The Pillars of Hercules (18 page)

“Let’s do this,” said Matthias—and before Lugorix could protest he leapt out the window and onto the rope, holding fast with his gloves and boots while he slid down it, rapidly rocketing away from Lugorix, dwindling as he closed in on the boat. For the first time in his life, Lugorix found himself hesitating. Facing down men and monsters didn’t worry him, but a few things did, and he suddenly realized that jumping from the wall of a besieged city onto an enemy ship was one of them. For a moment, he envisioned other members of his tribe beside him, mocking him; spurred by that impetus, he leapt out onto the rope.

And hurtled downward. The wall shot away above him; he thought he was plunging directly toward the water and then he felt the rope above him, kicking like a living thing as it grew taut and he zipped in toward the boat. All around him was missile-fire: stones arcing down toward the fortress, bolts leaping up from the fortress… he caught a glimpse of that vast army steadily closing the distance between its ranks and the moat—those infernal machines towering above it, leading the way—and then in front of him was a sail and a mast and the stern of the ship, the latter filling his vision as he stretched out his legs and slowed, the rope burning against his gloves until he smelt smoke and leapt off, sprawling onto the deck.

Matthias stood there, blade out, already hard-pressed by half a dozen men. But those men were too busy with Matthias to have spotted the approach of the second interloper—and even less prepared for the giant axe that started shearing through them as Lugorix waded in. They were taken completely by surprise—and before Lugorix knew it, those who were left were fleeing toward the front of the ship.

Lugorix and Matthias headed to the stern to find the helmsman. Lugorix led the way as they hacked their way to the man’s side, Macedonians scrambling out of his path and leaping into the water.

“What gives,” said the helmsman, who was clearly Athenian. The ship slowed momentarily as the rope went completely taut—and then the boat jolted forward again as that tether snapped altogether.

“Who are you working for?” asked Matthias.

“That’d be you,” replied the helmsman, eyeing Lugorix’s axe.

“So turn this ship around.”

The helmsman started to do just that—and ducked as a spear flew past his head, thrown by one of the Macedonians now regrouping further down the deck. Matthias and Lugorix ducked behind some barrels; Matthias unslung his bow, nocked an arrow and fired, catching a Macedonian in the chest. The rest of the Macedonians took cover behind the port forecastle.

“It’s a stand-off,” muttered Matthias. “There’s more of them but they have to come to us.”

“You sure about that?” asked Lugorix—gestured at the far bank of the moat. The foremost of the Leviathans had almost reached that bank. One of its arms hung limp at its side, and the rest of it was battered and dented, but as a fighting machine it was still very much intact. Ballistae and bolt-throwers were mounted atop it; a massive and unholy clanking emanated from within.

“Zeus save us,” muttered Matthias as it crashed into the water and began striding toward them.

Eumenes didn’t know which was more interesting: what was going on in the moat, or Alexander’s reaction to it. The prince’s attention was totally fixed on the struggle for the ship. Matters weren’t going according to plan—the Athenians had managed to get men back into the barbican, and now they’d done the same for the ship, which was turning around in the water even as a Leviathan bore down on it.

The question was why the boat was so important in the first place. Eumenes didn’t know. What he
did
know was that he was looking at a plan known only to Alexander, Philip and Hephaestion. And maybe not even the latter… but as Eumenes studied the marshal’s body language, he realized the man was in on the secret for sure. Hephaestion wasn’t just responding to Alexander’s obvious tension. He knew something. Something specific, and it involved that boat which was rapidly becoming the center of everyone’s focus. For a brief, crazy moment Eumenes wondered if whatever was aboard was the whole point of the entire assault. But then he dismissed the notion as ridiculous.

After all, nothing could be worth so much.

The colossus strode through the water. The moat was deep, but nowhere near deep enough—the water came up to the machine’s waist, which kept on moving forward. A lone Athenian warship was nearby; crowded with archers and siege-engines, it unleashed a withering stream of fire—but the shots bounced harmlessly off the armor of the Leviathan. Next moment, the machine lowered one of its arms and unleashed a titanic jet of flame from nozzles set into its wrist. Fire enveloped the warship—men turned into screaming human torches leapt into the water. The burning ship drifted aside as the Leviathan bore down on its quarry.

“Shit,” said Lugorix.

