Chapter 2

THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM

Now fully healed, Finn finally looked through his front observation window. Ahead were the jagged peaks of the Skyblade mountains, and above was the ominous build-up of a heavy thunderstorm. Lightning would be fine; they could channel that energy into the batteries. However, rain would weigh them down, making it more costly to maintain their altitude. The mountains loomed high, jagged points reaching skyward, ready to impale careless skyships. Finn stared at them with fear in his heart. Only too aware of the challenge that faced him and Gypsy, Finn desperately wanted to disobey Skara’s order, but the slave collar made that impossible. The worst aspect of this possibly suicidal journey was that it was already dark, and there was no moonlight to aid their way. The clouds made sure of that.

Finn’s official title was Ship’s Warden, the second-highest rank aboard the ship. His role was lead pilot, skyship overseer and veto officer. His primary task was to fly the ship while monitoring its status and surroundings throughout periods of active duty. As veto officer, he would analyse any orders given by officers and revoke them if he felt they would be dangerous for the ship or its crew. Flying across hazardous terrain during stormy conditions in complete darkness was a prime candidate for his veto. Unfortunately, a warden wearing a slave collar didn’t get to overrule anything, regardless of whether the keyholder was an ignorant—.

Finn halted that train of thought. Irrespective of his hatred for Skara, she had given him a direct order. The chemicals injected by the collar made him firmly believe that following that order would be the only thing that could make his life worthwhile. Fighting the collar’s influence, Finn forced himself to admit he was scared of what might happen tonight. What frightened him the most was that Gypsy might end up irrevocably damaged.

The cockpit where Finn now sat didn’t have an entrance. It was a deliberately sealed space where a pilot and co-pilot could work without distraction or interruption. Anyone who wanted in or out of the room had to get either Finn or Gypsy to teleport them.

Front and centre of the cockpit, Finn’s luxurious pilot’s chair dominated the room. It was raised on a dais and surrounded by crystal displays and complex banks of controls. In front of everything was a large, wrap-around windscreen that provided an expansive, panoramic view. The co-pilot had a chair on the left, which reclined so they could rest if the two of them were working in shifts. Otherwise, they would watch the displays and windows as a backup. Finn wondered if he’d ever find someone competent enough to sit in that chair again.

The only other things in the room were two large lockers for the pilots and a sizeable map table at the back of the room. The cockpit occupied the highest point at the front of the central hull. It was directly above the comfortable, well-appointed war room, where the officers would make their plans, observe progress and generally lounge around chatting while holding a glass of fine wine.

“I need a plan,” Finn muttered to himself.

“Not a bad place to start,” Gypsy thought to him. Her subdued thoughts betrayed her concern for what was about to be the most harrowing flight they’d ever made together.

With a wry smile, Finn hopped out of his chair and moved to the back of the room where the round map table was situated. On it was a finely drawn navigational map of a world called Allis, the place they’d portalled to when they passed through the fae gate. At least, that was Gypsy’s best guess. Mercifully, during the refit, they had replaced all the realm maps, which meant their new map was up to date and unmarred by officer scrawl. Finn consulted the map, taking note of the magically projected green dot that showed their current position on the southern border of Grandis, a sizeable, human-claimed monarchic state. The Skyblade mountains formed a natural boundary between Grandis and the Elven Queendom of Erinmore, a heavily forested and mountainous country on the southern side. According to the map, the Skyblade mountains were extensive and still actively volcanic, making crossing them even more hazardous.

Unconsciously, Finn glanced to the front and noticed they were still gaining height. The upside to that was it had effectively put them beyond the reach of the strong-armed demon. It also brought them level with smaller peaks far off to the east. The downside was that they still consumed large quantities of mana from the barely charged mana batteries. With the mana they had, Finn knew they’d never make it over the extreme summits directly in their southern path. However, if he headed east, along the foothills, they had a fair chance of drifting over the lower peaks using the altitude they’d already attained. It would still be treacherous, and the volcanic activity would be a massive concern without a lot more height, but they’d at least have a slight chance of making it through. That chance shrank even further because they’d be navigating in the darkness, but it was the best one they had, given the circumstances.

