Battle of the Gods

The storm came on gradually, the breeze rising so gently that Amaal and the others sleeping on the Phoenix didn’t even stir. The rain had not yet started to fall when Ba’al cracked his golden whip across the night sky. A gentle rumble of distant thunder followed, and the horizon burst with yellow light. The captain ordered sails raised and lashed to the yard beam at the top of the mast. As the first fat raindrops fell, the passengers awoke to the patter and rushed for cover below deck, but the captain barked an order to remain above, so they pressed against the sides of the swaying ship while Yamm, master of the sea, flexed his watery muscles in preparation for battle with his immortal enemy, the mighty Ba’al, lord of the wind.

Amaal huddled with Hannu and Uru under the Tillerman’s awning. A burst of lightning illuminated the surface of the sea, and for a split second she could see Yamm’s inky waves churning up foam and driving the fleet apart.

“Hannu!” the Tillerman shouted, “Take hold with me!”

Hannu pushed his mop of hair back from his face and grasped the tiller, ready to glide with the waves. Ba’al took a deep breath and started to blow. The captain shouted to the rowers, “Pull into the storm! Up her skirts!”

The Oarswoman pulled hard on her oar and shouted back, “Up your skirts!”

The voyagers laugh anxiously as the Phoenix sailed through a blurry curtain of rain.

Yamm’s fist thrust upward, lifting the ship like a cork stopper onto the first high wave of the storm. Amaal and Uru held fast and moaned as they rode up the front of the wave and cried out as they pitched down its backside. The instruction to tie everything down had been largely followed, but Yamm seized every loose blanket, sandal, and spoon and flung it into the sea. Ba’al sent a raging wind to curb Yamm’s audacity, but the sea god’s tantrum had just begun. What the two were fighting over this time, one could only imagine. Their animosity toward one another was legendary, and everyone knew that a clash between them might not bode well for the humans who were nothing more than tiny specks on the battlefield of the powerful forces that ruled the world.

The rain whipped across the decks, soaking the rowers and testing their grip on the oars as they fought to hold their direction against the threatening sea. The Tillerman uttered prayers and curses as he and Hannu controlled the tiller. It wasn’t the speed he feared—the Phoenix could handle any speed—it was the confused direction of the wind and waves that could suddenly roll the ship sideways and pull her under. The only light came from brief flashes of lightning. Otherwise, he and Hannu were blind to the monster waves.

Amaal managed to anchor her feet on the deck, but Uru had to hold on for dear life with her skinny, purple arms wrapped around the railing. Amaal calculated the risk of moving to a safer place against the danger of being swept overboard and decided there was no better place to go. She moved closer and sheltered Uru with her body. As the storm raged on, she found it harder and harder to stand up to the crashing cold water. Her arms and legs grew stiff and numb, and she feared she could no longer hold on. At that moment, in a flash of lightning, she spotted someone in silhouette, standing near the mast. He held onto a rope that was tied to the crossbeam above. His feet were planted firmly on the deck, but he swayed effortlessly, as though he were calmly waiting for a friend to go fishing. Amaal squinted through the sea spray. It couldn’t be. Yes, it definitely was. It was Kalev. He looked directly at her and smiled as he pitched in the storm. He seemed to be sending her a message: here, do it this way. The sky went dark, and in the next flash of lightning, he was gone.

“Hold on!” The Tillerman called out.

Amaal braced herself behind Uru as a great wall of water, unseen in the darkness, crashed on top of them and flooded the deck. Amaal shut her eyes and held her breath as the immense force gushed past and pulled her away from the railing. It was all she could do to hold on with one hand. When she opened her eyes, Uru was gone. She screamed into the howling wind, “Uru! Uru!” In the next flash of lightning, she scanned the deck, but Uru was nowhere to be seen. She turned and screamed, “Hannu! Hannu! I’ve lost Uru!”

 Then, in the next flash of light, Amaal saw the Tillerman lifting what appeared to be a big, floppy doll from the deck. Again, darkness enveloped them. Amaal hoped what she’d seen was correct. At the next tilt of the ship, the Tillerman shouted. “Grab her!” Amaal reached out, groping desperately in the dark. Her fingers found a handful of sopping wet tunic and she closed her fist tightly around it. Fighting to maintain her grip on the railing, she pulled Uru toward her. The rolling ship threw them hard against side. Amaal grabbed Uru around the waist with her one free arm. She shouted, “Uru! Uru! Can you hear me?” but Uru was unresponsive. Of course she can’t hear me, Amaal thought. But she can feel me. She shook her hard and screamed, “Uru! Wake up! Wake up!” Uru’s eyes fluttered. She sputtered and a mouthful of water dribbled down her chin. She took a gasping breath and coughed out more. Amaal held her, spoon-in-spoon, against the side of the ship and, like the apparition she had seen, swayed with the Phoenix as the violent storm raged on.

Bleak morning came. The gods laid down their most deadly weapons but called no truce. In the relentless downpour, the wind and waves continued to batter the ship. The captain ordered a change of duty so those who had been rowing all night could rest and wrap their bloody hands. Ba’al finally called off his gale force wind, and Yamm calmed his monster waves. In the aftermath of the storm, an eerie silence fell over the Phoenix. By then, even the babies had given up crying. The captain ordered a resin fire lit in a pan on deck. The acrid black smoke coughed a signal into the clearing sky. 

The seafarers, numb with cold, hugged each other back into existence, not yet fully aware of the injuries they had sustained and all they had lost. Amaal peeled Uru from the rail. Her forehead was bruised, the skin on her arms rubbed raw. The Tillerman left Hannu to steer and came to offer her a drink from his goatskin flask. She shook her head and turned away.

“Take one big swallow,” he insisted. She did, and he gently picked her up and leaned her over the side where she threw up the contents of her stomach, mostly sea water. “That should do you some good,” he said, setting her back down. However, it had done nothing to stop the girl’s shaking. Amaal sat with her on the deck and wrapped her arms around her while they waited for whatever was coming next.

The captain called for a status report and quickly determined that, while her passengers and crew were battered, the Phoenix had weathered the storm in decent sailing condition. He sent the navigator up the mast to scan for landmarks and concluded that the storm had blown them far east of their intended route. He ordered the sails lowered and told the Tillerman to steer in a zig-zag pattern to scout for the others. It was nearly an hour before the lookout spotted a plume of black smoke on the horizon. The Phoenix and Nebula had found one another. The two ships met, doubling their smoke signals and thus their chances of finding the other missing vessels.

A short time later, the sun emerged through the clouds and the Arbiter appeared with a faltering Sage in tow, her mast snapped in two by the storm. Her weather-beaten passengers and all of her animals had been transferred to the Arbiter, leaving the flagship heavy laden. The fleet would never make it all the way to Atiq or back to Motya. Bitias ordered a heading for the closest port, Gozo, a small island in the shadow of her bigger sister, the island of Malta, and the ships, such as they were, fell into formation.

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