The Pillars of Hercules (42 page)

Just not in time.

As soon as the three-man squads had crossed the ropes, the Macedonians aboard the barges had lowered their own oars and started rowing hell for leather. Even as the Carthaginian sailors were thinking they had the situation under control, the barges came surging out of the dark, slamming into the back of the warships, the Macedonian soldiers throwing out grappling hooks and pouring onto the ships.

It was over fast.

Most of the Carthaginians were slaughtered, their bodies thrown overboard to feed the sharks and whatever else cared to dine on them. Of those who remained, most were chained and put to work rowing. A scant few were allowed on deck to perform the other tasks that crewing a ship required. But all such tasks were carried out under the watchful eyes of the Macedonian soldiers. The fleet would continue on to Sicily to play its part in the final battle—but under new management. As for Carthage herself, her time would come.

When her ships returned.

The latest viceroy had arrived from Athens. But the people of Syracuse weren’t paying much attention. They were too busy working alongside Athenian soldiers to rig the defenses of Syracuse. Ammunition was being prepped. Siege-engines were being hoisted up all the towers. Sections of the wall that had fallen into disrepair were….

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Leosthenes, looking over the list of preparations. He’d only just gotten off the boat from Athens and up into the Ortygia and already the bad news was pouring down like a river of shit. He handed his purple general’s cloak to a servant, took a goblet of wine from another. Memnon was busy unfurling the maps of both Syracuse and Sicily.

“That’s the problem with having an island in the middle of a maritime empire,” he said. He slid some paperweights over the edges of the maps to keep them pinned down, looked up at Leosthenes. “You tend to get complacent. Unprepared for the possibility that an enemy might actually reach you.”

“Tell me about it,” said Leosthenes. He’d been sent out here in the wake of Hypereides gaining ascendancy on the council. The good news was that Leosthenes had seen the writing on the wall—had chosen the correct side in the duel between the council’s two rivals. Phocion was now under house arrest. But just as Leosthenes was congratulating himself on yet another arrow dodged, Hypereides gave him his reward for services rendered.

An appointment to head up the defenses of the west.

Leosthenes still didn’t know whether that was a death-sentence, a way of getting him out of the way, or a genuine belief that he was the right man for the job. Maybe all three. It was clear enough that none of the other archons wanted to take the job of taking on Alexander. Either they thought Leosthenes might pull a miracle out of his ass, or they wanted to make sure that someone else got the blame. Not that Cleon had set much of an example. One of Leosthenes’ first priorities was to make sure the fortress of the Ortygia was as impregnable as its reputation, since there had been way too many forced entries lately. He scanned the map of the city, looking over its defenses while Memnon took an initial look at those of the island.

“What’s this?” asked the old man. He was pointing at the section of the Sicilian coast that the dotted line which denoted Alexander’s bridge had nearly reached—at the red squares hastily inscribed along that coast. The lieutenant in charge of the briefing leaned forward.

“We’ve got five thousand men there,” he said. “Waiting to repulse Alexander. As soon as his bridge gets within range.”

Leosthenes and Memnon looked at each other in shocked silence. The archon was the first to break it.

“Get those men off that beach,” he said.
“Now.”

The lieutenant looked confused. “But sir—this was the defense strategy agreed upon before your arrival. It’s the only way to make sure that Alexander—”

“Kills us all,” snarled Leosthenes. “Don’t you get it, man? Anytime you start talking about the
only way
to fight Alexander, you’re as good as
dead
. Now pull those men off the beach before I kill you myself.” The red-faced lieutenant saluted—then started for the door.

But it was already too late.

They sailed through that ocean for days and nights and never saw any land the whole time. And all the while that hairy star grew nearer—so close now it could be seen during the day as well, reflecting on the dark water all around. Except sometimes that water wasn’t dark. Sometimes it barely even seemed like water: sometimes they were immersed in seaweed that stretched off in all directions like the world’s biggest carpet, so thick it might have caught a lesser ship in its tendrils. Yet the
Xerxes
kept on plowing forward, eventually putting that strange otherworldly sea behind it. Now they were back in water, and it was once again getting rougher. Lugorix gripped the rails as the waves slapped against the ship, rolling her from side to side. He barely noticed Matthias come up on the deck behind him.

