enemies entered the throne room from the doors at the far end.
Gideon saw a flash of light nearby, Ethan suddenly appearing-tossed out of the spiritual plane like a rag doll. He spilt onto the stone floor like a basket of potatoes, unmoving. “LEVI!” Gideon shouted.
Levi ducked under one of the massive legs of a giant laver in order to block a sword and return his own. He looked up in time to see Gideon shoulder block a merchant out of his way and use the poor fellow’s back as a springboard to somersault over several other people.
Gideon landed on the stone floor, running toward Ethan. The boy lay unconscious but breathing. Gideon found the strength to lift him onto his shoulders, bearing the boy’s weight. He tried to avoid the mass of soldiers coming after him. At least, the enemy had been diverted between himself and Levi.
Gideon ran away from the group of possessed soldiers rushing after him. He led them in a wide arc around the end of the throne room, using one of the long tables from the banquet as a barrier. He ran straight for Levi, who had cleared out the soldiers around himself. Time had run out for them.
“What do we do? There are too many,” Gideon said, as they met again in front of a giant laver. The demon possessed closed from behind. They had seconds before the soldiers overwhelmed them.
Without thinking about it, Levi turned and hacked through one of the four support legs holding the laver up. Two strikes damaged it enough, so that it gave way completely, spilling massive quantities of wine out onto the chamber’s stone floor.
Hundreds of gallons of red wine swept up the wooden banquet tables, tossing them around the room like toys. Translucent red waves toppled bodies and furnishings, searching for the path of least resistance.
The waves hit the laver on the opposite side of the room so hard that it, too, gave way, toppling over, spilling its contents into the flood, making it even harder to find footing as the wine cascaded across the floor, hit the sidewalls, and came back on itself.
The flood also swept Gideon, Ethan, and Levi off their feet. Levi spotted their way of escape. There in the middle of the chamber, a whirlpool formed above the only hole in the floor. “Come on!” Levi shouted as he pushed toward the whirlpool. Gideon still held the unconscious Ethan over his shoulder.
The vortex seized them, sending them spinning around three times before plunging through the drainage hole. In the mass confusion of bodies and debris swept around the throne room, no one even noticed what had happened to them.
THE DELIVERER LIVES
The flood of wine sent Gideon, Ethan, and Levi shooting down the drain tunnel, riding an overwhelming current. It sloshed and whipped through the three-foot diameter pipe like an angry snake as gravity urged it downward toward the sea below. They were not sure how it happened, but they were all three sent down an intersecting tunnel off the main pipe from the one they had climbed through earlier.
After a quick but brief ride through this intersecting pipe, it deposited them rather violently into an anteroom. They splashed down into a shallow pool about two feet deep. The anteroom was large and rectangular. A stone walkway stretched down either side of the pool. Gideon pulled Ethan up onto the walkway with Levi following.
“Is he alive?” Levi asked.
Gideon laid Ethan flat on his back and checked for breathing and a heartbeat. He sighed and said, “Yes, he’s alive. Thank the Lord.”
Ethan began to stir. He opened his eyes to slits and tried to speak. “Gideon?” he whispered. The effort made him wince in pain, clutching his midsection.
“Maybe he’s wounded, but I don’t see any blood,” Levi said. He opened up Ethan’s shirt and what he saw horrified him. “They look like burns of some kind.”
Gideon saw them as well. “I’ve never seen anything quite like them,” he said.
The wounds looked as if a red-hot sword had been drawn over the flesh. They were obviously causing Ethan great pain.
“Do you think you might be able to stand?” Gideon asked.
Ethan winced and nodded. “I’ll try,” he said through the pain.
Both Levi and Gideon helped Ethan get to his feet. He was still dazed and weak, but the Deliverer of Shaddai lived. Ethan found it hard to stand or walk without leaning on his two friends, but to his credit, he tried hard.
The anteroom opened up at one end into a large tunnel. Here the pool turned into a creek of sorts, flowing gently toward a distance speck of light. They chose to walk in this direction. Light probably meant sunlight, and all they had to do at this point was reach the end of the tunnel and see where they were.
The walk was a long one. Ethan managed to gain a little more strength as they continued. Within a half- hour, they had still not walked half of the tunnel’s length. The point of light grew steadily, but they still had a long way to go.
Ethan spent most of his steps moaning, wincing in pain from his wounds. Then he spoke up. “I’m sorry for not listening, Gideon. I was a fool for not taking your advice.”
“I’m sorry you weren’t able to rescue your sister,” Gideon said.
“I probably could have, if I’d only listened to you and allowed Shaddai to guide my actions. Hopefully she’s safe and I’ll have another chance to try.”
“We’ll not give up hope. We’ll try again as Shaddai leads, all right?” Gideon said.
“Aye, lad, we’ll get her eventually,” Levi said. “Just trust in the Lord and the power of his might.”
Ethan smiled as much as he could through the pain and nodded. He cast a glance toward heaven, whispering, “I should have done that in the first place.”
The trio continued, walking through the tunnel. The point of light gradually became a circle of light, terminating into the mouth of an underground cave. They emerged into bright sunshine, hearing the noise of horses in the distance.
A high grassy band rose up on either side of the creek as it continued on away from the mouth of the cave. The men climbed, having to drag Ethan all the way. When they reached the top, they saw an army, apparently in full retreat.
The white granite walls of the city of Emmanuel lay to their left, two miles away. The army retreated from the city and looked badly beaten. Many horses trotted along with wounded men in their saddles. Other men walked as best they could.
There appeared to be no rush to leave and none of Mordred’s soldiers were in pursuit. Levi and the others scanned the walls of the city, finding them stained with black powder burns and blood. It was obvious King Stephen had not breached the wall. A great many, perhaps thousands of men, lay in the battlefield round about the walls of Emmanuel. The sight of so much death marred the city’s once unblemished beauty.
“They’re retreating!” Levi said.
“They’re beaten,” Gideon corrected. “I wonder if the king has survived this ill-fated attack.”
Levi simply stood, staring as the king’s army limped away, like a beaten dog, from Mordred’s bloodstained ramparts. There had been such high hopes in the planning. They had supposed the king’s plan so well conceived. Had they not undertake this fight for the Lord’s glory? Had they not done their duty?
“We should try and catch up with King Stephen, if he lives,” Gideon said.
That uncertainty left a hollow feeling in Levi’s stomach. Was the king alive? It had only been King Stephen’s unrelenting determination that had gotten the war effort this far. If he had been killed, then Levi feared no one would be able to rally the people against Mordred. And if they didn’t defeat the dark lord, then it would only be a matter of time before Mordred pushed into other kingdoms like Wayland and beyond.
DEFEAT and DISCOURAGEMENT
Levi and Gideon, with Ethan in tow, tried to head off the retreating army of King Stephen. They took a path following the creek and were able to intercept the wounded band as it followed the Emmanuel road. Ethan saw why a pursuit was not forthcoming from Mordred’s Wraith Generals. He saw the heavenly host guarding between
