shield and through the bones of his arm – he bellowed and fell into the sea, but there were a dozen men behind him.
Javelins flew both ways – a volley and a counter volley, and then the fighting deck was full of men. Melitta backed away and away again, using her arrows like a Sakje, shooting men in the face and groin when they were close enough to touch Xeno, who fought from behind his heavy aspis and covered her. She lost track – shot, and shot, and saw Xeno take a heavy blow to his helmet. She shot his opponent between the cheekpieces of his ornate Thracian helmet and reached for her next arrow to find that she had none.
There was a scream – rage and triumph and horror – and when she flicked a glance to see what had happened, she saw the enemy trireme turn turtle right over their ram, his other rail falling on their ram with a heavy thud and a hollow sound like a temple bell, so that they rocked deep, men falling flat, but she kept her feet. Xeno fell backwards into her and the last attackers, desperate men, surged forward and she was pinned against the back rail of the fighting platform. She went for her akinakes, got her hand on the horn of the hilt and knew that it was too late as the pirate’s axe went back – a heavy bronze axe that her helmet would never turn – but she pulled the knife anyway. It seemed slow, and the axe paused as Xeno rose into its path, got a hand on the haft and butted the axe-man in the face with the bronze of his helmet. Then he fell into the space at her feet, his body across Karpos’s – she had her knife out and tried to stand, and then a spearhead flashed past her and caught the axe-man in the throat, and suddenly – there was no more fighting.
Her brother was balanced on the rail behind her, weaponless, and Peleus stood below him with an axe of his own.
‘Good throw, boy,’ Peleus said. His voice was hoarser than usual, but otherwise he seemed calm. Then he crumpled like an animal at sacrifice, and she could see the arrow that transfixed his lungs front to back.
Her brother pitched forward on to the enemy dead. ‘Xeno!’ he cried.
Xeno got his head up. ‘Oh,’ he said. He was bleeding.
Melitta looked back at the oarsmen, who were cheering as they backed water. ‘Satyrus!’ she yelled into his ears. ‘You’re the navarch. Peleus is down!’
Satyrus hadn’t seen. He stood up, whirled, his face crumpling as he saw his hero lying on the deck in a pool of lung-bright blood. He fought a strong desire to sit on the deck and go to sleep. He sucked in a breath.
‘See to the wounded. You there,’ he pointed at a marine, ‘don’t kill their wounded. I want prisoners. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir!’ The marine looked ready to fall over, but he stood up.
Satyrus leaped the rail and ran down the amidships deck. ‘I need an oar master,’ he shouted. ‘Who’s the man?’
The oarsmen were not used to having their opinions asked. Even as they rowed, heads turned and the stroke suffered. Satyrus didn’t know the oarsmen as well as a real navarch should. But he knew Kleitos, who, though young, was often sent off in the light boat. Kleitos had rowed with him that night in Alexandria two weeks ago, which now felt like another world.
‘Kleitos!’ he called. He pulled the man’s arm, then pushed a deckhand on to the bench. ‘You are the oar master.’
‘Me?’ the young man asked. His jaw worked silently, his eyes wide.
‘I want to turn to starboard in our own length – all the way around. The way Peleus and Kyros did it.’ Satyrus looked out over the stern – plenty of room now. Backing water for fifty strokes had them well clear of both wrecks.
The lighter Athenian trireme was limping away, only a dozen oars going on her port side, and she was turning involuntarily out to sea.
‘Starboard oars,’ Kleitos said.
‘Louder!’ Satyrus said.
‘Starboard oars!’ Kleitos shouted. He had good lungs, when he used them. ‘Back-water on my mark!’
‘They’re already backing, lad,’ Kalos said. The deck master was standing by Kleitos.
‘Portside oars, switch your benches!’ the man called. His voice was tentative, and many of the oarsmen looked at Kalos before obeying.
