The Pillars of Hercules (45 page)

“It’s bullshit,” said Xanthippus.

Diocles shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to Xanthippus. Truth be told, he wasn’t in the mood to listen to anyone. The higher-ups argued about plans, and then the lower-downs argued about what the higher-ups were going to do, and it didn’t really matter. Someone who was neither him nor Xanthippus would make a decision, and then someone would die. Hopefully it wouldn’t be him.

“Did you hear what I said?” growled Xanthippus.

“Sure I did,” said Diocles. “Didn’t realize you needed an answer.”

Xanthippus spat noisily. He didn’t, of course. Bitching was its own reward. It was the only perk involved in crouching in this trench with a bunch of other soldiers looking out at all those ships and that fucking bridge that came closer with every passing day. If Diocles had had his druthers, they’d still be wandering along the barren Iberian coast—or better yet, wandering deeper into Iberia. Getting off the map and into the wilderness and away from all this mess. The two of them had been lovers since Diocles was sixteen, and ever since then that was all Diocles had wanted to do—run away with the older man, split from everything. But Xanthippus had been in the army. That hadn’t meant much back in those days—he was stationed in Athens, he’d had plenty of time to spend with Diocles, and there was no real sense that that time would ever be at an end. The empire had been at its height, halcyon days, with no storm clouds on the horizon. Yet for Diocles it had never been halcyon. Everywhere he looked there were those who weren’t fully human under law: women, slaves, foreigners… while those in the assembly shouted and swore and those with the money steered that shouting in any direction they wanted. He didn’t know why these things bothered him so much. They didn’t seem to bother anyone else.

Certainly not Xanthippus. He believed in Athens, and even when he didn’t, he believed it was better than any alternative. And when war came, that alternative got a whole lot worse. Macedonia and its god-kings were a whole new level of trouble. So Diocles enlisted too. Not that he fooled himself for a moment that he was doing so for any other reason than to be with Xanthippus. And so, less than three days after being dropped off in Iberia by that crazy gang in that crazy ship (no point in telling
that
story to anyone), he’d helped his lover light a bonfire when they sighted the sails of an Athenian warship. They didn’t know how fortunate they’d been until they reached Sicily, where they found out that in the wake of the fall of Carthage and Massilia there was hardly any Athenian activity west of Sicily. The Empire had pulled in its extremities like a tortoise just seeking to survive.

But now the pair of them were part of that Empire once again. They were Athenian soldiers, said Xanthippus; they’d sworn an oath on the altar of Athena, and you couldn’t break those oaths lightly. In fact, you couldn’t break such oaths at all, unless the altar itself shattered. Which it probably would before this all this was over. But in that case their bodies would most likely be in pieces along with it.

“Did you hear that?” said Xanthippus. Diocles was too immersed in his thoughts to register that Xanthippus had even spoken—the man had to shake him by the shoulder to rouse him from his reverie.

“Hear what?” he asked.

“We’re moving out,” said a third man. “Orders just came on down.”

“So they finally made up their minds,” said Diocles.

“To obey?” Xanthippus laughed. “Took them long enough.”

“And obeying’s all we can do”—but the third man trailed off in mid-sentence as a series of thunderous booms suddenly reverberated over the hills. The ground shook as though it was getting smacked by an earthquake. Trails of fire roared over the hills from behind them.

“Macks in the rear!” yelled somebody.

“Holy
shit,
” said Xanthippus as those plumes arced above them and rained down on the Athenian fleet, pancaking into ship after ship. Some detonated on the spot, some just caught fire, began to sink as the water rushed through the holes punched in their hulls. From an organizational perspective, the attack came at the absolute worst time imaginable, since the orders had just been given to abandon positions and march away. Everyone was yelling and shouting and screaming and a lot of soldiers were just running off the beach entirely. So much for retreating in an orderly fashion…. Xanthippus stayed where he was, so Diocles did too. Which left them in an excellent position to watch while lines of foaming water suddenly began to radiate out from positions on that great bridge—almost as though very fast fishes were swimming below the surface. As each of those lines touched an Athenian ship, that ship detonated, flinging wood and bodies into the water with unbelievable force. Within thirty seconds, every ship that was visible was on fire. But still those plumes of flame kept hurtling in from over the hills.

