the surge died stillborn. Instead of attacking they were forced to retreat a step, and then another.
Two steps were enough. Valerius launched himself from the deck of the Golden Cygnet and crashed on to the bucketing galley in the space the Spaniard had cleared with his sword. The wooden planking was made treacherous by the olive oil, but the sharpened hobnails of the Roman’s caligae gave him a purchase that was denied the barefooted pirates. A heartbeat later he was at Serpentius’s left shoulder smashing his shield into the bearded, wild-eyed faces in front of him. Another thud told him that Tiberius and his men were following, and a second later the young tribune’s shield locked into place beside his. Within moments they had been joined by the three cavalrymen and Serpentius was able to step back, his job done.
Valerius’s wall of shields created an impassable barrier across the narrow breadth of the scout galley, anchored at the flank by the curve of the ship’s wooden sides. The pirates could only attack two at a time up the narrow passage in the centre of the ship, or over the crowded rowing benches, and that meant they would never be able to focus enough power, momentum or numbers to break through. But it wasn’t enough. Already Valerius could hear the sound of Aurelius’s men reaching the deck behind him. And those men needed room to work.
‘On me,’ he roared. ‘Now.’ As one, the five shields battered forward with the automatic twist of the wrist that opened a gap for the lunge of the gladius. At the same time, the five men stepped into the space before the first of the wooden benches that would hamper their further progress as much as it hampered the pirate attack. Valerius was on the left of the line where his left-handed sword would do most good, with Tiberius to his right. He could feel Serpentius’s comforting presence behind him, ready to aid the hardest pressed or fill any gap in the line. Now was the moment for the pirates to feel the scorpion’s sting of the gladius. In an instant three or four of them were writhing on the deck and only the cavalrymen in the centre remained face to face with their attackers.
Chained to the bench in front of Valerius, a blackened husk of a man with shoulders whipped to raw meat by the overseer’s lash raised his hands and pleaded for release. But the chains were an inch across and the only way they could be removed was if the galley were to be captured. Valerius had always known that six men could never take the ship.
‘Two inches in the right place is better than six in the wrong one.’ He heard the words of his first instructor as the triangular point of his short sword punched through the breastbone of the captive oarsman and into his heart. The man’s eyes widened and his body slumped to the side, leaving just enough room for Valerius to take another step into the centre of the ship. If he could not kill all the pirates, the only way to save the Golden Cygnet and Domitia was to disable their vessel. The galley slaves had to die so that the general’s daughter might live.
The slaughter had begun.
Valerius had killed before, more times than he could count, but the men he had killed had either been trying to kill him or deserved to die. He had never done murder. He took another step forward, screaming at the pirates to come to him, and his sword flicked out again. More than anything else he wanted to take a life that deserved to be taken, as if that would cleanse him of the slaughter of innocent men. When he had landed on the pirate galley’s bow he had felt a terror that had never affected him on land. The lurching deck and the cramped confines of the fragile wooden hull tested his courage and his confidence. But now that the killing had begun, the battle calm settled over him.
A hulking unshaven brute in a loincloth clambered between the slaves at the rowing benches and stabbed at his eyes above the shield with a short spear. Valerius used the curved rim of the scutum to force the point up and was rewarded by a howl as his gladius pierced the man’s unprotected belly, spilling blood and entrails on to the boards. To his right, Tiberius and the man beside him carved a path through the pirates in the central aisle. The water in the ship’s bilge swirled and slopped an awful slaughterhouse pink and Valerius’s nostrils filled with the stink of gore and oil, raw fear, ingrained sweat and the dried shit that painted the galley sides.
An enormous figure, naked to the waist and with a shaggy pelt like a bear, burst from the pirate ranks and vaulted the rowing benches on the right of the Roman line. Before the cavalryman facing him could react, the giant tore the man’s shield from him and tossed it away, then picked the soldier up and threw him shrieking over the galley’s side. The big pirate howled in triumph and turned towards the next man in the shield line, but before his comrades could profit from his victory Serpentius had stepped forward and sunk his long sword into the man’s belly, ripping the blade free with a twist of his wrist. The Cilician collapsed disbelievingly into the ship’s bottom and the Spaniard snarled defiance at his enemy and called more of them forward to die.