Satyrus winced – he’d made a bad choice. Kleitos was not ready for the job – but Satyrus didn’t have another oar master under his hand.
The ship tilted as ninety men shifted their weight and reversed the way they sat. ‘Port side, give way on my mark! Give way, all!’ Kleitos seemed to be getting the knack of it, although his orders came a little too fast and the execution was slow.
It didn’t matter, because the Athenian galley hadn’t made a stade since they started their turn.
Satyrus ran aft, to where a deckhand held the steering oar, petrified with responsibility. ‘I have the helm,’ he said. ‘Go and see to Master Peleus.’
The sailor ran off, bare feet slapping the deck.
‘Master Kalos!’ Satyrus called. ‘I’ll do my best to lay us alongside that Athenian. I intend to come up from her stern and take her. You will prepare the deck crew to board her. You will go aboard with all our marines and all our deck crew and get her boatsail on her. Is that clear?’
Kalos’s grin filled his ugly face and showed all his missing teeth. ‘You’re going to take her? Aye, Navarch!’
With the sails down, Satyrus could see the whole run of his deck. Xenophon was standing, and there were three prisoners stripped of their armour being bound to the mast. Peleus lay in his own blood with two deckhands standing ineffectually above him.
‘Master Xenophon!’ Satyrus called. His voice was cracking every shout. He wanted to sit down and rest, but they were not done yet.
Xenophon’s bare feet slapped the deck as he ran to the stern. ‘Sir!’
‘Take all the marines who can fight and support Master Kalos in boarding the Athenian.’ Satyrus corrected his course even as Kleitos ordered the starboard side rowers to pull forward again. They were around – perhaps the ugliest manoeuvre in the Golden Lotus’s history, but they were around. Satyrus leaned forward. ‘Xeno, can you do it? Secure that ship? Kill their oarsmen if it comes to that? Do I need to put another man in charge?’
‘Try me,’ Xeno said. He grinned. ‘I got us through the boarding party!’
‘So you did.’ They embraced, spontaneously, a certain hard joy flowing between them. And then Xeno turned away and started calling for ‘his’ marines. And Satyrus felt better. Suddenly he stood up, aware that his shoulders had been hunched since he’d thrown the spear.
‘Right then,’ he said to himself. ‘Lita!’ he called, and his sister ran down the central deck. He had some time in hand – perhaps a hundred heartbeats until he would have to give the next order. He was flying on the daimon that came to men in war and sport – so full of it that his hands shook and his knees trembled, but his head was clear and the world seemed to slow. Melitta sprinted to his side. ‘Sir!’ she said. She smiled when she said it.
‘You and Dorcus are the closest I have to doctors. See to the arrow in Peleus’s lungs – and the other wounded.’ Quietly, he said, ‘See that he goes easy if that’s what it takes, Lita.’
Melitta’s nose was pinched in an unaccustomed way, and she had a tendril of snot across part of her face and blood on her forehead. She used her sleeve to wipe her face. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, and turned away, shouting for Dorcus.
Satyrus still had time in hand and he turned to watch the Macedonians.
The quinquereme was in the surf with her oarsmen aboard, and two triremes were coming off the beach, but the wind was rising – from the south and west – and the helmsmen were being careful. Satyrus felt that he had time in hand – still. Just ahead and to port, the Athenian wallowed in the growing swell, oarsmen beating the water ineffectually.
‘Master Kalos, get me that boatsail rigged before you go off,’ he said. ‘Slow the stroke, oar master.’ He felt very much in control. He looked at the sky, and back at the beach.
The sailors got the boatsail rigged, the stain of Kyros’s blood like a blossom in the centre of the sail. The moment it filled, the Golden Lotus leaped forward like a warhorse changing gaits, a smooth acceleration that made some of the sailors grin with pleasure, while aboard the Athenian trireme, men pointed over the rail at them in panic.
Satyrus put a second sailor on to help steer, because at this speed she could veer wildly, and he kept four of