Only now they were falling onto the beach.

“We’re gone,” said Xanthippus. He grabbed Diocles and shoved him out of the trench, scrambling after him as the soldiers on the beach began dying messily. Flame and smoke was everywhere. Someone yelled that the Macks were upon them. And then Diocles saw them: hundreds of men wearing Mack armor and riding on… he had to blink to make sure he was seeing them correctly.

They were camels.

He only recognized them because he’d seen a merchant in Athens selling them once, to grace the gardens of the rich. He hadn’t been impressed. They were noisy and they were smelly and and now they were everywhere. Macedonians leapt down off their backs and speared Athenians still blinded by the smoke. An arrow hit Xanthippus in the shoulder and he went down. Diocles dropped to his knees next to him.

“Leave me,” he muttered.

Diocles said nothing—just grabbed the larger man and dragged him to his feet before putting his arm around his shoulder and helping him stagger forward. He had no idea what the plan was—get back to the trench? Get chopped to pieces? Stand back to back and fight? He saw some rocks up ahead. He pulled Xanthippus into their lee.

That was when he noticed the cave.

It wasn’t much. But under the circumstances it was enough. Diocles helped the wounded Xanthippus inside. The two men crawled deeper.

“That’s far enough,” said a voice.

Diocles stopped. “There’s room for us all to hide,” he said.

“Your friend needs medical attention.”

“I’ll manage,” grunted Xanthippus.

“We need to get that arrow out,” said the voice.

“For that, you’ll need some light,” said another.

There was the sound of metal striking flint. In the light of the flame they saw a face—long nose and short dirty hair and unkempt beard. Two other men crouched behind him. None of them looked to be Athenian.

“Who the hell are you guys?” asked Diocles.

“Observers from Syracuse,” said the first man.

“Doing what?”

“Watching your fleet get axed,” said the second. “Perdiccas landed a fleet on the coast.”

“Perdiccas?” Diocles was tired of all these strange names.

“One of the Mack generals. Burnt all his boats on the northern shore. Though we never dreamt he’d get here so quick.”

Xanthippus frowned. “You’re working with the Macks?”

“We’re working with the rats,” said the first man, gesturing at the burrow they were in. Everyone started laughing, even Xanthippus. After a moment, Diocles joined in too. It seemed like the polite thing to do.

Matthias clambered down the ladder.

“Eurydice said I was needed down here,” he said.

Barsine nodded. “You are. You two can start rowing as though your lives depended on it.”

“And while we do that you’re going to tell me what this place is,” said Matthias as he settled his hands around an oar.

“Hades,” said Lugorix. He expected Matthias to freak out, but the man just sighed.

“I was afraid of that,” he said—and started rowing, the
Xerxes
moving forward through the dark water. So far that was all Lugorix knew about the terrain they were in, because the
Xerxes
still had no lights. He’d seen that roof overhead and that faraway structure. But as to what was much closer—he just hoped Eurydice and Barsine had some idea what they were doing.

But then suddenly lights flared behind them. Through the rear viewport they could see the Carthaginian warship slide from the ramp and onto the water with a thunderous splash. Soldiers crowded its deck, holding weapons and torches. Several of them drew back on their bows while others lit arrows—the flaming brands shot into the dark. Most of those arrows fell into the waters and snuffed out, but others landed amidst tufts of reeds. One landed on what looked like a sandbar, flickering there. None of them fell close to the
Xerxes
. The Carthaginian ship surged out into the water, smoke pouring from its stack.

“They’re looking for us,” said Barsine. “Keep rowing.”

“You had us manning the guns earlier,” said Matthias.

“So I did.”

“So you thought there was a chance we might face hostiles right off the ramp?”

“And you can thank all your gods we didn’t.”

Two hundred meters back, Ptolemy’s fractured catamaran flew off the ramp and landed in the water.

