Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities (24 page)

‘That’d be why Orpheus was so popular with the Argonauts,’ Neiron growled.

Satyrus had seldom seen any unit – on land or sea – with so little in the way of jitters before a fight. He himself got nerves that came in waves – he’d be deep in the process of pulling a rope, or helping lace heavy leather to the basket so that the two archers there had some protection from their rivals – and then he’d look over the side and his heart would beat faster and his mouth would go dry.

But the music would carry him out of it, either because of the natural tendency to sing along, or because the man’s playing was
so good
.

‘He’s god-sent,’ Satyrus said.

Neiron nodded. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘And how often do I say that?’

They shared a laugh while the mast went up, and then the new ropes were pulled taut by forty sailors and all the marines, taut as bowstrings, and lashed to the heavy posts that held the fighting rail. It looked ugly as dung on a dancer, but the mast appeared as solid as if it had been planted like a seed, and the leather and tar-coated basket rose on pulleys into the masthead without the heavy oak pole giving so much as a creak.

‘Your lyre is the best new weapon on this ship,’ Satyrus was just saying to Anaxagoras, and the man was beaming in response, when the masthead called.

‘Lord Satyrus!’ called the men in the basket. Even thirty feet above the deck, you could see that they were excited.

‘You’re safe enough, lads,’ Satyrus called. In fact, their basket swayed with every movement of the ship, but they were volunteers and had each been promised a ten-drachma reward.

‘Enemy’s all formed up!’ the lead archer called down. ‘And – there’s a big squadron rowing
away
.’

‘You should get into your armour,’ Charmides said at his shoulder. ‘Lord – the king is signalling the advance.’

Satyrus stood for a second, paralysed – but surely the advance would be slow, and followed by backing water and retreat. Lots of time to get into his armour. ‘Put young Orpheus in armour, lad,’ he said, pointing to Anaxagoras. ‘I don’t want him going to this dance naked – he may find that his partner’s not as cooperative.’ Then Satyrus leaped for the stays that held the mast and started to climb, hand over hand, praising Poseidon that there’d been insufficient pitch to coat the new standing rigging and he wasn’t smearing himself black.

He climbed to where he could hold the lashings of the mast and brace a foot on the archer’s basket, which made it rock a little.

‘Leto Mother of the Archer,’ Satyrus muttered.

The apparent confusion of the Antigonid front line was a sham. Now he could see over the first line. In the second line, the gigantic turtle-ship held the very centre – his impression was that it was larger than an eighter – perhaps even a tenner, though he’d never heard of such a thing. But it was not the giant war machine that drew his attention, but a squadron – fifteen ships – rowing
away
from Plistias’ second line, headed north and west toward Menelaeus. They were all big ships. He counted fifteen – fifteen quadremes and penteres, all in a crisp line abreast.

Menelaeus had sixty ships, but they were all smaller ships, in the old Athenian style, undecked triremes and such. He was just forming – late to the dance, as Neiron would say.

‘Good eyes, gentlemen,’ Satyrus said. ‘Listen – when we close, you two shoot down into the enemy command deck. Nowhere else. Don’t waste a shaft on sailors. Marines and officers.’

‘Wasn’t born yesterday, lord,’ the senior archer replied. ‘You could send up some more arrows, if you’d a mind, sir.’

Satyrus wrapped his legs around the stay and slid – carefully – down the heavy rope, sparing a hand to keep his chiton off the rope where the fine stuff would be ripped to shreds. As soon as his feet hit the rail, he ran aft.

‘Another two hundred arrows to the top,’ he ordered Apollodorus. ‘Then attend me on the command deck.’

‘Yes, lord,’ Apollodorus saluted.

‘He’s thinned his centre and sent his best, heaviest ships against Menelaeus,’ Satyrus said to Neiron, who had Thrasos at the oars. ‘What does that mean, old councillor?’

Neiron rubbed his beard.

‘Enemy is advancing!’ came the call from the masthead.

‘That basket is the best new idea I’ve seen in ten years,’ Neiron said. ‘Rhodians think of everything.’

Satyrus turned to Charmides. ‘Find the sailor with the biggest lungs and have him pass the word from our masthead to the ships of the centre – so the king gets the word. Enemy is advancing.’

‘Foam under their bows!’ from the masthead.

‘What’s that mean?’ Anaxagoras asked.

