The Battle Sylph

by L. J. McDonald

  We should have expected the attack, he thought—just as he’d been thinking since it happened. We became arrogant, careless. We paid for it.

  All of his compatriots were peasants from the mountain hamlets of Para Dubh, people too poor and unimportant to earn sylphs from the king—or the priesthood, providing one could pay enough. Most of those here were newly bound, though, thanks to a rebel priest who’d joined them and given them all a reason to set out on their own. Wanting more than the class structure of Para Dubh for their future, the first men to befriend Petr the priest had started this community, settling down on the uninhabited edge of the Shale Plains in a canyon valley that was protected from the worst of the wind and snow. They should have been left alone there for years, but they’d been stupid. At their leaders’ suggestion, they’d started to attack air ships coming from the kingdom of Eferem to Para Dubh. It took years off the time they expected to take building up their community, and people stopped questioning the safety of it. Then the battlers came. Morgal just prayed that the battlers’ masters only thought they were killing pirates—and more, believed they’d destroyed them.

  Ahead of him, a tent that looked no different than the others was pitched next to the community’s collected barrels of water. Morgal ducked inside, and the women there looked up from tending the injured. Seven survivors still lay, waiting for healing. There were more than seven, of course, but these were the worst, unable to recover without help.

  That help glanced up at Morgal, sniffing toward his injury before she turned back to the man she was mending. She was hard to see, vaguely female in shape but mostly formless and decidedly translucent. She’d been fading more and more as she worked alone to save the wounded, and her master watched her worriedly. Zem was a tiny, nervous man, but more devoted to his sylph than any other master Morgal had ever seen.

  Zem hurried over, wringing his hands. “Let me tell her to stop, Morgal,” he begged, looking over his shoulder as the healer put her hand on the forehead of the injured man. She shimmered and his breathing evened out and deepened, though he was still unnaturally pale. “Luck’s going to end up killing herself!”

  Morgal sighed, hoping Zem was just being paranoid. “If she stops now, our friends will die.”

  “But if she doesn’t, we won’t have her for the next injury!” Her master was nearly in tears. “She’s the only healer we have!”

  “Does she want to stop?” Morgal asked.

  “You know she doesn’t,” Zem wailed. “She never wants to stop. She’ll heal acne if she can’t find anything else.”

  Over by the bed, Luck looked up at them and rose, drifting over to the next cot, where she sat and laid her hand on its occupant. She was healing the wounded in increments, taking a long time but using less energy. Morgal had been impressed when he first saw her strategy. He still was, even as she ignored his wounds.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “But what if she isn’t?” Zem wailed.

  Morgal looked back at his fire sylph. “Ash, is Luck okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “See?” Morgal told the man. “Ash says she’s fine. She’d know.”

  “But she’s a fire sylph! Luck is a healer! They’re totally different!”

  Morgal shook his head. “Just let her do her work. She knows to stop when she needs to rest. She understands how important she is to us.”

  He caught Luck’s eye for a moment, but the sylph didn’t bother to respond. She only answered to Zem—who, thankfully, still answered to Morgal. If not, they both would probably have gone. If they’d only had another healer…But healers were the rarest of sylphs, and the summoning ritual wasn’t an exact process. The group could open a gate and their own sylphs could tell them what was on the other side, but they couldn’t aim the gate at all for the type of sylph they needed. They hadn’t found any other healers, nor did they have many men with the unique quality Zem had to attract one. He’d been constantly sick until Luck came through—or had complained that he was. It made her happy somehow to keep him healthy.

  As Morgal stood contemplating, the sylph floated past to her next patient, pausing to lay a hand on her master as she did. He took a deep breath and shook himself. Morgal looked away.

  “I leave it to you,” Morgal told Zem, and headed outside before the man could get his focus back and return to complaining. He’d just wanted to check on the injured men. When he’d last been there, she’d been dealing with a dozen. Zem would argue until he went blue, but Luck would have them all healed within the week. Tomorrow, perhaps he could insist she take a break without the risk of someone dying.

