The Shattered Sylph (18 page)

“Down!”
she screamed, lashing Ril across the back with the short crop she carried. It was as good as an order. His energy evaporated and Ril’s forehead bounced off the floor, back in the same humiliating, prostrated position as with the emperor.

His handler twisted her crop in both hands and started screaming at Justin, calling him a thousand kinds of fool. The cage door opened and Ril heard her beating the boy,
still yelling, and Justin screaming back as much as he could with no tongue. When the door finally slammed shut, Ril was grabbed by the hair and pulled upright. Justin cowered in the cage, his face puffy and bleeding. His hatred had been replaced by terror of Ril and the woman who’d struck him. But even seeing exactly what had been done to the boy, Ril felt no compassion. Regally, he let himself be stood up and directed out of the feeder pens, not once wanting to look back.

His handler led him up the stairway and down the corridors to where battlers were kept in their own well-stocked cages, into a guardroom before the doorway to the harem. The guards looked up curiously, and several moved to open the harem door. Ril went through immediately, and the handler closed it behind them, her emotions still feeling irritated. Not that Ril cared. He could smell women and sex—and the energy of a great many battlers, whom instinct told him to fight.

It took him a minute to spot Lizzy. She sat in a group playing a card game with three battlers that seemed to involve removing clothing for each lost hand, and she barely glanced at him. Her emotions didn’t feel anything like indifference, though, and he stepped forward.

“Hi, gorgeous,” a woman said, putting her arms around him and smiling seductively. Before Ril could absorb that, she propelled him into the nearest alcove, where she immediately released him. Her face was suddenly serious. “Lizzy said she didn’t get a chance to tell you everything about how things work around here, so I’m going to, and if you don’t want to lose her, you’d better listen.”

Ril opened his mouth to ask what she was talking about, but nothing came out. He grabbed his throat, irritated.

The woman sighed. “So much for asking you about how
you managed to have a girl as your master. I figured they’d forbid you to speak. I just hope you’re good at learning sign language.” Crossing her arms she demanded, “Listen to me. My name is Eapha and I have a lot to tell you.”

He became the darling of the arena. During the day, Ril fought the human gladiators they sent against him, killing each to cheers from the crowd. At night one of the handlers would return him to the harem, where he spent his time with the women of Eapha’s circle, women in on the secret that kept them all safe. Only once in a half dozen nights as the weeks passed did he take Lizzy to his bed, plucking her as nonchalantly out of a group as any of the other battlers might. He tried not to think how dangerous his actions were, just as he tried not to think of what her father would say if he found out.

But oh, how she felt beneath him! Lizzy would cry and weep, her thighs locked around his hips, drawing him deep as she kissed him, holding him against her with all the strength she had, neither of them wanting to let go, and oh, it was good. Silent, yes, so silent with him forbidden to speak, but so exquisite that he could forget the rest of his agonies for that time, just that short period that he knew they’d take away if they realized what it meant. A cheap lay? Yes, they would allow that. But love? Love would only distract him from his duty.

That duty now stood before him: three men in loincloths and helmets, ringed chain mail draped over their lean bodies to protect them. One carried a net and a spear, one a sword, and one a halberd.

Dressed in leather pants and boots, Ril was unarmed. The crowd cheered him, though. They screamed, and he
could feel their excitement. It made the blood inside him boil, the crowd’s excitement, and he didn’t care for it at all. He just wanted Lizzy’s soft body under his and her pleasured cries in his ear. A half dozen times over a month he’d had her, but he still hadn’t found a way for them to escape. Lizzy was his darling and his master—but he had a dozen masters now and no way to disobey them.

The three gladiators spread out, circling. Ril watched, already knowing what they would do. They weren’t afraid, well trained and experienced as they were, but their intentions were obvious to someone who could feel their emotions, who had been hatched and raised specifically for battle. They were hardly a threat to him, but his masters didn’t care. The First had ordered Ril to kill them, and moreover, to take his time and strike only when he felt the crowd’s excitement peak. Ril would rather have killed the men immediately and damn the rules, or better, ignore them completely. That wasn’t an option, though, and he railed at the evil of being ordered to become a murderer. That’s all it was, murder for no reason except someone else’s sick desires, making a mockery of everything he truly was. Ril hated it, but he could no more disobey the First than he could Shalatar, though he hadn’t seen the latter again after that first day.

The gladiators surrounded him, and Ril dropped into a ready stance, waiting. The man with the halberd charged, the jagged edge of his weapon stabbing toward Ril’s chest. Ril stepped out of the way and brought down his fist, hitting the base of the blade hard enough to snap it off. The crowd roared in approval.

