He’d felt Ril fall, and Claw couldn’t come with him. Claw’s master was on that ship, and Mace no more wanted to chance him against that general’s orders than he himself wanted to risk facing his own master. He could still feel Jasar in the back of his mind, but Mace always pushed all sense of him away, drowning himself instead in the essences of his queen and the widow. The latter was a very vigorous woman, able to please him as much as he did her, despite her stern outward manner. He wanted to go to her after this, and the urge to soothe her fear and anger was much greater than any thought of his old tormentor.
The three battler masters were on the ship deck, the one who’d owned Poison vomiting on the wood from the shock of his sylph’s death. Mace recognized them from various visits to the castle, and shifted deliberately to his bound form, wanting them to know who he was.
He landed, and all three gaped at him in shock. Jasar must have been a good liar, he noted dryly. None of them had been expecting him.
“You…,” Claw’s master gasped. He was shocked but not panicked, which made Mace very glad he’d left the other battler behind. “Jasar lied!”
“You expected any less?” Mace growled, and had the petty satisfaction of seeing all three men’s amazement and horror. That was more than enough for him. They weren’t like Leon, who’d loved his battler and earned Ril’s love in return. He lifted his arm, formed out of something that only looked like metal, and razed the entire top of the deck.
All around him, a dozen or more minor sylphs vanished as their masters died, and he heard the air sylph who held the ship up scream with rage. Her master must be somewhere else, Mace thought idly, and he searched out the stairs that led belowdecks. It was better that way. He was in a foul mood from killing those men, and there was one more battler inside the ship, held there for whatever stupid reason. Mace felt very much like killing the enemy sylph, followed by its master, then killing the rest of the humans who threatened his hive. Once that was done, he was going to go back to the widow and relax in her arms.
Still in his armored form, he stomped toward the stairs.
Heyou didn’t know if he could hold on any longer. Hissing and squealing, he gripped with barely a third of the claws he’d formed, the battler beneath him bucking like a maddened horse, throwing them both around as though he didn’t care if they were both hurt in the process. He felt more of his claws give way and focused the last of his strength, hoping that he could spike the older battler enough to kill him. He had little hope, but there was nothing else he could think of to do.
Suddenly, the lion froze, gasped, and gave a piercing scream that was nothing but hate and denial. An instant later he vanished, and Heyou fell against the ground, stunned. It took nearly a minute to pull himself together enough to figure out what had happened. The battler’s master had died. He’d been sucked back to the hive world, his link to this one broken.
Shivering, Heyou shifted to human form and forced himself to his feet. Wincing in pain, though he didn’t look injured, he limped back to Solie, only to find the passageway had been sealed off with rock at least six feet thick.
“Ah, crap,” he muttered.
Terrified, Jasar cowered against the wall in his quarters, Shield standing between him and the door. He’d heard the fighting and felt the hate. Worse, he’d felt the ship being struck by the energy blast. When he and Leon first fought the pirates, the craft had barely been touched, and he’d used his authority to cut the battle short and return home. Now he was desperate to run, but the generals were in charge.
Panic flooded him and he gasped for breath, his chest actually hurting from terror—and from something worse. Being bonded to two sylphs was slowly killing him. He could feel it happening, somewhere deep inside. He shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t fair.
Before him, Shield shifted, growling, and Jasar tried to take comfort. Shield would protect him. Before anything else, he’d protect him—that order had been made clear. He’d be safe. But such knowledge didn’t help Jasar’s terror any as heavy footfalls sounded outside, heavier than any human man’s had a right to be. Jasar heard metal clinking and blinked at how unnaturally familiar it was. The noises stopped outside the door and it opened.
Shield lunged, mouth gaping wide, and obeyed his orders to the letter. Protect his master. He did—and made no attempt to protect himself from the blast that came through the doorway. He absorbed the attack with his body, and the bolt tore him in half. Shrieking in pain and relief, the battler crashed to the ground and died, his body immediately starting to decay.