  Outside, the growing cold made him shiver, and Ash pressed close, warming him. It would start snowing soon, which was another problem. He didn’t know what to say to these people. Their real leaders were dead. Morgal was just an assistant, yet he was the most experienced leader they had. They’d formed a new council, with him in charge. But he was also one of those who’d suggested they attack the Eferem cargo ships in the first place, use them to increase their own supplies and speed the founding of their intended new kingdom. As the only one left of that group, he felt the heavy burden of the disaster.

  They couldn’t afford another fight like that. Their sylphs were useless against battlers, and they would never have any for themselves. Not when a woman had to be sacrificed to bind them. None of this group wanted to kill anyone, not even a volunteer. He remembered that ship veering toward them instead of fleeing as they attacked, and that bird and armored knight both leaping down—

  He closed his eyes. It was done. Most of his people had escaped, thanks to their sylphs. They’d be able to do it again.

  He walked to another tent, closer to the edge of the camp. Inside, their only priest and the man who’d made all of this possible looked up from the circle he was drawing. It was nearly done, ready to be infused with energy so that they might open the gate to the sylphs. They still had men who weren’t bound to one. They’d draw as many as they could, and if they were really lucky, they’d get another healer.

  Morgal nodded at Petr and eased himself down onto a wooden chair in the corner. Ash floated beside him, now in the form of a ball of fire, close enough to warm his aching muscles without burning him. “Soon?” he asked.

  “Yes.” The priest nodded, kneeling to continue with the circle. He was bald, and his scalp was heavily scarred, as was the rest of his body. When Morgal had first met him, Petr had no tongue, though Luck had eventually been able to regrow it. Morgal didn’t know entirely what the man had done to earn his punishment, but he’d been tortured and his earth sylph destroyed before he was dropped into the wilds to die. Morgal’s former leaders had found him, and in return he’d given them the secret of summoning sylphs. He had no new sylph of his own, though. Morgal could understand that. He couldn’t imagine ever replacing Ash.

  He watched the priest work, knowing it took more than just learning the patterns to make the ritual successful. Petr had years of experience, and Morgal was beyond grateful that he’d survived the battler attack. Neither man spoke of the fact that Morgal himself had only survived the battle because he’d grabbed the priest and run, leaving the others to fight alone. They each carried their own wounds. He just sat and watched, and hoped that the sylphs to come would be enough to ensure their survival.

  Heyou floated back to cohesiveness as discreetly as he could as the sun rose, sensing for the other battler with every bit of awareness he had left. He could feel his foe hovering on the edge of his perception, aura muted and resting.

  He didn’t bother to congratulate himself on wearing the other sylph out. Heyou was badly hurt, his form torn and his energy low. The pain was nearly overwhelming, but he didn’t dare wait any longer to heal. He wasn’t so sure anymore that he would. Once he would have stayed where he was and either lived or died, but Solie needed him. She was out there with that man, and he had to get to her.

  Slowly, less a part of the world than a cloud of dust motes but still
in agony, Heyou wafted from his hiding place and across the shattered floor of the cottage, headed away from the other battler. His aura he swallowed completely, leaving nothing for his enemy to feel or track him by. He felt nearly blind without it and as naked as he now understood Solie was when he’d first met her—defenseless. It was…humbling.

  He flowed across the floor and out through a crack in the wall. There the early-morning sun shone down on him, warming his edges as he shadowed across the lane and into the woods. From there he fled across the orchards and the hills, following a tenuous link that took him slowly northward, in the direction his queen had gone.

  It was incredibly hard, his energy cloud form disrupted so badly that it could barely keep its shape. Heyou finally had to stop and resume human shape, giving himself a framework in which to exist before he tumbled into oblivion completely.

  Doing so hurt as much as the blow he’d taken from the other battler. Heyou knelt on the leafy, moldy ground and pressed his face to it, weeping from the pain, his skin cold for the very first time under his worn tunic. Physically, he looked as Solie had wished, but he could feel the injuries inside. His enemy had crippled him.

