The Sylph Hunter (28 page)

Haru headed up to the surface, following Shasha’s summons. He’d hardly needed it. He’d felt the angry battle sylph up on the surface and recognized him. One-Eleven. Ignorant, immature, always thinking he was entitled but otherwise not thinking at all. Old though, older and larger than Haru by far.

Haru went up the stairs as Shasha opened the way for him, climbing the curving stairs and feeling the other battler’s anger growing. He’d been denied what he wanted and he was going to punish the one he felt to be responsible for it. Haru didn’t know who that someone was, but he wasn’t going to let there be any killings in this new little hive of his. Not so long as he was guarding it.

The last of the rock that blocked the stairwell parted, melting back into the original walls, and he saw One-Eleven step forward. One-Eleven started when he saw the other battler and Haru moved, forcing him to back up into the sunlight again. The sun was starting to go down but the sky was still clear, oddly empty without flying sylphs in it. Haru almost hesitated before leaving the safety of the stairwell, but he had no choice. The Hunter would kill him or it wouldn’t. The door was already closing behind him to make sure neither it nor One-Eleven got into the hive.

“Hey,” he protested, trying to step past Haru. “I need to get in there!”

Haru planted a palm on his chest and shoved him back. Surprised, One-Eleven stumbled away and looked at him, stunned.

“What do you want?” Haru asked, though he already knew. He could feel the anger in the other sylph. He wanted to kill, and in all the years Haru knew him, One-Eleven wasn’t known to be subtle. He hadn’t even been usable as a guard, given how many men he killed for the slightest infraction. He’d worked solely in the human fields, reaping grain and guarding against anything that might try to taste the harvest.

One-Eleven glared at him. “That ambassador. The pale man who came here. I’m going to kill him. He took my woman from me!”

Of course it was him. Of course One-Eleven wanted to kill him. The one man who had the little hive behind Haru functioning and safe with a real leader. Who was currently sitting right beside Fareeda so she wouldn’t be alone. The irony of it all was immense, but even if it had been some other man One-Eleven was after, Haru wouldn’t have handed him over. The rules in this hive were unstated, but that didn’t make them any less obvious. Men weren’t expendable here. Haru had accepted that when he came, which made his response to the other sylph the only one he could give.

He hit him, punching One-Eleven so hard that he fell back with a yelp, landing on his back on the stone of the square. Haru immediately went to his natural shape and attacked. For all his immaturity, One-Eleven was still the 111th battle sylph to be brought to Meridal when the last was numbered 702, and he was older than Haru by hundreds of years.

That age made him fast. Despite not expecting the attack, he shifted to his own natural form and was airborne before Haru could reach him. Haru swept up after him, closing as fast as he could and lashing out with his tentacles. He didn’t want to kill his hive mate, just drive him away, and he used nonlethal attacks, hoping that One-Eleven would do the same. Otherwise, this could get fatal really fast.

This hive is sacrosanct,
Haru told him.
You can’t kill anyone here!

One-Eleven dodged around his attack, lashing out with his own tentacles and scoring painfully across Haru’s back.
This isn’t a hive!
he protested.
It’s full of nothing but men! They’re worthless!

They grappled, Haru still lashing out with as many tentacles as he could form, biting as well when he got the chance. One-Eleven roared,
wincing back from the attacks, and then yanked away, shooting upward. Haru followed, grabbing the trailing end of One-Eleven’s mantle and being pulled along.

Just leave!
Haru shouted.
I want you to leave!

No! I’m going to kill him!

They arced high over the city, the streets empty below them and the main hive rising above, with the queen’s palace floating overhead. Neither of them could see the Hunter that hovered between the two structures, watching them, and neither went within range of it, which would be within range of the queen’s dwelling as well. This was a fight between them alone.

The queen gave leave to do whatever we wanted!

Haru slammed a tentacle against One-Eleven’s side, the other grunting before he whipped his own across the smaller sylph’s back. It hurt, but he couldn’t both put up a shield and continue his own attack. One-Eleven hit him again and Haru realized he’d have to. Battle sylphs usually fought each other in groups, attacking other hives en masse. One-Eleven was too old for Haru to fight one-on-one; he would just take Haru apart. Haru brought up his shields, losing his grip in the process, and was knocked away.

I’m allowed to do this,
One-Eleven snarled.

The queen never gave you permission to do murder.