Jasar stared in disbelief and horror, letting out a scream. This wasn’t what he’d meant! He looked up again as the other battler stepped into the room, and saw a similar shock in the creature’s eyes.
Mace.
Mace honestly hadn’t expected the battler to sacrifice himself. He’d never thought of doing that himself, but he felt the creature’s relief as his servitude ended. Mace understood. He watched the dog die and stepped into the room, intending to kill whatever master his fellow sylph hated so much that he preferred suicide.
Looking up, he saw Jasar and realized his mistake. He’d pushed the man so far out of his thoughts that he hadn’t sensed him on the ship. If he had, he would have blown the thing out of the air from a distance. Now it was too late.
Mace bolted for the door, desperate to get free before the man came to any catastrophic realizations.
“Stop!” Jasar screamed, his voice shrill and uncertain.
Mace stopped.
Shaking, Jasar pushed himself off the wall, making his way toward the massive battler. “Turn around and freeze,” he grunted. Joints creaking as they would if his armor were real, Mace turned, his bulk blocking the doorway completely. Jasar stared at him and started to grin, but then rage crossed his face and his cheeks burned red. He was nearly insane with anger and humiliation.
“You bastard!” he screeched. “How dare you do that to me! Who do you think you are?”
Mace stared down at his master without any expression, while inside he was screaming. How could he have been so careless? He never would have expected Jasar to come back, but he should have. He should have thought of the possibility,
and now it made so much sense. Who else would be able to lead the king’s men here directly?
Jasar howled at him incoherently for the next few minutes, froth blowing from his lips while he raved, and Mace held still, not moving, unable to do so without fresh orders. Solie had given him the freedom to speak and to change his shape, but she hadn’t ordered him not to obey Jasar again. Neither of them had even thought of it. Now he had no choice but to follow that single order to freeze. He didn’t move, he didn’t speak, not even to answer Jasar’s probably rhetorical questions, but he raged inside, his hate flaring out as always, beating at the man—the hate no master had ever realized could be controlled, the hate that hid his real emotions of terror, despair, and anger that Jasar would otherwise be able to feel.
Meanwhile, he tried desperately to think of a way out. He considered calling for help along the hive line, but he had strict orders to defend Jasar from attack. If any of the others came to his aid, he’d harm them. Such a situation would be horrific.
Jasar had no idea of Mace’s thoughts. He was simply outraged at his battler’s betrayal and wanted to hurt him. He couldn’t, physically. Mace wouldn’t feel any blows he delivered, so the courtier decided to humiliate him.
“You are never going to disobey me again,” Jasar hissed. “You are never going to move unless I tell you, think unless I tell you, or feel unless I tell you. I am going to figure out a way to hurt you, and once I do, you are going to be in an endless amount of pain, you bastard.”
Mace’s eyes dimmed slightly, but he was glad at least that he didn’t have to admit how badly he’d been hurt already.
Jasar wiped his mouth, looking around nervously. He’d heard and felt the top deck get razed, which was obviously Mace’s work. That meant the generals were dead and he was in charge. He was going to turn this wreck of a ship
around and fly back to Eferem, and if the king didn’t like it, he’d get Mace set on him.
Knowing such a plan was a lie even as he thought it, Jasar eyed the battler angrily, no more afraid of him than he would be of a chained child. Mace had defied him, but he obviously hadn’t forgotten who his master was. He couldn’t exactly go away with one battler and return with another, though, not when his entire story hinged on the first battler’s being dead.
Still, there were ways around even this.
“You saw that dog that was here? Well, you’re going to turn into that dog in every detail, and you’re going to stay that way and answer to the name Shield. Understood? You’re going to be a dog to me and you’re going to lick my boots.” He lifted his chin. “You’re my dog now. My neutered dog.”
