the sailors back from the boarding party to manage the sail.
‘Oars in!’ Satyrus roared.
The Athenian turned away, yawing wide at the last minute, but Satyrus had seen the helmsman move his hands and he was on the Athenian’s stern, his ram under the Athenian’s port side in a few heartbeats, and the Athenian’s rowers panicked, fleeing their benches to avoid the second oar rake, and in the confusion Xenophon leaped across the narrowing gap alone on to the enemy deck. He landed, rose to his feet and knocked the enemy helmsman unconscious in one continuous motion and then faced the enemy trierarch. Grapples flew from all along the Lotus’s deck and the sailors were over the side, flooding the enemy rowing deck.
Just a few feet away, the enemy trierarch and Xenophon faced off. Xenophon made a simple fake and then cut overarm at the top of the Athenian’s shield. His opponent took the blow on his shield and pushed forward, knocking Xenophon to the deck effortlessly. He towered over the prostrate young man and raised his spear.
Melitta shot. Her arrow rose on the breeze, a shot that had to pass the length of the ships, past ropes and rigging and hulls and rails, and fell from its apogee as if guided by Athena’s hand to bury itself in the mercenary’s thigh, a handspan above his greave. The man fell to one knee, and Xeno was up.
The mercenary parried, parried again, using his spear with desperate skill. He tried to rise to his feet and failed, fell in his own blood, and still managed to block Xenophon’s death stroke. He rolled over – red blood from his thigh wound dripping from his fine bronze cuirass – and got back up on one knee. Xenophon stepped back and saluted him, and the mercenary laughed and returned the salute – then turned it into a cut.
Xenophon parried, but now he had a long red line on his sword arm.
During the pause, Kalos had stepped up behind the Athenian with a deck maul. After the salutes were done, Kalos struck, hitting the Athenian hard in the side of the head. The man went down.
Satyrus was able to breathe again, and under his breath he offered a prayer to Athena and to Herakles for preserving Xenophon, who, for all his skill, was clearly outmatched.
After the Athenian trierarch went down, the Athenian ship offered no fight at all. The swell was increasing, out away from the beach, and it was all their port-side oarsmen could do to keep them bow-on to the waves, which were twice the height they’d been ten minutes before.
Satyrus dropped back and then put his ram under the Athenian’s stern with a far more threatening crash than he had intended – but he got it done, and the rest of the marines and sailors were across in a single long peal of thunder.
‘Follow me, and may Poseidon send we make it,’ Satyrus called. ‘Try and keep their navarch alive!’
Kalos waved and Satyrus could hear him bellowing orders, could see the Athenian marines being disarmed in the bow, Xeno with his helmet off, pouring water on a wound. He ranged alongside with the wind in his brailed-up boatsail alone and his archers covered the decks. There was no more resistance.
Kalos had the Athenian boatsail mast up before the waves turned to whitecaps, and then he was scudding away. The Athenian trireme was damaged, but with the wind now directly astern, she went well enough, and Kalos had time to reorganize the rowers – captives, now.
Satyrus watched the quinquereme come off the beach and start to pull into the waves.
Two unemployed oarsmen brought Peleus to sit in the stern. He was as white as new-scraped parchment and blood dribbled from his mouth, but he was alive. Melitta and Dorcus had washed him and cut the arrow shaft at the wound so that he could rest against things. The fact that the shaft hadn’t been withdrawn told Satyrus everything.
‘Master Peleus.’ Satyrus sat on his heels, holding the oar, trying to hear the helmsman as his lips moved.
Peleus raised his head. ‘Beautiful,’ he said. Then he said, ‘Need to get on the beach. Now!’
‘If you were hale, master, we could have a go at the big ship.’ Satyrus found that his cheeks were wet. ‘What do you mean, on the beach?’
‘Storm,’ Peleus said.
Satyrus looked out to sea and knew that the helmsman was right.
‘Fucking beautiful,’ Peleus said. He had himself up on an elbow, and he could just see over the stern. ‘Two to one, under the eyes of the enemy!’ He laughed, and the laugh turned to a gurgle and a spray of blood. Peleus’s eyes caught Satyrus’s, and the younger man could see that the older was going – could all but see his shade pulling free of his body.
‘Storm coming,’ Peleus said. Then, with enormous effort, ‘Tell Rhodos!’
He slumped then, and Satyrus thought he was gone. He turned to watch over his stern. The storm was coming from the sea, moving so fast that he could see the bow-shaped front and feel the drop in temperature. Out to seaward, there was a line, like a line of fog, but Satyrus knew it was a squall line.
Landward, the quinquereme had already abandoned the chase. He was backing into the heavy surf even as they rounded Laodikea Head and the beach full of Macedonian ships vanished around the point.
They were sailing fast – so fast that a moment’s inattention caused the hull to tremble like a dog on a leash and sway. They were overhauling the captured Athenian hand over fist now that they had the sail well set.
They passed within an oar’s length and sailed on, the edge of the storm carrying them as fast as a galley dared to sail. They cleared the rocks north of Laodikea Head and then the next bay to the north in minutes.
‘I’m going for it,’ Satyrus said. He was speaking to Peleus, whose eyes still had life in them. There was no one else to talk to – Kleitos was busy with his new responsibilities and Melitta was forward with the archers. ‘I’m going to try to beach right here and make it through the night.’
Peleus nodded, startling him. ‘Good boy,’ he said.
Satyrus hadn’t been at sea his whole life, but he’d seen storms. He prayed that this one would follow the usual pattern – a lull just before the front came in.
‘Master Kleitos!’ he called.
Kleitos came up.
‘I intend to beach us, stern first, on the next beach – see her?’ Satyrus pointed over the starboard bow, and Kleitos looked blank.
‘When I order the boatsail down, you must have all the oarsmen ready – one quarter circle turn to port and then back oars for their lives.’ Satyrus mimed the manoeuvre with his hands.
Kleitos nodded, but his eyes showed no understanding.
‘Repeat it to me,’ Satyrus urged.
‘When you drop the boatsail, quarter turn to seaward and back him into the surf,’ Kleitos said. He didn’t sound as if he believed it.
‘Pass that word to every man. No relying on orders at the last minute. Got me?’
‘Aye, Navarch!’ Kleitos’s eyes were dull – he was already exhausted by the effort of command.
Satyrus grabbed an oarsman. ‘What’s your name, man?’
‘Diokles, lord.’
Satyrus started, recognizing the man from the night in Alexandria.
‘Diokles, can you take the steering oar?’ Satyrus had seen Diokles with Peleus often enough – if they were friends, the man had to be competent. He’d been in charge of the watch.
Diokles reached out and took the heavy oar. ‘I have the helm,’ he said. His voice was thick, foreign and raspy. He looked down at Peleus, who gave a very short nod.
Heartbeats until they were in the surf. So much to do. ‘You have the helm!’ Satyrus said, and went forward. He found the four sailors.
‘On my command, bring the boatsail down. Down flat – understand – nothing to catch the wind.’ Too much information – he could see it on their faces.
‘We know our business, Navarch,’ the oldest said. He gave a lopsided smile. ‘No worries, lad,’ he whispered hoarsely.
He went back aft, found that Diokles had been cheating the bow in towards the beach – a nice job of steering.
They had a great deal of way on them – in fact, Satyrus wasn’t sure but that this was the fastest he’d ever moved in his life. Satyrus watched the shore – so close – and took a deep breath. He glanced at the Athenian galley. Did they have a chance of duplicating his motions?
They were both angling towards the beach. Just short of the breakers – the rising, increasingly angry
