Captain Bonifast ran to the helm and took over. He looked like a cat toying with a mouse. He played the wheel, watching the slaver ship battling against the sea several hundred yards ahead of them. The smaller ship bobbed up and down violently as the storm surge threatened to dash it to splinters.
Ethan thought he might be sick. The meal he had enjoyed earlier now churned in a stomach that felt as angry as the sea. Gideon seemed to be handling it better. Ethan wondered if the priest had sailed before during his time with The Order of Shaddai.
Ethan prayed as he held tight to the rail. Gideon watched him and stayed near. A rope around each of their waists tethered them to the ship. The crew moved about as though this sort of treacherous pursuit was second nature to them. And Captain Bonifast handled the ship like he’d been born to the task, anticipating each swell and bringing the ship into waves before they could crest and slam into the Maelstrom.
Apart from the constant up and down and the fierce wind, all was well aboard Bonifast’s ship. The same could not be said for the slaver ship. Bonifast kept a careful eye on the enemy vessel as he maneuvered the Maelstrom ever closer. The rain had not started…yet.
Gideon staggered across the deck trying to get to the helm and Bonifast. Ethan watched him, but he did not follow. He had enough trouble just trying to keep his lunch down. Gideon reached the helm as Bonifast sent the ship hard to port in anticipation of a coming wave. The captain’s expression grew intense. He stood at the helm in tune with the wind, the waves, and his ship.
“Even if we catch the ship, how can we board it during a storm?” Gideon shouted over the din. It was a fair question. There would be no way possible to do such a thing without being able to line the ships up in parallel and keep them still.
“We’re not going to board it!” Bonifast said, his expression suddenly turning grim.
“But what about the slaves they have onboard?” Gideon asked.
“We don’t know that they have any slaves on that ship, lad!”
“But if they’re headed back to Emmanuel…they wouldn’t go empty-handed!” Gideon reasoned.
The sea started to give Bonifast more trouble now. The questioning did nothing to help his concentration either. The captain’s face grew hard as he watched his target.
“You can’t just kill the innocent with the guilty!” Gideon pleaded.
Bonifast’s anger got the better of him at that point. He grabbed Gideon’s robe-big mistake. Gideon intercepted the intruding hand at the wrist. His index and middle finger on his other hand landed precisely on the captain’s left carotid artery.
Gideon heard the hammer-cock of a musket behind him. Turning, he found Anthony holding a long rifle on him just beyond arms reach. The Azure Sea rolled, boiling in its anger behind him. “Release the captain, NOW!” Anthony shouted.
“Why are you doing this?” Gideon asked Bonifast as he relinquished his grip.
“Have you ever seen what happens to the slaves of Mordred, priest?” Bonifast said getting back to the wheel to make course corrections again.
“They let demons have their way with them. They destroy their hope and their will. They drive them crazy, kill them, or possess them! My orders are very clear from King Stephen, Gideon. I’m instructed to sink anything I can’t take. And just like you pointed out, I can’t hope to board them in this weather. They know that too. And if they manage to use this storm to get back to the mainland, then the captives will be lost anyway. I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. This is the way it has to be.”
Gideon stepped away from the captain. Anthony lowered his weapon, staring at the young priest as he staggered back to where Ethan stood on the deck. The boy hoped to find his sister among the slaves. He was not going to like this.
SEA SHIFTING
“He’s going to do what?” Ethan shouted.
Gideon tried to calm him down, but it was impossible.
“But my sister could be onboard that ship!”
Sea spray peppered the two young men as they talked. Ethan glared at Captain Bonifast as he operated the helm. Anthony stood near, watching them with his musket in hand. Gideon put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder and said, “There’s a reason for it, Ethan.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Bonifast knows about the demons that are working with Mordred. He said his orders from King Stephen are to sink any slaver that can’t be captured. He said the slaves are given to the demons to possess them, if they can. The rest are driven mad by the experience, or killed.”
They both looked out over the sea between the Maelstrom and the slaver ship. The storm intensified. “Ethan, you know there’s no way we can board that ship in this weather. If we don’t sink the ship then we risk losing it and condemning those people to a fate worse than death.”
To anyone else such statements might have sounded like the ranting assumptions of a lunatic, but Ethan knew all too well that demons were real, that they conspired with Mordred in this war. Subjection to them was something he could not bear to think of happening to his sister.
He slumped down on the deck, completely broken by the turn of events. Ethan watched the slaver, a mere three hundred yards away from them now, as it rose and fell with the raging sea. Had he come so far only to see his sister destroyed by this accursed war right before his eyes? Unable to bear it, he began to weep.
A thought hit Gideon like a thunderbolt. There might not be anything Bonifast can do, but Ethan is an entirely different matter. Gideon dropped down in front of Ethan and took the fourteen-year-old by the shoulders. “Ethan! You could save her!”
Ethan looked up at the priest, bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
A cross wave smashed into the bow causing the ship to shudder under the impact.
“Of all of the people onboard this ship, you are the only one who isn’t constrained completely by this physical world. Use your gift, Ethan! Find out if she is onboard before Bonifast closes the gap between us!”
Ethan jumped to his feet and ran to the rail, his lifeline tether trailing behind him. “But Gideon, what do I do if she is onboard? How can I get her off of the ship?”
Gideon stammered for an answer. “I don’t know…but I do know Shaddai is with you.”
That was all the encouragement Ethan needed. He concentrated on what he wanted, whispering a prayer to the Almighty. “Oh, Lord, help me to know how to use these gifts you’ve given. I don’t know why you would use me, but I beg you for guidance and the ability to save my sister.”
Gideon watched his friend as he snapped out of the physical world. The lifeline rope fell to the ground. Ethan had disappeared.
Ethan stood on the railing of the Maelstrom. Gideon picked up Ethan’s lifeline, which fell to the deck when he entered the spiritual plane. Ethan saw Gideon, but the warrior-priest of Shaddai no longer saw him.
The world around him took on a different feel. No longer did the wind beat upon Ethan, or the sea pelt him with salty drops of water. He saw the blue Azure through preternatural eyes and felt the world with new senses. He sensed enemies onboard the ship across the raging ocean-demons were on that ship.
Even from this distance, Ethan saw the activity onboard the slaver vessel. Crew members tried to keep the ship afloat as they ran from the Maelstrom. But these men did not have the sort of well-oiled-machine approach to their duties like Captain Bonifast’s nimble crew. These men, dressed in the crimson and black apparel of Mordred’s army, were not storm riders like Bonifast.
Ethan scanned the rest of the vessel and found someone watching him. A demon was clinging to the mizzenmast. At least this was what Ethan supposed on first inspection. But a closer look revealed the creature actually standing upon the face of the vertical beam. Gravity held no sway over him.
Without hesitation, the demon let out a war cry, charging across the expanse between the two ships. Ethan
