by James Somers
Ethan understood well that The Order maintained a carefully crafted sense of mystery, with secret locations, hidden vaults, and death defying entryways and exits. The fact was, Isaiah had only known Ethan for five months. He did not expect to be told all there was to know about The Order. It was enough to know Gideon was the best The Order could offer and happened to be his mentor and partner in this expedition. Better to search for Gideon, if I’m to search for anyone at all, he thought.
Ethan had been careful to wear his commoner’s clothing on this journey, as had his fellow priests. This was no time for bold assertions of their priesthood. They had run across a number of patrols along their journey to Hopple from Millertown, but had managed to avoid them. Demons had been seen scouting for the patrols and spying out nearby villages. Ethan was glad for his special sight, more than ever.
Evidently Mordred was searching hard for him, even after all of these months since the battle with Jericho in the throne room. But by the Lord’s providence they and their precious cargo had remained undiscovered. Ethan only hoped Gideon’s foolhardy trip back to Millertown had not compromised the mission. And even more, he hoped to see his friend safe again.
Ethan left the chest of scrolls with Joseph and Micah inside the large cave they had found, while he walked the remaining several miles into the village proper. Ethan heard wolf calls on several occasions and once during the trip he had even realm shifted, hoping to avoid detection by a hungry pack on the hunt.
When Ethan finally arrived in the village of Hopple, he was surprised by the size of the docks, the ten or so large ships docked there, and by the miniscule amount of buildings actually built on the shore. For all intensive purposes, the dock system was three times the size of the village and looked like a small town afloat in the calm waters of the harbor.
The onshore dwellings were simple wooden structures-single family homes, mostly, with cobblestone lanes running between them. There were a number of larger buildings supported by stilts, anchored to the seafloor in the harbor. Ethan supposed they might be taverns and other such places where the wages of weary sailors could be spent on frivolity and wickedness.
These were excellent places to find the sort of people who undertake mysterious voyages. Ethan trod down the path, winding through lanes of lantern-lit windows-families settling in for a good night’s rest. He proceeded from shore to the docks and the revelry of fools eager to part with their money in the establishments beyond.
When Ethan reached the sea, it surprised him to find the cobblestone lanes simply continued unabated as bridges, extending into the harbor. Normally the docks would have been constructed of wood, but the people of Hopple had built a highly organized system of stone walkways likely standing a good ten feet above the water, even at high tide.
Ethan heard music filtering out of several larger buildings, so he decided to head for the closest. A few people milled about on the stone pathways. Then Ethan noticed a man in uniform. Hoping not to arouse suspicion, he did not pause or quicken his pace.
The man happened to be one of Mordred’s soldiers. He was not as large as the Wraith Riders and may have been one of the men conscripted from Nodian villages. Ethan continued on, past the man, toward the tavern.
When Ethan reached the door, he passed two more soldiers. Fortunately he had worn commoner’s clothing. The sign hanging over the door read, The Salty Dog. Lively musicians played at the far end of the building and a great number of people danced and drank intoxicating beverages. Soldiers danced as well, slinging ale from their mugs in every direction in the process. Armed men and strong drink, never a good combination, he thought.
The Salty Dog was not an elegant place. In fact, it lacked refinement in every way imaginable. There was little more to the structure than a bandstand for the musicians and tables for gamblers and drinkers. A bar along one wall served intoxicating beverages of every sort. This is where Isaiah has arranged for us to find a ship to take the Word to Macedon?
A cloud of smoke hung in the room fed by a plentitude of pipes. Ethan sputtered and coughed, hoping he wasn’t too conspicuous. Nevertheless, he was acutely aware of the fact that his young age was apparent. Anyone remotely alert wonder why he was here.
Ethan reconsidered his decision to enter the Salty Dog. He turned and noticed the two soldiers approaching him from across the room. He walked more quickly, heading back toward the door when a foot moved out into his path, tripping him. Ethan fell to the floor, landing on his palms as though he would begin a set of pushups. He bounced back to his feet quickly, only to find a ragtag sailor shoving his chair away. “You stepped on my foot you little puke!” the man bellowed.