The two battlers circled each other, glaring. Haru hurt, more than he’d thought he would. One-Eleven had hit him a lot harder than he’d realized. In the backs of their minds, the hive line was screaming, battlers roaring and rising at the anger both of them felt.

What’s going on?
Tooie shouted. He appeared at the edge of the palace, rocketing straight toward them, a half-dozen other battle sylphs at the edge of his mantle.
Why are you fighting?
He sounded furious.

One-Eleven turned toward him, the lightning inside his cloud body raging. He was big enough that all of them together might not have been able to take him, but his tone was slightly more polite, recognizing Tooie’s ascendency with the queen.
He won’t let me in his so-called hive.

Tooie slowed, his eyes swirling. He looked at Haru.
Hive?

Haru wearily looked back at Tooie, not wanting to fight his own brothers but prepared to.
The queen gave me leave to take Fareeda where I felt she would be safest. Devon Chole has made a hive for the men. I brought her there. One-Eleven wants to kill him.

He took my master from me!
One-Eleven shouted.
Once he’s dead, she’ll love me!

Tooie’s angry emotions suddenly felt tired and Haru had to wonder just how worn out the lead battler was with all of them. He’d watched him try to council the queen, only to be ignored. He’d watched him try to lead on his own and had to agree it wasn’t working. If it had, Haru wouldn’t have had the need to take Fareeda away. Only these humans seemed to have the ability to succeed regardless of gender. The other battlers hovered around him, watching curiously.

I think
,
Tooie said at last,
that the queen will be asking for this Devon Chole at some point.

But!
One-Eleven protested.

He lives,
Tooie told him.
I’m giving the order. He is to stay alive. None of us touch him, not unless the queen herself commands it, and I for one pray she doesn’t.

One-Eleven reared above him, his hate aura flaring. He was larger than Tooie, but the other battlers reared up as well to match, Haru with them, and even though he still might have won, One-Eleven pulled back.
It’s not fair! She’s mine! You can’t say he’s more important than me!

Tooie snarled at him.
If you can’t even manage to name yourself, you don’t get to say who’s most important. I told you to talk to the woman. You think you’ll win her by killing any man she likes? You’re an idiot!

One-Eleven shrank into himself, still outraged.
What would you do if it was the queen? What if she decided she loved someone else?

I’d let her go, and grieve. Leave the human alone.
Tooie turned away from him and looked at Haru.
You’re hurt. A healer should see you.

Haru pulled back. He could feel Fareeda in the back of his mind, missing him and stressed by his absence.
I won’t leave this hive.

Fine. Just don’t treat your brothers as enemies.

Haru bowed in acknowledgment, his mantle aching. He would heal, but it would take time. He would have lost this battle if Tooie hadn’t come, he realized. Shamed, he returned to the hive, calling on Shasha to let him in. All he wanted was to see Fareeda, and this Devon Chole, and reassure himself that the man was worth all of this.

Tooie turned to One-Eleven.
Don’t fight anymore.

One-Eleven focused angry eyes on him, his mouth gaping with lightning.
What am I supposed to do? I want her to be mine!

Tooie sighed, turning away with Yahe and the others. The queen was calling along the hive line, asking inexpertly what was happening. He just wanted to get back to her, and remind her of this man Devon Chole, who’d gathered hundreds of men and given them a place to survive. He could feel them gathered under the ground, and while many of them were unhappy and angered, they were overall more content than the women still panicking in the main hive.

I keep telling you,
One-Eleven,
Tooie said.
Talk to her. Be her friend before you try to be her lover. Be someone she can rely on for once.

He led the way back, trusting One-Eleven to at least obey him about not killing anyone, the other battlers of the Circle flanking him as he arced high over the palace to enter through one of the skylights.

One-Eleven watched them go, Tooie and the others entering the palace while Haru limped back into the hive below them. He hovered in midair, staring after them all.

But I don’t know what to say,
he whispered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

C
autiously, the Hunter watched the two battlers fight, not liking it. Its tentacles were largely expendable if they decided to start tossing energy blasts around, but they were flying fairly high, much higher than they did when they looked for it. It would be disastrous if they hit its actual body with one, or stumbled into it and realized what it was. It could only feed with its tentacles, not its gas bag, and it couldn’t raise its tentacles quickly enough to protect itself. Already it had spent much of the afternoon raising even the lightest of them to reach the palace. They clung to the underside as it watched the fight, waiting.

Its patience was rewarded as more battlers came out and the fight ended. It waited until all of them were gone, even the last straggler returning to the palace, before it started its work again, feeling patiently along the underside of the palace for all the myriad ways there were to get inside.