Now that it was getting close, he could see the way in which its head had been built to look like a real one—eyes that looked down upon him, giant jagged teeth which decorated a mouth set into an awful leering grin. He could make out Macedonians manning bolt-throwers mounted on the monstrosity’s shoulder—they were firing at the battlements on the barbican. The ship kept on turning away from the oncoming Leviathan but it wasn’t turning fast enough.

That was when the Macedonians aboard the boat rushed the stern. Matthias’ hands were a blur as he fired arrow after arrow. Lugorix waited till they were almost upon him before he emerged from cover and began laying about with Skullseeker, arcing the axe through the air in great strokes. The blade smashed through a man’s chest while the hilt splintered another’s teeth. But the Macedonians were veterans and pressed in regardless. Matthias stood off to the right, still firing arrows—now at the very rearmost point of the stern, and if anyone came any closer he’d have to drop the bow and draw his blade and make do as well as he could with it. Above them all towered the Leviathan, kicking up waves of such force that the boat was bobbing like a wooden cork. Hatches in the machine’s belly opened; through the Macedonians pressing in against him, Lugorix caught a glimpse of a rope dangling from the Leviathan, its end disappearing into the hold. Next moment, two Macedonians were being hauled up along it.

Along with Barsine.

She was kicking and screaming and all to no avail as she was hauled into the belly of the beast. Lugorix stepped forward, lopping the head off another Macedonian—continuing to hack about him with his axe, pressing his advantage until the Macedonians retreated back down the deck. There were only a few of them left now and they knew the game was up—they were leaping up to grab more ropes sidling down from the Leviathan. But whoever was driving the Leviathan had more pressing priorities. There was a clanking noise as the colossus lurched to the side, began turning around. Those Macedonians who had grabbed onto ropes found themselves swinging helplessly—two smashed against one of the machine’s legs and lost their grip, tumbling into the water. Another fell back onto the ship’s deck, his head splitting open like overripe fruit. But Lugorix was already sprinting past him and onto the ship’s prow. And as the Leviathan strode past them he did the one thing he could.

Jump.

He hurled himself against the monstrosity’s legs, managed to grab onto the edge of one of its armor-plates. He hung there for a moment, then began clambering up from plate to plate. The fact that the leg was in constant motion made that all the tougher. The Leviathan was now striding back the way it had come, and Lugorix could only wonder what the onlookers on the Athenian walls were thinking as it retreated toward Macedonian lines.

Not that it was any less a target for the Athenian defenses. Projectiles and bolts streaked past Lugorix as he kept scrambling ever higher up the Leviathan’s leg. One hit the area where he’d just been with such force that he almost lost his grip. But then he was at the level of the machine’s waist. That was when he was spotted by some of one of the bowmen perched besides the siege-machines on the shoulder. The archer drew back his bow—only to be suddenly hit through the chest by an arrow fired by Matthias, standing on the ship’s deck and watching for just such a moment. The Macedonian fell back screaming and Lugorix breathed a sigh of relief.

Only to suddenly find a hatch right beside him. An archer leaned out, drew a bead on Lugorix—who hurled himself forward, ducking under the arrow and grabbing onto the man’s arm, pulling himself into the hatch in one fluid motion even as he yanked the man out. Lugorix glanced back at the now-dwindling Matthias, gave him the thumbs-up sign and then continued deeper into the huge machine. He ducked low through some doorways—a soldier whirled to face him and Lugorix cut him down. Moving past the still-twitching corpse, Lugorix could hear plenty of activity coming from the next room. He peered on through.

It took a moment to take it all in. He was looking at what was clearly the Leviathan’s central hub—a cavernous chamber that occupied what had to be almost the entirety of the machine’s chest cavity. Several wooden platforms were stacked on top of one another, and on on each of them was a massive horizontal wheel, each wheel being turned by slaves, each slave chained to his position on the wheel. Ropes and pulleys and cables were everywhere, all of them cranking and groaning as the wheels turned and the machine lurched onward. Slavemasters with whips and Macedonian soldiers with drawn swords ensured that the pace never slackened.

Until Lugorix stormed forward.

