The Sylph Hunter by L. J. McDonald

in silence, and lifted away, vanishing into the night. Devon leaped to his feet and ran on. No one stopped him or Airi this time and he ran until he was exhausted.

    Six battle sylphs swept over the harbor in close formation, looking for the threat. The human’s terror had been undeniable and they moved quickly, ready to destroy whatever had sent the man running.
    The harbor was empty. With a quick, silent word, they spread out, searching, but there were no people there; no sylphs; there weren’t even any rats or cockroaches. Just crates of goods left sitting, some things spilled, and at one air ship, blood around a doorframe where the door had been torn completely out. That and blood randomly spread over the docks were the only signs of violence they found.
    They gathered then above the harbor, massing into a single cloud while they discussed it. What do you think happened here? one of them asked.
    The rest swirled. I don’t know.
    Should we hunt that human down and ask him more?
    How would we find him?
    He’s probably still running in a panic.
    He has that air sylph from another hive with him.
    Why did we let her live?
    Tooie said to leave her alone.
    Get Tooie.
    Most of them fell silent then, one of them concentrating his voice and calling out.
    Tooie came a short while later, dropping down from the dark sky to join them. He already knew what happened from listening to their reports while he approached, but seeing was better than hearing secondhand and he floated over the empty docks, the others following respectfully. He was of an age with most of them, but he was the lead battler, the lover of the queen, and with her support his word was only secondary to her own.
    Tooie spent the longest time at the Racing Dawn, examining the blood on the deck, walls, and the shattered door. Shifting to the human form Eapha liked, he ran a gentle hand down the wood, barely touching the splinters left behind.
    “Humans aren’t strong enough to do this,” he noted. “Someone was pulled out.”
    None of us did it, one of the battlers said.
    “No.” If one of them had, it wouldn’t be a problem because there would have been a reason for it. He looked out over the empty harbor. People had been leaving the city, for reasons he didn’t understand, but this emptiness was eerie. As he stood there, a faint whistling tune sounded and all of them turned to see a man walk out from between two buildings and down to the harbor, swinging a waterskin as though nothing at all was wrong. Unaware of the battlers, he kept whistling, happy and relaxed.
    Tooie turned away, walking to the railing of the ship and looking down past the cradle she sat in at the dark ocean waters lapping against the seawall only a few feet beyond. The water was dark and impenetrable. “Are there things in these waters that would hunt creatures on land?” he wondered aloud.
    The battlers shifted uncertainly. I’ve never heard of that happening before, one said.
    “Everything has to happen for the first time,” Tooie replied, still watching the waters, so dark and unfathomable. Anything could be under there.
    Do we tell the queen about this? the same battler asked.
    Tooie thought about that for a moment. “No,” he said at last. “She doesn’t need to know.”

    Zalia returned to the hovel she shared with her father to find he had a fire going and was sitting beside it, carefully toasting a piece of bread at the end of a stick. He smiled at Zalia as she came up and handed him a full water canteen, along with her day’s wages.
    “How was your day?” he asked.
    She didn’t tell him about the battle sylph. She didn’t think she’d have the courage to tell anyone that, let alone her father. Instead she told him about meeting Devon Chole and what he’d come for. He’d been a nice man, she thought, and far more approachable than Leon Petrule, who had been intimidating beyond belief, even when he was being kind.
    Xehm listened in stunned silence, his mouth