They had won three benches before Valerius heard the sound he had been waiting for. The sharp thunk of axes chopping into the galley’s wooden hull brought a howl of dismay from the pirates and a screamed order from their captain that launched a ferocious attack on the Roman line. Another spear flicked off the rim of Valerius’s shield and caught him a glancing blow on the cheekplate as he fought off two pirates, one of them, he noticed dispassionately, in a rusting Roman helmet of a pattern that hadn’t been in use since the days of Pompey the Great. With a cry, the first of the men fell into the gap between two rowing benches where a galley slave already cowered. For a moment Valerius puzzled over whose sword had accounted for the pirate: it was a mistake that almost killed him. Just in time he sensed movement and darted a look towards his feet. The pirate had wriggled below the benches and was now readying his sword to stab upwards into the Roman’s unprotected groin. It was too late to bring his own sword round to meet the blow, and evasive action was impeded by the body of an oarsman he had killed earlier. He saw the fierce light in his killer’s eyes even as an axe blade from behind split the grinning head in two, spattering blood and brains on his legs. He shouted his thanks to his saviour, who turned out to be Julius, the lookout, but the sailor was already gone, throwing an oar overboard and bringing his big axe down to bite into the ship’s bottom with all his weight behind it. How long had they been fighting? Valerius had no idea, but the bloody water at his feet reached past his ankles now. The ship was holed and that meant they couldn’t fight for much longer. The other pirate galleys would be closing fast. They had done what they could. Now they had to do the impossible. Without taking his eyes from his enemy he shouted the command. ‘Prepare to disengage!’
Tiberius grunted to acknowledge the order as he flicked a spearpoint aside with the edge of his shield.
‘One step at a time, on my shout… Now!’
Somehow keeping his shield steady and fending off his attackers, Valerius made the awkward step back over the rowing bench and the body that was still chained to it. He could only hope that the other men were doing the same. In front of him the pirate crew howled as they realized what was happening and renewed their attack with redoubled fury.
He risked a glance at the boards and saw water gushing through a jagged hole low down on the side of the boat. A sword stabbed at his throat, forcing him to duck behind his shield, and another hacked at the leather covering, drawing splinters from the wood.
‘Now.’
At last, the galley walls began to curve inwards and he could hear cries from the Golden Cygnet as the axemen clambered back on board. ‘Tiberius,’ he cried. ‘Get your men out of here. I’ll close on you and we’ll hold them from the centre. Serpentius? You follow them.’
By now the pirates were fighting with the frenzy of the damned as they realized they had to regain control of the galley before it sank under them. He could hear the captain’s roars above the howls of the gutted and maimed and the groans of the dying. Someone must have found a bow, because for the first time arrows began to zip past Valerius’s head. One hit his shield with a sharp crack and a cry from behind told him another of the shafts had struck home. He felt hands working at his waist below his armour, but he didn’t have time to wonder what was happening.
‘Tiberius?’
‘Sir,’ the tribune gasped. His own breath rasping in his throat, Valerius found he was uncommonly pleased that the younger man was showing signs of tiring. At least it showed he was human.
‘When I move forward, you go.’
‘I can hold them.’
‘That’s not a suggestion, tribune. Get back to the ship. Now!’ As he shouted the word Valerius smashed his shield at the pirates contesting the narrow passageway. He hadn’t worked out what came after. All that mattered was to give Tiberius and his men time to escape. The other galleys would be almost on them now and Aurelius had orders to get the Golden Cygnet under way before they were in a position to threaten him, no matter who was left on board. Sword blades clattered against the big wooden shield and he knew it was only a matter of time before someone worked their way over the oar benches to flank him, or stabbed his legs beneath the shield. The pressure was almost unbearable. He remembered the last moments in the Temple of Claudius and realized he was grinning.