‘It means they’ve already gone to ramming speed.’ Neiron clapped his hands. ‘I’ll take the conn. Give me the oars.’

Thrasos nodded, braced and Neiron put his hands on the oars. ‘You have the oars.’

‘I have the oars.’ Neiron ducked under the big Kelt’s arms and was in the helmsman’s place.

Close by Satyrus’ ear, a mighty voice roared, ‘Enemy at ramming speed,’ at Hermeaus’
Poseidon
, the next ship beachward from the
Arete
.

Satyrus suddenly realised that the two fleets were closing at the combined speed of a pair of galloping horses and that he was unarmed and unarmoured.

‘Charmides!’ he called.

The young man was at his elbow, arms full of bronze and iron.

‘Arm me!’ he said, his eyes still on the enemy line – what he could see of it. His own foresail blocked his view forward.

‘Foresail down,’ Neiron called, reading his thoughts. ‘But brailed up, ready for raising.’

Sailors ran barefoot along the deck – the greatest advantage of the new full decking was the speed with which sailors could react to any part of the deck without climbing over rowers.

Satyrus got his corselet around his waist, and Charmides tied the waist laces, then the chest ties.

‘We’re going to ram,’ Satyrus said to Neiron. ‘Too late to back water.’

Neiron watched as the foresail came down in a rush, and suddenly they could see the centre of Plistias’ line, a stade away, coming on like a cavalry charge.

Ptolemy and Amyntas must have thought the same, because the king’s ship sped up to full ramming speed.

Charmides got the top laces done up under Satyrus’ armpit, and Satyrus reached back for the yoke of the cuirass. ‘Get my greaves on!’ he said. He began to fumble with the ties of the breastplate. ‘Herakles, Lord and Ancestor, stand by me.’

Close – very close. He felt the surge as
Arete
went to full speed. The ship might be heavy, but his men were in top form: well fed, well trained and confident.

Apollodorus was tying the pauldrons to his waist ties. ‘You keep commanding,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ll keep you alive.’

‘Are the machines loaded?’ Satyrus asked.

‘How stupid do I look, lord?’ Apollodorus asked. ‘Heh – don’t answer that.’

Satyrus felt the greaves snapping onto his legs. Someone was buckling the silver buckles behind his knees and his ankles.

‘Arm plates?’ Apollodorus asked.

‘Yes.’ Satyrus didn’t turn his head. ‘Neiron – take the nearside one, the vessel closest to
Poseidon
.’

‘Aye, lord.’ Neiron flicked the oars. ‘Thrasos, here – I need your arms. You with the lungs – tell
Poseidon
I’m taking the wide-arse with the green awning.’

The big sailor put his hands to cup his mouth. ‘Arete
intends to ram the green awning!
’ he roared.

‘Acknowledged,’ the man said to Neiron. ‘The helmsman waved.’

‘We won’t fuck that up, then.’ Neiron looked over at Satyrus. ‘I think we’re in trouble,’ he said quietly.

‘Punch through their centre and see where we are,’ Satyrus said. ‘I mean it, Neiron –
diekplous
and through into the second line.’

Neiron nodded, all business.

Satyrus felt the familiar weight of his harness, bent his arms, crouched.

Behind him, Neiron and Thrasos together leaned against the steering oars.

The men in the masthead shot their arrows.

Apollodorus looked at Satyrus. Satyrus nodded.

‘Engines! Fire at will!’ he called.

Only the bow engines had clear shots, and they went off together. The deep, ringing
thrump
of a bolt striking their fore hull showed that their opponents had heavy engines, too.

Half a stade.

Satyrus turned to Charmides. ‘No second chance now. Every armoured man to go with the marines. Apollodorus – if we board, do it like lightning, get the thing done and back aboard.’

‘Aye, lord.’

Satyrus ran forward, the straps on his greaves a little too tight and cutting at his ankles. Too late now.

Too late for a lot of things.

‘Marines! Brace!’ shouted Apollodorus, and the forward engines fired again, together, racing to be first.

To port, the king’s ship was a ram’s length ahead, aimed at the largest ship in the enemy first line – an octeres that was, timber for timber, virtually identical to the king’s. They struck, bow to bow, in an explosion of timber, a storm of splinters and a hail of arrows. Then Satyrus put his own head down, caught his cheekpieces and pulled them together and fastened the toggle at his throat.

