Chapter 1
FILTHY RAVAGERS
All hope had died the moment the cold iron of the slave collar snapped closed around his neck. Finn shuddered when remembering the instant the collar’s needle had pumped mind-altering chemicals into his blood. Even the agony of having his soul torn and bound to a colossal skyship seemed like a happier time. Yet this was his life now, a slave to bloodthirsty pirates and symbiont of a captured military flagship.
Finn glanced at the inhabitants of the clearing below, and his lips contorted into an angry snarl. Apart from his bonded skyship, a band of twenty-three disgusting humans cavorted around a campfire, semi-naked, laughing, and swigging on expensive fae wine. They called themselves the Ravagers, and they represented everything hateful in his life. Their leader, who sat beside the fire watching the others, was a particularly spiteful female called Skara. She was the one who had enslaved him. Then, he was sent into the forest alone and unarmed to collect more firewood. She didn’t care that he’d never ventured into a forest before. The monster took pleasure from his fear and discomfort.
Trying to put his troubles aside, Finn sighed and dropped his small pile of firewood. Skara had told him to collect firewood, but she hadn’t mentioned delivering it. Flopping down onto the spongy grass of the bluff, he rolled over and stared absentmindedly at the darkening sky, glad to be out in the open again. The forest surrounding him was ancient, and Finn wouldn’t have been surprised if some fae creatures had set up a home there. There were also untold wild creatures that rustled and snuffled in the undergrowth. It was a terrifying place for a young fae. Especially one who’d spent most of his life in a military academy or on board a skyship.
From his raised viewpoint, he watched the alien sun sinking below the trees, further deepening the dusk of the day. As if to take its place, a herd of thick clouds stampeded from the north, driven south by a stiffening breeze. He wondered if the incoming storm would wait and break against the enormous mountains to the south or become impatient and soak him instead. Finn had more important things to worry about, though. Soon, darkness would likely bring more forest terrors out to play. Getting soaked by rain held no fear for him. It was what might wander from the treeline that genuinely scared him.
Looking for a happier distraction, his gaze alighted on his life’s purpose. A stunningly beautiful skyship named Gypsy that the Fae Queen herself had proclaimed the shining star of the Royal Skyfleet.
Gypsy was a skyship consisting of two squat tubular-shaped hulls on either side of a narrower structure shaped more like a fat tailless fish. All three hulls melded into one toward the rear and were a lustrous golden colour combined with large swathes of darkened impact-resistant glass. Mana-absorbent webbing was embedded under all the surfaces, which made them glimmer magically in even the dimmest light.
The two sizeable outer pods were seventy-five feet wide, sixty-five feet tall and four hundred and twenty feet long. The three interconnected structures made the skyship just over two hundred and ten feet wide, the largest Skyfleet vessel ever built. Each hull had a pointed nose, and the two outer sections had a tapered tail that formed a narrow rectangle with crenellated edges. Many of the surfaces were coated with panels of tiny black crystals that added to the variety of energies Gypsy could pull from the atmosphere.
Halfway up the central hull, the front had opened vertically, and a broad, retractable gangway had extended down to the floor.
Finn’s affection and pride for Gypsy went far beyond just being her last surviving crew member. Their souls had been melded together just before she’d been officially launched. After that, they began their life together as a gestalt entity, far more potent together than they would have been alone. Like it or not, they now shared a symbiotic existence, and Finn was as much a part of Gypsy as she was a part of him.
Unconsciously reaching for his neck, he touched the fiercely uncomfortable iron band that enforced his status as a slave. The feel of the cold metal instantly turned his thoughts toward darker things.
“Damned filthy pirates,” Finn muttered bitterly to himself. “They corrupt everything, kill indiscriminately and steal whatever they can’t rape, eat or drink. The bastards are so very unfae.” He spat the last word as the insult it was meant to be. To top it all, the marauders had recently been rooting around the officer’s quarters, leaving havoc in their wake. They’d found one of the dead crew’s private wine collections, so of course, they were now almost incoherent and blind from the effects of highly potent fae wine.
Those loathsome insects enslaved me, Finn thought bitterly as hatred began bubbling up in his mind again. He despised each of them with an intense passion. As punishment for his subversive thoughts, his slave collar triggered. The device injected fiery chemically induced pain that spread agonisingly through his entire body, making his nerves spasm and muscles twitch uncontrollably. With a cruel smirk, Finn began entertaining some of the darker images forming in his brain. He gritted his teeth and endured the pain of the collar’s retribution as he savoured visions of each thug dying in a unique, slow and highly creative way. This was the only way he could rebel against the collar’s increasing domination over him, and it hurt.
Meanwhile, his oblivious captors danced and wobbled drunkenly around their campfire as if performing some odd variation of a shamanistic fertility ceremony. Eventually, he had to stop his internal rebellion to allow the rising level of collar-induced agony to fade. Unfortunately, the pause and lingering pain allowed his melancholy to settle in.