The sailor was unshaven, lanky in appearance, with a mop of black hair sprouting like roots out from under a dirty seaman’s cap. He smelled absolutely awful, reeking of body odor and strong drink. Ethan was about to apologize to the man, when he noticed the soldiers again. While he wasn’t paying attention, the sailor hauled off and smashed him across the cheek.
The blow shocked him back to the confrontation with the drunken sailor. The man prepared another telegraphed punch, which Ethan blocked with ease. “Please, I don’t want to hurt you, sir.”
He felt it wasn’t even a fair fight, until the drunkard managed to fade with his next punch and get by Ethan’s defense. That punch doubled Ethan over. The man came at him again as the patrons around them began cheering for anybody who could do the most damage. Ethan blocked again and threw his first punch at the man, but the sailor anticipated it with ease and countered. A lightning fast succession of hand-to-hand, feet-to-hand, and feet-to-feet maneuvers quickly followed until the soldiers broke them up. They grabbed Ethan and slugged the sailor in the gut with a club. The soldiers drew their swords. Ethan wasn’t sure what to do.
“I told you never to come down to this stinking tavern,” a man yelled from the crowd. He ran up to Ethan and snatched him by the scruff of the neck away from the soldiers. “Thank you kindly, officers,” the man said, regarding them before he chastised the boy again. “Your mother has been worried something fierce, and here I find you drinking with the devil in this place. You’re going to get the beating of your life, that’s what!”
Ethan stood flabbergasted until he noticed the man wink at him while his back was to the soldiers. Ethan recognized the man as Levi Bonifast. He wore a crude disguise with a full beard and different clothes, but it was him. Ethan almost hugged him, but Levi tore his leather belt out of his trouser loops and began thrashing it at him. “Boy, you had better run your hide home, if ya know what’s good for ya!”
The soldiers stood there dumbfounded. “Hey, I want to see-” began one of them.
“Aye, officer, your right, I’ll skin him alive, if I give him a lick. He’ll get the beating he deserves!” Levi said. Then he chased Ethan out of The Salty Dog at the end of his belt.
Levi left the soldiers with the drunken sailor still hanging limp between their arms. “What about this one?” they asked of their commander.
“Throw him out!” the commander said. And so they did.
The soldiers carried the smelly urchin just outside the door-he moaned the entire time. Then, giving him a grand heave-ho, the two soldiers sent him reeling into the dark waters of the harbor.
Levi ranted at Ethan the entire way until they had passed the bridge leading them to shore and the housing district of Hopple. Then he settled down and looked around, searching for any soldiers who might be lurking in the streets. “How ya doin, lad?” Levi said with a toothy grin.
Ethan grabbed his outstretched hand and shook it as though he’d never been so glad to see anyone in his life. “I can’t believe you’re here in Hopple!”
“I better be, if I’m to bear you and Gideon to Macedon with the Word of Shaddai.”
“You? You’re providing our passage?” Ethan could barely contain his excitement.
“Aye, it was Isaiah who sent me here,” Levi confessed. “He’s a crafty old man.”
�
�I suppose he is,” Ethan said. “We’ve got to get back to Joseph and Micah. They’re keeping watch over the chest in a cave not too far from here.”
Ethan turned intending to lead Levi through the village toward the cave in the badlands beyond. But standing there, soaking wet and angry, was the smelly sailor whom Ethan had brawled with in The Salty Dog. “Where do you think you’re going?” he shouted.
Ethan prepared for another round with the disgusting brawler when the man stopped short and pulled off his seaman’s cap. His black head of hair came off with it. Underneath, a short layer of black hair bristled. Instantly, the puzzle pieces clicked into place.
“Gideon!”
“Shhh!” he hissed.
Gideon reached out a hand to Ethan, and his body odor wafted toward their noses.
