Tyrant: King of the Bosporus (4 page)

‘Reverse oars! Cross your benches!’ Neiron called.

Satyrus ran forward. The enemy ship, caught almost broadside-on, was turning turtle, his shallow side crushed amidships, so that he was filling with water. But the upper strakes of his well-built hull were caught on the
Falcon
’s ram.

‘Back water!’ Satyrus called. ‘We’re caught!’

The oarsmen had to get under their oars and sit on the opposite bench to put their full strength into backing water. It took precious time.

Falcon
’s bow began to sink. The strain on the bow timbers was immense, and there were popping noises all along the hull.

Neiron stood on his deck by the mast, watching the oarsmen and rubbing his head. ‘Don’t rush ’em, sir,’ he said. ‘We need three good pulls, not a new mess as they panic.’ He flashed Satyrus a smile and then raised his voice. ‘Ready there?’

A deep roar answered him.

‘Backstroke! Give way, all!’ he called, and the oars bit into the water. One stroke and there was a grinding from the bow – a second stroke and every man standing was thrown flat as the ram slipped out of the stricken enemy and the bow rose sharply. The rowers lost the stroke and oars clashed.

Satyrus fell heavily and Neiron fell on top of him, and it took them long heartbeats to get back to their feet. Neiron began to yell at the rowers, getting them on beat again.

Satyrus ran for the bow, looking everywhere. To the east,
Fennel
had swept down the side of a heavy trireme, destroying his starboard oars just as the ship in the first line had done to his port oar bank, so that the ship lay on the water like an insect with all its legs plucked.

To the west, a Cardian mercenary vessel had sailed right through the enemy’s first line and continued into their half-formed second line, where he was preparing a
diekplous
oar-rake of his own.

Dead ahead,
Lotus
had rammed a second adversary and left him wallowing, oars crushed and the upper oar box literally bleeding red blood where the ram had crushed wood and bodies together.

Farther east and west, however, the enemy was rallying. They had so many ships that the local disaster didn’t materially affect the odds. The enemy centre was still not organized, but a dozen ships, better rowed or more aggressive, were leaving the centre and racing to relieve the beleaguered flank.

Satyrus took this in and ran back amidships. ‘Switch your oars,’ he said to the oar master.

‘Switch benches for normal rowing!’ the oar master called.

Satyrus pointed at the second cripple left by the
Lotus
. ‘I want to put that ship down – but don’t hit it so hard!’ Then he ran aft to Diokles. ‘Straight into the blue trireme!’ he called.

Diokles narrowed his eyes. ‘Not what your uncle ordered,’ he said.

‘Just do it!’ Satyrus said. An arrow hit him in the shoulder, skidded across the scales of his corslet’s left shoulder, dug a furrow across the back of his neck and sank into the planking that was supposed to protect the helmsman. ‘Ares!’ he cursed. He put his hand to his neck and it came away covered in blood.

Satyrus turned to see where the arrow had come from. A dark-hulled trireme was coming up on his port side, from behind, and the enemy ship’s archers were trying to clear his helm.

‘Where in Hades did he come from?’ Satyrus asked. ‘Hard to port!’

Diokles swung the oars hard. Satyrus turned forward. ‘Port-side oars, all banks, drag your oars!’

The oar master echoed his command and the
Falcon
turned like his namesake, his stern pulled clear of the oncoming ram. The oar-raked carcass of
Glory of Demeter
’s first victim had hidden the enemy ship, and now he shot by
Falcon
’s stern at ramming speed, already turning to find new prey. Forward, Abraham’s marines shot a shower of arrows into the enemy ship’s command deck and then he was gone.

Falcon
’s evasive manoeuvre had carried him out of her place in the formation and now he was heading almost due north, into the oncoming rams of the enemy’s relief column.

‘
Glory of Demeter
is through the line,’ Diokles said. ‘Getting his sail up. Just where we ought to be, sir.’

Satyrus’s neck hurt as if he’d been stepped on by a horse. He put a hand to it again and was shocked to see how much blood there was. ‘Diokles, we need to go hard to starboard – see the dark green-hulled ship with the golden statue in the bow?’

