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.
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.
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.
She was so different from Heyou, Solie realized. Airi was female. But then again, all sylphs were female, except for the battlers. She rarely took on a solid shape, didn’t even usually stay visible. Heyou did, and the other battlers as well. Of course, they were all locked into one form. Solie wondered for a moment if she’d passed invisible sylphs before. She doubted it. Her home hamlet wasn’t of much interest to anyone, let alone a sylph master.
Oddly, she found herself missing her home and her family. They lived in a tiny house on a rocky farm, all the girls sharing a single room. Solie couldn’t really blame her father for trying to marry her off, but his choice had just been so repulsive. She missed them all…yet she still felt better off in this mercantile in a strange town, listening to Devon try to get the price dropped on a collection of clothes and supplies.
She sighed and looked away, staring at a collection of pipes in an open box. Another pain was present: she still
missed Heyou terribly. He’d pierced her soul as deeply as she had his, and she wanted him back, even with his inability to stand other men. He would have torn the store owner’s head off by now in order to get what they needed.
Solie watched Devon argue over the supplies for a while longer, then walked to the main window for a view. Outside, horses pulled carts through the town, and she saw a few men riding, but she also knew they couldn’t afford a horse. The one Devon had been riding had been left behind at the town, and she knew that bothered him. He’d worried that it wouldn’t know how to get itself home. Solie just wished it were here. She and Devon would be walking for a long time to come.
As she watched, a man drove a wagon pulled by two old horses up and climbed down, tying the animals’ reins to the bar out front. He came into the mercantile, and Solie stepped out of his way, noting as she did that he had heavy circles under his eyes. He looked nervous as well. He nodded to her slightly, not really making eye contact, and went to browse a shelf covered with bolts of white cloth. Having not much else to do, Solie watched, wondering what brought him there.
At the till, Devon finished his haggling and complained massively as the storekeeper put his purchases into a bag. He handed over a few coins and turned away, pocketing the rest. But as he took his things and walked toward Solie, he passed the man who’d just entered the store. Both stopped abruptly, staring at each other.
A strong breeze started in the shop, Airi suddenly flaring her power. Solie couldn’t figure out why. Still, Airi was hovering like a sinister transparent child over her master. The shopkeeper noticed nothing, having gone into the back with his money.
Devon and the stranger continued to stare at each other, the smell of earth filtering into Solie’s nose. A moment
later, a rough dirt wall shot up through the cracks in the plank floor between the two men. Devon stepped back, glancing over at Solie in concern.
An earth sylph, she realized in alarm. They’d been afraid of battlers, but had some other sylph master been sent after them instead? She waited beside the two men, feeling the tension rise until she couldn’t handle it anymore.
“Stop!” she cried out, moving between them, careful not to touch either sylph. They both pulled back, and the men stared at her in surprise. “I surrender! I surrender! He had nothing to do with any of it!”
The earth sylph’s master’s jaw dropped open, and he gaped at her. “You what? You’re not looking for
me
?”
“Why would we be?” Devon asked. “I thought you were looking for us.”
The man’s suspicious gaze became a grin. “Cal Porter. Pleased to meet you.” He extended a hand.
Devon shook, all the while wearing a bemused expression. Solie sagged, finally able to breathe again. The two sylphs faded back into invisibility.
“You really scared me,” Cal told them cheerfully. “I thought you were sent by the king or something to find me, though I don’t know why anyone would know to look for me here. Or for me at all. I’m nobody. I haven’t told anybody what I’m doing, and no one’s asked. This is a good town for not asking questions. Nobody cares what you do as long as you stay out of their way. Expensive, though. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to get enough supplies, and I’m not sure what I need. I only got the one message, and that was short. Too bad Stria can’t carry messages. She can’t fly, plus I don’t like to send her away. It gets lonely here, and I need her for the wagon…”
As he talked, he hauled the bolt of cloth he’d been looking at off the shelf and carried it to the front counter. Solie and Devon shared a look, neither of them sure how the man
had managed to keep any secrets at all. He left the bolt where it was and went to find other items, grabbing poultices and salves and other objects used for healing. He jabbered nonstop, talking about his horse and his sore feet and his lack of money and his earth sylph. Solie had never met anyone quite like him.
“Um…,” Devon interrupted. “Just a minute. Why were you afraid of us?”