Finn was convinced that the chemicals from the collar made him feel worthless and alone, a fearful wretch incapable of doing anything other than his mistress’s bidding. Under that influence, his thoughts wandered back to his unpleasant childhood memories. Memories he’d pushed the dark recesses of his mind years ago. Intense feelings of betrayal and fear engulfed him as he pictured his mother proudly handing him over to the Skyfleet officers.
Her own son! Finn’s mind screamed. How could she?
He’d been no more than five years old when she’d proudly given him away to the military. After that, his mother would pay him a perfunctory visit at the military academy once a year on his name day. Each time, she’d give him a small name-day gift, kiss him lightly on the cheek, and then leave again without a word. For a few years, his heart would break as he forlornly hoped she’d turn back and embrace him hard, telling him it had all been some sort of horrible mistake. Then beg his forgiveness and take him home. He’d cry silently each year as he watched her hastily leave without a backward glance. Eventually, he’d managed to numb himself to it all. Mercifully, his full-time attendant hadn’t noticed any of his childish tears. Otherwise, she’d have taken great delight in beating him for showing weakness.
For Manaborn fae nobility, it was every family’s duty to donate their third-born child to the military. He’d been the third son of a prestigious and fiercely loyal noble family called the Shadowsteps. The family had served the queen for generations, working as her personal assassins and infiltrators. Therefore, it was no surprise to anyone when they handed him over to the military the moment he’d turned five.
When Finn arrived at the military academy, he’d been assigned his quarters, shown the mess hall and facilities, and given his schedule. The schedule was a small scroll that rigidly defined his new life. Every action had been carefully planned out by a committee and written down. Strict adhesion to it was mandatory, and his attendant had instructions to whip him hard if he failed to follow it to the letter.
The next day, he had been marched to the testing facility and commenced six weeks of gruelling, often painful tests. Then came the inquisitors. The memory of them made Finn shiver. Finn must have impressed his testers because he’d been given the dubious prestige of committing his entire life to the most advanced magical craft ever commissioned.
He’d been assured that, even though the skyship was still being designed, it would eventually be so advanced that the entire world would sit up and take notice. It was already rumoured that the Fae Queen planned to attend the launch ceremony to personally witness Finn’s assimilation. In order to prepare him for the role, they’d drawn up a bespoke twenty-year training regime that would have to be completed in total isolation to prevent any external influences. The priests insisted that he stay untainted and pure for the melding process. The craft had already been scheduled for completion just as he would graduate. From the moment they chose him, his fate was set.
Finn’s life quickly became a continuous grind of basic training, studying and strict tuition in a wide variety of subjects. Basic training quickly turned to elite training as the military slowly ground him down into something Skyforce could be proud of.
He remembered enjoying all the academic subjects such as languages, anatomy, navigation and rune craft. During his training, he excelled at rune craft and the healing arts. His talents in those subjects progressed quickly, and eventually, he achieved the prestigious level of master rune smith and consequently was named lead engineer for his future ward craft. His skills in the healing arts enabled him to gain the rank of surgical master two years before the final exams.
During his last five years, he began to learn subjects related to the skyship he was destined to bond with. He quickly picked up piloting skills and memorised the enchantments that would soon be inscribed throughout the new vessel and its superstructure. Those subjects had been some of the most enjoyable for Finn, as the technical and engineering aspects of the craft had all seemed easy to him.
Twenty years after he’d arrived at the academy, Finn was pronounced ready for duty and given his graduation papers. He was awarded the prestigious rank of Warden of the Skyfleet’s most advanced vessel, Gypsy. During the ceremony, much to his amazement, he’d also received a commendation for prowess in combat. Despite his shortcomings in other fighting disciplines, his trainers were pleased that he had become a deadly assassin and Ki-Gesh warrior. They didn’t need to know that Finn still secretly disliked fighting.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Just after the ceremony, the engineers announced that Gypsy was ready for active service. Those six days between finishing his studies and the launch ceremony found him feeling lost and unable to do anything about it. Finn had wanted to go out and maybe buy something for the first time in his life. He didn’t know what to buy or even how, but it was a vain hope because he was still under supervised confinement. So, Finn stayed in his room and buried himself in the books he loved.
Finn’s thoughts drifted to that fateful day when he’d stood to attention at the dockside, resplendent in his dress uniform. In front of him were his fiercely proud parents and none other than the Fae Queen herself. Behind him, high-ranking officials fanned out in neat rows, each trying to look more important than the others.
