Let's take another.'
Apollodorus nodded, put his hands on his knees and crouched, breathing hard. 'Let me get my breath!'
Satyrus nodded. 'Kalos!' he called.
His acting oar master ran aft. 'Aye?'
'I intend to empty Falcon and take every man.' Satyrus said. 'Push 'em all forward with arms to help the marines. You run the oars and have Diokles at the helm.'
'Done,' Kalos pointed at the looming mast of the Falcon. 'Mind your helm, sir!' he shouted, and Satyrus had to steer hard to avoid putting the stern of his uncle's flagship right on the bow of his own ship. So much to watch, all the time – he leaned on the oars and prayed while Kalos bellowed for the oars to come inboard.
But he got them alongside – backing was easier, in many ways – and they lashed the captured trireme to the Falcon.
'Let's get everyone aboard Lotus,' Satyrus called across to Theron, who waved a torch in reply. In the time it took to swear an oath, the skeleton crew of the Falcon was across, all armed with spears or javelins. They left the other two ships floating free, lashed together.
'They're still lighting new fires on the beach,' Diokles said. 'They've never fought at night, that's for sure.'
'The southernmost boat looks to be a little bigger,' Theron said. 'Maybe just a trick of the firelight.'
They were already inbound, Diokles at the helm, and the southernmost boat did look bigger.
'Someone's fighting on the beach,' Theron said. He went forward, still favouring his left hip but moving fast despite his full armour.
Satyrus went with him, having no immediate duty. He stepped up into the Lotus's ram-box. It was packed with marines and sailors, and Satyrus stepped up on the rail and used the boatsail-mast shrouds to walk around the rail to the bow. Theron was right on his heels.
There were sounds of fighting from the beach – shouts and the clash of bronze and iron and a man bellowing in rage or fear – or both.
'I will burn this town and every arse-cunt in it!' sang that voice – the clown voice.
Satyrus realized that all his muscles had clenched together, and he made himself relax. 'The town has risen against the raiders,' he said.
'Easier pickings for us,' a marine said. 'They can't cover the beach and the boats at the same time.'
Satyrus shouted orders as he climbed around Theron and then ran along the rail, heedless of the fall to the water and instant death for a man in armour. 'Apollodorus – I'm going to put us ashore. Empty the boat – you take the marines, Theron, Kalos – take the sailors.'
'What?' Theron asked, but Satyrus had moved on. He jumped down to the deck and ran along the gangway, repeated his orders to Kalos and the deck crew, and then ran aft to Diokles.
'Past the southernmost boat – turn us around and beach us stern first. Everyone over the side – everyone.' Satyrus was bouncing on his toes, scared by his own decision but committed to it. The local men were dying on the beach, facing professional soldiers and paying the price, fighting in the dark. He was not going to leave them to it.
Diokles shook his head, his teeth gleaming in the distant firelight. 'You're mad, you know that? Didn't your friend Theron say something about not running off in mad heroics?' He drew himself up and shouted, 'Starboard rowers – reverse benches!' He grinned at Satyrus. 'I'm mad too. We'll have them all – or die trying.'
Satyrus wasn't even thinking of the potential prizes – only of the fact that Calchus, his father's guest-friend, was almost certainly fighting on the beach against the men who had killed Penelope – raped Teax. People he barely knew.
Perhaps he was mad.
'Ready about ship!' Diokles called. To Satyrus, he said, 'I have the ship. Go and organize your landing.'
Satyrus saluted him and ran forward, his greaves already chafing at his ankles, his shield banging against the shoulder-plate of his cuirass. 'As soon as the stern bites the sand,' he called, 'marines and deck crew over the side. Don't pull Lotus up the beach – just form as you practised with Theron – marines in the front, sailors in the next ranks, oarsmen behind. Understand?'
Theron was shaking his head, but he didn't say anything.
'Straight up the beach and into the enemy,' Satyrus said.
'We ought to be behind them,' Apollodorus agreed.
'Don't stop to throw a javelin or any of that crap,' Satyrus said. 'They're formed up – I saw it in the firelight. Get right into them. Stay together – don't kill each other in the dark.'
'Beach!' several men called. Satyrus saw that his time for planning was past – they were so close to the southernmost enemy trireme that their oars almost brushed his beak, and then Kalos shouted 'Oars in!' and they rammed the beach so hard that every man on deck fell flat.
'Over the side,' Satyrus yelled, getting to his feet. He jammed his helmet on his head and jumped into the water, found it deeper than he expected – almost to his chest – and started pushing ashore, the cold water like a reminder of mortality. 'Form up! Form up!' he yelled, over and over again, and Kalos was ahead of him on the strand, yelling the same, and Apollodorus had the marines in a gaggle, then the gaggle began to spread out and became a line.
'Sailors!' Satyrus yelled. Sailors – and oarsmen – were coming up, taking posts behind the thin line of armoured men. Half a stade down the beach, other men were shouting by the fires. Closer, an archer shot and the arrow plucked at the crest on Satyrus's helmet. Another arrow hit his ankle hard and he looked, expecting to see the shaft pinning his leg to the beach, but the arrow was gone, and his ankle bone hurt as if he'd been kicked by a horse.
No idea what had been happening here, except that there were bodies by the stern of the middle boat and no defenders. Battle madness raged with common sense.
'Diokles!' Satyrus called. 'Take twenty men and get these hulls afloat!'
A roar of approval from his own oarsmen – floating the enemy hulls insured against defeat, meant there would be no pursuit.
Apollodorus waved his spear. Theron was standing next to him, a tower of bronze in the firelight.
'Ready?' Satyrus called. His voice was going – too much shouting. 'On me – let's go!'
It wasn't really a phalanx – it was more like a mob with some shared direction, a hundred men trotting down the beach with a thin front edge of bronze and iron. The sailors were contemptuous of formations, and they opened out as they ran. Men fell over bodies, driftwood – a whole file struck an upturned fishing smack in the dark and was lost, a human eddy of confusion – but the mass swept down the beach, Satyrus running at their head, past the other ship, past the fires, up to the top of the beach and almost into the town.
And there they were – suddenly, there were men on the seaward edge of the agora, where most of the town's fishing boats had been pulled up clear of the storm line by careful men. In and among those hulls, the invaders were killing the townsmen and the farmers of the countryside around the town.
'Kill them all!' the sing-song voice said.
Satyrus saw him, standing on the upturned hull of a big fishing smack.
'Falcons – charge!' Satyrus forced his lungs to fill and bellow the orders, and his men growled and cheered and fell on the raiders.
Satyrus ran up and killed an unarmoured man with a spear-blow to the kidney, so that the man's blood burst forth and he fell, his eyes huge as he rolled on the wound like a man trying to put out a fire, and Satyrus was past him.
His next opponent wore armour, and the man was turning when Satyrus came up and jammed his spear, the point guided by the hands of the gods, into the armpit of the man's shield arm – a miraculous blow, but the man was down, crumpled, and Satyrus had to stop his charge because he was deep in the enemy ranks. They were turning, and Satyrus planted his feet.
'Falcons!' he roared. He thrust hard with his spear – it caught the top of a helmet and glanced off, but he snapped the man's head sharply and the man went down, unconscious, stunned or simply hurt. Satyrus didn't follow his fall – he whirled and stabbed in the other direction, and this man – an officer with a plume – caught the thrust on his shield and stabbed back, but Theron blocked the blow, stepped in and hammered away at the man with a sword, pounding the blade down again and again until the man fell.
