He lay back and forced his mind to relax, loosening the spirit once more. Soaring from the Temple, he sped across the ocean, seeking the ship and praying that he was not too late.
Clouds were gathering in the east, promising a storm. Vintar swooped low over the water, spirit eyes scanning the horizon.
Forty miles from the coast of Ventria he saw the ships, a trireme with a huge black sail and a slender merchant vessel seeking to avoid capture.
The merchant ship swung away, but the trireme ploughed on, its bronze-covered ram striking the prey amidships, smashing the timbers and ripping into the heart of the vessel. Armed men swarmed over the trireme’s prow. On the rear deck Vintar saw a young woman dressed in white, with two men – one tall and dark-skinned, the other small and slightly built. The trio leapt into the waves. Sharks glided through the water towards them.
Vintar flew to Rowena, his spirit hand touching her shoulder as she bobbed in the water, clinging to a length of timber, the two men on either side of her. ‘Stay calm, Rowena,’ he pulsed.
A shark lunged up at the struggling trio and Vintar entered its mind, tasting the bleakness of its non-thoughts, the coldness of its emotions, the hunger that consumed it. He felt himself becoming the shark, seeing the world through black, unblinking eyes, tasting the environment through a sense of smell a hundred, perhaps a thousand times more powerful than Man’s. Another shark glided below the three people, its jaws opening as it swept up towards them.
With a flick of his tail Vintar rammed the beast, which turned and snapped at his side, barely missing his dorsal fin.
Then came a scent in the water, sweet and beguiling, promising infinite pleasure and a cessation of hunger. Almost without thinking Vintar swam for it, sensing and seeing the other sharks racing towards it.
And then he knew, and his soaring lust was quelled as swiftly as it had risen.
Blood. The victims of the pirates were being thrown to the sharks.
Releasing control of the sea beast, he flew back to where Rowena and the others were clinging to the beam. ‘Get your friends to kick out. You must swim away from here,’, he told her. He heard her tell the others, and slowly the three of them began to move away from the carnage.
Vintar soared high into the sky and scanned the horizon. Another ship was just in sight, a merchant vessel, and the young priest sped towards it. Dropping to where the captain stood by the tiller Vintar entered the man’s mind, screening out his thoughts of wife, family, pirates and bad winds. The ship was manned by two hundred rowers and thirty seamen; it was carrying wine from Lentria to the Naashanite port of Virinis.
Vintar flowed through the captain’s body, seeking control. In the lungs he found a small, malignant cancer. Swiftly Vintar neutralised it, accelerating the body’s healing mechanism to carry away the corrupt cell. Moving up once more into the brain, he made the captain swing the ship towards the north-west.
The captain was a kindly man, his thoughts mellow. He had seven children, and one of them – the youngest daughter – had been sick with yellow fever when he set sail. He was praying for her recovery.
Vintar imprinted the new course on the man’s unsuspecting mind and flew back to Rowena, telling her of the ship that would soon arrive. Then he moved to the pirate trireme. Already they had sacked the merchant vessel and were backing oars, pulling clear the ram and allowing the looted ship to sink.
Vintar entered the captain’s mind – and reeled with the horror of his thoughts. Swiftly he made the man see the distant merchant ship and filled his mind with nameless fears. The approaching ship, he made the captain believe, was filled with soldiers. It was an ill omen, it would be the death of him. Then Vintar left him, and listened with satisfaction as Earin Shad bellowed orders to his men to turn about and make for the north-west.
Vintar floated above Rowena and the two men until the merchant ship arrived and hauled them aboard. Then he departed for the Lentrian port of Chupianin, where he healed the captain’s daughter.