Fun, fun, fun, Finn thought bitterly. He still needed to make a plan. Looking back at the map, he spotted a ruined city in Erinmore on an island called Arcathia. It was away to the southeast, on the other side of the lower section of the mountains. If they managed to get that far, it might prove an ideal place to spend a day recharging while trying to keep out of sight of his foul captors. With a moment’s thought, Finn made the decision. Arcathia would be their target destination. Now, he had to perform a minor miracle and get them there safely.

“We’re heading for Arcathia,” Finn thought to Gypsy. “We’ll slowly head east, consuming as little mana as possible, then turn south and take our chances with the smaller peaks.”

“That collar will be the death of us both, lover,” Gypsy complained. “Normally, we’d never attempt this.”

Finn felt wretched. He’d desperately tried to fight the marauders when they attempted to collar him, but there’d just been too many of them. “I’m sorry. They were threatening to hurt you. I didn’t have a choice.”

Gypsy washed his mind with gentle, soothing thoughts. “I’m not blaming you, lover. I would have done the same. I’m just as angry about this as you are. We’re both slaves now.”

Finn returned to his chair and quickly reduced the heavy flow of spatial mana to the ship’s gravity runes. Their powerful defiance of gravitational forces is what allowed Gypsy to fly. They could easily keep her altitude steady with just a trickle of mana, but the initial lifting of her heavy hulls drained the mana batteries quickly. Finn planned to maintain the height they’d already achieved using the mana constantly collected by the hull webbing. The rest was just using the four directional thrusters that could be deployed on the underside of the outer hulls to coax them in the right direction. He’d have to pray for a good tailwind. They might have just enough mana to reach Arcathia if they got that.

“Speaking of which—” Finn said as he remembered they were now drifting aimlessly. He punched the four thruster deployment buttons. There was a faint hum, then a minute jolt as each directional engine lowered and locked into place. He cursed himself for allowing his plight to distract him from his work.

Gypsy could travel underwater, on water or in the air. She could also dock from the water or land on solid ground. The problem for the designers had been that the world of the fae was vast and richly varied. So, Skyfleet had demanded a Bulwark class craft that could handle any terrain while transporting officers, troops, and cargo. It also needed to act as a mobile operations centre at all times. One of the all-terrain solutions the designers came up with was to have a small, directional thruster on each corner of the skyship that could be lowered from the underside when required. The four thrusters sucked matter in the front, infused it with mana, and then expelled it out the rear at tremendous velocity using a clever combination of air, water, fire and force runes. The engineers, rune-smiths and astromancy mages had taken over ten years to perfect the designs and incorporate them into the wonderous vessel the fae queen had commissioned.

Finn could steer Gypsy toward the lower peaks of the Skytalon mountains now that he’d deployed the directional thrusters, and that’s what he did. With tiny bursts of individual thrusters, he swung her around to face east using as little mana as possible. Finn then set a slow easterly heading, which would take at least three hours to reach the projected point where he’d begin heading south. It would take another hour to traverse the lower foothills and finally reach the lower peaks of the Skytalons. At least then, he could judge their chances of getting through the maze of jagged rock and possibly hostile volcanoes.

“Can you keep us at this speed for a few hours, please?” Finn thought to Gypsy. He knew she would do so anyway, but he hadn’t spoken to her much today, and she was his only friend. “That way, we can collect enough mana through the webbing to gain a little more height and make life easier when the mountains try and stab us out of the air.”

“Of course,” she sent back. “Consider it done.”

“Thanks,” he replied. “Can the self-repair systems handle the damage we took at the clearing?”

