The Battle Sylph

by L. J. McDonald

  The priests were chanting. There were far fewer of them now, mostly students raised early in rank and led by the doddering Father Belican. With their chanting, the lines of the circle in which Jasar stood glowed, mirroring another circle that appeared above.

  Somewhere behind him, Jasar knew, the king was watching, his presence betrayed by Thrall’s aura of hatred. Against all tradition he’d brought the battler with him, and Jasar could see fear on the priests’ faces—the sylph’s rage interfered with the lines of power they were building. But the king wouldn’t risk being unprotected again, and if the holy men didn’t like his choice, they kept it to themselves.

  Fortunately, despite Thrall’s presence, and despite the fact that Jasar still had a battle sylph bound to him, the ceremony was working. Jasar watched the circle widen above him, its interior shifting through a rainbow of colors until it became a nothingness that couldn’t be described as any color at all. The blonde girl whined, laid out as an offering and as bait. Jasar adjusted his grip on the knife and waited.

  Something shimmered on the other side of the gate, an awareness peering through. Jasar felt his breath catch in his throat. The last time, he hadn’t known what to expect, but now he waited for that pivotal moment when the battler would arrive. It hesitated, but Jasar raised his knife, staring upward.

  The battler spotted the girl. Jasar felt it and saw the thing come through, a huge black cloud of smoke and lightning, its eyes ablaze with lust. It came for the girl, and with a yell Jasar drove the knife deep into her breast. Her eyes widened and her body bucked, already dead.

  The battler screamed, its hatred shaking the walls as it writhed, unable to go to the girl and unable to return as the gate closed behind it. Jasar let go of the knife, leaving it protruding from the girl’s body, and glared up into the creature’s maddened eyes.

  “Shield!” he shouted. “I name you Shield! I am your master! You will obey me!”

  Shield screamed again, named and held, wanting its freedom and Jasar dead, but a thousand years of tradition had yielded an effective litany of slavery.

  “You will not harm me!” Jasar shouted, his voice determined and clear. There could be no hesitation here or the battler would kill him and everyone else before vanishing back to its own world. “You will not allow harm to come to me! You will not speak! You will take on the shape I command and stay in it! You will not feed from my energy to the point where I am endangered! You will not attack except to defend me unless I order it! You will do nothing to betray me! You are my battler, Shield! I bind you!”

  Shield’s scream at that was the loudest, shaking the room. Dust fell around Jasar as he glared at the thing. “Look!” he ordered, pointing behind him at a muzzled animal on a leash held by a frightened servant. Last time he had chosen a suit of armor, but this time he wanted something more servile. Other masters described their battlers’ shape to them, but Jasar didn’t have the patience. It was easier to show them. “Take that shape! I command it. Obey me!”

  Shield howled, but he looked at what Jasar wanted him to be and he shifted, shrinking until a burly black dog crouched on the altar over the dead girl, teeth bared.

  “Good,” Jasar smirked. “Heel, dog.”

  Shield moved forward, his massive head swinging back to look at the sacrificed maiden. His tongue lapped out toward her, not quite touching; then he jumped down to crouch at his new master’s side. Jasar turned, taking a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the spots of blood off his hand. Shield’s hatred was thick, but no worse than that of Mace. It was actually comfortable to feel it again, and Jasar smiled.

  The king walked toward him, Thrall a few feet behind. “No problems, I see.”

  “Of course not, my lord. It’s a simple ceremony.” He bowed. “When it’s not being sabotaged.”

  The king snorted. “Consider yourself luckier than my son.” He turned away. “Ready yourself, Jasar. The air ship leaves in the morning. I’m sending three of my battlers with you. Four against two should be good odds.” He strode out of the chamber, Thrall following.

  Jasar watched Alcor go, his eyes narrow. The priests followed the king, along with the servant with the dog. Jasar waited until they were all gone before turning to his new battler.