The man with the net spun and flung it, and Ril jumped clear. He landed close to the third gladiator, who thrust
out his spear. Ril arched his back, the point missing just inches from his spine, and when the gladiator brought it around, trying to cut his legs with the spearhead’s sharp edge, he flipped over briefly onto his hands and then again onto his feet. The crowd loved it.

Ril hated fighting like this. If everything were normal, he’d just blow the three apart with a blast wave, but he didn’t know how many more matches they expected out of him today. He could have shape-shifted into a more efficient form or turned an arm into a weapon, but that hurt as much as the blasts would, and these people didn’t know he could change shape. Convinced of that, they hadn’t ordered him to hold his form as they did other battlers. Ril didn’t know when he’d be able to use that advantage, but he didn’t want to throw it away on a simple encounter in the arena.

Yet this particular fight reminded him of all those practice sessions with Leon on
Southern Dancer
, of how easily the man had dropped him onto his butt despite Ril’s greater speed and strength. After all the easy victories he’d had when he first started fighting in the arena, his captors had upped the stakes. These men were nearly as good as Leon. Ril didn’t feel any fear, though. That was saved for those he cared for, not for himself.

The halberd man came at him again, having reversed his weapon and now swinging the heavy metal ball at the end opposite the blade. At the same time, the spearman swung again at Ril’s legs. Each weapon came from an opposite direction, and he leaped high, somersaulting over his opponents and landing clear while the crowd continued to roar its distracting approval.

It was the same trick he’d used against Eighty-nine, and a few times in earlier battles. Ril felt their confidence as
he landed, so immediately he dove to the side. The net of the swordsman landed right where he’d been standing. He came to his feet again, snarling and backing away.

Keeping well clear of each other, though not clear enough that Ril could get through them, the gladiators advanced, herding him back toward one of the free-standing walls. Ril sensed that and growled, his lips pulling back from his too-human teeth as he flared his hatred. He projected his absolute loathing for them and heard the screams of those close enough to feel it in the stands, but the gladiators didn’t pause. He could feel their calm and their focus, and the certainty that if they didn’t defeat him they would die. Experienced as they were, his hatred meant nothing.

Ril shot a quick look up at the emperor’s box. The man watched impassively. He wouldn’t care at all if Ril died. He’d just find a new arena darling.

Ril hissed and darted behind the wall. Reaching the center, he hit it with his shoulder as hard as he could. The stone rumbled but didn’t fall, so he slammed into it again, feeling something in his shoulder give as the heavy stone tumbled down. But even as it crashed into the sand with a deafening roar, through the resultant dust came the three gladiators, weapons thrusting. They’d had just enough time to get out of the way.

Ril jumped backward, and his back slammed into the outer wall of the arena. Howling, people above showered him with food and drink—which was too much. Ril roared in rage and focused. A wall of power erupted forth, bursting straight ahead like an invisible punch from a giant. It hit the man with the halberd and he disintegrated, scattering blood and entrails everywhere. His head, still in its helmet, bounced even farther, ending faceup in the sand, staring accusingly at the sky.

But the use of energy exhausted Ril. Even as the crowd went mad, he dropped to one knee in intense pain. The other two gladiators hesitated, but Ril could barely move and didn’t have it in him for another shot. If only they hadn’t spread out, he might have taken them all.

Don’t let them get close.

Ril started at the faint voice in his head. Only one person knew him well enough and long enough to speak right into his mind without him starting the conversation, and he could only do so when he was in close proximity. Ril flashed his awareness back at the man, but no words. They were forbidden, even in his mind. Ril could only send emotions, and the one he sent was that of relief.

Run,
the voice said.

Ril bolted. Abandoning pride, he sprinted off, the gladiator’s net landing just behind him a second time and nearly catching his foot. He raced along the wall with blinding speed and no idea of where he was going.

Fight them from a distance,
Leon ordered.

Ril sent back angry impressions. How was he supposed to do that? He didn’t have the power to blast them, and this run was draining the last of his strength. The two surviving gladiators were returning to the main part of the arena, keeping clear of each other so that they wouldn’t form a single target. Ril sprinted around the arena wall, on the far side from them now and already starting to flag. His shoulder hurt as though something in it had been ground up in a mortar.

Throw rocks at them,
came Leon’s suggestion.

Ril eyed the wall he’d knocked down. It lay broken in a dozen places, edges shattered into rubble that might indeed be small enough. He’d never fought anyone by throwing anything solid at them, but he could remember years before, when Mace had thrown a rock at
him
hard enough
to spear through his wing. He’d managed to forget that. Leon apparently hadn’t.

Curving away from the wall, he bolted across the center of the arena toward that shattered wall and the two gladiators. They readied themselves, the one with the net swinging it, but Ril chose to zig around the one with the spear. The gladiator lashed out with the sharp blade, and Ril hissed as he felt it cut along his ribs. Something that wasn’t quite blood leaked down his side, but the wound wasn’t deep and then he was past, skidding to a halt beside the wall. The crowd was roaring, all of them on their feet.

