over yet, Deliverer.”
Ethan brandished his swords, ready for another attack. The torches still burning in the room snuffed out and, despite the sun beaming through the gouged walls of the castle, an oppressive darkness crept in around them.
Ethan gasped for breath as though he’d been punched in the stomach. But he wasn’t breathing in this realm. Something else had happened. The demon lowered his weapon and smiled. “The master comes, boy.”
Ethan grimaced. “I’m not afraid of Mordred, you Hell-spawn.”
The demon’s eyes flashed with rapturous glee. “I do not speak of Mordred.”
The demon fled through the wall again, leaving Ethan alone. He felt choked by the encroaching shadow. Fear enveloped him. He materialized in the physical realm and ran away from the ruined walls toward the inward parts of the castle. Laughter followed him, dogging his heels as unrealized terror gripped his heart and took control.
Ethan remembered this fear and its source. The demon Jericho-the one who had beaten him and left him scarred for life-painful wounds that ached when the demon came near. His flesh screamed at him now to run for his life. Like a frightened rabbit, he obeyed its voice.
Jericho stood as still as stone, focused on the castle of King Nichols of Macedon. General Hevas Rommil stood attentively beside him on the ridge. The Mortar batteries maintained their campaign against the stone edifice in the distance.
Jericho allowed only Rommil to see him. This much was necessary. The Wraith General could handle it. The common man rarely could without overwhelming fear, sometimes to the point of madness.
Jericho smelled his prey upon the spiritual plane. He alone, among the demons allied with Mordred, held a connection with the boy. His blade had pierced the boy in a way no earthly weapon ever could-straight to his very essence.
Terror permeated the air-the fear of men under Nichol’s command thinking themselves allied to Rommil. Now they understood the treachery involved as the general’s shells cascaded down upon them.
Jericho surged outward with his power, feeling for the Deliverer in every crevasse, along every wall, like a living shadow. He taunted the boy’s spirit, causing him to flee through the broken ramparts in the distance. There is no escape, Deliverer…no escape from me.
“Now, General.”
“My Lord, the Deliverer is present?” Rommil asked.
“Yes, and in no condition to fight now,” Jericho said. “Take your men and storm the castle. Take him alive if possible.”
“Forgive me, my Lord. Can the boy be contained?”
Jericho turned his head, leveling his steely gaze upon Rommil. The General swallowed hard. “I control his fear and, with it, him. My kind, dwelling within your men, will take charge of him. We can hold him in either realm now.”
Rommil bowed to the demon. “Yes, my Lord. It will be done.”
He turned and ordered his men off the ridge as he mounted his great black horse. The soldiers obediently abandoned their posts at the mortar stations, took charge of their weapons, and stormed down the hill after the Wraith General.
FEARFUL
Ethan ran as hard as he could to escape the encroaching darkness, but it only grew. Deeper into the ruined castle he fled. The corridor, illuminated only by scant torchlight, seemed endless. The laughter followed him everywhere like a ball and chain.
Where can you go? There is no escape. You and your friends will all die. None can save you. You have not the strength to defeat me.
The voices echoed from every direction. The floor seemed to change. He fell to the ground, but the stone was soft, gooey. Ethan looked back at his foot anchored inside miry clay.
Ethan pulled with all his strength until the foot came loose. He scrambled to his feet again, desperately trying to break into a run, but the floor grabbed at his every step. Behind him, the torches mounted upon the corridor wall flickered and went out one by one.
Ethan felt the weight of the demon’s power press upon him. How could he hope to defeat such an enemy? He fell again, then clawed at the floor, trying to gain ground. Ahead, Ethan noticed the torches going out there, too.
Ethan saw eyes appear in the mounting darkness. Hundreds of pairs of blood red eyes ran down the corridor in his direction. Huge, black rats flooded into the remaining light.
Ethan screamed as the voices laughed again. He found a reserve of strength and floundered into a run in the opposite direction. He entered pitch blackness again with the surge of rats following.
The pairs of red eyes glowed and spread out so that they ran along the walls and even across the ceiling. A torch flashed into view. Ethan slammed into someone at full speed. The torch spun away and hit the wall sending out a flurry of cinders.
Two horrible slimy monsters stood before him. The smell wrenched his nose making him want to vomit. He tried to claw his way backwards as the monsters approached. The rats flooded around them, and Ethan screamed again. The voices laughed and Jericho’s face seemed to fill the corridor with multiple views of the Demon Lord.
Levi shook Ethan by the shoulders as the boy flailed frantically in his arms. His eyes were drawn to something unseen in the corridor. Seth picked up the torch and brought it near. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him, Seth. He’s not responding to me at all. Ethan!”
“I don’t think he can hear us right now. He may be under a spiritual attack of some kind,” Seth observed.
Levi shook him again, but his expression remained frozen in terror. “Ethan, wake up!”
“Listen,” Seth whispered. “The shelling has stopped.”
Indeed, only the mournful cries of the wounded and dying could be heard echoing through the castle corridors now.
“That means Rommil will be marching his men into the castle soon,” Seth said.
Levi watched Ethan. “What about the boy?”
“He needs prayer. Only the Lord can break this attack.”
Levi watched the young blind warrior as he called out to Shaddai, asking for his intervention. He prayed earnestly. Silently, Levi added his own prayer to Seth’s.
Ethan’s tense, shuddering body began to relax quickly. Bonifast watched his face and soon saw signs of real consciousness. Ethan blinked. His gaze settled on Levi’s face.
“Ah!” he screamed.
“Ethan it’s me,” Levi said hastily, remembering what he must look like after their trip through the sewer pipe.
Ethan calmed at the familiar sound of his voice, then reached up and rubbed some of the slime away from his friend’s face. “Levi?” He sniffed, then curled his nose. “You stink! You smell like a sewer. Where in the world have you been?”
Levi smiled. “A sewer, where else?”
Seth moved the torch closer. “Gentlemen, I think it’s now time to leave. The general’s men will storm these ramparts within moments.”
“Who are you?” Ethan asked, noticing the young man for the first time. “I remember seeing you on the street begging.”
“Yes. My name is Seth. I was sent to Macedon years ago by The Order of Shaddai.”
