Echephron looked stricken as he raised his head to meet the cold gaze of Ahinadab. The captain turned from his oracle without a word and strode back to his spot at the prow.
“So the gods have spoken. We are officially boned,” Dwayne said.
The sea on either side of the Lion turned pearlescent in hue as they neared the shoreline. Ahinadab called from the bow and the oars lifted from the water. The ship slowed. Ahinadab gestured broadly from his perch toward the helm. Yada’s eyes were locked on his every move, and the helmsman walked the tiller bar back and forth to make the course changes his master demanded.
Caroline leaned far over the freeboard rail. Moving beneath them was water the color of indigo. She dropped back to the deck and turned to Dwayne.
“Ahinadab may just live up to the hype,” she said. “He’s plotting a course between shallows. The ships chasing us have a deeper keel than us, so they have to slow down, too.”
“Yeah, he’s a goddamn genius until he runs out of sea,” Dwayne frowned.
“He knows these islands, Dwayne. As a military man, you must appreciate the advantage of fighting on terrain you’re familiar with.”
“As a grunt I know it’s better to avoid a fight you can’t win. I’m hoping the skipper knows a way out of here.”
“Now you’d prefer running.”
“Once the shit’s flying, Rangers don’t run. But I’m for any plan that gets you away from here in one piece.”
She looked away to see the oars of the lead pursuer leap from the water. It was close enough to see the prow above the ram carved in the shape of a clawing wolf. The bow of the ship dropped lower in the surf with the sudden halt in forward motion as the oars backed water.
The Lion wound a slow course along the deep-water channel. The lower bank of oars were working to provide only enough momentum to maintain seaway. They entered a current that swung the stern around in a gentle half turn. Xin and the Nubian joined Yada to keep the rudder true and the bow aimed landward.
Caroline leaned out over the rail to look past the lion’s head to see that the coastline was comprised of two islands, not one. Propelled by the current, the bireme was cruising into the broad gap between two high headlands. The sun was dropping, and the sea between the cliffs was already in shadow. As she hoped, Ahinadab knew these waters well. There was a chance they could lose their pursuers who were making slow progress one behind the other and falling further and further behind the Lion of Ba’al. Splashes of white water rose all around the pair of ships. The Carthaginians were reducing their ballast just as the Lion had.
She gripped the rail as the deck lifted under her. The Lion was in the grip of the tide. The ship rose on the current and rushed in toward the chasm between the islands. The oars trundled inward, and the rowers collapsed across them with heaving chests.
The Lion was soon in the shadow of the cliffs that lined either side of the channel. The waterway was several hundred meters across with black volcanic rock rising above them to blot out the sky. White water glowed phosphorescent where it pounded against jagged rocks at the floor of the walls. These islands were probably once one and riven in two by an earthquake long ago. The channel followed the fault line, which guaranteed a safe depth for passage by the shallow-draught bireme.
Confined by the walls, the channel became a sluice that caused the current to grow swifter. Ahinadab clung to the prow as water crashed over him. He called back orders that were echoed to Yada by the crew shouting over the din booming in the passage. The helmsman bent to the tiller in his fight to keep them to the center of the channel and the bow in line with the racing water.
The darkness deepened as the glow in the sky retreated over the edge of the western cliff face. They were racing down a throat walled with rock toward blackening shadows “Does the master know where we are going?” Caroline asked Praxus.
“He does,” Praxus said glumly.
“Then why are you sad?” she asked.
“The portents. They are not good for us. They augment doom. The gull was infested with pests, and there was a cancer on its heart.”
“I say ‘so far, so good,’” Caroline said. It didn’t translate to Latin well. Praxus looked at her, perplexed.
“Hactenus bene?” he asked with a wry smile, pleased to have corrected her in her “native” tongue.
“Yes. That is what I meant, you petty little iuvenum. Ahinadab knows this course well enough to find our way in the dark. He would not lead us into a dead end or drive us onto the rocks.”
“Only the gods know what lies ahead and they have revealed a portion of our fate to us. It is not good,” Praxus said, his gloom returned.
The channel broadened. Strips of narrow beach lined either side. With the wider passage, the current slowed and eddied. Ahinadab stormed down the centerboards, shouting. The rowing boss leaped to his feet and twice drove his staff hard on the deck. Both tiers of oars trundled out through the locks and the rowing commenced once again. Ahinadab climbed to the tiller deck to rest his own hand on the iron-banded wood of the handle. He spied ahead, watching the stars