Fareeda liked the music. Even if Airi hadn’t told him, still dancing over his head, Devon could see the woman’s distant gaze start to focus, her head bobbing in achingly slow counterpoint to his rhythm. He tried to gauge that, to judge what she liked, and found himself playing a slow, soft waltz. She closed her eyes at that and smiled.

He finished the song. He was tired and needed some sleep and food before the men invariably started coming to him for advice and orders, but he felt his music was really making a connection with the old woman and he liked to see her happy. It looked as though it had be
en a very long time since she was. He changed to another waltz, one his father first tried to teach him on the fiddle and he’d adapted for the flute. Sitting up, Fareeda swayed to the music, humming so softly that he couldn’t hear it.

Someone else could. “She’s singing,” a voice breathed.

Devon looked over his shoulder and the playing faltered in fear as he saw the battler had returned, looking no different than when he left, except now an expression of wonder was on his face. One hand pressed to his belly, he ignored Devon’s fear as he waved with the other hand for him to continue. “Keep playing. Please.”

Devon swallowed and did so, fighting to keep the music as even and clear as it had been. He squeaked a few times, but Fareeda didn’t seem to mind, still swaying and humming as she smiled up at the battler. His own answering smile was beatific as he dropped to his knees with what Devon could almost have thought was a wince and started to sing himself, softly in time to the music.

Come to bed, beloved one,

It’s time to rest, for day is done.

Night lifts up her weary head

And calls for all to come to bed.

Fareeda smiled at him, her wrinkled, spotted old hand reaching toward his. To Devon’s amazement, she sang the next lines of the song, her words more mouthed than spoken, but there.

No, it’s barely dark, it’s time to play,

Gone is the blinding light of day.

While dark is when the world’s alive.

A time for ecstasy to thrive.

The battler’s eyes were huge, his hand trembling as he touched the old woman’s. Battle sylphs loved, Devon reminded himself. For all their faults and dangers, they loved, and he grieved for Zalia, who he hoped couldn’t love one back.

The battler sang again, his words choked and nearly as inaudible as hers. No one but Devon and Airi even realized what was happening, her length pressed against his back again.

It’s dark, my head is growing thick,

I must sleep or else be sick.

I crave your warmth right by my side.

Head on breast and hand on thigh.

Fareeda sighed, lifting the battler’s hand to press against her cheek, and finished the song.

When put like that, I can’t say no.

To bed with you for now I’ll go,

And when at last you are asleep,

I’ll be there still. The night can keep.

Turning, she hesitated, her eyes glazing over, but not as badly as before. The music had woken something in her that had been asleep a very long time. Still, she turned and shuffled farther back into the alcove, apparently intending to follow the words of the song in deed as well. The battle sylph shot Devon a glance so filled with gratitude that it made him nervous, and followed after her, closing the curtain behind them.

Devon let the flute drop into his lap.

What just happened?
Airi asked.

“I think we made a friend,” Devon said, and resisted the urge to throw up as a result of it.

Zalia wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do now. She wanted to get off this floating island and back to Devon, but there was no one she was sure she could ask to take her to the surface and, she had to admit, she was afraid to leave the safety of the palace. She did see a battler in the hall outside the room she was in and considered asking him to carry her, but he was with Kiala, and the last thing she wanted to do was face that woman again.

Zalia had no idea if anything she’d said to the queen made any difference. She’d just been too angry to keep her mouth shut. Now she felt she couldn’t leave, that she had a responsibility to help the queen. Devon had hoped at most that she’d be able to return to the hive and talk to the women there, not that she would be brought right to the queen herself. Regardless, Zalia had no real idea what she could actually do. It was Devon who was the ambassador, and even he doubted his ability to do what he’d been sent for. Zalia had no reservations that he could do it, but she was hardly in a position to share her opinion with him just now.

She was also afraid of what One-Eleven was doing and flinched every time she heard an explosion outside. He was after Devon, she was sure of it, or at least after what he thought was his competition. He might not know it was Devon she cared about, or where the man was if he did. The very last thing Zalia wanted to do was risk leading the battle sylph to her lover.

