James Somers - The Order of Shaddai

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.”

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.