Tyrant: King of the Bosporus (5 page)

North and west, the whole enemy fleet was bearing down on their fight. The rest of their squadrons were gone. Just a stade away, a pair of golden-yellow triremes had bow waves – full ramming speed.

‘Diokles!’ Satyrus yelled, pointing at the new enemy.

Diokles was already leaning on his oars, using the momentum of the backed oars to turn the bow south.

Satyrus saw it as if a god had stepped up next to him and put the whole idea in his mind – he saw the fight and what he had to do.

As the bow swung south, he saw more and more enemy sailors and marines flooding aboard
Herakles
.

‘Lay me alongside
Herakles
,’ Satyrus said.

Diokles bit his lip and said nothing.

Satyrus accepted his unspoken criticism and ran forward, collecting deck-crewmen with weapons as he went.

‘Abraham!’ he called.

Neiron called the first stroke of the new motion. His voice was weak, but he had to hold on. Satyrus was running out of options, and he was
not
going to abandon Theron.

Abraham was kneeling by a dying marine. The man was bleeding out and Abraham was holding his hand.

Satyrus waited until the man’s eyes fluttered closed. Then he seized the dead man’s javelin and his sword. ‘We’re going aboard
Herakles
,’ he said.

Abraham shook his head. ‘You’re insane,’ he said quietly.

‘I’m not letting Theron die when I can save him,’ Satyrus bit back.

‘What about the rest of us?’ Abraham asked. ‘
Punch straight through!
Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?’

Satyrus shook his head to clear it. It seemed so obvious to him. ‘We put the green ship between us and those two,’ he said, pointing at the nearest new enemies, now just half a stade away. ‘We rescue Theron and we’re gone.’

Abraham shrugged. He had blood leaking out of an eye – or perhaps just out of his helmet. ‘Whatever you say,
prince
.’

The rest of the marines looked tired but hardly done in. Most of them had fought at Gaza.

‘On to the deck of the
Herakles
,’ Satyrus said. ‘Clear it and we’re gone. A gold rose of Rhodos to every man who follows me on to that deck.’

Even as Satyrus spoke, Diokles had the speed to turn them back east, so that the oarsmen pulled in their oars and
Falcon
coasted alongside his stricken brother.

Satyrus leaped on to the rail. ‘Clear the deck,’ he called, his voice breaking, but then he was over the rail of the
Herakles
and his javelin took an enemy marine in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious inside his helmet. Satyrus went straight into the next man, shield up, so that the rim of his own aspis crashed into the man’s armoured jaw and he smelled the sweat on his enemy as the man tried to turn and got a spear in his teeth from a sailor. Satyrus bore him down and pushed on into the flank of the enemy boarding force, into the unarmoured sailors who didn’t have shields and died like sacrificial animals under his borrowed blade. And when they broke, he kept killing them, cutting them down as they fled into the bow, killing them even as they jumped over the side, as if by killing these men who served his enemy he could regain his lost kingdom.

Theron was by the mast, his back against it. He was covered in blood and wounded several times – his left thigh was lacerated with shallow wounds so that blood ran down his legs like lava from a new volcano. He held up a hand, the same way he would when he’d been fighting the
pankration
on the sands of the palaestra in Alexandria and he took a fall. He managed a smile. ‘Still in the fight, eh?’ he said.

Satyrus took his hand and hauled him to his feet. He looked fore and aft along the deck. The marines from the heavy green quadrireme were rallying in the bows of their own ship, and a shower of arrows swept the decks of
Herakles
.

‘We could board him,’ Satyrus said.

‘If you want to die gloriously, that would be your path,’ Abraham said by his elbow. He was wrapping his shield arm in linen stripped from a corpse. ‘Look!’

The two golden-hulled triremes from Pantecapaeum were almost aboard them, rowing hard – but their speed had fallen off, because they’d started their sprint too early and their crews were under-trained.
In the press of ships, they couldn’t see what was friend and what was foe. Behind them were a dozen more triremes.

‘We could take him,’ Satyrus said.

‘You are possessed by a bad spirit,’ Abraham said. ‘Do not succumb to these blandishments.’ He leaned in. ‘You must live, or all this is for nothing.
Get your head out of your arse and think like a commander.
’

Satyrus felt the heat in his own face – felt rage boiling up in his limbs. But he also saw the faces of the men around him. He saw Theron’s nod of agreement. The marines’ studied blankness.

‘Very well,’ he said, more harshly than he wanted. He looked across to the
Falcon
. ‘Abraham, keep us from getting boarded again. When I have
Herakles
clear of that green bastard, take command and row clear. Understand? Theron – someone get Theron looked after. No, better – sling him across to
Falcon
.’

His head was clear – tired, but clear. It was like waking from a fever. Now he could
see
, and what he saw was the last few moments of a disaster. As soon as the pair of golden triremes figured out which side was which, he’d be dead.

He leaped for his own ship and landed with a clash of bronze on the deck. ‘Diokles!’ he roared.

‘Aye!’ his helmsman called. The arrow was gone from his thigh and a loop of wool was tied in its place.

‘Port-side oars! Pole off! Pole off the
Herakles
!’ Satyrus ran to Neiron, who was lying at the foot of his mast, mouthing orders to Thron, one of the Aegyptian boys who served the sailors. The boy shrilled the orders down into the rowing decks.

‘Still with me?’ Satyrus asked Neiron, who raised an eyebrow.

‘Must be nice . . . young.’ He croaked. ‘Poseidon, I hurt. Hermes who watches the sailormen, watch over me. Arggh!’ he shouted, and his back arched.

Along the deck, a handful of deck-crewmen pulled Theron aboard and dropped him unceremoniously to the deck so that they could return to using pikes to pole off the
Herakles
. Satyrus loosed the ties on Neiron’s cuirass and then, without warning, pulled the arrowhead from the wound. It had gone in only the depth of a finger end, or even less – enough to bleed like a spring, but not necessarily mortal.