“It’ll take a week at least, but yes. As long as we don’t take more damage, we should be fine,” Gypsy thought back. “On a different subject, I’ve noticed your body’s energy patterns are asynchronous. May I suggest you take a little time to meditate? The stress has been building within you ever since the Ravagers boarded. I need you at your best. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself?”

A rare smile crept from his lips to his eyes. It was so lovely to know that he was genuinely cared for. Since coming of age, he’d known that he craved affection and company, but understanding such a thing never changed his reality. He’d never been allowed company during his carefully regimented military existence. As soon as he’d entered the elite part of his training, his handler had forbidden his interaction with anyone other than his instructors and superior officers. He was even required to dine alone. Also, his mother had stopped her yearly appearances. Not that they were much to lament. His handler had been a robust wolfkin female who said little and punished much. However, as soon as his elite training started, that had changed. They’d replaced her with the stoatkin lunatic that had been teaching him Ki-Gesh and assassination techniques alongside Master Wrathbone since he was nine.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Finn suddenly felt ashamed as a stray thought struck him. On his graduation day, he’d been awarded certification as an elite, fast-strike Ki-Gesh warrior and an assassin of the royal order. On top of those accolades, he’d become a master rune smith and accomplished surgical healer. His surgical superiors had even accredited him for his pioneering use of shadow runes alongside traditional light-based healing techniques. So, why, in the name of the Goddess Danu herself, had it been so terrifying to collect firewood in a strange forest? Then the realisation hit him. The bloody collar’s influence! Since Skara had wrapped the iron band around his neck, he’d become constantly afraid of anything that didn’t fit his mistress’s wishes.

Finn laughed hard at himself and knew he had to pull himself together again. He’d been basking in enforced self-pity, which had shattered the little confidence he’d ever had. Being forced to wear the slave collar had done a fine job of making him feel worthless. He even missed the interactions with the now-deceased crew.

Finn teleported to his engineering lab and went straight to his cot tucked away in the far corner. Even though sleep wasn’t necessary for him, he still needed to refresh his mind and reset his mana pathways. Over the years, Finn had discovered that just lying there, eyes closed, letting his mind drift, was just as effective as focused meditation. It was his version of sleep.

As an afterthought, he decided to let Skara know what the plan was. Hopefully, that would appease her enough to leave him alone.

*****-*****

Nearly four hours later, Finn was back in the cockpit. A little calmer and suitably rested. Their slow speed had allowed the mana webbing to feed a little more mana to the batteries, but Finn still doubted it would be enough to avoid any significant trouble. At that moment, a fat raindrop appeared on the front window. He cursed to himself as he looked down to see the foothills rising steeply to become the Skytalons proper. Of course, it would start raining now, just as the dangerous part of the journey began.

“This is it, Gypsy. I think this is as high as we can go with our mana reserves. If we go higher, I suspect we won’t have enough juice to avoid trouble.”

“Agreed. There’s more bad news, though. The mountains appear to be a magical null zone, mostly. That means no ambient mana, which will further hinder our ability to see,” Gypsy replied, her thoughts also conveying her lightly veiled fears.

“So, without mana and normal sight, the only thing we have for guidance is turbulence patterns and heat?” Finn had promised himself he would stay calm and in control throughout this nightmare, but he’d only been in the cockpit for a few minutes, and his concerns were already threatening to overwhelm him.

He stared at the blank crystal display in front of him. His own reflection stared back at him. Finn was shocked that his hazel eyes were rimmed by dark shadows, making them look sunken and tired. His shoulder-length, chestnut hair was messy, and his normally strong jawline looked soft and slack. His mouth was firmly set in a line, making his worry evident, a look reinforced by the creases around his eyes. In short, a gaunt shadow of his former self frowned back at him. Mercifully, his reflection disappeared as indistinct swirls of blue became visible as the monitor sprang to life.

