The Battle Sylph Read online

  The Battle Sylph

  L.J. McDonald

  LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY

  THE SUMMONING

  Shaking, the prince walked to the altar. White-faced and trembling, he never looked at Solie. His fear had nothing to do with killing an innocent girl, she saw, and she glared at him with terrified contempt.

  A circle appeared in the air above them, a sphere of shining energy. The priests chanted, their sonorous words filling the room, and the sphere went from gray to green to red to black. A wind was blowing, whirling into the circle with a strange roaring sound. The fire sylphs darted back, leaving the circle in shadow, and Solie realized that there was something looking through that gateway, assessing them all. It was looking at her, nude and helpless on the altar. It saw her and wanted her.

  “Now!” the king shouted. “Kill her now!”

  The prince started, gasping, and raised his knife. His arms trembled as he brought it up over his head. At the same time, Solie broke through her bonds and sat up, thrusting her tiny blade deep into the prince’s arm…

  I’d like to dedicate this book to my editor Chris Keeslar and my agent Michelle Grajkowski, who both believed in me, but most of all:

  To my husband Oliver, without whom this book wouldn’t have been possible.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Excerpt

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Epilogue

  Praise

  Copyright

  Prologue

  They brought the sacrifice in before dawn, while the streets were mostly empty and the roads still dark. Only the castle and its inner environs were lit, the fire sylphs mostly concerned with keeping the buildings warm in the frigid winter air. Keeping the streets outside the walls lit was less important.

  Devon watched them bring her in from where he stood on the ramparts of the castle, huddling in his cloak and waiting for the ship that was soon to arrive. At least, he assumed it was a sacrifice in the cart driven through the old back gate, three armed men sitting inside before something covered in canvas. Whatever it was, it moved. There had been whispers that another battle sylph was to be summoned. The prince was of age, and no simple sylph would ever be considered good enough for him.

  Devon sighed, glad that his sylph at least hadn’t needed anyone to die before she could be bound to him. He could feel her, hovering incorporeal in the air around him, waiting as he did. When she wanted, she could take on solid shape, as all sylphs could, but she preferred to be invisible most of the time, dancing on the air that she could control. First summoned by his grandfather, she’d been passed down to him through his father for a gift of music, bound to him for the rest of his life. She didn’t mind. Devon felt her contentment in the back of his mind. It was said the men bound to battlers felt nothing but their sylphs’ hate. Certainly everyone near them felt it.

  The breeze was cold, enough so for an autumn night to make him think unhappily that soon it would be snow blowing across his body as he stood there, huddling deeper against the lee of the castle. “Hey, Airi,” he called, teeth chattering. “It’s freezing. Can you do something about the wind?”

  Her presence grew closer, a face forming out of the air. It’s a big ship, she reminded him.

  “I don’t think keeping me from freezing to death will use up too much of your energy,” he replied, and the wind stopped around him, the air not quite warm but not so bitterly cold anymore either. “Thank you.”

  A silver laugh answered him, and Devon shook himself, straightening his cloak and looking up. Where they stood, there was a wide space a hundred feet across, easy for a ship to land on. Usually they docked during the day, but this wasn’t a standard trade ship. It was rumored it had been bait for pirates instead. Three ships these brigands had attacked so far, taking the cargo and releasing the crew, but the king wasn’t known for tolerating anything, and this latest craft had gone out armed with two battlers.

  Whatever they’d found, they were on their way back now, damaged. Devon’s job was to use Airi to help Tempest, the ship’s official air sylph, land. His superiors hadn’t told him when the craft would be arriving, however, and he’d already been out half the night, waiting.

  He wouldn’t complain, he admitted with a sigh. The same as he wouldn’t ask what had happened to damage the ship, or about that cart he’d seen. Air sylphs were easy enough to get, as were those of earth, fire, and water. Someone like him could be replaced if they started questioning too much, and it had happened before, especially when battlers were involved. They were rare. Fortunately. Devon didn’t like to think about what kind of damage even one could do.

  Despite knowing better, and though he had just finished reminding himself how expendable he was, he looked back down over the ramparts at the cart now vanishing inside. A ship sent out for bait with two battlers on it? A sacrifice brought in to summon a new battler for the prince? That upset the normal world Devon was used to, where he didn’t have to worry about anything but his work and Airi. Devon was happy being an air-sylph master. He didn’t want to think about anything else. He felt sorry for the girl who was going to be killed, though.

  “Do you sense Tempest yet?” he asked.

  No.

  Devon sighed, leaning back against the rampart again. At least he wasn’t cold anymore. He closed his eyes, trying to catch a bit of rest. Late night or not, he would still have a full day tomorrow. Airi would wake him if anyone came. Sylphs rarely slept.

  They’re here.

