Philokles and all the men who'd fallen at Gaza and the girl in the meadow-
'Stop it,' he said aloud.
Show your gods who you really are, Philokles said at his elbow.
Satyrus smiled, wondering how tired he was. Or fevered. There were red lines on his arm that scared him.
But he felt better immediately.
At full dark, Satyrus sat on the beach and set to building a fire. The dogs were two headlands behind him, their barking lost in the dark. Black Falcon would be close, unless he was going to miss his rendezvous altogether. Not worth thinking about that.
He got the fire lit with dry lichen and sparks from the pyrites in his kit and thanked Herakles that it had not rained. He couldn't have started a fire with wet wood. He lacked the practice.
After the first fire, the second was easy. He gathered wood and poured it on, gathered more and started his third fire, made sure that they were in an even line across the beach. Now he could hear the dogs again.
With his fires going, he sat on the dry sand and cleaned his sword and his lonche, polishing the blades carefully with the fine sand by firelight, his concentration so complete that he almost missed the looming bulk of the Falcon as he rounded the point.
He left the fires burning, dived into the surf and swam the half-stade to his ship.
Theron's strong arm helped him up the side. 'You look like shit,' he said.
'Due south for Tomis,' Satyrus barked to Diokles. He met Theron's eyes in the light of the ship's lamp.
'We're going for them in the dark?' Theron asked.
'They have quite a force,' Satyrus said. 'Eumeles' men.'
'We could sail past,' Theron said.
'No.' Satyrus was rooting under the helmsman's bench for his kit. 'No, we can't. People are dying for me here, Theron. I just learned a lesson – about being a king. About even trying to be a king. Again.'
'Those are the worst lessons, lad,' Theron agreed. 'I'm sorry-'
'Don't be. I've grown up a little since last night. Call me boy if it suits. Neiron! Arm the crew. All officers!' Satyrus threw his blood-soaked chiton over the side and pulled on a dry one from his pack, then pinned his heavy red chlamys at his neck.
Kallias came from amidships with Apollodorus.
'Gentlemen, this has to be fast and sure,' Satyrus said. 'The enemy has three ships on the beach and the Lotus. I want you, Diokles, to put us right between Lotus and the breakwater – right over his mooring ropes. We board him and kill anyone aboard. Kallias, tell off every man who's served aboard Lotus and enough rowers to move and fight. We'll strip Falcon. Diokles – as soon as we're away, take Falcon out into the roadstead.'
'And then?' Theron asked.
'And then we're in the hands of the gods,' Satyrus said. 'Are you with me?'
'You won't run off without us?' Theron asked. 'No pointless heroics?'
'I'd bathe in their blood if I could,' Satyrus said. 'But I want to win.'
Men shuffled on the deck. He made them nervous when he talked like that.
'We're with you,' Diokles said.
'Let's do the thing,' Kallias added. His fist hit his open palm with a meaty sound. Falcon slipped out of the dark of midnight along the path that the moon seemed to light from the open sea to the breakwater. A sentry up on the mole, or perhaps on the deck of the Golden Lotus, called out. No one answered.
'Hey there!' he yelled the second time. Satyrus could see his white face in the moonlight. He was on the stern of the Lotus. 'Hey!' he said again.
Falcon's bow brushed down the length of Leon's flagship, conned to perfection with Diokles' hands steady on his steering oars and his boatsail already struck.
'Alarm!' the man on the stern called, several minutes too late.
'Boarders away!' Satyrus roared.
He leaped from his own rail on to the rail of the Lotus – a feat he'd done fifty times – and down into the waist.
The ship was empty except for a handful of sailors asleep under an awning below the mainmast and the sentry. Satyrus raced for the sentry, who was slow to make the decision as to whether he should run or fight. At the last moment, he got his spear up, but Satyrus took his spear on his own shield and crashed against him, shield to shield, his sword reaching around and cutting the other man's sinews even as they crushed together, and down he went. Satyrus stepped on his neck, crushing his windpipe, and thrust his sword into the man's eye.
The sailors under the awning were spared by their very helplessness. Otherwise, Lotus was empty, and Kallias was already pushing men into their stations. The triemiolia's rig was different enough to cause chaos and similar enough that they were cleared for action before there was any reaction from the town, although dogs were barking on the beach and a voice was calling out from the shore.
'Rowers on your benches?' Kallias shouted. When he got a growl in answer, he blew a whistle. 'Oars out! Look alive there! Give way, all!'
Only two-thirds of the oars were manned, but they shot out and caught the water in two crisp motions, and Satyrus felt the living ship under his feet. He had the steering oars, and now he leaned heavily into the steering rig.
'Hard to starboard!' he called.
'Starboard oars! All banks! Back oars!' Kallias ordered.
Behind them, as they started their turn, Falcon began to pull away into the darkness, his oarsmen cheering thinly, only a quarter of the benches manned, but the rowers were scenting victory.
'Blood in the water and silver in our hands,' Satyrus muttered. He was daring himself to shout it aloud – Peleus's war cry, a piratical phrase that gave him goose pimples in the midst of action.
He raised his voice and shouted it. 'Blood in the water!' he cried, and the rowers cheered. 'And silver in our hands!' they chanted back at him, and they were moving faster, Kalos thumping the mainmast to keep the time.
Eumeles' troops were pouring out of the town, and some of them had lit fires on the beach – fires that served only to illuminate their helpless ships.
'Half-speed,' Satyrus called to Kalos, who slowed the rowers. They were moving well.
'Prepare to reverse your benches,' Satyrus called. He waved to Apollodorus. 'Get into the bow and ready to throw the grapples.'
'Aye,' Apollodorus called.
'Back water!' Satyrus yelled. Too fast. He had bitten off too much…
The oars dug into the star-speckled water, churning it to a black froth, and the Lotus slowed. Satyrus pointed his ram just to starboard of the northernmost beached trireme and then steadied the steering oars while the rowers continued to back, cursing him – he could hear the mutters – but the ship slowed, slowed…
Thump. His bow brushed the enemy's stern, clearly backlit by the fires on the beach, and he caught the flicker of the grapples sailing through the clear, dark air.
'Reverse your benches!' Kalos roared over the sounds of combat from the bow. Enemy marines were trying desperately to fend off the Lotus.
'Grapples home!' from the bow.
'Give way, all!' Kalos called, and Satyrus had nothing to do but steer steady as the Lotus slipped away from the beach stern first. There was a jerk as the ropes on the grapples caught and tugged – the whole weight of the enemy ship on the oarsmen – but they knew they were rowing for the value of the prize and they pulled, short, powerful strokes at Kalos's command, and the enemy ship slid into the water and followed them as meekly as a lamb following a girl to market, coasting along behind them with his marines still struggling, now fighting for their lives. A stade off the beach they lost heart and tried to surrender, but Apollodorus had his orders, and he drove them into their own stern and then over the side, to drown.
Panting with exertion and speaking too quickly and too loudly, Apollodorus came to the cockpit with a shield and a helmet, the tangible signs of their victory. 'Ours, by the gods!' he said. 'I didn't lose a man – once they felt their keel grate on the sand, they panicked and we reaped them like ripe wheat.'
Satyrus smacked him on his backplate. 'Well done. But they've left the fires burning and we need every hull.
