Sunlight shimmered off the oak sides of Thomas’s vast boat, Anemon, as he walked the boardwalk beside it. Winds curled in the boat’s sails where they had been tied with ropes to the towering posts above. The Pishon River’s currents flowed about his boat’s hull.
Behind his ship, six other boats from Havilah’s fleet were docked. Men scurried on their decks, preparing the vessels for the journey to come.
“Ahoy, Thomas!” Juniper called down to his king from Anemon’s deck. He waved his thick hand in excitement. “Board, sire, so that we may begin the quest for your queen!”
Warm sunlight seeped through the cloths upon Thomas’s chest. “It’s as if you have more excitement than I!” he called back toward his guard. “All in good time, my fellow! The most worthwhile things come with patience, not urgency!” The gangplank ebbed a little beneath him as he walked up its slant to the boat’s deck.
Juniper gave him a friendly embrace.
“Is the entire crew aboard?” The young king eyed the men scurrying along the deck in search of Pine and Cypress.
A strapping pair of boys about his age pulled up the plank behind him as he walked toward the mast.
“Pine has been helping prepare the ship since sunrise and is below deck finishing his final inspection. Cypress arrived just before you with your bag, as you had wished.”
One of the ship’s galley boys ran up beside them with a tray of diced cedar-board seared salmon and sipping-glasses of wine.
“Thank you.” Thomas took a piece of salmon and handed the boy a gold coin from his coin bag.
Pine burst up from below deck. “Good day, sire!” he exclaimed. “All is in order to lift anchor.”
Cypress walked upon the upper deck close behind him.
Thomas lifted a tiny glass of wine from the tray while chewing the delectable salmon and beckoned his guards to his side. “Then let us take sail to find my queen!”
Pine, Juniper and Cypress all clutched wine glasses of their own, and toasted with their king.
The drink burned Thomas’s throat as it trickled down.
“Lift anchor and let loose the sails, men!” Pine bellowed out along the deck and men with conch shells relayed the message down the fleet. “We set sail for Cush!”
Men on deck untied the ropes holding back the sails and the vast white sails curled and whipped in the wind.
With a sudden jolt Thomas could feel the ship moving beneath them. He looked back at the small fleet of ships following Anemon and sighed at their beauty. They looked strong and angelic in the river’s currents. The morning sunlight shimmered across their sides as gulls hovered and dove about the vessels as they moved.
The king took a red cloak from Cypress’s arms and draped it over his shoulders before making his way toward the front of Anemon’s deck. There he sat on a strong wooden bench and enjoyed the countryside as it slowly moved by.
The villages of Havilah passed slowly by and Thomas waved to his people. At each town he would have the ship’s men launch a bag of gold and jewels to his people to show his love for them. In return they gathered on the riverside and cheered his passing.
As they passed the final village Thomas noticed something out of the corner of his eye that moved him. He stood and hurried to the front deck where he yelled “Thank you!” to a man along the shore waving a horsehair paintbrush in the air and smiling. Beside him on a long stone wall was a portrait of the king and a quote Thomas was known for using, ‘Beauty comes of all that is.’
Thomas took a ruby ring from his hand and thrust it into the air toward the man. It shimmered in the sky before skidding into the sand beside the painter, spitting sand up as it landed.
The painter reached down and lifted it from the sand, kissing it and then waving back in gratitude.
The quote the man had painted described the way Thomas constantly strived to be. He tried to find something beautiful and enjoyable in everything he encountered in the world and believed that everything possessed beauty whether he could see it or not. For this reason he treated everyone he encountered as if they were his closest family and gave the respect to the people of every land that he gave the people of his own.
As that final village disappeared into the distance behind him Thomas laid back in relaxation while watching the lush forest drift by along the boat’s sides. With the sunlight above lulling his body, the king shut his eyes, drifting away into a world of sleep.
Hours passed.
Noon came and went before giving in to dusk.
He awoke to a haunting red fog with Pine and Cypress standing guard beside the bench he had fallen asleep on.
Howls echoed from the distance through the foggy crimson sky. Shuddering, Thomas pulled his blanket close to his body. He rose, instantly awake. “What are those sounds?” He turned to Pine.
“We don’t know. They began soon after we entered the fog.”
A series of howls echoed from the boat’s sides but seemed to come from no direction at all. It was as if they had originated in his mind.
He knew where he had heard those haunting noises before. “Pine!” Thomas took a step forward while squinting to see through the fog.
“Yes, sire?” His massive guard replied.
“Are we near the unknown lands where we retrieved the figs?”
Pine thought for a second. “I believe so. Do you believe these noises to be coming from the creatures which chased our ship along the shore as we left that place?”
Before Thomas could reply, hoofed beasts swept through the red fog and landed upon the boat’s deck. They had bodies and arms of men but goat-like legs and heads of wolves, rams, foxes and dogs.
Their beady eyes pierced Thomas’s mind. In their hands were shields and swords. They cocked back their heads and howled in rage.
“My weapon!” the young king screamed to his guards who had formed a protective ring of three around him.
Juniper quickly placed his ruby sword in his hands.
“We should get you below deck,” Cypress spoke to him as a dog-headed beast lunged upon them. With a swift motion of the guard’s sword the creature was sent plunging over the ship’s bow.
“I will not desert my men!” Thomas called out as two wolf-headed beasts and one fox-headed lurked toward the group.
Their swords thrust against the guards’ own with force as sparks leaped from the reflective metals.
With all his strength Thomas plunged his sword through the belly of one of the attackers and the beast disintegrated into an eerie smoke.