  Devon looked up. Enough time had passed while he dozed that dawn was starting to break, and on the skyline he could finally see a ship floating toward them. It was huge, its hull rounded on the sides like an ocean-going vessel, but the bottom was flat and the sails rigged to the sides. The only waves this ship sailed were those of the sylph who bore it. Tempest was a major sylph, one much more powerful than his little Airi. Devon was almost envious as he watched the thing glide silently in.

  I’m just young, Airi told him, though she was almost a hundred years old. Sometimes that made him wonder just how old creatures like Tempest were, or how long Airi would live. He’d never asked her. In a lot of ways, Devon just didn’t want to know.

  “I know,” he soothed, not wanting her upset. An upset sylph was nearly painful for its master. He didn’t know how the battlers’ masters handled it. “If you weren’t, we’d spend all our time on a ship.” He’d hardly see his father again.

  The ship slowed to a stop overhead, and he felt Tempest’s winds beat harshly against him as Airi went to help her fellow sylph. Together, the two lowered the vessel toward the stones of the castle and lifted a ramp up to it.

  As he walked forward, Devon noted that the ship’s sides had gap
ing holes and one of the sails was torn. It was no wonder extra help was wanted to land her. He looked at the burn marks and felt a cold that didn’t have anything to do with the weather. A man came down the newly set ramp, pulling his coat closed. In his wake stomped a behemoth in full armor, light gleaming out through the eyeholes of his helm. Recognizing both, Devon bowed deeply.

  The man swept past without slowing. He was dressed like a dandy, his face pinched with pride, and he didn’t even see Devon: Jasar Doliard, a minor landowner and one of the courtiers in favor with the king and the council. Enough in favor at least to win himself a battle sylph, the second figure, who Devon hoped would ignore him as well. He wasn’t that lucky. Immediately, those glowing eyes within the helm locked on him. At least, it looked like a helm. It was very probable that the armor was physically a part of the battler and not separate at all. Devon could feel the hate rolling off the creature, yet Mace didn’t do anything, not without his master’s command. Mace usually didn’t do anything other than hate. He just stood near his master and looked impressive. It would have seemed a waste of a battler if the creatures weren’t so horrific when they did act.

  Behind Jasar came the second battle-sylph master. He was a well-built blond man, though nowhere near the size of Mace, and his sylph did go into battle. Leon Petrule had been the king’s head of security and lead battler master for years. Leon’s battler took the form of a red-feathered hawk, perched on his shoulder, and Devon felt its hate as clearly as he had Mace’s.

  Ril’s loathing was sharp, and the bird’s grip tightened on his master’s shoulder when he saw Devon, talons cutting into the leather. Devon bowed deeper, not wanting any attention. The only thing battlers knew how to do was hate. All they were good for was killing, and he was beyond grateful no one ever suggested he master one, though a man could only be master to a single sylph at a time, and the Chole family already had Airi to care for. Even if that weren’t so, he didn’t have the spirit for it. You had to have a certain hardness to your soul to hold one in thrall. Leon had it. For all his frilly clothes and brownnosing attitude, Jasar had it. Devon wondered if the king’s pansy son would, and found himself doubting it.

  Airi flowed around him, taking shape as a whirlwind of leaves, when Leon, to Devon’s dismay, stopped before him. Ril shifted on Leon’s shoulder, looking at Airi out of one eye. Devon bowed again. “My lord.”

  “You didn’t see anything tonight,” the king’s battler master told him. “Understood?”

  Devon bowed even deeper. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Good.”

  The battler master continued on his way. Devon waited until he was gone before straightening. His hands were shaking. “Airi,” he managed. Her attention focused on him, a breeze in his mind. “Tell no one about tonight.”

  There was no argument. That’s what it meant to be a master. She was beholden to him, unable to disobey. Should Devon and his father both die, she would return to the otherworld from which she came, never to return, unless he passed her on to a new master first. If Devon died before his father, Airi would return to the old man. She’d been his father’s and his late grandfather’s before him, and the old bonds still held, but Devon owned her loyalty now. She’d still obey any former master, though. Once someone owned her, they would always do so. Even the battlers followed that rule.

  Devon shuddered, turning back to the ship to help unload as the crew started to emerge, but as he did, an explosion shocked him to his knees. Gasping, he scrambled to his feet and ran to the edge of the castle ramparts. Looking down, he saw a massive hole blown out of the side of the keep, near the base, and heard the cry of something inhuman. It was an outraged scream, like one he’d heard only once before, on a day that he still couldn’t forget in his dreams. A moment later, a winged cloud shape shot from the hole, wings stretching out as it angled upward. Devon gasped as he felt its hate.

  The lightning-filled cloud flew up into the sky, already vanishing in the early-morning light. It was carrying something with long red hair and pale limbs, something that shrieked with fright and clung to it.

  “Airi,” Devon gasped, not knowing what he was thinking or why he did so. “Follow them.”

  In a moment his sylph was gone, chasing along after her quarry through the air currents. Devon stood alone on the ramparts, staring after the escaped pair and wondering how any girl could manage to handle a battler.