The impact wasn’t the greatest he’d ever felt – in fact, while it pitched him into the back wall of the tower, it didn’t throw him off his feet. Above his head, the archer captain chanted orders as his men nocked and loosed and nocked and loosed again.
Arete
carried a much heavier contingent of archers than most ships: twenty men, most of them Sakje, with fluid recurved bows of horn and sinew and barbed arrows tipped with bronze. The Greeks were Alexandrians or Cretans, with heavy bows that shot long arrows capable of punching right through bronze.

The return volley from the enemy tower was late, and weak.

‘His bow’s crushed!’ came the call from the tower.

Satyrus, his blood up, ready to repel boarders, felt a sag.

Neiron made the hand signal for the rowers to reverse benches, and the oar master gave a great cry.

‘She’s going to sink!’ called a marine, and then the enemy came at them in a rush – fifty marines, crossing in three places where the bow towers were locked together.

Satyrus got to the starboard rail before the first enemy marine. Luck – good or ill – left him alone except for Charmides, as the enemy were trying to jump down into the waist behind the tower, where he was, instead of going to meet their peers; a tactic born of desperation.

Satyrus speared the first man in the helmet – a clean thrust into the very front of the man’s horsehair crest – and his head snapped back, he lost his grip and he was gone over the side.

‘Cut the grapples!’ Satyrus roared at Charmides. Charmides ignored him, roared a war cry and threw his spear. It hit the second enemy marine just above the nose and the broad blade collapsed his face – and he took Charmides’ spear over the side with him.

‘The grapples!’ Satyrus bellowed, and now he was facing three men – he took a big risk and attacked the middle one, counting on the tendency of all men to want to be sure of their footing before making a lunge. His thrust went in over the man’s shield and just ticked the side of his unarmoured throat, and he went down. Satyrus was too close, now – no choice but to be wild. He roared, dropped his spear, grabbed the right-hand man’s shield in his right hand at the base, and shoved it up under the man’s helmet plates, breaking his jaw.

The third man rammed his spear into Satyrus’ unprotected back and knocked him flat. The scales held the point, but the pain was intense – like a
pankration
opponent’s punch to the kidneys. The world went white, then red and Satyrus was dead.

But in the time it took him to think that he was down and dead, he realised that he was still in control of his limbs and he rolled, got his back against the marine tower and pushed against the deck with his legs. A sword rang off his greave. Charmides threw himself across Satyrus and took the spear thrust from overhead meant for his king, and Satyrus sat heavily, his back against the marine tower, with Charmides’ weight on top of him.

Apollodorus roared, and the
Arete
’s marines charged out of their tower. Charmides squirmed.

An Antigonid marine stood over them, raised his spear and grinned from sheer lust of killing.

Anaxagoras stabbed him from behind, a brutal, short spear jab, and then spun like a dancer, putting the butt of his spear into the next marine, using the power of his rotating body, and though his shaft snapped the enemy marine went down like a tree before a woodsman. Charmides screamed – there was blood flowing out of him – but Satyrus had no time for that, and he threw the boy off his legs and stumbled to his feet.

Hand up under arm – sword hilt – draw – lunge!

Satyrus put his point through an enemy marine’s eye. The man fell back over another marine, also dead.

‘Cut the grapples!’ Satyrus croaked.

Anaxagoras was at the rail, watching his third victim fall away into the sea. He looked up. ‘The boy is right. This is wonderful.’

Satyrus vomited over the side, and there was blood. ‘See to the boy,’ he said.

Swords and axes were slashing at the grapples, and the enemy ship was sinking, his bow ripped away in the first contact – bad timbers, shipworm, bad design – it should never have happened, but the
Arete
’s ram was caught in the sinking ship and Satyrus could hear his own timbers popping.

‘Row!’ Philaeus called. ‘For your lives!’

The last grapple rope parted with a crack like lightning and thunder on a stormy day, and the enemy ship slid – grudgingly – off their ram, and suddenly they were floating free, the oars moving them away.

Satyrus was unengaged, still retching, and he could see an enemy trireme, low in the water from his vantage, coming around the wreckage to ram them broadside or break their oars.

He spat and raised his head. ‘Oars in!’ he called. ‘Starboard side!’

Philaeus heard him, with the help of the gods – and repeated the order. ‘Starboard-side oars
in
!’ he roared, and Anaxagoras sang it, and the oars came in as if the ship were a machine built by mighty Hephaestos – and the trireme’s bronze beak struck low into their unprotected side and the timbers held.