The Shattered Sylph by L. J. McDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

maggots shot through him, and he fell back against his bedroll, shaking. He could shift shape, if he accepted the pain, but to return to his true form was beyond him now. With his mantle tattered, he couldn’t hold his natural shape anymore, not without help and not without even greater pain. He’d fall apart into nothingness if he tried.
    Ril sat up, staring around him as a mix of different emotions flooded in from the others. It was past dawn, past breakfast, and his companions were awake. Leon was standing over a small campfire and waving his arms wildly, cursing and yelling at Gabralina to calm down. The blonde was dancing around madly, screaming.
    “A bee!” she shrieked. “It’s a bee! Kill it! Kill it!” She flapped at a tiny, buzzing form and leaped back. Still swearing, Leon waved it away, his emotions frustrated and angry.
    Awake now, Ril lunged out of bed, tossing his blanket back as he bolted across the clearing. Leon saw him coming just as Ril launched himself. He hit the taller man hard, knocking them both to the ground. Rolling, Ril forced his master underneath him and threw up a solid wall of force, ignoring the pain it caused.
    The clearing exploded. Ordered to hold in his hate aura, Wat had still moved to defend his master. The full power of his blast slammed into Ril’s shield, washing over it and past, vaporizing trees and bushes, obliterating their camp and the horses that had been tethered beyond. An instant later it was gone, and Ril had a moment to wonder if the idiotic battler had destroyed his own master in the attack, thereby banishing himself back to their original world.
    Apparently he hadn’t. Ril heard her crying as he rolled off Leon, shivering in reaction. Once, he could have held that blast back easily. Now he was useless.
    Leon pushed himself upright, checking on his battler first before looking over at Wat with raging eyes. The sylph stood with Gabralina in the center of a circle of destruction nearly five hundred feet across, cooing. Except for a patch of grass right under her feet, everything around them was simply gone, blasted right down to the bedrock. The girl stared around in amazement, absently stroking her battler’s arm while he held her. Taking that as an invite, he started to lick her neck.
    “Wow,” she managed. “You really killed the bee.”
    “And everything else, too!” Leon shouted, his face red. Wat glanced over, glaring, and Leon visibly forced himself to calm down. “That wasn’t necessary, Wat.”
    “She was under attack,” Wat protested.
    “It was a bee ,” Ril said, staring up at the sky that had been half-obscured by trees until now. It felt good to just lie still for a minute. He could get up later. “That was overkill.”
    “What’s overkill?”
    “When you obliterate everything within five hundred feet to protect your master from an insect the size of a thumbnail.” Leon shook his head and looked down at Ril. Thank you, he mouthed. Ril just shrugged and closed his eyes, dozing.
    “I don’t like bees,” Gabralina said innocently, smiling at her battler. “You’re so smart!”
    A moment later, Leon had to go over and pull them apart.
    The day was almost lost. They were two and a half weeks out of the kingdom of Yed but still more than a week and a half from home. Worse, to Leon’s intense discomfort, they were within the borders of the kingdom of Eferem, whose king he had once served. Alcor was still on the throne, but with his priesthood nearly destroyed and six of his battlers lost—three subsumed and three destroyed in the conflicts six years ago—he was afraid of challenging Sylph Valley. Instead he cowered in his castle, his battler Thrall always at his side. Leon knew the man was power hungry and paranoid, but his fear controlled him more than anything else and he wouldn’t risk another attack. Not unless circumstances changed. That wouldn’t stop him from wanting to see Leon’s head on a pike, though.
    They were still at