locked on his commander, waiting for the order that would trigger his command to turn away from the stricken Roman galley and rejoin the battle at large.
The deck beneath Hamilcar was littered with the splinters of the shattered oars, while yet more rained down upon him as he came up behind the group of men he had stationed on the foredeck. They stood unmoving, their weapons poised in their hands. Hamilcar looked beyond them to the Roman galley, the mainmast now directly opposite him, now behind. He turned to the enemy aft-deck. Three men stood there and Hamilcar immediately recognized Perennis amongst them, issuing orders to his helmsman while frantically looking to the starboard rail. Hamilcar smiled coldly.
‘Make ready,’ he shouted above the cacophony of noise. His men raised their weapons.
Drusus stood stoically on the main deck of the Orcus at the head of his demi-maniple, his legs braced against the shudder of the deck beneath him, his expression murderous behind his raised shield, his eyes locked on the passing Carthaginian galley. As a soldier trained and forged in close combat, where you could smell the breath of your enemy, where the shadow of death was cast over all, the concept of attacking an enemy with impunity was abhorrent.
There was no honour in the naval tactics of ramming or sweeping oars, striking your foe with a crippling or even mortal blow, only to sail away without ever having faced down your enemy. That was not the way of the legions, and Drusus craved the chance to take the fight to the Carthaginians, hoping that they might yet board the Orcus and taste the steel of the men to his back.
A shattered piece of oar slammed into his shield. The bow of the Carthaginian galley passed, moving at the speed of a running man, and Drusus’s eye was immediately drawn to the knot of men on the enemy foredeck, their attention fixed on the aft-deck of the Orcus, their intention clear. Drusus did not hesitate. He ran, shouting for his men to follow, the more alert reacting instantly, the Carthaginian galley outpacing them all as they raced to the aft-deck.
Atticus heard his name being called through the deafening noise and turned to the main deck. Drusus was running towards him with a half-dozen men, while behind him the rest of the maniple seemed in confusion, with many others turning to join the flight towards the aft-deck. The optio was screaming his name, pointing frantically to a point somewhere to Atticus’s right, and he spun around.
The foredeck of the Carthaginian galley was all but level with his position and Atticus immediately saw the danger, the tight knot of archers with their bows drawn, their arrows pointing directly at him, Baro and Gaius. Behind them he saw Hamilcar, his gaze already locked on Atticus. Across the maelstrom of shattered oars and the wall of screams from the rowers below, Atticus saw the hatred pouring from Hamilcar’s eyes and the triumphant, twisted smile on his face.
Atticus reacted without conscious thought, striking out with his left hand to shove Baro to the deck, dropping the sword from his right as he made to turn towards Gaius, his eyes still locked on Hamilcar, his mind registering the open mouth of his enemy, forming a single shouted command: loose.
The Carthaginians released their drawn bows as one, the trajectory of the arrows almost flat across the narrow gap, and Atticus immediately felt a solid deadening punch in his right shoulder and leg, the realization of the dual strikes flooding his mind with alarm, numbing his senses as the deck fell away from beneath him and his gaze swept across the iron-grey sky.
The air was blown from his lungs as he struck the deck. Sensations assailed him like waves crashing endlessly against a stricken hull; the struggle to breathe, the numbness in his shoulder and leg giving way to searing pain that built like heat in a furnace, his ears filled with cries of alarm as unseen bodies clamoured around him, the thud of arrows striking raised shields punctuating the endless noise.
He rolled on to his side, crying out in pain as the shaft of the arrow in his shoulder broke under the weight of his body. His hand shot to the wound, the blood gushing through his fingers, and his vision began to swim, a darkness creeping in on all sides. He roared a guttural cry of defiance, pushing back the darkness, knowing he needed to stay alive, that his ship was in danger, his crew.
He slammed his bloodstained hand on to the deck and pushed himself up, immediately seeing Baro taking cover behind the shield wall of Drusus’s men while the optio shouted for his hastati to let fly on the escaping galley with their spears, a furious, hopeless order to exact some measure of vengeance.