  “Solie,” he gasped. She would make everything better. His queen would feed him the energy he needed, and he knew he had to be with her. That instinct was still incredibly strong, if tempered by exhaustion and a strange new loneliness. He’d never been lonely before. Angry, yes, and determined, but never lonely. He couldn’t defend her anymore, but he could be with her, as she could be with him. That was worth surviving for.

  Heyou forced himself to his feet by sheer force of will, choking and shuddering as he did. He could feel the harsh ground under his bare feet and stumbled, falling to his knees. That hurt more.

  Finally, he found a broken sapling about his height and stripped the branches off, used it to help him stand. Leaning on it, he slowly moved to follow his queen.

  Deep in a dream about Lizzy, Ril twitched and came awake, his eyes blinking open as he glanced around in the earlymorning light. For a moment he’d thought he felt…He ruffled his feathers, listening intently with something other than ears.

  He’d been sure he killed the other battler—or damaged him so severely that his energy would continue leaking out until he died. Now he wasn’t quite so sure. He shifted and half spread his wings, ready to race in whatever direction was necessary so he could finish the job. But he couldn’t sense anything. Not clearly.

  Leon, who had been talking to a frightened old man outside a crater that used to be a cottage, looked at him with one eyebrow raised. He didn’t say anything, though.

  Ril had seen many masters talk to their sylphs, asking them questions that they weren’t allowed to answer. Leon at least had never been so stupid. He held his tongue, letting his battler search. Ril ignored him and focused, looking for that faint tinge of hate that would reveal his quarry.

  He turned his head, and Leon turned as well, walking slowly in whatever direction Ril looked, carrying him forward. They traveled across the ruins of the town to the devastated cottage into which the battler had crashed, the old man following uncertainly at Leon’s beckoning. There, Leon shifted Ril to his arm and held him up, stepping carefully inside, waving dust out of his face. Ril looked down and his master knelt, lowering him. Ril gripped Leon’s forearm hard.

  The floor was streaked with the energy that was the other battler’s blood, the colors swirling in ways Ril knew only he could see. He looked and listened and finally raised his head with a squawk. Leon stood, and when Ril looked at the back wall, he carried him there.

  There was the faintest trail, just a hint of energy trickling out through a crack only an inch wide. Ril looked at it, and at his master.

  “Damn,” Leon muttered. Standing, he walked outside. Pointing at the old man he’d been questioning, he ordered him to stay where he was before he carried Ril around to the back wall.

  The energy led to the woods beyond the town, through the orchards. Ril leaned forward and let his weight guide his master. They climbed the hill as a pair and moved into the trees, followed a thin trail of energy that finally ended in a clearing.

  Ril stared and shook himself in disgust. The other battler had changed his shape, locking his energy inside a physical form. With his aura suppressed, he’d be much harder to track. Trapped as a bird, Ril’s senses were so blunted, he doubted he could do so at all.

  Leon watched for a moment, waiting, and Ril focused some hate on him just to express his disgust. The man blanched and shook his head. Transferring Ril back to his shoulder, he walked around the clearing, studying the ground. A moment later he started to walk slowly northward, following tracks Ril had never bothered to learn to find. The battler clapped his beak but otherwise didn’t acknowledge his master’s efforts.

  They followed a twisting path through the trees and up the slope. In a few spots Ril saw the ground torn by the weight of something passing, but that was it. Leon was the one who led the chase to the top of the hill and through the woods, coming at last to a cliff over a river. There the pair stood, surveying the water below in both directions.

  Nothing.

  Ril screamed in frustration and spread his wings, flying to one of the nearby trees. There he preened his wings and waited for his master to make his way back to the village, before he would return to his shoulder. Leon didn’t order otherwise. They both felt the same. This time, they’d failed.