“Yes, I’m afraid we’re almost flying blind,” Gypsy said, “I’ve put air vortices and heat vision on separate displays for you. It may be an excellent time to find religion and pray for a miracle.”

Finn snorted at her sentiment. “Do we know of a Skyforce-recommended deity we might call upon then?”

“Sadly, no. I’ve checked, and no divine entities are mentioned in the handbook.”

“Rats!” Finn thought with a chuckle. “Can you put the air turbulence and heat displays down in the war room, too? Let’s show Skara the trouble her brainless orders have caused.”

“It’s done. A little petty, though. Skara is a violent killer, not a tactician.”

“She’s a bitch of the filthiest cesspool and a stinking slaver to boot.” Finn thought back as chemically induced pain from the collar coursed down his spine. “May she rot in the nastiest corner of the hells.”

“Do you remember the need for calm we discussed, Finn?” Gypsy mentally chided him. She made sure that strong maternal feelings accompanied her words. When she first gained consciousness, the Skyfleet psychiatrist had given her Finn’s psych evaluation. She knew how delicate he was about family and relationships. Since then, she’d tried to be both a mother and a lover for him.

Finn’s head drooped. “Yes, dear. I remember. Sorry. Calming down now.”

Just then, a red blob moving fast caught his sight on the heat display. Mercifully, it was fellward of their current position. Finn had many faults, but bad piloting wasn’t one of them. With accomplished ease, he gave a few accurate blasts of the thrusters, which quickly propelled them to the left or leeward, as was Skyforce’s preferred term. Finn wanted to be somewhere else if they were nearing the dangerous end of an erupting volcano.

“Balls of molten lava,” Gypsy thought worriedly. “Just one could do enough damage to knock us out of the sky.”

Finn recognised his ward’s concerns and shared them. He fed a little more mana to the rear engines and gave a few more thruster blasts to move them further away from the lava they’d seen.

Gypsy started to rock and buck as they moved through the turbulence caused by the volcanic activity below. Finn heard loud booms even this far above the volcano.

“I suggest you all find something to hang on to,” Finn said after pressing the tannoy communication crystal on his console. “We are above a volcano, and the air is fiercely turbulent.”

There was a loud crack off to the right, and Gypsy lurched hard to the left and tilted wildly. Finn blinked as he realised just how much danger they had stumbled into. He couldn’t see the volcano. The turbulence display was a white sheet of disruption, so there was no help there, and a red glow covered the entire lower quarter of the heat display. All he could see from the windscreen was driving rain and dark shapes looming toward them as red light danced across the ground.

“Mountain, dead ahead!” Gypsy shouted in Finn’s mind.

“Saw it!” Finn replied, a strange calm settling in his mind. He’d trained for such moments. His flight instructors had made him repeat the drills repeatedly until they became second nature to him.

Finn lowered the mana feed to the leeward gravitational runes and increased it to the other, fellward side. Then he fired a hard burst of the thrusters leeward. Instantly, Gypsy’s bulky form tilted hard away from the peak and shot upwards. Finn used his legs to brace against the sides of his chair as the craft lurched, complaining all the way, not used to the extreme manoeuvres Finn was forcing her to endure. Even then, another loud crack made Gypsy’s entire length shudder.

“Impact to the leeward hull.” Gypsy thought. Finn could tell that she was suppressing a small amount of panic. He could feel it through their bond. “Nothing terrible, but we’ve now got a large dent there. We’ve lost a few crystals, too. No breach, though.”

“I assume we hit the peak with a glancing blow instead of a full-on impact?” Finn thought back to her. He was still fighting to level Gypsy out while watching everything with his full attention.

“That’s my theory, too. Whatever we hit was something we couldn’t see until the last second. Even then, I only saw a shadow.” Gypsy paused, obviously deep in thought. “Well done, lover. Your quick reactions saved us a crash that would have likely ended us.”

“Thanks.” Finn sighed hard. “I’ll spend a little more mana gaining us some altitude. Hopefully, we can avoid any repeats of what just happened.”

