Chapter 1

Twenty-seven years before, the armies of the South set out to attack the armies of the North. The balance of power had been upset; Iosoan of the Hai Lei cut a swath of blood across the Northern continent, ending with the execution of the Hai Krun family. The young man, fiery, barely more than a prince, had made himself a target by becoming stronger than those around him. So in the South, the fighting lessened while great lords prepared to launch their forces across the Menadin Sea.

In the first wave, the undersea peoples mercilessly claimed boat after boat from beneath the waves. Some of the minor houses lost the whole of their fighting strength, and the ruling houses greedily consumed them.

While this happened, a group of young scientists caught the ear of lord Hachav Istone. They proposed an idea they claimed would work--that it would give him power, not only over Iosoan, but over the other great lords as well--but that they lacked the resources to build. They called it an airship: a boat with the wings of a bird, that could sail high above land and sea to deliver the armies of the Hai Istone to any point around the world with absolute impunity. And with the full power of their lord behind them, the scientists began to build.

But then something happened: Iosoan demanded peace. 'Peace at the edge of the knife, ' many said. And there was word the ruthless peacemaker was preparing an invasion of his own, into the South. Which ruling house would be the next to fall? Istone? Lancass? Montabo? He had already defeated the other four Northern houses; how many more would follow before the end? Surely he could not defeat all the armies of the South. But they never found out; none were willing to stand together, and none would risk standing alone. The armies returned home, and the spilling of blood came to an uneasy halt.

The scientists, after months of frustration and failure, finally saw their vision come to life and take to the skies. The airship flew, flew like a bird across the sky. But there were no armies to carry. The lust for blood had dried, and the easy settling of peacetime held the world in a vice-like grip. So, again with the blessing of lord Hachav, they sold their design and the prototype to the world renowned ship builders, the Oldoman Brothers.

Soon, people of all stations made their voyages from the comfort of the skies. Airships with two wings, airships with four and six wings, rounded the world many times over, bearing the Oldoman crest across the bow. Suddenly, every city with space to build a landing platform became a port city. Land-bound caravans of supplies all but vanished, except those trading with villages on the upper slopes of the mountains. Water-bound boats became a thing of the past; the people of the Hai Menadin, with their undersea cities and undersea ships, became the only people left to ever travel the open water.

Other ship yards sprang up. In those first few years, the builders became wealthy, the captains became wealthy, and also the scientists who dreamed them all up. As the market saturated, the fortune slid from ship building to trading. Niche markets bloomed in the face of such fast, cheap transportation. One of those markets was the slave trade.

Those houses that allowed human slavery within their borders had, in the past, made no provision for the source of the slaves. Citizens were protected by the crown, of course, but young girls from neighboring fiefs were sometimes kidnapped and bound to serve a wealthy master. Such practice was rare, though it did occur. On such a small scale, slavery did not raise more than a few eyebrows, and did not warrant more than a passing remark by the Consul Hai.

But though everyone enjoyed the peace and prosperity following the great war, there were those in the South who still deeply resented Iosoan, and to a lesser degree all the people of the North for not being able to stop him. Suddenly a plentiful source of slaves, a land and a people far away across the sea that no one really minded robbing. Pirate cells formed in the far reaches of the Northern continent, and a steady supply of young slave girls began to flow into the South. With the gleam of gold and silver in their eyes, the lowest dredges of society melted into piracy, joining those few who counted it a family tradition. Former soldiers, convicts, thieves, rapists and murderers: anyone could own a slave, but it took a special kind of man to steal an innocent girl away from her home.

So with the source in the North and the markets in the South, it was only natural for the airship to impact slavery as much as any other form of business.

Salt and mist blew through the rigging of the Hell's Fury; the sound of the rolling sea below was a dull, white backdrop to the intermittent screeches of gulls. The Fury was the oldest of the Galler class still worthy of the air. She was an enormous vessel, the length of her keel dwarfed only by the span of her wings--one pair on the bow, one above the foredeck, and a third high above the raised stern, where the pilots were ever vigilant at the controls. Most of the open deck was covered over by a low canvas tent to block the sun, and crewmen moved about keeping the lines tight. The bow bore the crest of the Oldoman ship yard; the stern was engraved with the ship's given name, and below was the likeness of a demon, painted black.

A pair of doors swung open on the main deck; a footstep sounded, then the thump of wood on wood. Footstep, thump, footstep, thump. Thesius Barton, captain, emerged from the sanctuary of his cabin, and climbed the steps to the flight deck. The crewmen knew the sound of his missing leg well, and doubled their efforts as it passed slowly by.

"Captain, sir!"

"Give me a report."

"Skies have been gentle, sir. We've made good time. Coast of Ninev is ahead off the port bow."

"No sign of followers?"

"None, sir."

"Very good."

Barton scratched his chin. Worry lines crinkled around his eyes, everpresent. He scanned the endless blue on blue horizon; after years of required secrecy, he could spot a following airship while it was still just a spec in the distance. There were none. Still, he worried. Every time he came and went from a port, it was in a different direction. In his career, he had never been followed; he planned on the same being true when he someday retired.

Though not overly high in the rank structure, Barton was one of the few who knew the location of all the pirate cells, and of the Slave City. As a captain of a slave transport ship, such knowledge was necessary. And he guarded that knowledge with his life: he alone aboard his ship was able to navigate the geographic markers between the pirate cells, and he made doubly sure to keep his pilots hopelessly lost, in constantly rotating shifts. Such was the nature of the business--the secret business--and he kept his secrets jealously.

He turned then, and the step-thump of his limping stride sounded again on the staircase.

"Watch the rigging, lad," Barton said to a young deck hand.

"Yessir, cap'n," came the too quick answer as the boy struggled with two tangled ropes.

The captain kept walking, did not stop to help. Those ropes should never have become tangled in the first place. It was sloppy, and showed a lack of discipline he was not accustomed to seeing. But stopping would not help to boy learn; an offered word of instruction would not help him learn. Barton had seen fear in the boy's eyes--fear of the captain, fear of the whip--and for now that was enough. Life aboard a ship was strict and harsh. That was the way of it. Try, fail, whip, try, fail, whip. And in the end... possibly success. The boy might learn and he might not, and that was how it worked.

Striding proudly across his deck toward the bow, Barton saw faces of men he did not know--men he did not trust. Most of them were without rank, but a few were officers. Under normal circumstances, he would never have taken to the skies with such a crew, but these were not normal times. The Slave City was in an uproar, with some level of confusion penetrating all levels. Something had stopped communication with the Ninev cell and the Hai Krun port at Del. There was some strange news at first... about a year ago... and then nothing. In a business where utter secrecy was ingrained into every drawn breath, the lack of news was frightening at best, and many called for relocation. Relocation! The word had been on almost every pair of lips for the last year. And the markets in the South were demanding more traffic, higher volume. The shipping routes had been altered, the timetables thrown off... And Barton left the city, his crew mixed with new faces. He worried.

At mid ship, he passed the ornate compass that had been built into the ship by the Oldoman Brothers themselves before the Fury ever left their yard. So many times already had that compass changed its direction since leaving the Slave City, the crew had already lost count. Turning a day-long trip into a week, weaving a course none could predict or follow, was a form of art few appreciated. Barton smiled. He eyed the compass' delicate workmanship, the silver globe holding steady now North by Northeast against a Westerly wind. Each new spin, each new point of the needle gave praise to the gods and goddesses of the big blue: North, South, East, West. All knew their names, but few imagined their true power. He made the sign of Rajj--Father of Fathers, praise the Compass Points--and continued toward the forward rail.