“What’s that?” asked Matthias.

“Ocean,” replied Lugorix absently.

“No,” said Matthias, “what’s
that?”

This time the urgency in his voice was sufficient to make Lugorix turn around—and follow the direction in which his friend’s finger was pointing:
up,
at a forty-five degree angle, off toward where the morning sun was rising from horizon. A dark shape loomed there, considerably smaller than the Moon would be. At first Lugorix thought it was the comet, but that was off to the north. This was something else. And it was steadily gaining height.

“What the fuck
is
that?” asked Lugorix.

“My question precisely.”

“And what makes you think I’d have the slightest idea? Get Eurydice up here.”

Matthias looked abashed. “She and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms these days—”

“Just do it,”
hissed Lugorix.

Matthias did. He got Barsine while he was at it. The four of them stood on deck and watched the bizarre object for a few more moments. Eurydice trained a farseeker on it.

“Shit,” she said.

“Can you clarify that,” said Barsine.

“Shit. I think—sorry…I
think
it’s inflated animal skins.”

“That fucker’s an
animal?”
asked Lugorix.

“The skins of them. Filled with, um, lighter-than-air gases so it floats.” She adjusted the magnification of the farseeker. “With a basket beneath it.” Another adjustment—“and a man in that basket.”

That did it. The farseeker was passed around like the hemp-pipe back at the
Dryad’s Tits
. When it got to Lugorix, he saw a man with black beard, dark skin, embroidered hair, turquoise garments: unmistakably one of the Phoenicians. And he was holding his own farseeker, staring right back at them. Lugorix resisted the urge to wave.

“Just below him,” said Barsine.

Lugorix lowered the farseeker slightly—and now he could see the rope stretching down from the basket. He lowered the farseeker still further, following that rope down across the sky, all the way to where it met horizon.

“Those Carthaginians,” said Barsine. “Trying to find out where we are.”

“Well, now they know,” said Matthias.

“We need to pick up the pace,” said Eurydice. She turned to the hatch, climbed below. Matthias followed her like a puppy-dog, leaving Lugorix and Barsine there for a moment.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“They’re only a few hours behind us.” But she wasn’t meeting his eyes.

“I mean what
else?”
he asked.

“I need to get below,” she said—pushed past him. He must have been more afraid of the answer than he realized, because he didn’t even attempt to stand in her way.

“A balloon,” said Kalyana.

“A what?” asked Eumenes. They were looking through one of the slits in the turret—studying that object high ahead and to the west. It was the first interesting thing they’d seen for a few days. Eumenes had been starting to think they were on the wrong track….

“Aerial reconnaissance device,” said Kalyana. “Filled with gases that give it flotational capabilities—”

“Does it have combat capabilities?”

“Not unless you are rash enough to get below it. They are looking for the Persians.”

“Well, they can see us too.”

“Yes, but we now know where
they
are as well. And we may presume the lady Barsine is not that far ahead of them, no?” Eumenes nodded. As he watched, several lines of smoke began to curl over the western horizon, rising up below the balloon.

“And now we know they don’t just rely on sail,” said the Greek.

Kalyana nodded. “They would be most foolish to venture so far west of the Pillars with only that.”

Eumenes nodded. He got on his knees, stuck his head through the hatch in the floor—met the eyes of his pilot. “Steam,” he said. “Let’s do it.” The man nodded. Moments later, there was a clanking noise, and a rumbling. Smoke began billowing from the stacks aft and rear. Same with the other two vessels in the squadron—and now suddenly the three ships were surging through the water at what seemed like unholy speeds. Eumenes could hear the cheers of the commandos aboard them echoing across the water, merging with those aboard his own vessel. He wished for a moment that Alexander could be there to watch this. He suddenly realized that Kalyana was staring at him, a half-smile upon his face.

“Earthly glory,” he said. “I used to appreciate it too.”

“Nothing
earthly
about this,” said Eumenes sharply.

Kalyana’s smile was now a full one. “And if your men truly understood that, the last thing they would be doing is cheering.”