Mace nearly wept, seeing a lifetime of horror ahead without even the temporary relief he had found before in willing women’s bodies. He wailed in despair, his form shifting as the man continued to scream at him. His body condensed, his metal turning to black fur as he hunched forward, falling onto four legs. Soon he was a snarling, slobbering dog with his head hung low.
Suddenly, Claw, who’d climbed up the broken mast and onto the ship when he heard Mace’s first scream, leaped through the open doorway straight for Jasar Doliard’s throat. The courtier shrieked, retreating in absolute terror, urine staining the front of his pants. Mace watched, knowing that his duty was to defend the man, instantly and without hesitation…but Jasar had ordered him not to do anything unless told.
Claw pinned the screaming dandy, his talons slicing into his victim’s chest and arms. Jasar’s scream turned into a frothy gurgle. Crouched on the floor, Mace felt his master’s agony and shock, and watched as Claw lunged forward and
latched his nightmarish jaws around the man’s head. With a quick jerk, he tore it off.
The bond broke. Mace shuddered, and he almost lost his grip on reality, almost felt himself fade back to the formless world of his first hive, but Solie and the widow’s patterns both held him. He shifted back to human form, gasping in reaction. With Jasar dead, all the man’s orders were nullified.
Claw regarded him from horrible eyes, claws held before him almost deferentially. His emotions were nervous, beaten.
“Thank you,” Mace said, and much of the tension went out of the the other sylph’s aura. Still shaking, Mace rose and looked down at the corpse of his master. After all the years of servitude, he didn’t feel anything, just a deep loathing and regret that he hadn’t killed the man himself. Mostly, he felt disgust.
He turned his back, searching outward with his senses. There was one more battle going on, at the back of the hive where the storage rooms were dug. Mace felt the fear and pain, along with an inescapable sensation of bloodlust. He looked at Claw and they both understood: the hive was still in danger. In tandem they turned and left, neither of them looking at Jasar’s body again. He wasn’t worth it.
Reaching the top of the shattered ship, which was still hanging in the same place, as the air sylph struggled to manage the unwieldy weight of the crippled vessel, Mace shifted to smoke and lightning. He lifted Claw, carrying him over the bluff to the slope on the other side. Behind them, Tempest’s master finally recovered from his shock. He hadn’t been harmed, protected throughout the battle in a cocoon of her wind below the hull of the ship. He wasn’t a brave man, however, and it took him time to recover his wits—and to start stammering orders of retreat. Still hissing
with anger over the insult of the attack, Tempest obeyed, carrying the shattered ship and its few survivors. The two battlers let her go, focused on more immediate threats to the hive, and glad to see the last of the ship that had brought their former masters.
Leon stood in the heart of the conflict, his face a mask of bloody rage as he brought his sword across the neck of one attacker and then turned and thrust it into the unarmored armpit of another. A third man swung at him, but he blocked the blade with a thick chunk of wood. As he fought to keep himself alive, he shouted orders at the men and sylphs of the Community, directing the defense against the soldiers pouring through the gap bored in the empty storage room wall. He did so by instinct, without passion or emotion, but did it so well that Alcor’s soldiers fought to kill him first.
Behind him, and clear of the fight for a moment, Devon watched Leon with fear. He’d seen what happened to some men when their sylphs died, and Leon looked almost insane. His skill was undeniable, both at fighting and leadership, but Devon wasn’t sure the man would stop once he finished cutting apart the soldiers. He was a man seeking oblivion to vanquish the emptiness his sylph’s death had thrust inside him.
Standing next to Devon, Morgal was wild-eyed and pale, but he hadn’t run. Ash floated between him and all attackers, barely visible now but ready to flare up as an inferno if anyone came too close. She wouldn’t actually hurt anyone, but she’d distracted more than one soldier, who then ended up impaled by her master’s sword. Devon could see Airi in front of himself, ready to do the same. She was terrified, as a sword could cut her as easily as any man if she solidified, but most of her fear was for Devon. She wouldn’t vanish if he
died, thanks both to Solie and her old bond with Devon’s father, but she didn’t want to leave him. Devon could understand. He didn’t want to lose her, either.