Satyrus stood in his place. ‘Port side, push!’ he shouted. Rowers
used the blades of their oars to push against the hull of the
Herakles
. ‘Push!’

‘We’re away!’ Diokles called from the stern. The gap between the two ships was growing.
Falcon
was light – fifty strong men could pole him off very quickly.

Quick glance aft – the golden hulls were changing direction, the early sun catching the bronze of their rams and turning them to fire. He wasn’t going to make it.

He wasn’t going to stop trying, either.

‘Switch your benches!’ he roared, the full stretch of his voice, as if a restraint had burst in his chest and now he could use all of his lungs.

A thin cheer from the green quadrireme. The enemy crews were shouting for rescue – shouting to the golden ships.

His archer-captain shot into the enemy, and an enemy archer fell – a man in robes. A Sakje. Satyrus cursed that Eumeles had suborned
his own people
. There were many things that he and Leon had taken for granted.

The greens cheered again and the golden triremes turned harder, now certain of their prey.

‘Oars out! Backstroke! Give way, all!’ Satyrus called as soon as the majority of his rowers had switched their benches. He considered everything he had learned of war – that men responded so much better when they understood what was needed. His teachers had insisted on it.

He leaned down into the oar deck. ‘Listen, friends. Three strokes back and switch your benches – two strokes forward – switch again. Got it? It will come fast and furious after that. Ready?’

Hardly a cheer – but a growl of response.

‘Pull!’ he called.

‘Athena and strong arms!’ a veteran cried.

‘Athena and strong arms!’ the whole oar deck shouted, all together, and the ship shot back his own length.

‘Athena and strong arms!’ they repeated, and again
Falcon
moved, gliding free.

‘Switch your benches!’ Satyrus called, but many men were already moving with the top of the stroke, switching benches with a fluidity he hadn’t seen before.

He ran along the deck to Diokles. He wanted to stop and pant.
No time.

The nearest golden hull was just three ship’s lengths away.

‘Into the starboard bow of the green!’ Satyrus shouted. ‘We have to ram the green clear of
Herakles
.’

Diokles turned and looked at the onrushing golden ship in the lead.

‘Yes!’ Satyrus shouted. He read Diokles’ thoughts just as the helmsman read his. With luck – Tyche – the lead golden hull would foul his partner.

There were a dozen more triremes behind that pair, strung out over two stades of water.

The rowers had switched benches. ‘Pull!’ he bellowed into the oar deck.

The hull changed direction. The oars came up together, rolled over the top of their path.

‘Pull!’ he roared. The hull groaned and
Falcon
leaped forward – already turning under steering oars alone.

‘Pull!’ he called as the oars crested their movement. He waited for the splintering crash as the lead golden ship rammed their stern, but he didn’t look. His eyes were fixed on his oarsmen.

‘Pull!’

‘BRACE!’ yelled a sailor in the bow.

Falcon
hit the enemy quadrireme just where his marine box towered over his ram – just where men were rallying for another rush at the
Herakles
. It was a glancing blow, delivered from too close, but the results were spectacular. Something in the enemy bow gave with a sharp crack – some timber strained to breaking by the
Herakles
snapped. The marines’ tower tilted sharply and the whole green hull began to roll over, filling rapidly with water.

‘Switch your benches!’ Satyrus called. Now was the moment. But the
Herakles
was saved – he was rocking in the water like a fishing boat after pulling a shark aboard, his trapped ram released from the stricken green.

The lead golden trireme shaved past their stern, having missed his ram by the length of a rowing boat. He was still turning and his oarsmen paid for his careless steering as they began to get tangled in the wreckage of the green as the stricken ship turtled.

Just to the port side, beyond
Herakles
, the second golden hull swooped in to beak the
Herakles
amidships – the second ship had been more careful, biding his time, waiting for the two damaged Alexandrian ships to commit to a reverse course.

The oarsmen were reversed, their faces to the bow. ‘Back water! Pull!’ Satyrus called. Had to try.

Had to try.

Diokles shook his head and braced himself against the side. When the golden ship struck the
Herakles
, his hull might be pushed right into them.

Abraham was shouting at his rowers, trying to get them to pull together. They had been locked in a boarding action for too long and many men had left their benches to fight.
Herakles
was dead in the water.

Why was
Herakles
cheering? Satyrus stood on his toes, then jumped up on the rail, grabbing for a stay.

Leon’s
Golden Lotus
swept past the sinking stern of the green like an avenging sea monster and took the second golden hull right in the stern quarter, his bow ripping the enemy ship like a shark ripping a dolphin, spilling men into the water and goring his side so that he sank still rowing forward, gone in ten heartbeats, and
Lotus
swept on.

Herakles
got his rowers together. With time to breathe, Abraham rowed clear of the sinking green and turned for the open water to the east. He had only two-thirds of his oars in action, but they were together.

Falcon
handled badly – light as a feather, down by the stern, tending to fall off every heading. The rowers were pulling well, and he handled like a pig.

Satyrus was staring over the stern, where
Lotus
had rammed a second ship.

His ram was stuck.

Even as he watched, an enemy ship got his ram into
Lotus
, and the great ship shuddered the way a lion does when he takes the first spear in a hunt.

Satyrus ran to the stern, as if he could run over the rail and the intervening sea to his uncle’s rescue.

‘Nothing we can do,’ Diokles said.

‘Ares – Poseidon. We can do this. With Herakles, we’ll—’

Diokles shook his head. ‘Can’t you feel it, lad? Our ram’s gone. Ripped clean off when we hit the green.’

Satyrus felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. Leon was
so close
.