Ptolemy looked up at the balloon, off to the southwest. The Carthaginians now had a bird’s eye view of the entire situation—the trade-off being obvious enough: that now everyone knew exactly where they were too. The escalating situation was forcing everyone to show their hands. He stared through the farseeker at the lines of smoke emitted by the still-unseen Carthaginan ships—then swung the farseeker back to the left, looking due south at three more lines of smoke. It was as he suspected—he wasn’t the only player trailing in the wake of the Carthaginians. But he had no telltale smoke to reveal his position. His craft was configured so that he didn’t need it. Meaning that the Carthaginians knew where he was, but the Persians and any other pursuers didn’t. That would give him a momentary advantage. One that he resolved to make the most of. He signalled to his crew to prep the weapons, rig the ship for action.

They were accelerating now, throttling the
Xerxes
up toward maximum speed. Lugorix gripped the rails, felt the spray dash against his face. The water was shot through with whitecaps now. They kept plowing forward, up and down waves, though it seemed like there was far more of the latter—almost like they were charging downhill. He looked up at that strange floating craft dangling over the horizon behind him.

There was a flash of fire from just below its basket.

For a moment he thought the contraption was going up in flames—
good fucking riddance
—but then he realized that the fire was travelling at high speed…straight toward him, hurtling in on the
Xerxes
like the lightning of the gods.

“Shit,” he said. But it was like he was in a dream. No one below him could hear. Not that their hearing would do any good. The flame roared overhead, crashed into the ocean about twenty meters ahead of the
Xerxes
. Eurydice and Matthias scrambled on deck in a hurry to see what was up as the boat pitched up and down in the wake stirred up by the object’s impact. The daughter of Aristotle trained her farseeker on the faraway basket.

“Artillery,” she said. She handed the farseeker to Lugorix just as another flash lit the sky. Lugorix peered through the device to a platform that had been hoisted up below the basket—a large metal tube was mounted on it, and three Carthaginian soldiers were busy aiming the device at the
Xerxes
. Then that view was obscured by flame as the projectile they’d just fired hurtled in. This one fell just short of the
Xerxes,
sending up spray.

“Two misses,” exclaimed Matthias.

“Idiot,” snarled Eurydice, “they’re bracketing us.” Barsine was already disappearing back down the hatch. Moments later, the
Xerxes
suddenly lurched hard to port, turning on an angle that practically had Lugorix retching over the rails. No sooner had his stomach adjusted to that then the
Xerxes
went hard to starboard. He wished Barsine could make up her mind. Another projectile crashed into the ocean—another spray of water, another near-miss. The
Xerxes
continued to pick up speed and it started to occur to Lugorix that there was something wrong with the speed—that they were going
too
fast. Certainly faster than they’d yet managed to go. Perhaps the
Xerxes
had one final reserve of power it had been saving for this moment. Eurydice had that astrolabe out, was measuring the position of the sun, the comet, the Carthaginian war machine—

“What’s going on?” whispered Matthias.

“Shut up and hold on,” said Eurydice.

“Looks like they’ve started the party,” said Eumenes, his farseeker never wavering from that balloon. It was getting nearer—not because it was heading toward them, but because they were catching up to the ships to which it was tethered. He swiveled his view onto the horizon, adjusted the focus—swore he could see the merest hint of a mast. He lowered the farseeker, turned to Kalyana.

“This is where it gets interesting,” he said.

Ptolemy was having exactly the same thought. He swung the great boat south by southwest, let the sails unfurl as he ran before the wind, closing on the Carthaginian position. He knew they could see him coming, but he was hoping the primary target of that artillery-platform would remain whatever it was chasing—presumably the Persian vessel. Though it seemed stupid to him that they’d be trying to destroy it. If it was up to him, he’d be trying to take them alive. There were so many interesting things they could tell him. So many interesting places they could lead him. But that was the Carthaginians for you—impulsive as all hell. They saw the Atlantic as their domain, and they didn’t like anyone muscling in on it… even though it wasn’t really
their
domain. Indeed, there was a good reason why no one in their right mind ventured this far west. The place was a deathtrap. It was just getting started.