The only other memory of that day was the moment the priests split his soul apart and irrevocably fused it with Gypsy’s core consciousness. He could clearly recall the cheers and celebrations in the background as the abject agony of the spirit fusion process seared through every nerve within him. Fortunately, they’d strapped him down, as his spasming body would have surely fallen from the ceremonial altar. The mind is said to forget life’s painful moments, but Finn would never forget that one. When he finally regained consciousness, his thoughts were already merged with Gypsy’s, making his mind feel like a much larger place. Every part of the skyship felt like part of his own body. He’d become Gypsy, and Gypsy was now him.
Five years later, just after the completion of Gypsy’s upgrades and partial refit, the Ravagers had broken into the royal fleet’s sky docks, boarded Gypsy, and butchered every member of her crew with one exception. Somehow, they knew they couldn’t go anywhere without the craft’s bonded symbiont. So, they’d threatened to harm Gypsy’s core to lure Finn out of the engineering ducts where he’d been hiding. Despite his struggles and attempts to fight them off, they’d quickly overwhelmed him and slapped a slave collar around his neck. His mind went fuzzy as soon as the needle inside the collar punctured his flesh. Soon all he could do was obey the holder of the collar’s little silver key, the evil bitch, Skara. She’d ordered him to launch Gypsy and flee at full speed through the nearby fae gate.
That brought Finn to the misery of now, a slave in an alien world with a bunch of disgusting pirates he despised. Gypsy was now the only bright point in his otherwise horrible life.
Finn returned from his deep, collar-induced reverie with a mental thump. He noticed the evening sun had finally disappeared behind the trees, taking what little light remained. Being purely magical creatures, Manaborn fae had no problem seeing in the dark. Their sight used mana, heat and other energy patterns to supplement any available light. However, the arrival of darkness meant he’d been lying beside his pathetic bundle of firewood for over an hour, completely lost in his head. He was surprised the marauders hadn’t already screamed for him to attend them. Yet—Something didn’t feel right. The birds had stopped singing, and the forest had gone eerily quiet.
Was it a night time thing? Do birds even need sleep? Finn wondered. Is something with a thousand teeth stalking me?
A quick glance down to the campfire told him the Ravagers hadn’t noticed anything strange. The ones that were still conscious danced and cavorted around the dying flames while shouting obscenities at others who were drunkenly fucking each other on the grass. Their loudness made picking out any noises deeper in the forest tricky.
Finn took a deep, calming breath. Closing his eyes, he reached out into the dusky trees, using his mana to heighten his senses. Maybe his abilities could find his terrors before they found him. Concentrating, his mind isolated every sound and then focused on each in turn. A small but happily chattering brook ran down the back of the bluff, then looped around to run along the edge of the clearing. Hundreds of trees rustled their songs, fed by a growing breeze. Surrounding him, a rich variety of wildlife noisily went about their evening, but Finn focused on the sounds of the five creatures that stepped with light feet a few hundred yards inside the treeline. Their sounds of grazing told Finn that they meant him no harm. What did concern him was the carefully placed feet nearby that slowly stalked toward them. It was his sincere hope that the hunter would be content stalking other prey than he. It was then that he heard them.
Ten, wait, maybe thirty? No more! By his estimate, at least fifty souls were moving toward them, no more than two minutes away. Make that fifty-one. Something a lot larger than the others was with them. Finn considered what he had sensed, and then Gypsy added more data. She revealed that the humans were stepping with a weight that suggested loaded packs, armour and heavy weapons. With the extra details, the conclusion was evident, and it hit him hard.
Despite his strict military training, Finn did something his combat masters would have beaten him for. He panicked. “An army!” He shouted, although no one was nearby to hear him. He and Gypsy were at tremendous risk. They were vulnerable on the ground with the gangway down. She was still recovering after their mad dash from the fae lands and was now conserving as much magical energy as possible as she hastily recharged her mana batteries.
With a thought, Finn wrapped himself in spatial mana and blinked out of existence. He reappeared ten yards away from Skara’s oblivious pirates. Finn was about to shout that they’d soon be under attack when a cacophony of war cries boomed around the clearing. Large, armour-clad humans came storming out of the treeline, each screaming and brandishing a heavy blade. Most of the attackers headed toward the semi-conscious Ravagers, but a few made toward the open gangway of Gypsy.
“Capture the vessel at all costs!” Several attackers yelled, causing more of them to veer off toward Gypsy.
“I don’t think they’re friendly,” Finn shouted stupidly and then did the other thing that would have got him beaten at the academy. He froze. Mercifully, Gypsy had been watching her young Warden and mentally chastised him for standing there transfixed. Without exchanging further thoughts, she grabbed his form and transported him directly into the pilot’s chair in the cockpit.
Shocked out of his stupor, Finn punched the gangway button to retract it and started feeding refined spatial mana into the many gravity runes within the outer hulls. He felt Gypsy shift on the ground, then gently begin to rise, her ascent quickening as more runes received magical energy.