  “Listen to me, you piece of shit,” he said. Shield’s black eyes burned up at him, gleaming with repugnance. “I have one more order for you. Before everything, you will protect me. You won’t let me get so much as a fly bite, is that understood? You are my shield, and you’d damn well better do a good job of it.”

  He strode out then, the battler heeling like a well-trained hound. Jasar didn’t look back, but Shield did, barely able to see more than the edge of the dead girl’s body atop the altar. The scream inside him didn’t feel as if it would ever stop.

  Solie’s quarters had been expanded, two earth sylphs excavating a passage to another set of apartments beside the chambers she’d already taken to be her sitting room and bedroom. At first she’d been uncertain about the addition, but now she was glad of the extra space, as the second apartment became the residence of the battlers and their new human counterparts. Without it, they’d all have been living right on top of her, and she’d have no privacy at all.

  Currently, though, she didn’t mind as she sat on the straw bale in the front room, running a comb through her hair. Heyou was out hunting with Ril, while Mace guarded the cliff. Devon was off duty, which left Leon watching her. The former prisoner reclined against the wall by the door, sharpening his sword and glancing at her periodically. It was almost amusing that his oath meant the battlers trusted him to do their work, but they could read what was in his heart. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

  “You know,” he pointed out, testing the edge of his blade with his thumb, “you don’t have to sit out here with me. I may not be welcome to most of the people here, but I’ll hardly die of loneliness.”

  She frowned and set the comb down, shifting her long hair over her shoulder as she did. “I think I might,” she answered softly.

  Leon raised an eyebrow and set his whetstone aside. “You’re lonely? You’ve always got at least one of us with you.”

  She shrugged, struggling with what exactly to say. “Yeah, but, well, you’re all guys. I haven’t talked to any women since, um…”

  “Since they tried to hang me?” he supplied. He didn’t concern himself with the past too much. It had been two days, and the men and women of the Community still looked at him mistrustfully, but no one could ignore how the sylphs accepted him, including the battlers. Thanks to the food they brought and the protection they offered, Mace and Ril had become popular despite their earlier attack, and Heyou was a local favorite. Leon had hardly been granted the same status, but at least no one was trying to knife him in the back. He could live with that. Trust had to be earned, and he didn’t expect it right away. He’d prove himself eventually.

  Still, his survival hadn’t helped Solie’s reputation, and the girl sagged. “Yes. Everyone either hates me or is afraid of me. I can’t stand it.”

  He couldn’t blame her. “It’s only been two days,” he pointed out. “Everyone’s had a lot to absorb, and your position has changed pretty dramatically.”

  “But I don’t want it to change.”

  Leon shook his head. “That doesn’t matter.” She couldn’t be maudlin or afraid. Like it or not, she was in a position of power, and if she didn’t use that, someone else would use both it and her—and her battlers, too. “You have to live up to your responsibility. Once you do, you’ll find you can have friends again. They won’t be like the childhood friends you had before, but they’ll still be friends.” And with the battlers’ empathy, she’d always know if those friendships were real. Few rulers shared such a gift.

  “But I don’t know how to live up to my position,” she protested. “I was born on a farm in a tiny hamlet. It wasn’t even big enough to be called a village! My father wanted to marry me off to a man three times my age. That was t
he only ambition anyone had for me.”

  “So? I’m the son of a wagon drover. You aren’t your origins. You’re what you choose to do with your life.”

  She was quiet a moment, staring at him. “Will you teach me?” she asked at last.

  Leon hid a smile. The girl was young, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew she needed advisers to train her in the things she’d need to learn. “Of course. Ask Devon too. There are probably things you could learn from him as well. But it’s up to you what you do with what we tell you.”

  She sighed and nodded unhappily.

  “Good.” Leon stood and sheathed his sword. “It’s time to get started.”

  Leon’s first lesson involved sitting in with the half-dozen men who were trying to lead the Community, who stubbornly still met in one of the last tents aboveground, its canvas shaking from the wind and the sides half covered by snow. The interior would have been bitterly cold if not for Morgal’s fire sylph. Ash kept the tent warm, but that also resulted in the snow just outside melting underneath the bottom edge. Solie had to walk through mud to make it to the table.