“Oh, man…whew! Gideon, you really do stink!” Ethan said.
“I know, it’s disgusting ain’t it?” he flashed a rancid grin, teeth caked in something green, akin to algae.
“Let’s not dawdle, lads,” Levi warned. “We’ve got to get the Word loaded onto my ship and shove off without alerting those soldiers. The sooner we get back to the cave, the more likely we can get out of port unnoticed during the early morning hours.”
They ran at a brisk pace up the hill toward the boundary of the village.
“Gideon?”
“Yes, Ethan?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to run ahead of you.”
“Aye lad, good idea,” Levi said. “If I don’t get upwind of his foul funk, I’m liable to lose my dinner.”
SUCH SWEET SORROW
As it turned out, Gideon’s bath was sooner forthcoming than expected. He and the others arrived at the cave in good time where Joseph and Micah stood watch over the Word. And having taken the chest from the two priests, they bid them a safe journey back to the Temple and sent them on their way with the horses and wagon. The best way to get the chest to Bonifast’s new ship was by water.
They walked back to the sea, apart from Hopple, and entered the harbor with the chest. The air-filled container floated weightless on the water as Ethan, Levi and Gideon swam with it around the docks toward Captain Bonifast’s new ship. In the partial moonlight, Guards patrolled on the stone walkways above, but they paid little attention to what might be lurking in the water below.
They drew near the new ship, which was moored to the outermost dock. “What’s it called, Captain?”
“Yeah, what’s the name of your new girl?” Gideon said, grinning.
He gave the priest a cynical look. “Well it’s not the grungy priest, that’s for sure,” he hissed. “She’s called The Trinity.”
Ethan and Gideon considered the excellent choice of name. “I like it,” Gideon said. “It’s very appropriate.”
They swam around to the port side, facing away from the dock. There they found one of Levi’s new crewmembers waiting for them. He climbed down a ladder hooked on the rail and helped his captain carry the chest up to the main deck.
The new ship was smaller than the Maelstrom had been, but she looked far less worn and possibly faster. Up above them, Ethan heard the crew scurrying about lightly on the deck, preparing for a silent departure, if possible. The wind blew favorably, and the moon remained hidden by dense cloud cover-time to set sail.
Ethan bypassed Gideon climbing up the ladder. Instead, he realm shifted, reappearing on deck next to the captain. Levi utilized hand signals and whispered to his crew, as they made ready for departure. “Mooring lines away,” he called to some and, “unfurl the mainsail,” to others.
Ethan watched him, admiring the man. Captain Bonifast was a true seaman, only happy when he was sailing the great oceans where danger ever lurked. The man had not been the same since the destruction of his former ship, the Maelstrom. Now, that same wild light had returned to his eyes, and Ethan knew a great adventure lay ahead of them.
Trying to prepare such a vessel in the dark was truly a difficult task, but to try and do it without making any noise was nearly impossible. Mordred’s soldiers patrolled the docks already. Unfurling the massive canvas sails simply required too much activity to go unnoticed.
“You there, what are you doing!” a soldier shouted from the dock.
Everyone onboard froze in place, searching for the origin of the call with dread. Two soldiers stood off the starboard side with muskets ready and swords at their sides. “You’re not authorized to leave at this time of night!”
Gideon called for a weapon, but Ethan flew into action first. He realm shifted, then shot down to the docks, appearing beside one of the soldiers. He pulled his sword and dispatched him quickly. The other whipped his musket up toward Ethan’s chest, cocking the hammer back. Ethan rotated his body around the barrel of the long rifle, as the soldier fired, then struck the man squarely with his weapon. Still, the shot had been heard all over the docks.
“Catch the wind, boys!” Bonifast shouted. The men flew into action without any further concern for noise or being seen. It was now too late for any of that now.
Soldiers filled the docks as the shot roused a few, then they in turn called the others from their revelry. Fortunately their drink had dulled their senses-they fired on the Trinity, but showed little accuracy. Ethan ran toward the other soldiers, until he heard Gideon call for him. “Ethan, don’t try it! Get onboard!”
