A roaring voice rose above the angry chatter of the crew. Ahinadab, the skipper, buffeted crewmen aside and stood waving angrily at Dwayne and bellowing at the crew. The man was drunk, totally hammered, but he was still in charge. They lowered their spear points but kept their eyes locked on Dwayne. The captain spat and gestured and stood between the pissed off crew and the insolent Roman who’d been kicking their asses. Xin, recovered from the head strike enough to stand, was spraying blood as he barked defiance. Ahinadab put him back down with a clout to the side of the head.
Dwayne knew he couldn’t rely on mercy here. He understood the gist of this exchange. Ahinadab was no friend. The captain was all commerce. Caroline and Dwayne were worth less at a slave market if they were injured, and nothing if they were dead, but apparently, eunuchs were all the rage right now.
The crew nodded, and the spears were withdrawn with great reluctance. Dwayne saw wooden clubs being handed forward. Some were nasty looking deals with knobbed iron heads on them. He backed away and the crew stalked around the mast toward him, grinning like wolves. He turned his head at the sound of a call from behind him. The beefy helmsman was coming down the ladder off the tiller deck with a length of iron chain dangling from his fist.
Between the helmsman and Dwayne squatted the smoking brick furnace with the leather-wrapped handles of irons sticking from the oven’s mouth. The irons took on a new significance to Dwayne. They were being heated to cauterize the wounds and stop the bleeding after he and Caroline were roughly neutered.
Dwayne leaped back and yanked the irons from the coals. He turned with a glowing rod in each fist and swung the hot bludgeons at the men. He parried the iron head of a club, and red embers flew, through the air. The men stumbled back in horror. Fire was every sailor’s greatest fear. A spark in the wrong place, and the tar and hemp and sun-dried timbers all around them would turn the Lion of Ba’al into a floating inferno none would escape.
The captain shrieked and shook a fist at Dwayne. Behind him, the helmsman stood glowering. Dwayne took a step forward and swung the irons. A dismayed moan rose from the crew as they retreated toward the mast. All eyes were locked on the glowing tips of the rods. He advanced again, and they backed away. One crewman launched himself forward and flailed at Dwayne with a club. The Ranger sidestepped the swing and seared the man along the ribs. The guy screamed and rolled on the deck, holding his scalded flank. Dwayne took that opening and moved toward Ahinadab and the massed mob of men. They gave way, and Dwayne reached the pole of the mast.
He stretched his arms up and held the smoking tips of the irons inches from the cloth of the whipping sail. The men gasped as one. The captain’s eyes went wide in rage, then terror. A touch to the tar-infused hemp with the hot brand and it would go up like paper. This was only a momentary reprieve. The irons wouldn’t stay hot forever. Dwayne had only seconds to press his advantage.
“Caroline!” he called out.
He heard her yelp in response from somewhere behind the dense pack of scowling faces.
“Tell them to let you go!” he said and waggled the irons for emphasis.
He heard voices from within the packed mass of men. Caroline spoke hurriedly, followed by Praxus’ voice calling out.
Dwayne lowered one of the irons to bring the end closer to the surface of the mast and held it there a finger-width from the surface of the snapping cloth. The crew pleaded with him for patience, or so he imagined.
There was a disturbance in the mob and finally Caroline, still fully clothed, was shoved toward Dwayne. She leaped the form of Xin, lying insensate on the deck, and reached Dwayne. She clutched his t-shirt. She glared past him to the helmsman. Yada stopped his stealthy advance mid-step with a frustrated grimace.
“You all right?” Dwayne said.
“They still think I’m a boy,” she said.
Ahinadab and the crew stood watching the irons as if willing them to cool. Praxus had elbowed his way to the front rank and looked on helplessly.
“They beg you not to burn them alive!” Praxus called.
“Then tell them to withdraw,” Caroline replied in Latin.
“They will not listen to me!”
“Tell them I am a consul’s son! Tell them he will pay them ransom enough to sink this boat!”
“Ahinadab has called for slingers!” Praxus called. A crewman slapped him to his knees. Another kicked him, and he curled to a ball on the deck boards as more feet stamped on him. The crew’s rage was rising, and they were warming up on the slave boy.
Caroline relayed this to Dwayne, who already knew it was bad news.
“Any ideas?” Dwayne said.
“I was really hoping you had one, Maximus,” Caroline said.
“I can feel these pokers starting to cool. One of two options is I set fire to the sails and roast these fuckers.”
“And us too. The other option?”
“They cut off my junk and rape you to death.”
Caroline shivered against them.
“Your call, babe.”
“Light them up,” she said.
The tense silence on board was broken by a frantic call from the stern. The Nubian helm apprentice had released the tiller handle and was pointing at the Lion’s wake and hopping from one foot to another in a frantic dance. He called again and again in a shrill voice fueled by panic.
The captain bawled orders. The crew tensed and looked from Dwayne to Ahinadab, uncertain of who was truly, in command. Finally, they broke, the standoff forgotten, and scrabbled down through the openings in the deck to the oar benches port and starboard. The captain pushed past Dwayne and followed