Before them, Alcor’s soldiers roared, pushing forward as a group. Leon stumbled backward, unhurt but not able to restrain them all. He stopped on the other side of Morgal from Devon, and then they were all three fighting together.
Ash flared, blasting her heat and light, but this blinded friends as well as enemies. A moment later Devon felt Airi grab and push him away from a sword swing that he hadn’t even seen. Blinking spots out of his eyes, he fell, but she lifted him upright again, her winds blowing his hair. Leon killed the man who’d attacked, stepping before Morgal to sever the man’s head midway through his neck.
Be careful!
Airi sent.
“You, too,” Devon gasped, and yanked his sword up in time to parry another sword blow, grunting as the shock ran down his arm and into his shoulder. His opponent gritted his teeth, pushing down, but Airi blew into his face, lifting him off his feet. Devon gave a shout and drove his sword under the edge of the man’s armor. The soldier screamed, bucking, and suddenly his blood was pouring out over Devon’s arms.
Devon swore and jerked back, and Airi dropped the man with a horrified gasp. Nearby he heard Morgal cry out and Ash wail, but he couldn’t be sure if his companion was hurt or just terrified. Devon was. Everyone was screaming and killing each other. It was a frenzy of murder.
As Leon shouted for them to pull back and regroup, Devon slipped on the bloody floor. Airi kept him on his feet. At the same time, hatred hit him. It hit everyone, and all the combatants forgot about the battle in exchange for a sudden, bone-deep need to escape. Devon panicked, his terror so overwhelming that he stopped caring who might run him through as long as he was in the process of flight. The
only thing that saved him was that the king’s men felt the same. The horde forgot their anger and crushed together, each trying to escape through the door that led back to the hive. Some men fell on the slick floor and were trampled in the rush.
The only one who didn’t run was Leon. He stood in the center of the room, covered in the blood of other men, staring wearily out the hole that gaped in the side of the hill, and hoping—
Fire and lightning rushed through, flame dancing in the cloud’s mouth. It was Mace, who roared again as he released another battler in the shape of a horrible monster, and both sylphs attacked.
None of the men of the hive were touched. The two battlers tore into the invaders instead, ripping men apart and showering the survivors with blood and gore. The defenders of the Community continued to flee, abandoning their weapons behind them. Devon went too, Airi pressed to his side, completely unsure who was still alive. He just knew that he and Airi were, and both of them wanted to get away from the battlers.
In the storage room, Leon wiped blood from his face with his sleeve and watched Mace and the other sylph finish off the last of Alcor’s soldiers. He understood that neither was Ril. The part of him where his own battler used to be had gone numb, and he knew that Ril was gone, but still he waited until they finished and the smoke cloud reformed into a human-seeming Mace.
Eyeing the big battler, he sighed regretfully. Mace in turn regarded him, his form as perfect and clean as if he hadn’t just slaughtered half a dozen men. Of course, he could take whatever form he wanted, clean or not. Leon just stared, knowing that Mace could feel everything he was suffering and didn’t care.
“Why is Claw here?” he asked.
Mace took a moment before he answered—or bothered to answer, Leon corrected. Mace would never care much for men. “He’s of the hive,” the sylph said at last.
Leon nodded and tossed his sword on the floor. It clattered noisily. “I gather it’s over?”
No answer. Claw looked between Mace and Leon uncertainly.
“It’s over,” Leon decided, and turned to walk back into the hive, shivering from the cold air that came through the hole. It was threatening to snow again, and he made a note that someone would have to come down here to clear away the bodies and bring an earth sylph to close off that hole. There were a lot of holes to close and bodies to bury, and a thousand other things to deal with. He’d be sure to take care of them all, he knew, before he let himself think again. He hoped it took a very long time.