  Under the edge of the cliff, in a hollow he hadn’t known was there until he half fell over the edge, Heyou cowered against the cold clay wall and tried not to make a sound, not even breathing. He could feel the two hunters above and knew they’d kill him if they found him, and for the first time in his life, he was afraid. All bravado was gone. He had no fight left in him, not anymore. He hid instead, hoping they’d go away, and even when they did it was cold and desperation that finally drove him out.

  He continued his painful journey, slowly heading north.

  Chapter Ten

  Twenty miles north of the town they’d been forced to flee from stood another, one grown up to service local lumbermen and trappers and those willing to risk the long, dangerous road to Para Dubh. It was a rougher town than the last, and burly men on the outskirts shouted and laughed at each other, yelling insults as often as they did greetings.

  Solie eyed the place nervously, wrapped in Devon’s cloak and hanging onto his arm. She didn’t want to be there, but they had no choice. It was well into late afternoon the day after they fled the village, and they’d been walking since dawn. They were both getting desperate for food and clothing. With Devon’s cloak she was mostly warm, but he needed something as well, and she couldn’t go much farther without shoes. Her feet were bruised and cut, and she winced every time she took a step, but Airi was still too tired to carry her. The sylph hovered somewhere around her master’s head, impossible to see—but there, according to Devon.

  She didn’t know how she would have made it without the man. He never complained or protested her slow pace, helping her whenever she needed it, and unlike Heyou, he didn’t try to convince her to sleep with him. She found she didn’t have any interest in him anyway. He was more like a brother.

  She tried not to think of Heyou, but that emptiness she’d found inside without him was still there. She missed him terribly. If Devon picked up on her grief, he didn’t say anything, and he always looked away when she wept.

  “Are you sure you have enough money?” she whispered, trying not to attract attention from the town’s rough inhabitants. The place was larger than any town Solie knew, and she was appalled to see that the only women visible seemed to be selling themselves.

  “I should,” Devon assured her. “I should be able to afford a couple of meals and a room at the inn. If they don’t inflate their prices here.” He sounded unsure, and she hung on to him a little tighter. They had little hope if they couldn’t get supplies. It was a very long way to Para Dubh, which had become their destination.
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  To Solie’s surprise, their entrance went unremarked. Anyone unfamiliar was big news in her home town. Here, no one paid any attention at all, and they were ignored completely as they approached a mercantile near the center of town.

  “Let me do the talking, okay?” Devon said, and Solie nodded.

  The shop was filled with more things than Solie could imagine, piled on shelves up to the height of the ceiling. She saw plates, dolls, bolts of fabric, tools, weapons, mining supplies, dried fruit, and a thousand other items. She’d never seen the like, and gaped like a child overwhelmed by too many presents. Devon held her hand, tugging her along behind him until he found a barrel filled with boots. Digging, he finally came up with a pair that might be small enough.

  “Try these,” he suggested.

  Solie did, gingerly slipping her sore, cold feet inside them and finding she had room to spare. “I think they’re too big,” she admitted.

  “Typical.” He tossed her a few pairs of woolen socks. “Try them with these.”

  She did, and found the boots fit better, though she still felt odd dressed in the large, ungainly shoes.

  Devon walked farther down the aisle and found a plain gray cloak made of felted wool. It was almost too long, but incredibly warm. She wrapped herself in it.

  “Thank you,” she breathed.

  “You’re welcome. Next, we need some sort of pack for supplies.”

  After some looking, he found a waxed leather bag into which he piled a saucepan, plates, utensils, and a tinderbox. He paused thoughtfully in front of the spice shelves, but opted instead for a length of rope and some soap. Items in hand, he went up to the counter to haggle.

  Solie followed, not wanting to get in the way, as he started what sounded like a vicious argument. Instead, she stood a few feet back and watched his hair ruffle, though there was no wind: Airi was playing with it. Solie watched curiously, barely able to see the shimmer that was the air sylph, and then only when she moved in front of a candle that burned on a shelf behind her.