The Sylph Hunter

by L. J. McDonald

  “You threw all the men out of the hive?” she asked. His expression was evidence enough. Her lip quivered. “All of them?” How exactly did he define men?

  Tooie nodded, shifting a little uncomfortably. “The only males in the hive are battle sylphs.”

  He threw out the babies? The little children? She stared down at the hive again. The day before, there had been men gathered in the square before it. Now she could see through the miasma that the square was deserted. How many men had been trying to get back to their women? How many children wanted their mothers? How many needed their mothers’ milk? Eapha suddenly felt ill and saw Tooie’s recognition of it in how his chin jerked up, his eyes tightening.

  “Why did you throw the men out?” Eapha asked him, afraid of the answer.

  “Because men aren’t part of the hive. They’re other than us. They have no place here.”

  Eapha closed her eyes. That’s what the people she hadn’t wanted to listen to had been trying to tell her. Even Tooie had. Sylphs didn’t think as human beings did.

  “What,” she asked him softly, “were you planning to do to ensure future generations of women without having any men around?”

  He had no answer for her, she could see that. Eapha managed a laugh that was almost a sob and walked over to him, her arms outspread. Tooie pushed away from the wall to meet her and she hugged him, her face buried against his chest while his arms went around her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” she whimpered.

  He sighed. “Because you didn’t want me to. Because you’re the queen. You can do whatever you want.”

  “Including being a bad queen.” She sniffled and pushed away from him, looking up at his face with a fear that she hadn’t felt when she was first told she’d be queen. “I don’t know that I can be a good queen,” she admitted. “I might be really bad at it.”

  He smiled. “Maybe. I’ll help.”

  Of course he would, but much as she loved him, she could see his limitations. Humans had them as well, but she had to hope she could get by her own, and find help. Leon did send that help, she reminded herself. Devon Chole must know something about how she could do this or Leon wouldn’t have sent him.

  “Kiala and the others are going to nag me terribly about this,” she mourned instead.

  He touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “You want them to stop? They will.” She didn’t ask how. Battlers had to obey their masters, but they had their own influences as well. She just wished a bit that Tooie used some of them before things got this bad, though that was only her blaming him for her own failure and she felt guilty to even think it. Now she had to figure out what to do on her own. Too much had gone wrong while she hid up here.

  “Have you had any luck with the Hunter yet?” she asked.

  “None.”

  “What do you do back where you came from?”

  He shrugged, his face a grimace. “Usually wait it out. They leave eventually if there’s nothing to eat.”

  They could do that, providing none of them ran out of food first. But how were they supposed to feed so many people? How was she supposed to round up the men and get them to safety while the Hunter was killing everyone? Eapha looked toward the edge of the balcony again, too far back to see the hive from where she stood but able to notice that the miasma she’d been looking at before had risen, now shimmering at the edge of the balcony. Lines like wisps in her vision shimmered above it, waving in the air.

  “We have to start with the Hunter,” she decided, wishing she didn’t still feel so uncertain. Until it was gone though, nothing she tried to do would matter.

  Tooie smiled and led her inside, closing the doors behind them to keep the dust out.

  One-Eleven didn’t know what to think anymore.

  He’d gone after Zalia, rescued her from what surely would have been certain death and brought her straight to the queen to become his master. He’d have been able to keep her safe all of the time then, and love her as she deserved. It had been the most important thing in the world, only she slapped the queen and yelled at her and everyone was upset. Yahe was bellowing along the hive line, wanting to know what had his Kiala so infuriated.

  One-Eleven couldn’t answer him. He’d seen it, but he honestly didn’t understand. Not this. Everything was going so well. They were organized and working together. The queen didn’t have to bother with anything and One-Eleven’s suggestions had merit. Sylphs listened to him. Only now the woman he loved most yelled at the queen for an idea he’d given. One-Eleven still didn’t get what the problem with throwing out the men was. There was only so much food and it was vitally important to keep the females safe, everyone knew that.

  He didn’t want to try and explain that just now, since he doubted Zalia would be willing to listen. She was pacing around the room he’d brought her to, chewing on her nails and staring wildly around. Her emotions were a mess, angry and embarrassed and worried all at once. It didn’t feel nice at all, not like the calm he’d sensed when he first saw her, bathing behind the stable in the predawn darkness.

  He really wanted to regain that level of comfort with her, and banish her obvious distress. He focused, letting the lust he felt spread outward, blanketing her with the need he knew they both shared.

  Zalia stopped and jerked her head around to look at him over her shoulder. “Don’t do that!”

  One-Eleven lost his focus and flinched, not liking the look in her eyes. “But I want you to be happy.”

  She stared at him for a moment, tense and rigid, and then exhaled loudly and slumped. “Don’t do that,” she repeated, more softly this time.

  She looked away as he walked over and gently put his hands on her shoulders. “Why?” he whispered. “Don’t you want to be happy too?”

  “I was happy,” he thought he heard her say. She stepped away, pulling free of him. It hurt. “I don’t want you to force me to feel.”

