never slowed – we were under sail, the wind under our sterns, and our sails must have looked like flowers of fire in the ruddy light.
Miltiades' face was lit as if from within. He was a foot taller than a mortal man, his hair glowed in the sunset as if he was an immortal and his words flowed thick and fast.
'Beach your ships as you find room,' he said. 'Get ashore, get their ships and sweep the beach clean. Paramanos, you and Arimnestos land your full compliment, every man on the beach. Form tight and get between us and the town.' He grinned. 'Once we own those hulls, this campaign is over. Their commander is a fool.'
'Or it is a trap,' his younger son said. He shrugged.
Cimon, the older son, shook his head. 'Don't be a stubborn ass, little brother. There's no trap because they shouldn't know we could even be here!'
Miltiades nodded his approval of his older son's thinking. 'Even if it is a trap,' he said, 'there's not much they can do to us if we keep our ships manned and only land our marines. You two can cover us on the beach – if we have to run, your crews are fast.' He laughed. 'Oh, I can feel the power of the gods, companions! We are about to burn the Great King's beard!'
We were five stades off the beach when I leaped back to Paramanos's ship. The Medes and the Syrians could see us coming, and men were running down from the burning town to form on the beach. Most of them were Greeks – I could see from their arms. In the centre was a knot of Persians, but their line wasn't long enough to cover the whole length of the beach, even two deep.
But there were other men – Thracians. Some of them came down from the town in clumps, like thick honey dripping from the comb. Others hung back.
The enemy commander had hired Thracians. It probably wasn't hard, because from all we heard, the locals detested Aristagoras as much as we did. I had never faced them, but I heard that they were titans, big, tough men with no fear of death. I always doubted such tales, but the men I could see in the red light of sunset had tattoos like black slashes on their faces and around their arms, and they held heavy swords and long spears.
'I'm going for the town as soon as we break their line,' I said to Paramanos. 'I know that you don't have to follow me.' I looked at him.
He shrugged. 'No,' he said. 'I don't.' He pointed at the Thracians – there were more of them every heartbeat. 'You think we can break that?'
We were three stades out from the beach. I got up on the rail where it rose to protect the helmsman and balanced there, waiting for the rise of the wave. 'Watch me,' I boasted, and jumped.
I landed on my own deck. 'Bow first!' I said. 'Marines aft! Empty the first ten benches forward and send all those men aft!' I waved at my deck master. 'Sails down! Then masts!'
The other ships were starting to turn, because they intended to beach stern first – a necessary precaution to prevent their ram-bows from digging so deep into the sand and gravel that the ship was damaged – or worse, could never be brought off.
I caught a stay and swung up on the rail. 'Stephanos!' I called. He was behind me in line, in the smaller Raven's Wing. I had to wait while he came forward – precious time, while my bow rowers ran back, dragging their cushions, unsure what they were supposed to do – while the deck crew swarmed over the masts, caught in the midst of arming, and the marines clustered by the helmsman's bench. Hermogenes was in full armour, and Idomeneus looked like a hero in a solid bronze thorax with silver work and a fine helmet with a towering crest shaped like a heron.
'My lord?' Stephanos called back.
'Into the port!' I said. 'Land your full crew and take the Thracians from behind! See?'
Indeed, the little port itself was covered by a mole. There were two ships moored to the mole, and no defenders – because the lower town had been lost, so there was no longer any point in holding the harbour. Before the lower walls fell, there had no doubt been a garrison on the mole. I had seen this and Miltiades had not. If Raven's Wing could get into the harbour, her marines would be behind the enemy line.
Stephanos turned away, already calling orders, and his ship turned, went to ramming speed and sprinted for the mole.
'On me!' I shouted, and ran forward as far as the amidships command station at the foot of the mast. 'Get that mast down!' I called to the deck crew – who looked like hoplites. Pirates are always better-armed than other men, with the pick of many dead men's gear to plunder, and I dare say that my sailors had better armour than the front rank of many a city.
The deck crew let the mast down on to the central gangplank, with all the marines and thirty rowers to speed things along.
We passed the other ships, who were all still turning or backing ashore. The smaller Ember was already halfway around.
I had just time to line up the marines and sailors and rowers behind me. They filled the central catwalk all the way aft to the helmsman, and filled the small deck around him, pushing the stern down in the water and raising the bronze-tipped bow. The weight of the mast and the sail helped, too. I pushed the men farther back, and again, pushing against them with my shield to pack them tight in the stern.
'When we beach,' I roared, 'every man follow me! We will form under the bow and cut our way up the beach! Our war cry is 'Heracles!'' I looked aft and raised my spear, and my voice filled my chest like the sound of a god. 'Are you ready?' I shouted, and the oar master shouted 'Oars in! Brace!' and we struck.
Our bow went right up the beach. I was too far aft to see it, but I'm told that our ram actually broke their line, scattering men to the right and left.
'Follow me!' I called and raced forward between the oar benches, along the catwalk, over the bow, and I jumped without breaking stride into a clump of Ionian Greeks still shocked by the arrival of the ship.
They had no order, and I got my feet under me and my spear licked out and ripped the back of a man's knee behind his greave. Blood spurted, red as red in the dying sunlight, and then I looked at a second man, my eyes locking with his under the bronze brows of our helmets, and my spear shot out and caught another man – oldest trick in the world – caught him between his thorax and his helmet, ripping up his chest and plunging deep into his neck, stealing his life. He fell off the spear point and I reversed my spear, thrusting underarm with the butt-spike. I thrust deliberately into the aspis of a fourth man. He was trying to retreat – under my feet, the sand thumped as other men came off the Storm Cutter's bow. I knew that in a fight like that, I had to attack – attack and keep attacking until my arm failed me, because as soon as they recovered from the shock, they'd turn back into warriors and kill me.
My butt-spike stuck in the bronze face of his shield. I ripped it out and thrust again, knocking him back and off balance by attacking his shield. I could feel Idomeneus behind me, so I pushed forward, thrust into my opponent's shield and when the tip stuck I used it as a lever and prised his aspis to the right. Idomeneus killed him with a quick thrust over my shoulder.
All my marines were on the beach, and my deck crew was pouring in behind them, the shield wall forming, hardening the way bronze hardens when you pour the molten stuff on a slate floor to make a sheet, and even as the wall solidified we pressed forward up the beach.
The Ionian Greeks I had been fighting were in flight, and I risked a look – pushed my helmet back on my brow and looked left and right. To the left, the town burned, throwing an evil light on the beach. On the road from the town were two hundred or more Thracians. Their leader was inciting them to deeds of valour, or simply promising them loot – I didn't understand a word of his language, but I knew what that body language and those gestures meant.
The other ships were landing. Briseis was stern to stern with my Storm Cutter and Herakleides was sending his marines right down Storm Cutter, over the bow and onto the beach, leading his men himself. Oh, I loved him like a brother that hour.
To my right, the big knot of Persians and Phoenician marines was wheeling towards me, intent on pushing me off the beach before the other ships were ashore.
My men were like the runners in the fight at the pass. We were drawing all the enemy to us, while the other ships got their marines ashore. I knew the game. I roared defiance at them. I was Ares. I raised my spear over my head and told them they were all dead men, in Persian.
I had no intention of awaiting the onset of the enemy. If I waited, the Persians and the Thracians would hit me together – and each of them outnumbered me. On the other hand, my rowers were coming over the sides now,