“We’re almost flying on mana fumes and wishful thinking now.” Gypsy worried. “Can we afford to gain more height?”

“We can’t afford a repeat of what just happened, so yes,” Finn knew it was a game of trade-offs and hope, but they both understood that they were out of options.

Finn checked and rechecked his console, desperate for any good news. “Is it me, or are the mana levels up here fluctuating more than usual? Maybe not everywhere is a null zone? Maybe we’re above it now?” Even though he was still fighting the turbulence from the volcano behind them and trying to keep Gypsy level and on the course, Finn still had time to wonder why mana levels would vary so quickly.

Almost as an answer to his thoughts, the sky lit up as lightning slammed into a mountain peak almost directly before them. Finn repeated the avoidance manoeuvre, this time veering fellward in the hope that he could stay close to the course he was trying to maintain. He felt the tension build as they waited for a rocky impact, but mercifully, it never came. Instead, the clouds scintillated with electrical force, and a crack of thunder made Gypsy wobble slightly.

“I think we’ve now established why the mana levels are fluctuating,” Gypsy thought, the sarcasm in her thoughts evident. “We’re now in a lightning storm. It’s amazing that just being struck by lightning is the good news.”

“It is good news,” Finn replied with a level tone. “That’ll greatly help our mana batteries, and we’ll get glimpses of the mountains we’re about to hit.”

“Yay! Happy days.” Gypsy sent back with a snigger.

Finn snorted and went back to staring forward with intense concentration, looking for clues about what was in front of them. Strangely, the fierce thunderstorm that raged around them made their journey safer. Several times, a lightning strike provided enough light to avoid another collision. They even grabbed a steady stream of mana as the entire skyship acted as a giant lightning conductor.

Hours passed, and Finn could feel his concentration slipping. Gypsy had transported some vegetables and cheese for him to nibble on as a slight energy boost, but she avoided distracting him too much. He knew he’d saved them several times with quick wits and searingly fast reactions. That wasn’t hubris. His training and cycling of mana throughout his body allowed him to sense and move much faster than would usually be possible. However, constantly cycling his mana took its toll on him. He felt overstretched and worn.

Even at this altitude, mountain peaks occasionally passed close by underneath. Mercifully, they hadn’t encountered other erupting volcanoes. Finn couldn’t remember ever being so scared for Gypsy’s survival, but it just served to focus him even more.

“Finn! Look at the horizon,” Gypsy thought excitedly.

Finn had noticed that the shadows were gaining a clearer definition, but Gypsy had spotted the coming dawn just before he did. “Oh! Thank the gods. It looks like the mountains are getting smaller, too. Though, it’s still almost impossible to judge distances.”

Wearily, Finn adjusted the mana flow to the gravity runes, allowing Gypsy to lose some of their hastily acquired altitude. Their mana batteries were, by now, desperately low. They were tantalisingly close to clearing the Skytalon range but still needed to get to Arcathia and land safely. Even the foothills, this side of the mountains looked treacherous.

Only after another hour passed did the sun offer them enough light to see by. A bonus was that the mana dead zone had also passed, and they could see using the mana patterns, too.

The moment Finn allowed himself a little optimism was the moment the mana batteries ran out completely. “Shit!” Was the only word he uttered. Their plight had been expected, after all. All he could now do was accept Gypsy had to descend gradually while he slowed the loss of altitude as much as possible using the ambient mana they were collecting. On the horizon, he could just make out the glimmer of what was hopefully water, and if fate didn’t hate him, they might just reach it before they hit the ground.

“We have that tailwind you were praying for,” Gypsy told Finn. “If you cut the main engines, you could save a lot of mana by just using thrusters if we need to manoeuvre or gain a little speed.”

“Just merrily drifting along, like,” Finn snorted back. He did as Gypsy suggested, though. There didn’t appear to be any alternative.