From the prow, Xin called out the distance to the approaching Carthaginian vessel. The fighting crew waited silent but for panting like dogs in their own personal battles to swallow their fear and remain at their posts.
Dwayne made it to the freeboard by the prow. He could see the spread sail of the warship racing on a collision course with the Lion. Two purple dolphins leaping beneath a symbol of a spreading palm tree grew larger and larger until they blocked all else from view.
Rows of shields formed a wall along the hull either side of the fierce wolf lunging from the prow. A hedge of spears thrust forward. A man in a conical helmet and chest covered in plate armor waved a long, bladed sword and was laughing like a madman. A bow wave swelled high before the prow and the ram, stylized but unmistakably meant to represent an erect penis, rose gleaming through the swell.
Xin called back, his face red and neck muscles standing in cords. It must have been a good insult because many of the men laughed, or it was just a release of pre-battle jitters.
Ahinadab tossed the staff to the rowing boss and roared fresh orders with hands fisted before him. As if by the motion of a single hand, the oars were run inboard on either side. The Lion streamed over the water now propelled by inertia and the outgoing current. The captain stamped his nail-studded sandals on the deck boards and unsheathed his own sword while holding out a fist for a boy to slip the leather straps of a shield on his arm. It was a round shield with a snarling lion painted bright on its face and centered with a spiked boss of bronze.
Dwayne felt the men around him lock their knees and spread their feet to brace for impact. He gripped the freeboard hard and watched the fangs of the wolf and the massive prick looming toward them. Xin called out from above him. Dwayne heard a second call, Yada, from far astern. Xin clambered down and shoved at the first rank of shields, bawling orders, and forcing the phalanx away from the head of the ship.
Under his bare feet, Dwayne felt the deck shift to starboard. The prow of the Lion was angling to the starboard to come along the oncoming warship’s towering port side.
But the Carthaginians still had their oars out and were pounding water for maximum ramming speed against the outgoing tide. The laughter of the armored bastard hugging the wolf’s head died as he saw, too late, the shift in the Lion’s course. He pounded the snout at the prow with the flat of his sword and cried out in deep dismay.
The Lion’s ram struck the extended oars down the port face of the wolf ship. The upper tier of oars were struck by the bronze lion breastwork as though caught in the jaws of the roaring cat. The combined momentum of the two ships provided force enough to shatter the ends of oars and drive others inboard to snap their shafts off at the oarlocks. Dwayne could hear piercing shrieks from within the hull of the Carthaginian vessel. He could imagine the horrific scene within as men were crushed by the sudden weight of oar handles slammed into ribs and spines and limbs. The hulls of the ships ground together momentarily, and the deck shuddered violently. But the Lion remained in motion, dragging a tangle of broken oar stems in its wake as it passed by the challenging vessel’s stern for open water.
A shower of splinters fell over the hunched backs of the Lion’s fighting crew. Ahinadab stood swiping with his shield to fend off flying timber shards and called the oarsmen back to their posts. Xin waved his ax aloft and led the men back to the prow where they locked shields and thrust spears forward. Dwayne rejoined them and could see over the heads of the men in the front rank.
The second Carthaginian warship had just entered the bowl of the volcano cove from the channel and was trying to execute a turn to avoid the fate that befell its sister ship. The port was backing oars while the starboard paddled furiously to bring the big ship about. All they managed to accomplish was position themselves athwart the gap: a big ugly sitting duck for the Lion’s claw rapidly closing amidships.
The new impact was jarring. Dwayne was crushed forward then thrown back. Hands fell to the deck. Others tumbled into one another. One poor bastard struck his face on the helmet of the man in front of him and dropped cold-cocked to the deck with his nose smeared across his face and white bone showing through a split cheek. Dwayne saw the long, broken shafts of oars flying end over end into the air.
The mast was rocking back and forth where Ahinadab hunched with his arms about it, howling orders to the oarsmen. The rowers responded and began backing the Lion from the hull of the wounded vessel with a deafening squeal of protesting iron and wood.
A gleaming spear point flashed down past Dwayne. A second pinned a naked ship’s boy to the deck. The kid, who couldn’t be older than eight, struggled like a fish impaled on a gaffe and wailed piteously. Dwayne raised his shield as more missiles flew from above. The crew of the enemy ship had recovered from their surprise. Men lined the gunwales above and threw spears down from the higher deck of the trireme. Boys leaned out to