“Gangway seventy-five per cent closed. We have four borders,” Gypsy thought to Finn.
Horror gripped him as he processed Gypsy’s news. “Do we know who?” Finn thought back to her.
“Three Ravagers, one unknown,” she replied, then paused. “Update: unknown has just been ejected by the other three. Gangway is now closed.”
“Thanks,” Finn replied, his heart sinking. That meant he hadn’t managed to leave all of the pirates behind. He wasn’t sure if his collar had complained about his actions, but his motives hadn’t been to abandon his masters but to save Gypsy. All he could hope for now was that Skara—
“Get down here, you little shit!” An angry female voice shouted.
“Bugger!” Finn muttered as his hopes evaporated. The sealed and shielded cockpit area was directly above the war room, and the sound of raised voices below easily penetrated the floor. The many voice crystals dotted around the skyship would typically be used for internal communication. Still, the pirates preferred using volume and foul language to reach him when he was hidden away. Finn could not disobey a direct command from his mistress, so he disappeared and reappeared before Skara.
She quickly grabbed him by the throat when he appeared and lifted him off the ground. Finn’s eyes bulged as her fingers closed around his windpipe. He kicked and choked, powerless to resist his mistress’ wrath and even if he could, Skara was freakishly strong. She effortlessly raised him to her eye level and spat at him as he spluttered, fighting to steal a breath.
“You puny piece of goblin dung,” Skara hissed at him angrily through clenched teeth, “I swear, if you ever try and leave us behind again, I’ll pull every tooth out of your pathetic fae mouth, then cut your tiny cock off and feed it to you. You don’t need teeth or genitals to fly this thing.”
Skara’s face twisted into a satisfied sneer as Finn started to turn purple. She shook him hard as his struggles slowed. Then she spat again and roughly threw him to the floor. “Curse the bloody fae to the fires of Gorbytch for making you necessary for our mission. I’d rather have killed you with the other worthless scum.”
Finn wisely decided to play dead. The fae came in many different shapes and sizes, but the Manaborn fae were creatures created from pure mana. He didn’t need to breathe or even exist in a corporeal form. However, he wasn’t stupid. Without rewarding Skara’s need for cruelty, she would never stop tormenting him. She enjoyed it. He’d met too many like her at the academy.
“Urhh! Boss,” a small, dumpy member of the Ravagers said timidly. He stood at the front observation window, looking back at her, worry creasing his features.
“WHAT!” She screamed back at the cringing man.
Gypsy shook as something heavy hit the leeward hull.
“Uhm! They’re throwing large rocks at us,” the marauder replied. “There’s another one coming!”
“We have sustained a small amount of damage to the leeward mana webbing,” Gypsy thought to Finn. “Mana collection has been reduced by just under one percent.”
“What are they throwing them with, for Frag’s sake?” Skara shouted at the short pirate. “They’re human like us, aren’t they? Humans aren’t that strong, and they certainly can’t use magic.”
The other remaining member of the Ravagers, a scraggly-looking female with short black hair and a slight limp, hobbled quickly over to join the first at the window. Peering out she gasped.
“They don’t need magic, boss. They’ve got a fucking huge demon with them,” the dumpy Ravager shouted as another heavy impact rocked Gypsy. “It’s just picking the damned rocks up and throwing them at us.”
Skara’s eyes widened at that news. She turned her attention back to Finn and growled when she saw him still curled up on the floor, playing dead. “Get us out of here, you maggot,” she shouted as she kicked the prone fae. “Take us over those mountains. They’ll never be able to follow us that way.” Helpfully, she pointed at the mountains she referred to despite Finn's inability to see the gesture.
Finn groaned pitifully. He might not need to breathe, but he could still feel pain well enough. “We can’t, mistress. That’s why we had to stop in that clearing. Gypsy doesn’t have the mana to make it that high or that far.”
A look of hatred screwed up Skara’s face, and she hissed at him angrily. She aimed a hard kick at Finn’s groin. There was a soft thump, and Finn screamed. “Can’t? You dare?” Another well-aimed kick struck Finn in the chest. “Do it or be damned. That is an order.”
“Finn, you have sustained significant trauma to your—” Gypsy started to say.
“—Yeah, I already know,” he mentally groaned back, deliberately interrupting her before she could finish.“I can feel the location of the sustained damage just fine. Get me up to the cockpit, please. We’ve got work to do.”
Instantly, he was curled up in the pilot’s chair instead of the war-room floor. Finn channelled light-aspected mana to his fingertip, then began drawing glowing runes in the air just above his groin. Each rune appeared in bright, golden sparkles as his finger expertly traced their shapes. When he had the runes he needed, he snapped his hand closed, causing the runes to merge. A warm light engulfed his lower section as the symbols faded, and relief washed through him.