‘I see him,’ Diokles answered.

‘Right at him – at ramming speed. But just short of him, we turn – and pass under his stern. If he turns towards us—’

‘I have it!’ Diokles yelled, waving him away.

Satyrus ran for the oar master. ‘Ramming speed. Turn to starboard – see the big green? Straight at him – ramming speed. And when I say, a little more. We’ll pass under his stern and never touch him.’

Neiron had an arrow in his side. ‘Fucking point is in my skin,’ he said, face already grey-white with shock. The arrow had punched straight through his tawed-leather cuirass. ‘Aye! Starboard bank – drag your oars! Port banks, full speed! Now!’ His voice lost none of its power. Then he sank against the mast. ‘Pull it out, sir?’

Satyrus glanced forward – the next few heartbeats would be vital.

‘As soon as we’re past the green,’ he said.

‘Aye,’ Neiron said grimly. His feet slipped out from under him and he sat heavily, with his back against the mast. ‘You’d better call the stroke,’ he said.

Satyrus stepped over him. ‘Pull!’ he called. An arrow hit his helmet hard enough that he smelled copper and his ears rang. ‘Pull!’ he called again. The bow was almost on line – time to stop the turn. ‘Cease rowing!’ he called. ‘All oars! Ramming speed! Now!’

He felt the surge of power under his feet. ‘Pull!’ he called.

He felt the change in weight as Diokles made a steering adjustment.

The big green ship was turning to meet them. He towered over them – a quadrireme at least, perhaps the biggest ship in the enemy fleet.

‘Pull!’ Satyrus wanted to get past the green so his bulk would shield them from the rest of the enemy squadrons. He looked down at his oar master, who was losing consciousness, his face as pale and grey as the sea on a cloudy summer day. There was blood coming out from under his cuirass. Another arrow struck deep in the mast, its barbed head a finger deep in the oak.

‘Pull!’

Sakje bows.

He glanced south as he took a breath to call the stroke and almost lost his timing. There was Theron’s
Herakles
at ramming speed, bowon to the same target – going ram to ram with a ship of twice his burthen. ‘Pull!’ he called.

Diokles saw Theron too. ‘He’ll foul us!’ the Phoenician roared. ‘Sheer off, Corinthian!’

‘All you have, now!’ Satyrus roared at the rowers.
Falcon
moved under his feet. ‘Pull!’ The great loom of the oars moved, the oars, the length of a Macedonian sarissa, all pulling together like the legs of a water-bug or the wings of a bird. ‘Pull!’

Diokles made a sharp adjustment and Satyrus struggled to keep his feet. ‘Pull!’ he roared.
Herakles
was not turning – he was in his final attack run, moving as fast as a running horse.

‘Pull!’

The green enemy turned to put his bow on to the
Herakles
– a terrible decision, possibly a misheard order, so that at the last the great ship showed his naked and vulnerable flank to the
Falcon
’s ram.

‘Pull!’

Herakles
, faster because he’d had a longer start, rammed her just aft of the bow – a single thunderclap – and his bow was forced around.

‘Pull!’

Diokles slapped his steering oars with precision, aiming for the gap at the edge of possibility where the stern of the enemy ship would
not
be in a few heartbeats.

‘Pull!’

The green ship shuddered and his stern came
at them
, swinging sideways through the water with all the transmitted energy of
Herakles
’ attack.

‘Pull!’ Satyrus roared.

‘Brace!’ Abraham yelled from over the ram – and they struck, the ram catching the enemy stern just below the helmsman with a hollow
boom
, and then Satyrus was on his face on the deck.

‘Switch your benches!’ Satyrus managed from his prone position. ‘Do you hear me, there? Switch benches!’ he called, trying to rise. There was a sailor on top of him, a deckhand – a dead deckhand. Satyrus got him off, rolled over – his neck awash in pain, his eyes hazed red. The big green ship was
above
them, and arrows were
pouring
into the waist of the
Falcon
. ‘Switch your benches!’ Satyrus called again. He felt as if he was very far away. Just below his feet, men were getting under their oars.

