PoraBora

Chapter Twenty-Two

The oil boiled. Heat wavered across the surface. Bubbles grew out from brown and into a sheen of every color before they popped and released desperate steam from below.

If it remained long enough, there wouldn't be any water left.

Had Keasau finally grown exhausted, or was it only tired of being pursued? Why the god had stopped worried Akoni, but it seemed to give Makaia no pause.

The man stared down at the churning waters, where swells, directed from the nearby islands, hissed with every crashing contact, sizzling across the surface like breakfast grease. "Have the wooden ships maintain a safe distance," he commanded. "Bring all the metal vessels to the front."

Tua seemed more worried. "Where's the storm?" he asked.

"It's calmed down," Akoni replied. "There won't be a storm until it's riled up again."

"In a minute, then," said Kepuni.

Too true.

It took some time for the ships to reposition. Akoni didn't mention that Makaia would be exposing his fleet to anyone catching up. When six metal giants rode at her fins, the hammerhead entered the oil.

"Are you going to share your plan?" Akoni asked Makaia.

"Don't worry. You and your syphons won't need to do anything."

"Then why bring us all the way here?"

Makaia stared across the oil sea. "A good chief always has a backup plan."

As soon as the ships entered the pool, the metal creaked and boomed from bottom to top. In minutes, the hulls were empty of men. Akoni hoped their plan was quick, for the sake of the barefoot warriors. Steel tended to get hot when Keasau was involved.

They made it to the center of the pool on quiet motors, a slow drift that frustrated peeled eyes with no results.

"Get the ships in position," Makaia said to the commander, and he took a position over one of the cannons.

Akoni and his syphons remained on the bow to watch. The other ships spread out into the oil, grim faces peering over readied cannons. It would be a barrage capable of destroying a fleet, but it wouldn't capture a god. He'd spent three years thinking they could use them to drive the god underwater, but now knew it could drive it only to destruction.

"He never told us his plan," said Noo'omu.

"Neither did you," said Yetamika to Akoni.

It was time to find out anyway.

Out in the open seas, they didn't have the shaking of the spar to alert them that the breach was coming.

Keasau erupted from the sea in its entirety. Its flippers spiraled around its body, tail slung out like a threat. Silence and cheers swept across the ships in equal measure, but in that second, they hadn't come to truly appreciate what it was they had come up against.

"Yeah," breathed Poka. "That's it."

"Looks bigger out here," said Noo'omu.

"Get below deck," commanded Akoni.

The four of them took a last look and decided better of watching. They went below as Akoni walked to the very edge of the ship. He looked down into waiting waters, where Keasau had disappeared and ripples rolled into swells.

"Keasau!" he called out. "It is time for you to return home!"

Whalesong shook the boats and the warriors quieted. Most of them would never have seen the god, despite the strips of oil to suggest they had his blessing. Akoni grimaced. Each bellow of the whale was distinct from the next, but even three years with the god hadn't connected himself to its messages. Pain, anger, indignation. They could have been anything.