It was almost strange; after having been a virgin just a short time ago, she’d had sex now with two different men, but only considered one of them her lover. She’d always have a connection to One-Eleven, she supposed, given how he’d been her first and how, if nothing else, he’d opened her up to the idea of actually being intimate and how the world would hardly end as a result of it. What would Ilaja think of her now? she wondered. Likely, Ilaja wasn’t thinking of her at all. She was probably in the hive, perhaps with a battle sylph deciding that she would make the perfect master. Zalia wasn’t quite sure if she wished Ilaja luck with that or not. Certainly the opinion toward women and a woman’s virtue was going to change in Meridal. Granted, with all of the other changes going on right now, it was possible that no one would even notice. She sighed. Given how there were likely not going to be any men in the city at all if Eapha didn’t stop waffling, no one would care. She just hoped that Devon really was safe in the feeder pens the way he thought.

She wished she was with him.

It was night out, the sun having vanished with its usual speed and the temperature already dropping. Shivering, Zalia went over to the wide windows that had been left open after One-Eleven dived through them. Outside, the city was eerily dark, the ground and buildings below her shadowed and the sky filled with more stars than she had ever seen before. Zalia looked at them for a moment, but she was restless and the night was only growing colder. Quietly, she closed the windows and latched them, thinking that if One-Eleven wanted to get back in, he’d have to find another way.

She didn’t notice threads as fine as human hairs wavering below the edge of the window, tentacles, thicker across than she was, climbing slowly up behind them.

What was she supposed to do now? Sleep here? Find a place to bathe? Her stomach rumbled, but she had no food to eat. She’d just been left here and she wasn’t even sure if she could leave the room.

As if they’d known what she was feeling—and of course they probably had—a knock came at the door. Zalia gaped at it for a moment, thinking that it was One-Eleven, but she already knew he wasn’t the sort to knock. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Tooie,” came the answer. “The queen’s battler.”

Oh. Suddenly nervous, she went to open the door. The battle sylph she’d seen standing behind the queen while she was yelling at her—the one who’d seemed to support what she’d been saying—smiled at her. He was just as stomach-tighteningly beautiful as One-Eleven, but he didn’t look at her with desire. His smile was kind, his eyes reassuring.

“The queen would like to see you.”

Zalia gaped at her. “Me? I didn’t think—”

“That she’d want anything to do with you after your last conversation?” His smile broadened. “You didn’t say anything to her that she didn’t want to hear.”

“She wanted me yelling at her?”

Tooie shook his head. “Not really. But she did need someone to tell her what she’d been feeling herself was right.”

Zalia was surprised by that. “But…if she wanted to hear it, why wasn’t she doing anything?” Realizing that the battler was probably disposed to be on his queen’s side, she flushed.

Tooie’s smile didn’t change. “It’s been hard for her, when you consider the opinions of her friends. You should know, being queen makes her empathic. She could feel their scorn and ridicule.”

Thinking of Kiala, Zalia flushed. That woman was hard to deal with. It must have been even harder for someone who could feel whatever she did. Tooie grinned, reading her emotions, and turned sideways, gesturing for her to precede him out the door.

Zalia went nervously, not sure what her reception would be like. It was different than before though. This time, the queen was sitting at a battered harvest table in one corner of the kitchens, one obviously meant for the palace’s onetime servants to use, and there was no sign of the women who’d been lounging around her before. Sylphs worked in the kitchen, most of them looking like girls made of mist or earth, water or fire as they cleaned and started the preparations for the next day. Eapha was sitting alone, nibbling from a tray of cheeses, bread, fruit, and smoked fish. Suddenly, Zalia was famished.

The queen looked up at her, so achingly beautiful herself it was no wonder she was taken for the harems. “You’re hungry,” she said. “Have some.”

“Oh, no,” Zalia stammered, suddenly shy around her. “I couldn’t.”

The queen gave her a slightly exasperated look. “I can feel how hungry you are. Just have some, there’s more than enough to share.”

Zalia sank into a chair across from her while Tooie went to sit by his lover. She took some of the bread. It tasted wonderful.

“You really can feel what I do?”

Eapha nodded. She looked tired. “It’s something about being queen. If sylphs are around, I can feel anyone’s emotions, the same way they do. I just don’t understand them as well.”

And obviously she couldn’t feel what was happening on the ground below either, or Zalia couldn’t imagine Eapha ever having allowed what happened. Still, she looked at her resentfully and saw the woman flinch. Tooie frowned.

“Why did you want to see me?”

The queen studied her for a moment, her mouth moving slowly around a bite of cheese before she swallowed it. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I guess I just wanted to talk to you without everyone around. You’ve put me in quite a spot.”

“That’s not my fault,” Zalia blurted.