, once she was his master.

The hall was half full of women newly bonded to elemental sylphs, all of them looking a bit dazed, their sylphs disconcerted. They moved out of the way of One-Eleven and Zalia and he ran with her into the presence of the queen.