Cal glanced at him and then toward the shopkeeper, who wandered into the back again, this time searching for herbs Cal had requested. Cal leaned close. “I’m from the Community,” he confided in a whisper. “They got attacked a few days ago. I just found out yesterday. I’m getting as many supplies together as I can. Apparently they lost just about everything, and there are a lot of people hurt.”
Solie blinked. “The Community?”
“Yeah.” Cal nodded earnestly. When the shopkeeper came back, he accepted the herbs, then sent the man for salt. “It’s a bunch of people who don’t like how the king of Para Dubh runs everything and won’t let anyone but his toadies have sylphs. We’ve broken off and are trying to establish a place with our own rules—up north, where no one else lives.”
Solie’s breath caught in her throat. Was this somewhere they could hide? “Can
we
go there?” she asked.
“With a sylph? Sure. We can always use new recruits.” Cal puffed himself up proudly.
Solie peeked at Devon. He was a nice guy, but she couldn’t imagine living the rest of her life on the run. She didn’t imagine he could, either.
“You said you were attacked,” Devon said, not looking at her.
“Yeah,” Cal admitted, his voice dropping. The shopkeeper had returned, so he led them down an aisle where he poked at some blankets. “We kind of were…hijacking
some ships, and we went after this one that had a battler on it. That’s what the message said.” When he heard Solie’s breath catch he added, “
I
didn’t tell them to attack the ships. I thought it was a bad idea, but they said it was the quickest way to get self-sufficient. We didn’t hurt anyone and we let the crews go. We’d only gone after a couple, but then there was a battler, and…The message said a lot of people are dead.”
“That ship had
two
battle sylphs on it,” Devon told him flatly. “Ril and Mace. You’re lucky anyone survived.” His brow creased. “How could you have been so stupid?”
“It wasn’t me!” Cal whined. “I said that!”
“Right.” Devon looked at Solie. “I don’t know that we want to hear any more. These people have their own problems.”
Solie stared at the ground. “But…we have to go somewhere.”
“I would almost bet you money that Ril and Leon are tracking us,” was Devon’s reply.
“But…but with Heyou dead…” Solie’s voice caught in her throat, and she had to wipe away a tear. “They have no reason anymore.” At least, that’s what she wanted to believe. Even if it was a lie.
“Who’s Heyou?” Cal asked.
Solie looked away. “A friend of mine. They killed him.” She started to cry in earnest, if softly. She’d wept about him so many times, but still the tears came. She covered her face with shaking hands. Neither of the two men knew what to do. Both stared at her stupidly.
“Maybe you should come with me anyway,” Cal said at last. “I mean, we’re
all
getting chased by battlers.”
Devon sighed. “Fine. If Solie wants to. Do you?”
She forced herself to stop weeping. She didn’t care where they went, not really. Just as long as it was somewhere safe
and had other people around—other women she could talk and cry with. “Yes.”
“Fine.” Devon shrugged. “It’s settled.”
They ended up buying the blankets and an assortment of other gear and medical supplies. Cal didn’t quite have enough, so Devon dipped into his own money in order that they could pay for everything. At least they’d gotten food, Solie thought, as she chewed on a piece of jerky and watched Devon help load the wagon. Even after all the money they’d spent, there was a great deal of space left in it for passengers.
An hour later they were driving the animals out of town, headed north along a rutted old road through the forest. It was going to get a lot worse, Cal admitted cheerfully. Where they were going there were no roads, and they’d need the help of the sylphs to continue. A cold wind blew, but Solie was warm in her cloak. Airi blocked most of the wind, anyway. The other sylph materialized as a child-shaped mass of dirt and rock in the back of the wagon, playing with a set of marbles that Cal gave her. Solie watched the sylph amuse herself and thought of Heyou again. Huddling down in her cloak, she tried to find other contemplations, but it was hard. It was as if she could still feel him, wandering somewhere, lost, and looking for her.
She closed her eyes and pulled her hood up, determined to get some sleep as the wagon slowly moved north.
Heyou struggled through the woods, his legs covered in mud and pine needles up to his knees. He was actually getting cuts on them, and his feet were bleeding. He could feel Solie, though, somewhere far ahead, and he followed her unerringly, making a dead-straight line toward her—at least, as much as he could. Whenever he reached an obstruction he couldn’t conquer, he went around it and returned to his route, faithfully tracking his queen.
He didn’t know how long he’d been walking, nor did he care. He just knew he had to find her. It didn’t matter how much pain he felt, or his fear. All aspects of his battler nature he kept suppressed, all except that unbreakable tie. His queen he could feel and always would.