  No one quite protested her arrival, though they glared at both her and Leon. She couldn’t feel their emotions as clearly as she did around Heyou and the others. She could feel the edges of the men’s emotions thanks to the elemental sylphs they’d brought with them, but they didn’t seem to have the sensitivity of a battler, and without one of them at her side, she was almost feeling as blind as she’d ever been. Still, she didn’t need any empathy to tell they weren’t happy about her. They were even less pleased by Leon, but as he pointed out, the meeting wasn’t private and he wasn’t a prisoner. She could tell they wanted to send her away, but all of them had sylphs who chattered at her happily while bringing her a chair to sit in. It took a while just to quiet them down so the meeting could begin.

  Leon sitting in the chair beside her, Solie listened to the men talk, all of them trying to ignore the two interlopers. She didn’t really understand the full implications of what they were debating, but Leon nudged her whenever they got onto a topic of special importance, and she gleaned from that a sense of priorities.

  The allocation of rooms in the hive was not important. The earth sylphs could dig many more and were happily doing so. The biggest related problem was in keeping the place from being turned into an unnavigable maze. The piping in of water for drinking and sanitation was also significant, but was under control. So was the food situation, thanks to the battlers, at least when it came to meat. Fruit and vegetables were more problematic. Apparently, these cliffs had only been meant as a rendezvous point in case of disaster, which was what happened. The worst part was that Eferem’s attack came just as winter was approaching, and the stored harvests were subsequently lost in the fires. Leon didn’t apologize, but he didn’t look at anyone during that report, either. Left with only a few livestock herds and the most basic supplies, they’d reached the cliff and realized they had no leaders and nowhere else to go. If the founders of the Community had planned anything further, they hadn’t shared it with the survivors.

  The bluff wasn’t like the sheltered valley in which the Community had first settled. Both areas were covered in dead rock and with the help of sylphs could be turned into arable land, but this cliff was far more exposed to the elements. Harsh northern winds blew down through the mountains and across it, bringing freezing snows that would only get worse. If they hadn’t gone underground, they would have frozen to death, even with the sylphs. They needed to clear the vents daily that let in air, and the stairwell leading up to the surface was an icy accident waiting to happen. The council was only aboveground now due to stubbornness. Even the animals were being taken underground as the sylphs dug out huge stables for them at the base of the cliff. Galway was helping with that, not willing to risk trying to get home.

  They couldn’t stay here long-term, Solie realized. Even with the cliff to live in, the winters were too harsh, the winds so strong they’d blow away any topsoil that was created. This place must have been nearly dead even before the plains were razed. Come spring they would have to move on…though where, no one knew. That was the main point of this meeting.

  The idea of using the three battlers to conquer land came up.

  Solie gasped. “You can’t!”

  Many men looked at her coldly. Morgal sighed, even though he hadn’t been the one to suggest using the battlers. That suggestion had come from a furious-looking Bock. “What do you suggest? Should we stay here until we die?”

  “No, but…”

  “There’s nowhere else to go.”

  “There’s nowhere to invade, either,” Leon pointed out. He leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed and a boot resting on his opposite knee. “All of you came here from Para Dubh. You left because that was a place oppressive to the lower classes, and because anyone who defies the ruling family is executed by their battlers. They have twelve. The next-closest kingdom is Eferem, where Solie and I come from. King Alcor is paranoid, greedy, and he has eleven battlers left, including his personal one, Thrall.”

  “So what do we do?” Morgal demanded. His fury had grown along with the humiliation of feeling impotent.

  Leon shrugged. “I’d wait for spring and go back to that valley,” he said. “You know it’s sheltered and you’ve farmed it once already. You’d have to start over from scratch, but you could resettle there. Better to stay on land no one’s using than try to take someone else’s. It’s a whole lot less dangerous.”

  “But we were attacked there once already!” Norlud shouted.