So stunned were the Macedonians that they barely even recognized they were under attack until several of their number had already been butchered. Lugorix was a barbarian possessed as he hacked at both cables and flesh; limbs and rope flew across the room as he fought his way forward. A slavemaster slashed at him with a whip—only to be suddenly pulled off his feet by the slaves nearby and gutted with his own dagger. Next moment, the slaves were using that dagger to cut themselves free. As slaves swarmed away from the object of their servitude, the Leviathan shuddered, stumbled—then leaned to one side, shuddered and stopped.

But Lugorix didn’t. He strode forward, grabbed a wounded Macedonian, shoved him up against the tilting wall.

“Where’s the woman?” he growled.

“Upstairs,” said the man—and those were his last words as Lugorix tightened his grip, crushed his windpipe before he whirled and began clambering up the stacked platforms. Slaves helped him up, cheering. Others were engaged in an orgy of destruction—smashing the wheels wholesale, seizing the weapons of their Macedonian overseers and using them to break open vats set along one of the walls. Black tarry pitch leaked out. A slave hurled a torch—just as Lugorix noticed tubes leading from one of those vats through the wall, in the direction of one of the arms. He remembered how the Leviathan had torched that Athenian ship to the waterline. But he made the connection a little too late.

“Don’t do it,” he yelled.

There was an explosion. Sheets of fire tore through the room. Flame began roaring up the platforms as slaves scattered through every exit they could find. Smoke billowed around Lugorix as he climbed through a hatch in the room’s ceiling and ran along a walkway. Two Macedonian guards tried to block his way—he ducked past their blades, and then sliced through them both with a single massive stroke. Blood went everywhere as he pushed past the still-twiching bodies and up some stairs.

Straight into the control-chamber. A tilted view of the Macedonian siege-lines was dimly visible through two huge porthole-eyes; much closer was the edge of the moat. Levers and tubes filled the room, but whoever had been manning the controls had fled.

Except for one man. The Leviathan’s captain stood in the center of the room, his eyes trained on Lugorix. He held a dagger in one hand, Barsine in the other.

“Turn around,” said the captain.

“And miss all the fun?” Lugorix’s tone was light but his mind was racing. This is where having Matthias around would have been useful. All he had was the axe. It could possibly be used as a throwing weapon in an emergency, but not as a precision one. Which meant he had absolutely no idea how to get Barsine out of this alive. As if realizing this, the captain laughed.

“I’m serious, barbarian.”

“So am I,” said Barsine as she suddenly dropped a dagger from her robe into her hand and stuck it through the captain’s stomach. He gasped, tottered backward—Barsine ducked away as Lugorix strode forward and swung Skullseeker, sending the captain’s blood spraying all over the portholes. He turned back to Barsine.

“We need to get off this thing,” he said.

“You think?” she muttered. She dashed past him, going back the way he’d come, along the walkway—only this time right past the hatch and out onto the weaponry platform on the Leviathan’s right shoulder. Smoke was everywhere now and the tilt of the Leviathan was becoming more pronounced. Slaves were swimming away from the doomed colossus in all directions. There was a crash as one of the arms fell off, flame licking from it as it hurtled into the water. Lugorix looked around.

“Only one way to do this,” he said. Barsine grabbed his hand. He stared ahead. It was a long way down. “On the count of three,” he said. “One…two….”

“Screw that,” said Barsine. As one, they leapt forward, away from the Leviathan. The moat rushed up toward them and they hit, crashing through the surface and plunging down until blue turned to black and Lugorix could barely tell which way was up. He still had hold of Barsine’s hand, but she wasn’t reciprocating—she was going limp. He grabbed her, hauled her back up toward the surface. They broke back out into the air—Lugorix realized the shock of hitting the water had momentarily winded Barsine, for she was gasping for breath and seemed stunned. He wrapped an arm around her, trying to keep her above the surface while he swam back toward the walls of Athens.

That was when he heard a terrible creaking noise above him. A shadow fell across him as the Leviathan toppled into the water with an almighty splash, crashing through where he and Barsine had just been. Everywhere people were struggling to stay afloat—Macedonians swam back toward their own side, slaves swam toward Athens. Lugorix was with the latter group—and despite his burden, he quickly forged out ahead of them. But it was a long way to go. And two more Leviathans were striding into the water. Along with thousands upon thousands of barbarians, who began using their mantlets as boats as they paddled toward Athens, heedless of the blizzard of fire and shots that poured down upon them.