A Ship Called Eros

Each of the crew dawned tight fitting leather pants that cut off below the knee. Blades stuck out at the knee as well as the leather straps that covered their forearms. Their sandals were light with one inch spikes on the soles. Redd often thought it would make good climbing gear for the peaks of his island. He chuckled as the thought left his mind. Their use was for a much more dangerous climb. Redd opened a large chest that was nailed down in the center of the deck and pulled out a spear hewn from a dark wood with a hook on the end. Each of the thirteen men grabbed their weapon from the chest and ran to the side of the ship. If there was any fear left in their hearts, it did not show. Their eyes gleamed with a hunger for the adventure to come. With each passing wave, the anxieties of their past lives had passed away. Each had come to accept the way of Eros, for to follow Eros was to follow the bear. Each had made an oath out of love to the bear to protect these waters with his life. Obedience was now the rhythm of their joy. “We be heading through the straight.” Tanner yelled as he raised a broad sword. There was a smile on his face like that of a man who saw food for the first time in a month. The island had been splintered into five piece ages ago leaving shear cliffs five hundred feet high with only three hundred feet between them. The main island was crowned with a smoking mountain that rumbled at night. The sea washed across the five islands at a slant creating a hard break on the west sides of the straights. When the sea was calm, the water would spray one hundred feet in the air like a raging river. A normal ship would never make it through such a gauntlet. But Eros was not a normal ship. The wind shifted and she picked up speed for the middle straight. Redd’s eyes were now wide open and his knuckles white as he held fast to his spear. There was only one reason Eros would take them through the straight. One of the beasts must have retreated into its depths. He hoped it was the great red beast the men called Vepar. She had taken five of his men since he had joined the Eros. All were close friends. His eyes drifted up toward the peaks of the cliffs. A green dot left the edge of the cliff and dove down toward the waters below. It was one of the kite riders that collected precious stones from the broken islands making their way back to the main island. As the dot fell, its shape became more clear, like that of a falcon covered in deep green cloth. He knew someone that once flew such a kite. A giant wave caught Eros and rode her high up the cliff only twenty feet from the jagged wall of rock. Redd’s eyes shot down at the water below where a white and yellow horn stirred just above the waves. It was the forehorn of Vepar, whose massive body must have been just below the foam below. Eros shifted right riding the wave down toward the monster and as she did, the kite rider zipped by her bow. She yelled as she shot by, her voice wild, her brown curly hair fluttered madly as she chased the wind. Redd caught a glimpse of her face as she flashed by, although he knew it was her before he saw her. Only one kite pilot would dip so low in the straight. It was Raven. He had thought after ten years he would have never seen her again. Racing down to the surface of the water she banked hard and unsheathed a long knife from her back and drug it across the surface of the water. The blade turned from silver to red as she pulled up kicking the tip of the white horn as she barely passed over. The blue foam of the water below turned red as the very sea seemed to come alive below. With a deafening roar, a great red beast five times the size of the Eros, rushed out of the water and chased just behind Raven. Before he could think, Redd broke into a full sprint toward the bow of the ship. Tom followed close behind with an axe in one hand. With one leap, Redd was on the tip of the white bear’s nose and with the second leap he was airborne, spear in hand. Time had no meaning as he flew thirty feet, landing hard on the back of the red monster. The blades on his leather armor sunk deep into the beast’s flesh. He felt a shiver on the beast’s back as Tom landed beside him. Vepar was still rising as they climbed on her back . . . the white and yellow horn was still forty feet away. Raven veered hard left coming back over the beast as if playing with her. She passed just over Redd and their eyes met for only a moment. Raven then caught the updraft and shot high into the sky. Redd picked up the pace of his climb on the great beast that was now near the apex of its surge out of the water. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Raven wave. Was she waving at him or for him to come along? His mind debated the meaning as he sprinted up to the head of the monster. Twenty feet beyond the horn, bulging out of the sleek red skin was the first of the beast’s three yellow eyes. Its diameter was the full length of a man. Redd looked into the eye and remembered why he was there. He waved his spear in the air to let the beast fully see it before he lunged it deep into the yellow globe. Tom smiled as he raised his axe on the other side. With a nod the two men struck the eye with one heavy blow. White smoke erupted from where the black wood pierced the beast. Vepar let out a great yell that shook the cliffs. In moments what was once an eye was now a crater of ash. Redd looked back with Tom at the remaining eleven of his shipmates who were farther down on the beast’s back, stabbing and hacking at its flesh. White smoke and ash blew across the red landscape of Vepar’s back. In agony, she arched into a giant backflip and took fully to the air. Redd soon found himself hanging from his spear as the beast now towered above him. He looked down below at the rushing waters of the straight. Tom smiled. “We’ve got to stop hanging around like this Redd.” Redd laughed and gave one more twist to the hook at the end of the spear. With that, he fell through the air with eleven other men. Below in the straight, Eros raced across the waters catching each of the men in her sails as they fell . . . that is all but one. Tanner held tight to the beast’s flesh and hacked deeper into its chest. As Vepar crashed down into the water, a massive wave rushed forward lifting Eros half way up the cliffs before she made it to the end of the straight and shot out of the gap like a cannon ball into the open sea. Redd looked back at the island as it grew smaller on the horizon. Tears filled his eyes as his mind filled with the image of Tanner hacking away as the beast hit the water. Now they were only twelve and Eros would soon look for another, for she needed thirteen, no more, no less. The island was now just a blur through his tears. He wondered if he would see Raven again.