  Chapter One

  Solie had an aunt named Masha, a woman who had never married and was known for her temper. She had refused to wed and lived on her own, running a bakery and working long hours every day. She’d forced the people in her town to accept her, and finally they had. Even now they bought her bread, when she was old and her hair gray. Solie had been born with Masha’s red hair, if not her temper, and had been adored. Masha spoiled her niece, giving her presents and, more importantly, her time. Solie had lived for these visits, preferring her aunt’s life of freedom to the marriage and certain servitude her mother promised. Her aunt’s best present, however, was a knife that Solie could wear in her hair, hidden in a barrette.

  “You’ll never know when you might need it,” the old woman told her. “And to know you have a weapon is to have a sense of security that shows in a woman. Men go after weak targets. Never present them with one. Your carriage is your greatest defense.”

  Solie took to wearing the barrette daily, with its green butterfly, and though she became known for it, she never told anyone what was hidden inside. It gave her confidence, and pride, and she snubbed the boys who came to court her, as well as the older men who thought a slim redhead might make a good wife. Her mother felt she was too picky, but her aunt felt she didn’t have to choose at all. So when her family tried to arrange a marriage for her, Solie refused, leaving the same night with everything she owned shoved into a pack.

  Masha will take me in, she decided, as she headed down the road out of her village. Her aunt lived only five miles away, on the other side of the crossroads in the next village. She had started out at dusk, sure her family wouldn’t even realize until dawn that she’d gone out the window. She wasn’t going to stay, though. She was seventeen years old and was not going to marry a forty-five-year-old fat man, no matter who told her she must.

  Confident, frightened, and rather excited at her sudden freedom, she headed down the dirt road, the sun setting on the horizon and shrouding everything in darkness, which she rather welcomed. The dark didn’t have anything in it to frighten her, her aunt assured her, only men did, and they were as dangerous during the day. As long as she kept her wits about her, she would be fine. So Solie walked along the road she’d taken so many times in the daylight, her pack thrown across her back, and whistling to prove to herself that the growing darkness wasn’t making her nervous at all. She didn’t run, quite, but she walked quickly and looked back a lot.

  The night grew both dark and cold. It was late in the fall and the trees were already skeletal, their leaves lying in wet piles beside the road. The chill in the air was bitter as well. Solie pulled her cloak around herself and struggled onward, wishing her parents had decided to marry her off in the summer instead.

  Time passed, the moon rising overhead, and she sighed in relief as she finally reached the crossroads. She hadn’t seen a single person on the way. She’d come from the south. West, the road led to towns she’d only heard of, and turned eventually south itself. Three days’ ride, she’d been told, and the kingdom of Eferem ended. Other kingdoms lay beyond, and more past them, carrying on until the world ended. She’d have to go that way eventually, she supposed, though that idea was still too remote for her to dwell upon. East was the capital, where the king lived, and she could see the lights of the fire sylphs who lit the castle, even from here. North lay her aunt’s village, and then the road continued northward again in a route she’d never taken, even in play. That way wound through forests and other towns before ending at the dead Shale Plains, which had to be skirted to reach the kingdom of Para Dubh, th
eir nearest neighbor. Here, though, the road was just a worn-out crossroads, the ruts deep and solid.

  Solie crossed, jumping over tracks that were almost deep enough to trap a wagon. That was when she heard a horse snort. Startled, she looked up to see three men in the king’s red and black livery on horseback, riding from the east. They stared back at her, equally surprised to see anyone out so late at night.

  The lead rider grinned. “Looks like this will be easy,” he said.

  Discretion over bravery, her aunt always said. Solie ran. Immediately, she heard hoofbeats coming after her and tried to scramble off the road into the brush, but the men were trained. She barely got twenty yards, struggling across a pile of leaves, before one of them grabbed her by her long hair and hauled her back, also yanking her upward. Letting go of her hair to get a better grip on her shirt, he threw her across his saddle before him.

  “Let me go!” Solie screamed, struggling.

  He struck her across the back of the head with his mailed fist. “Don’t,” he warned. Then he ordered his companions to get her pack and spun his horse, cantering back the way he’d come, one hand still gripping the back of her shirt.

  Her head spinning with pain, Solie could only hang on, feeling as if she would throw up whenever the horse’s movements dug the saddle into her stomach. The soldiers soon galloped as a trio back toward the capital, laughing and congratulating themselves on their success. They’d been searching for a girl, she realized, and fully expecting that they’d need to break into someone’s cottage to get one. She’d gone and made it easy for them.

  She nearly panicked, her terror so great that she could barely breathe at all during the horrid ride. If the soldiers wanted her, there was nothing anyone could do to help; not even her aunt would be able to save her. She’d just vanish and never be seen again. She’d heard about it happening before. Her parents had always cautioned her that it could happen, and that she must be careful. Her aunt had said to never make herself look like an attractive target. Apparently, walking alone at night did.