The wall hadn’t broken up enough after all. Ril brought his fist down on a piece, shattering it into bits just the right size as the gladiators charged, perhaps figuring out what he was up to. Ril didn’t care. He picked up a palm-sized shard, cocked his arm, and flung it as hard as he could. It hit the man with the sword and net so hard it went straight through his chest and out the back, throwing him right off his feet and into the sand.

The spearman kept charging, and Ril’s second shot hit the sand at his feet. The man leaped high and lunged, roaring, but Ril threw himself out of the way and twisted. For a moment the two of them were side by side, Ril falling backward, his opponent lunging forward and extending his spear fully. Each saw the other out of the corner of his eye, and then Ril growled and slammed out his elbow, shattering the man’s helmet and all the bones in his face. The bones splintered, driving into his brain and eyes, and the gladiator fell.

Ril stumbled to a halt, gasping. He felt awful, but he forced himself to look up at the cheering crowds. He didn’t care about them, or about the emperor who was clapping slowly, still pleased with his darling. He searched for Leon
instead, and finally saw him in the penny seats, robes pulled tightly around him. His emotions were relieved.

Ril stared at his master, sending his gratitude. He’d known Leon was alive—there was no way he couldn’t—but he hadn’t known more. Now, considering his fulfilled fantasies with this man’s daughter…He blushed.

Leon didn’t seem upset with him, though.
You did well. Are you all right?
the man sent, his voice much clearer now that Ril was focusing.

Ril shook his head. All he could convey was a feeling of weariness.

I’m glad you’re not hurt.

The arena gates were opening, female handlers coming out to collect him. Melorta, the lead handler, came first, beaming in approval. Breathing heavily, Ril let the group surround him, all of them bowing to the emperor and making him prostrate himself on the ground before they led him toward the pens where he’d be fed and rested before his next fight, if there was to be one. Ril hoped not.

I have a plan to get you out, Ril,
Leon sent.
I’m still working on getting Lizzy free as well. And Justin. I don’t know if he’s alive.

His eyes narrowed, Ril sent as sharp an image as he could of Justin in a cage with his tongue torn out. He knew he’d succeeded, at least partially, as he felt Leon’s horror. Then he was led underground into the cooler air of the pens, and the contact was lost.

The ramp sloped steeply, and he had to lean back to keep his balance. Then he was in the huge stable used to house the battlers. A few he recognized from the harems, but no one appeared the same here as they did there. Ril saw Tooie in the form of some sort of ogre, heavy and hideous, calmly lumbering past toward the ramp. Though
that meant his fights were done for the day, he didn’t let himself sag in relief. He wouldn’t be able to do that until Leon came through and there were no more fights ever.

He was led to his stall, a glorified cell with walls made of heavy woods imported from across the ocean but only reaching halfway to the twenty-foot ceiling. He could have climbed out easily if he hadn’t been ordered against it. The stall was thirty feet square, to make room for the larger shapes the battlers usually took in the arena. Tooie was considered small at ten feet. Ril was tiny. Eighty-nine, he supposed, had been cramped indeed within this place. The floor was marble but had straw scattered on it, as though he were some sort of horse.

As he was led inside, Ril ignored the three-headed battler in the next cell, who growled over the half wall at him. At least they’d brought him a bed since they’d learned he had to sleep after most of his fights. After heavy combat they would even leave him overnight. Of course, by the time he got to the harem the next day, Lizzy would be frantic. She didn’t know where he went when he left her, and he didn’t want her to know. He couldn’t help needing the sleep, though. Even now he could barely keep his eyes open.

But there were other things first. Three feeder cages were grouped at one side of his cell, with a man crouched in each. Before he could go to them, however, the door opened and a slave came in bearing towels and clothing. She kept her gaze locked on the floor and was followed by a water sylph. All the elementals in this place took the shape of a pillar of whatever they were, without even a number branded on them to distinguish one from the other. They were forced to work without pause, and without even the illusory freedoms given to battlers in their harems.

This sylph’s emotions were miserable and lonely as she
waited for the slave to strip off Ril’s clothing, and then she flushed her water around him, heated just enough to cool him off without freezing his muscles. Ril closed his eyes and enjoyed it, lifting his arms and turning while the slave washed his body and hair with scented soap. She scrubbed his scalp sensuously.

Once he was clean, the sylph rinsed him off and the slave rubbed him down with scented oils. Ril yawned, already more than half asleep. All of the battlers got this treatment, and he didn’t want to admit how much he liked it. He needed it as well, since he could no longer turn to smoke and lightning and return as clean and healed as if he’d never been in a fight.