  He really should have listened to Tooie, One-Eleven thought. Tooie had said to talk to her, get to know her. But oh no, he hadn’t listened. He’d just gone for what he wanted and now he could feel the resentment in Zalia, resentment he had the sudden terror she’d been feeling the entire time, only hidden beneath the desire he’d given her.

  None of this was happening the way it was supposed to. Tooie! he shouted in his mind, desperate for someone to tell him what to do, what he could say that would make everything better. She hates me!

  Who hates you? Tooie responded, sounding distracted.

  Zalia! She doesn’t want me to make her feel happy!

  Tooie snorted, already withdrawing his attention. So don’t do that. Talk to the woman.

  About what?

  I don’t know. About whatever she’s interested in. Promise her the world. Think of something.

  One-Eleven stared at Zalia, his hands twitching by his side with nervousness. She looked back at him, her hands crossed before her breasts, holding her opposing arms while she stood hunched forward slightly, closed in on herself. She felt stressed and afraid.

  Much as he hated it, One-Eleven looked closer, actually examining the emotions of the woman before him. They were more complex than he would have expected, certainly more complex than anything he suspected he could feel himself. She was anxious and scared, worried and a bit angry. She had a desire to go somewhere and do something and felt a touch of embarrassment over her explosion at the queen earlier.

  She liked him.

  One-Eleven grabbed on to that, as fast and as hard as he could. She liked him, deep down where it wasn’t being articulated. She genuinely did, or he suspected, with his newfound understanding, that he never would have been able to sleep with her. She didn’t even regret that, not really. He felt in her instead a bit of uncertainty about it, as well as a strange, deeply buried sort of relief that it was over with. He’d somehow set her free, even if he w
asn’t quite sure how.

  But she liked him. One-Eleven took a deep breath, his entire chest expanding, and let it out in a loud exhalation. Zalia studied him suspiciously and he smiled, lacing his hands behind his back. That made her more comfortable, he realized. It meant he wasn’t about to grab her. He resolved not to, at least not until she wanted him again.

  “Can we start over?” he asked. She blinked. He rose up onto his toes for a moment and dropped down again. “My name is One-Eleven. It’s more of a designation than a name, but I haven’t come up with one for myself yet. A real name, that is.”

  She shifted, her arms relaxing their tight grip a bit as some of the tension he felt in her eased into curiosity. “What do you mean? Why haven’t you?”

  He rocked onto his toes again, liking how her eyes tracked his movement. “I’m not really good at that. And I hoped that my master would come up with a name for me.” Her eyes widened with a return to nervousness and he scratched his cheek, wanting to get her back to that calm again. Much as he hated it, she didn’t want to think of herself as being his master right now. No one asked her if she wanted to be, he remembered her yelling. Well, right now did not strike him as a good time to start; even if it was the only thing his heart could see as mattering.

  “No one back where I came from had names,” he told her, “except the queen and her mates, of course. When I came here, some of the concubines gave us names in the harem. Like Tooie. I always really wanted one myself, except I didn’t have any way of asking and no one thought to give me one.”

  “You want a name,” she said slowly. Her arms were still around herself, but they’d dropped down lower, no longer so tense, and her shoulders were straighter, the muscles less tight. “From me.”

  “Well, yes. I figured it would be better for my master to name me since she—I mean you—would know me better than even I know myself. That’s how it’s supposed to work anyway.” He looked at her hopefully, remembered her naked and wanton beneath him, and had to forcefully push the memory away before instinct made him drown her in lust again. It wasn’t easy.

  “I don’t know you at all,” she told him, and that hurt so much it crushed the desire he was feeling. “How am I supposed to name you?”

  “But…” They knew each other intimately, he wanted to remind her. He’d tasted and touched every part of her body, but he knew already that wasn’t what she’d meant. Tooie had told him to talk to her from that start. Sex didn’t mean as much to her as it always had to him. If he wanted sex again, he had to give her what she wanted, whatever that was.

  “I’d like to get to know you,” he told her, “and you can get to know me. Then you’ll be able to pick a name for me.”

  She thought about it. He felt her do it, felt her emotions swirling as she considered the perfection of it. Then her arms tightened again. “I don’t know. I have someone.” Her eyes lifted to look at him, dark and clear enough for him to see his misery and shock reflected in them. “I’m not looking for anyone else.”

  Find the bastard. Kill him. Rip his human heart out and crush it. He had to be human; no battler would have gone near One-Eleven’s woman once he laid his hand on her. No other battler would have been stupid enough.

  “I’ll give you anything,” he promised her, just as Tooie told him he should. “I’ll always be there for you, always keep you safe. With me, you’ll never have to be alone. I’ll love you forever!”

  Her face tightened with misery. “So will he.”

  No, he wouldn’t. One-Eleven stepped forward, Zalia stiffening until he bent forward and kissed her as chastely as he could manage on the forehead. “I have to go think,” he whispered. “But I promise you. I love you. I’ll always love you and I’ll never leave you.” He turned and hurried out, before he could fully hear the protests she was starting up behind him, running toward one of the great windows left open in one wall of the room and diving out, immediately taking on his natural shape and arcing upward, heading up and over the floating palace toward the city. He knew where Zalia’s man was, knew just who it had to be.