Atticus turned his head, a wave of nausea sweeping over him; again he repressed it savagely. He looked to the helm, the tiller swinging steadily against the grey backdrop of the sky, and then he dropped his gaze to the deck, his heart breaking as he spotted Gaius not five feet away, the helmsman’s eyes wide in fear, his bloodied hands clutching the shaft of an arrow that was protruding from his neck.
Atticus crawled across the deck, his own pain forgotten, his vision filled with the sight of Gaius. He reached out and grabbed Gaius’s tunic with his left hand just as the helmsman began to fall, and he eased him on to the deck. Gaius’s eyes locked on Atticus. He opened his mouth, blood gushing out to run down his cheeks. He tried to speak, his eyes opening wider in a silent plea as the words died on his lips, choked by blood and the terrible wound. Atticus put his hand to Gaius’s cheek, quieting him, nodding slightly as if in understanding, and the helmsman calmed, the pleading in his eyes turning to gratitude before death robbed them of their sight.
Hamilcar continued to look over his shoulder as the Alissar made its turn through the empty waters beyond the Romans’ northernmost flank. The Greek’s ship was drifting aimlessly, its starboard side a tangle of broken oars, the rail lined with men waving wildly at the Alissar to return and fight. The taunts were lost over the increasing distance, but Hamilcar still felt their sting, a part of him wanting to strike again and board Perennis’s ship, to take it as a prize, to be the captain he once had been.
He turned and made his way back along the main deck, his thoughts on the frantic seconds of the attack, the moment of clarity before the order to loose, when Perennis had looked him in the eye. He recalled the arrows striking the Greek, knocking him to the deck, and the sudden arrival of the legionaries, their wall of shields blocking Hamilcar’s chance to confirm the kill. He replayed the moment again and again in his mind, each time becoming more convinced that his attack had been successful, and with satisfaction he put the matter beyond doubt in his mind, knowing he needed to focus his energy on the greater battle.
The Alissar came about behind the Carthaginian battle line, affording Hamilcar an uninterrupted view of the fight. No Roman ship had yet broken through, the disciplined ranks of the Gadir fleet preventing any escape. The southern flank was more exposed; the disparity in numbers allowed for some Roman galleys to fall outside the net, but Hamilcar dismissed the loss as inconsequential, knowing the Roman centre was ensnared, its doom already sealed.
He would further concentrate his forces, squeezing the centre until it buckled under the strain, forcing a surrender that would give him a bounty of captured galleys, each one a replica of his own, save the calibre of the crew. At Drepana the sons of Carthage would prove their worth and write their claim upon the sea with Roman blood.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Baro looked anxiously beyond the wake of the Orcus as the dawn sun illuminated the seascape. The northern horizon seemed clear, devoid of any Carthaginian pursuit, the clouds dissipating over an empty sea. Nevertheless his fear remained, the endless tension of the previous twenty-four hours having shredded his nerves to breaking point, and his grip tightened involuntarily on the tiller, irritated by the slow rhythm of the drum beat below decks, wishing he could increase the tempo, despite the exhaustion of the remaining rowers.
He recalled the desperate hour after the Carthaginian galley had swept the starboard oars of the Orcus. The prefect was grievously injured, the helmsman dead, and so he had taken command, redistributing the rowers and oars below decks, getting the Orcus back under way with only one purpose in mind: escape. He had broken away from the northern flank, his flight followed by three other Roman galleys, one of which had been rammed and was taking water. He had cursed their company, believing where one galley might slip away, a group would be followed, but the Carthaginians were concentrating their attacks on the centre and the small flotilla had sailed west unmolested, away from the carnage of battle.
Now that flotilla was finally nearing Lilybaeum, and Baro looked again to the other ships. The damaged galley was off his starboard beam. The crew had strapped a canvas sail over the hull, lessening the inflow of water, but