An arrow hit him in the top of the shoulder. It hurt, and its force knocked him back a step. ‘Backstroke!’ he shouted, his voice sounding thin and very far away. ‘Now!’

The ship gave a shudder like a wounded animal.

‘Ram’s stuck!’ Abraham called. ‘’Ware boarding!’

Sure enough, there were men coming down the side of the green – leaping aboard
Falcon
. Satyrus was three steps from his
aspis
, the huge round shield of the Greek soldiers and marines. It stood in the rack at the edge of the command platform.

Satyrus had an odd moment of hesitation – he almost didn’t move. It seemed
too far
. He just wanted to fall on the deck and bleed.

A javelin, slightly miscast, struck him shaft first and skittered off along the deck.

There was a pair of enemy marines on the command platform. He noticed this with professional interest.
How had they come there?

He turned his back on them and grabbed for his aspis. It came to him in stages that were prolonged by the nakedness of his posture to their weapons – his hand on the bronze-shod edge, his right hand lifting it clear of the rack, his left arm pushing into the
porpax
, his shoulder taking the curved weight as he turned—

Thrunk
–
as the lead marine crashed shield to shield and the harmonic bronze sounded.

Satyrus set his feet and reached out with his empty right hand to grab the rim of his opponent’s shield. One-handed, he ripped the shield round a half-circle to the right, breaking the man’s shield arm, and then he slammed the enemy’s shield rim into his nose. The man went down and Satyrus leaped at his partner, drawing his father’s heavy
kopis
from under his own shield arm even as he put his head down and rushed his new opponent. Movement from the stern. Satyrus struck his enemy shield to shield and cut hard around the lower edge of the aspis. His blade went deep into the man’s thigh and he was over the side. Satyrus whirled, but the man coming from the stern was an armed deck-crewman with a spear – one of his own.

‘Pull!’ he called. The oars bit the water – the stroke was lost and had to be restored.

As the oars came up, he saw more men coming from the bow. Was Abraham dead? ‘Pull!’ he called as the top of the stroke was reached. ‘Neiron! I need you to call the stroke. Pull!’

Neiron was sitting against the mast, his eyes unfocused.

There were three more enemy marines, and they were cautious. On the leader’s command, they all threw their javelins together, and Satyrus took them on his shield and charged, shouting ‘Pull!’ as his war cry. He got his shield into the middle one, took a light cut on his greaves from the one to his front right and punched the hilt of the Aegyptian sword into the man’s face over his shield rim – all feint for the backhand cut that Greeks called the ‘Harmodius blow’. Satyrus stepped forward with his sword foot, changing his weight with the feint and pushing his shield into the other two, and then cut
back
at the man who had wounded him, the weight of his blow sheering through the man’s helmet.

Satyrus ripped the Aegyptian weapon free of the man’s head and the blade snapped – and Satyrus fell back a step.
My father’s sword!
he thought.

The deck-crewman behind him saved his life, plunging his spear past Satyrus’s shoulder into the centre man’s face. The blow skidded off the man’s chin and through his cheek and he went down, fouling his file-partner, whose feet had been grabbed by an alert oarsman on the oar deck below. He fell into the rowers and died at their hands.

‘Pull!’ Neiron called.

With a shriek like a wounded woman,
Falcon
pulled free of the green vessel, trapping the enemy marines on his decks. Many elected to jump – men in light armour could swim long enough to be rescued – but the officers in heavy bronze were trapped. Satyrus watched sailors pull one down and throw him to his death in the water. Abraham accepted the surrender of another – Abraham was the only man Satyrus had ever seen accept surrender in a sea fight.

‘Oh, Ares!’ Satyrus said. He could just walk.

‘Pull!’ Neiron called, and the
Falcon
was a ship’s length clear of their enemy.

‘Switch your benches!’ Satyrus called. He looked aft. Diokles had an arrow through his thigh and was using the oars to keep himself erect.

Their ram had, in fact, ripped the stern right off the green ship, and
he was settling fast, his rowers in chaos. But the enemy was trying to take Theron’s ship over the bow as a stolen life-raft. Satyrus could see Theron with his marines fighting in the bow. He was the biggest man in the fight.