The ship pulled away as the musket fire increased. Then an explosion erupted from the smoky haze swelling around the docks. A had cannon fired. Some of the soldiers were shooting at the Trinity from a small ship moored nearby. The cannon ball sailed over the deck punching through some of the rigging equipment.
Bonifast responded. “Port gun crew, blast everything!”
The crewmembers, operating the guns, opened fire on anything and everything on the port side as the ship moved away from the docks. After the first volley everything became quiet. No one returned fire. Pain-filled cries filtered through thick white smoke. Ethan appeared back on deck next to Gideon, looking winded, but unharmed. The Trinity pulled away, caught the wind, and disappeared through the haze of cannon smoke drifting over the harbor.
Sailors and bar patrons swarmed all over the docks, trying to figure out what exactly had happened. A cloud of white smoke hung heavy over the stonework pathways. Men, wounded or worse, lay strewn everywhere near the place where the Trinity had sat docked for months.
A lone figure walked carefully among the dead-men conscripted unto his service. The Wraith Rider stared coldly at the damage left in the wake of the Trinity’s escape. By rank, he was a captain, by birth he was an abomination. The man stood near one of his soldiers from among the heathen tribes. The injured man reached out to him, his black and red uniform soaked in his own blood from the wounds inflicted tonight.
“What happened here?” the captain said, his voice menacing.
The man shook against his own pain, trying to relay the information. “A ship, trying to escape…”
“Was the Deliverer onboard?” But the man slumped forward, his many wounds having gotten the better of him.
The captain moved on, uncaring for the human life wasted before him. “Joyner?” he demanded.
A demon appeared behind him. “Yes, Captain Vastiss?”
“Take word to our Man-O-wars patrolling the coastline-destroy the ship called Trinity. Leave no one alive.”
“It will be done,” the demon said and vanished.
ABDUCTION
Sarah tired of the long day at her parent’s laundry. She had carried many deliveries. Despite being with child, and beginning to show it, she insisted on continuing to work. Sarah had never been the sort who could laze about the house. She would have gone mad with nothing to do.
Still, the work was hard and the bags heavy, so her parents had hired one of the local boys to help her with the deliveries, an eleven-year-old named Matthew. He was strong for his age, a ruddy boy with a mop of brown curls and blue eyes. Some day, she thought, he’ll have his pick of wife.
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br /> “I’ll take that one,” Matthew said as he pulled a heavier bag of laundry out of Sarah’s hand and gave her the much lighter one.
“You don’t have to baby me, Matthew. I can manage.”
“You keep saying that, but I can’t just let a mother-to-be carry around the heavy things while I take the small stuff. What kind of man would I be then?”
Sarah admired his ethic and decided to stop arguing with the boy. He was, after all, here to help. And as the weeks pushed on, her back ached more and more with the heaviness of her child. “Well then, let’s get going. Mr. Oggle will want these linens for his customers.”
The two of them walked across the street. Sarah noticed a pillar of dark smoke rising from beyond the hills of her family’s property. “Our farm! The house must be on fire!”
“I’ll go tell your father!” Matthew started to run back toward the laundry. But the thunder of galloping horses stopped him cold. They both stared down the road coming into town. Wraith Riders poured in like a storm surge. They rode into Millertown with weapons raised high and torches set ablaze.
As they passed through, sending pedestrians running in terror, they flung their torches through the glass windows of storefronts. Anyone caught nearby was slain with the sword. Matthew pulled at Sarah, urging her to escape. She stood in shock at the sheer ferocity of the attack. Why are they here? Why now?
Neither Sarah, nor anyone else in Millertown, saw the demon flying here and there among the people, searching for the girl he had seen with the priest of Shaddai-his wife, now with child five months. As fierce as the Wraith Riders were, they did not kill any of the young women, knowing the girl was extremely valuable to Lord Mordred, their entire purpose in Millertown revolving around her safe capture.