The mast was still on fire and that was enough for Ptolemy to know that staying on this ship was a losing proposition. He knew what was about to happen, even if his crew didn’t. The Carthaginian ship and its arrows had illuminated enough of the area for him to see the immediate environment—he yelled some orders and the half-destroyed catamaran swerved hard to port, straight toward a sandbar as ballistae aboard the Carthaginian ship began firing at his vessel. Ptolemy hunkered down on the bridge as bolts flew past him.

“Give ’em white heat,” he said.

“What about that sandbar?” said the helmsman.

Ptolemy didn’t even bother to answer.

“Hard starboard,” yelled Eumenes.

He was yelling the words even before the ironclad left the ramp. The last thing he wanted to be was anywhere near either the Carthaginian ship or Ptolemy’s. Both were lit up, about as conspicuous as it was possible to be. All the more so as now the side of Ptolemy’s ship popped open and that gun of his slid out and blasted a huge jet of flame toward the Carthaginian vessel—which was nearly out of range.

But not quite.

The tip of the flame touched the rear of the Carthaginian ship, which immediately caught fire. Eumenes had to hand it to the Carthaginians for their discipline—bucket-brigades were forming quickly to dash water on the fire. Eumenes ordered his ship’s engineers to cut the motors. The sailors on the lowest deck began rowing, the ironclad heading steadily away from the other two vessels.

“Do you mind if I ask where we’re going?” said Matthias.

“Away from all that light,” said Barsine.

“So we can get out of Hades?”

“So we can go deeper into it.”

As she spoke, there was a rush of what sounded like wind. Lugorix looked up through the open hatch to see some of those phosphorescent lights overhead momentarily winking in and out. He thought for a moment that was exactly what they were doing, but then he realized that something was passing between them and the
Xerxes
. Eurydice stuck her head through the hatch, drew one hand across her throat.

“Don’t even
talk
,” she whispered.

Lugorix wasn’t about to. He gritted his teeth and kept his head down and kept rowing. Matthias was doing the same. There was no danger quite like the one they couldn’t see. But all of a sudden there was no danger at all that they were going to be overheard.

Thanks to all the screaming.

Carthaginian sailors and soldiers were leaping into the water, tearing at their clothes, waving around wildly with their weapons—and all to no avail. Shadowy forms were swarming around the warship, flapping their wings, looking for all the world like giant—

“Bats,”
muttered Matthias.

“Shut up,” said Lugorix. Whatever they were, they were no ordinary bats. They were hard to make out at this distance, but they had a wingspan of at least a yard and teeth that flashed white in the torchlight. They were swarming the fuck out of all twelve decks of the Carthaginian ship. Lugorix watched in horror as men crawled out of oars-ports and dropped into the water. But the bats were aquatic too—they zipped like spears beneath the surface, dragging screaming men back into the air and ripping them to pieces.

It wasn’t just the Phoenician ship they were after, either.

Ptolemy knew he had about thirty seconds. As soon as his ship hit the sandbar, he raced to the prow and hurled one end of a rope over the side. He was still clambering down its length when he heard the commotion from the Carthaginian ship. By the time his men realized he was abandoning them, he was already sprinting along the sandbar, his armor weighing heavily on his back, but it would be suicide to do without it. Behind him he heard the screaming starting. So much for his ship. So much for his crew. It was just him now. He’d just have to make the most of it.

“They’re fucked,” said Eumenes.

“We are too,” said Kalyana. “You have brought us to
Naraka
.”

“Um… come again?”

“The underworld that the Buddha spoke of. Is that not this place?”

Eumenes smiled grimly. “We haven’t died yet, have we?”

The look on Kalyana’s face said he wasn’t sure of that one.

The screams had finally stopped. The
Xerxes
kept going, Lugorix and Matthias pulling on the oars, moving steadily away from the slaughter behind them, further into the darkness. Since they were on the surface, Barsine had opened slits in the walls on either side to provide more visibility. As their eyes slowly adjusted, Lugorix realized that the dull glow overhead provided just enough ambient light to steer by. Shadows became visible on either side of the boat—intimations of topography that resolved themselves into clumps of gnarled trees and roots. The
Xerxes
sailed into a narrow channel that soon gave way to more such channels. A shifting, labyrinthine landscape, lit up by that ghostly overhead light….