“What…?” he gasped in confusion.
Human cries reached his ears from the direction of the remainder of his fleet. He prayed the beasts wouldn’t sink his ships.
One of the creatures knocked Pine’s sword from his grasp and the hulking guard clenched his fists around its neck before squeezing the life from it and causing it to burst into oily smoke.
Cypress cut through their other attacker with his massive sword.
“Daemons!” a man fighting for his life along the deck screamed before being beheaded and crumbling to the wood beneath him.
Thomas was glad it was too dark to see the blood spewing from his fallen body.
The boat rocked. His stomach churned. Lightning cracked from the dark clouds above.
“We must make our way out of these waters!” Pine called as he picked his sword off the deck and directed Thomas slowly toward the ship’s wheel. “Man the sails!” he instructed Cypress and Juniper.
Pine splayed another beast as they made their way onward. His massive fists clenched the wheel and he instructed two other men close by to watch his and Thomas’s backs.
Soon their vessel’s pace quickened and Thomas could barely make out the shorelines. Two more creatures seemed to fly toward them as they howled and made their way across the deck. Steel met steel, and within seconds one of the men guarding him and Pine was slain. His body fell limply upon Thomas’s feet, his eyes filling with
blood, and the young king took the man’s place in defense of Pine.
“Flee, sire!” Pine cried out. “Do not fight!”
Thomas blocked out the guard’s words. It was too late to reconsider now. His ruby sword clashed against the beast’s and its blood-red ram eyes burned through his consciousness.
A grinding sensation shrieked through Thomas’s arms as he held back the beast’s attack. His forearms felt as if they would give way. “Why do you haunt our ships, you ghosts of the woods?” Thomas parried and struck again. The hoofed beast did not waver. It was like striking his sword against a stone wall.
With a step to the left he struck again without avail and a deep growl reverberated in the monster’s throat.
“YOU are THIEVES!” the beast growled while striking Thomas’s legs.
Thomas agilely leapt into the air to avoid the blow and stumbled on the deck as he came down once more. The boat rocked, forcing the young king’s feet out from beneath him before pummeling him to the deck. As his fingers slipped on the wet deck, his ruby sword slid from his grasp.
“NOW you MUST ANSWER for WHAT YOU have DONE!” The hoofed beast stomped down, pinning his wrist.
“AHHHH!” Thomas screamed in agony before staring up into the thing’s eyes.
Behind the figure, he cringed as he saw the man who was fighting beside him be struck by his opponent through the shoulder and then kneed to the ground.
“Pine!” Thomas called out for his guard. “Help us!”
The ram-headed beast struck him with its paw. “STAND, HUMAN!” it commanded.
To his feet, Thomas slowly rose. As he stood at full height he looked to where Pine had been. He saw him contorted over backward on the deck with a sword lodged in his breastplate. Blood bubbled from his wound.
The ram-beast slowly brought its sword to Thomas’s quivering neck before backing him up against a wall of planks behind him. “Leave us be! We’ve done nothing to you.” Thomas mentally ran through different ideas on how to escape his captor. It was no use. There were others joining its side now.
“NOW!” It growled before sliding its sword’s blade across his thin skin.
Thomas closed his eyes and braced for death. He began praying to any gods he had ever heard about.
“STOP IT!” the beast roared. “THERE is only ONE lord! WHERE ARE THE FRUITS of KN…” And with that the river’s air fell silent except for waves and his people’s cries on deck in agony.
Thomas opened his eyes to a dissipating oily black fog and sunset in the sky about him. The creatures were gone.
Along the banks birds sang.
“Sire!” he could hear Juniper calling from the bird’s nest above. “Are you alright?”
The young king stumbled to Pine’s side and touched his neck to feel for his heartbeat. “I am fine!” He called up to Juniper. “But Pine needs our help as I’m sure many others do on this ship! Where did those creatures disappear to?” Blood gushed from Pine’s chest and pooled around Thomas’s knees. The sunset shimmered in the curdling red bath.
“I don’t know, sire!” Juniper called down as he quickly descended the bird nest’s ladder. “One second I was battling a beast with vast wings and just as I thought it would best me it vanished in an oily plume! We must remain alert, for these creatures may still be among us even though we cannot see them.” Juniper leapt from the ladder and his boots thumped upon the deck.
Within seconds he was at Thomas’s side.
The ship’s wounded moaned and cried to each other across the deck.
As Thomas knelt in Pine’s blood he squinted across the deck and was overcome with nausea. His heart wretched in his chest, he thought he saw Pine’s eyelids twitch, and as Juniper’s massive hand laid down on his back, Thomas’s mind filled with darkness and his body crashed upon the blood-splayed deck. His fingertips twitched and went limp.
҉
Moments before, in the darkness as the battle raged, a man with scale-plated webbed hands clasped onto the ship’s front, down where it met the river’s currents. Tiny suction cups on his fingers took hold of the boat’s sleek wood while waves broke and thrashed about his legs.
His forked tongue skipped across his lips. “Ssssoon the angelssss will passsss..” The creature spoke to itself in an airy rasp. It smiled as fanged teeth writhed in its lips. “And I will remain.”
The darkness around it was consumed by a plume of oily smoke and in that moment the man’s arms and legs sucked into his body. His head shrunk along with his form until his body was that of a snake. “Ssssoon you will ssssee he issss mine,” its tongue spat, as it seemed to address some unknown other.
As the newly shimmering sunset glistened across its form the serpent slithered up the ship’s front and into the bust of a woman that looked out majestically from the vessel’s mast.
It breathed in a deep breath of the men’s fears on deck.