  She’d love him. He’d win her slowly and surely like Tooie had suggested, convince her that loving him was the only thing for both of them.

  Once there wasn’t any competition to worry about.

  Zalia ran to the window after One-Eleven, screaming his name, though of course, he didn’t answer. Since she wasn’t his master, he didn’t have to. That little conversation had actually been the most human and comfortable she’d had with him, letting her feel as if she could communicate with him and perhaps even be friends. She’d even relaxed enough to make the worst mistake of her entire life.

  “What have I done?” she mourned.

  The men it had been planning to feed on were gone, retreating into some kind of hive of their own. The Hunter dragged its tentacles across the top of the main hive, considering its options. It had eaten a lot of them, and felt filled to the point of needing to hang on lest it rise too high, but it had wanted to be able to rely on them for a lot longer than this before it tried to leave. In all honesty, it was afraid to trust the winds to take it to a new food source, not after having been sucked out onto the ocean the last time. It was truly going to have to trust to the spirits of its kind to keep it safe, and it was afraid in a way that the worst storms of its home world had never been able to make it.

  Ultimately, it had no choice. It had fuel for now, but not enough to feel safe giving in to the wind. The men had gone somewhere, but it wasn’t sure where and it didn’t have time to go looking for them. It had to get into this hive.

  Carefully, it edged itself over to the floating palace and used all its strength to start raising its tentacles over the dome of its body, up toward the heavy building so conveniently waiting for it, careful not to touch any of the battle sylphs who periodically rushed in and out, just in case they got a warning off as they died. Straining from the effort it required to lift its tentacles so high, it searched for a way in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The skies over Meridal were clear, the sun dropping toward the horizon and another night, though the air was still blisteringly hot. One-Eleven didn’t notice, though of course, his kind rarely noted the temperature. He’d have to be a lot lower on energy to do so, and though he had no master to feed from at the moment, his energy levels were still high enough to do what he needed.

  The men were easy to find. Just by crisscrossing the city, he would have located them once he came close enough to sense their emotions, but his feeder masters were with them and he could have tracked any of them across the world.

  Their emotions led him to the harem. At first, he tried to dive down through the access ports that he’d used when the emperor ruled. The narrow tunnels were blocked, filled with solid stone. He went from one to the other, finding them all that way and turned in disgust to the entrance that humans used.

  It was closed as well, though the stone that filled it felt different. One-Eleven wasn’t an earth sylph by any means, but he could tell the difference between what was meant to be a wall and what was meant to be opened again.

  He shifted to human and pounded on it, yelling along the hive line. Let me in! He’d find the man who had his Zalia’s heart and destroy him. Then she’d be his. He didn’t think of how Zalia would react to that or anything else. As usual, he was just caught up in instinct. Face the threat, destroy the threat. Nothing else mattered.

  He pounded on the wall again and felt the stone start to shimmer underneath his fist. Grimly, he waited.

  He’d found a flute in the storage room.

  Actually, Airi had. There’d been a lot of supplies in there beyond the food: clothing that, of course, was for women, linens, games, and other musical instruments as well. Airi brought the flute to him while he and Xehm had still been doing a preliminary count of what was there, with Blithori’s help. They’d also conscripted a scrawny young m
an named Glorki, who’d worked as a scribe before the emperor was overthrown. Devon already intended for Xehm to be in charge of the supply room, but the old man could neither read nor write. He’d need Glorki’s help, as well as the half-dozen other men with stanchions who stood at the door. The last thing any of them needed was a riot to get control of the supplies.

  Airi hovered over his shoulder, spinning the flute until it made an eerie, whistling noise. Look look look look look, she chanted excitedly, whirling it in front of his face.

  It struck him as a good excuse to take a break, after everything he’d done already. Besides, as Leon told him once, just because he could do something, and even if he could do it better, it didn’t mean he should. Xehm had it under control, as did his helpers and the men guarding the door. They looked content, in control of their own destinies. Right now, they didn’t need him. Later, they would, but he wouldn’t be any use if he was exhausted.

  “Keep taking records,” he told Xehm, clapping the older man on the shoulder. “It’ll be good to know everything that’s in here.”

  Xehm smiled at him. “We’ll get it all sorted out,” he promised.

  Devon made his way out of the room, the guards letting him through with their greetings and rough jokes. There were more men and boys in the hall outside, curious about what was happening, but everyone looked content to wait. They were men with a purpose now, not just refugees, and they’d found the food supplies before anyone had time to get really hungry. Devon didn’t like to think about what the atmosphere in the pens would have been like if they’d started to become desperate. If they had, the six men on the door likely wouldn’t have been enough.

  Devon made his way through the crowd, offering reassurances that the food would be available and they wouldn’t hold it back from anyone. There were some questions about when and just what was available, as well as how long they’d be down here, but he noticed that no one asked about the women. That would come in time, he suspected, once the shock and fear wore off. Devon wasn’t looking forward to dealing with their anger when it did.