  “Yes,” Bock thundered. “By you!”

  Leon shrugged again, and Solie watched curiously as he dropped his leg and leaned forward. “So, don’t attack air ships. That was a stupid shortcut. If you hadn’t done that, Alcor might not have noticed you until you had a kingdom of your own and were sending emissaries. Rebuild the town and the fields, but this time have the sylphs dig a hive underground. You can retreat there in case of attack and use it during the worst part of winter as well. If you are attacked, you have Ril, Heyou, and Mace. Even better, you know how to summon battlers now. Keep that a secret and you can soon outnumber any enemy. Do that and sue for peace. Do it right and they’ll have no choice but to parley. Give them something worth trading for and they’ll even be glad of you. No one claims ownership of these lands. I don’t know which one of you figured out that they can be saved using sylphs, but it’s brilliant. Claim them yourselves and make your own kingdom.”

  He sounded passionate. More, he sounded right. The men gaped, but their sylphs looked up from the corner and cheered. Solie smiled. The men weren’t so happy at the idea, but the sylphs were ecstatic—and the sylphs had a say in this as much as anyone else. Solie wondered how many of the council had ever thought so far ahead.

  She took a deep breath and said, “I think it’s a good idea.”

  Bock sneered. “No one asked you.” When his water sylph hissed at him, he started in surprise and his expression turned hateful.

  Solie braced herself, her heart pounding. Leon was holding her hand now under the table, and she took strength from it. “He’s right, we can’t stay here. I say we go back to your valley in the spring.” Leon’s grip tightened. “I mean…I mean I’ll go there in the spring, and I’m taking the sylphs with me. All of them. The rest of you can come or not, but we’re going.”

  Hard men two or three times her age stared at her in shock, and Leon loosened his grip. Solie had to resist the urge to apologize, but she managed.

  “I guess we move then,” Morgal pronounced, his face tight. Even with her empathy, Solie wasn’t sure if his feelings were of hate, relief, or fear, but she nodded and leaned back in her chair, hoping this was the last time she’d have to offer either an opinion or an order today.

  After the meeting, Solie and Leon made their way back toward the hive entrance, both huddled in their cloaks. It really was freezing out. Solie had never felt a winter so bitterly cold, and she sh
ivered massively, slipping on the icy ground. Leon put a hand on her back to steady her. No, they couldn’t stay here, not for years on end. No one could, not through winters this harsh.

  “I hope Heyou and Ril are okay,” she shouted.

  “They will be,” Leon shouted back. “Battlers don’t feel temperature the way we do.” He gave a harsh laugh. “They might even have some fun getting tossed around by the wind.”

  Ahead, Solie saw the edge of the stairwell, nearly invisible in the storm. They would ban everyone from coming to the surface until the weather cleared, she decided, then found herself amazed that she was thinking of orders again.

  A wail sounded, the horrified emotions that accompanied it more in her mind than the air, though Leon turned at the cry. Solie did as well, and glimpsed a shape looming out of the blowing snow, arm upraised with a dagger. Screaming, she fell backward, landing on her behind.

  Leon roared a warning. Throwing back his cloak, he drew his sword and leaped forward, slashing downward with the weapon. Solie’s would-be assassin jerked back with a shriek, tumbling into the snow. Only a few feet behind him, his water sylph gave another wail like the one that had warned Solie, only this one was filled with grief. Her childish face distorted and inhuman, she vanished back into the storm, still screaming.

  Without pause, Leon grabbed Solie and pulled her to her feet, rushing with her to the stairs. “Mace!” he shouted. “Mace!” The huge battler appeared through the storm as though it had no effect on him, meeting them at the stairs. Together, both males carried the hysterical girl down to her rooms, where Solie couldn’t stop shaking until Heyou returned and took her in his arms.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The water sylph was named Shore. She huddled in front of Solie’s makeshift couch, four feet of swirling water forced into the shape of a small child. She was miserable, torn between the horror of seeing her master die and knowing she’d saved her queen.