Flames climbed the four hundred square feet of tar-infused hemp. The sail was fully ablaze in moments. Another shower of embers found purchase somewhere on the deck, and greasy black smoke was pouring from the oarlocks. The Carthaginians still aboard the trireme turned to fight the blaze that was spreading along their decks. That left the boarders abandoned at the mercy of the emboldened company of the Lion.
It was a momentary respite. Dwayne realized that the two ships were still locked together. They might burn or sink together unless they could be released from one another. Another painful contingency was the imminent possibility of the crew of the trireme giving up on fighting the fire on their own vessel and bringing their entire complement into the fight to take the Lion. It was going to turn into a duel for survival that only one side could win. With the entire crew including the oarsmen now slaking their bloodlust, there was no one working to withdraw them from the suicide pact in which they were trapped.
49
Fire on the Water
Below decks, Caroline was up to her chest in swirling water.
“I can no longer hold the peg!” Praxus cried.
“Why not?”
“The water is too high! We are doomed!” The boy waded for the narrow passageway that led aft.
Caroline grabbed a fistful of his hair.
“Take a deep breath, asshole,” she snarled and plunged Praxus under the surface.
She hammered away at the end of a peg held in place by the submerged Praxus. They had freed over half of the cleats, but there were more to go. Progress in releasing the ram was slowed by the peg setters’ need to resurface for air. Some of them had fled in terror even before the dappled light of flames reached them from above. A choking smoke was filling the narrow gap between the rising water and the deck boards above. Many of the boys fled the suffocating confines for the fresher air above, clambering up the slanting deck toward the sounds of battle ringing in the open air.
Atem was weeping with rage and cursing them for cowards. He struggled with a long iron rod to free a cross beam. The flat tooth of the rod was shoved between the beam and the hull strake. He pulled with all his weight, layers of wiry muscle standing up on his arms like ropes. Caroline reached into the murky water and grabbed a handful of Praxus’ hair. She pulled him up and thrust him toward Atem, who was rocking his weight on the pry bar.
The three of them hung their weight from the bar and bore down with all they had. The stout rod bowed under the combined downward pressure. They were rewarded with the keening sound of wood grain separating. The grain of the crossbeam split down the middle. The cleat squealed in protest. The beam shifted. One end came free with a crack to drop into the water.
A grinding sound rose from where the hull curved to join at the prow. Cleats groaned in protest as they were torn from the joins where the crossbeams came together. The Lion shuddered like its namesake awakening from a long sleep. The deck rose up in a sudden motion that threw Caroline and the others into the boards above them and then back into the water. The deck leveled out, and the water at the prow rolled abaft into the main hold in a sweeping wave.
Caroline sat up sputtering in the sloshing bilge. Atem and Praxus pressed themselves against the hull and rolled their eyes in wonder.
“We freed the ram!” she called to them in English.
They blinked dumbly at her.
“Nos liberavit arietis!”
Praxus grinned at her, eyes wide with a mad joy.
The mast of the trireme was a swaying tower of flame. The canted deck of the looming ship was invisible behind dense smoke rising from every opening in its hull. The angle of the deck grew sharper as the vessel sank along the port side to the bow. The Lion’s prow dipped deeper into the water even as the stern of the Carthaginian rose.
The men of the Lion had taken back the foredeck. Crewmen dispatched the enemy wounded with blade and clubs. Those boarders still alive dropped to their knees on the blood-drenched deck and held empty hands before them. These had their throats slit, and their bodies were tossed over the side.
Embers drifted from the burning ship to fall on the deck of the Lion to land hissing in the lakes of blood. Xin, covered in gore that shone black in the firelight, gestured to crewmen who tossed buckets of seawater over the exposed boards and beat at live sparks with strips of wet cloth.
Dwayne scanned the deck tilting above them. Figures stood shrieking against the pall of smoke lining the rails despite being discouraged by spearmen on the Lion. A stench of frying meat reached his nostrils. Men were leaping to the sea from the trireme to escape the inferno.
Ahinadab bawled at the surviving oarsmen who drifted sullenly back to the oar decks. He seethed dire threats at them and encouraged one with a kick in the ass that sent the man sprawling. The moment of camaraderie he shared with them in his locker room pep talk was over. He was the boss now, and he’d skin every last one of them if they didn’t get to their oars and pull the Lion’s ass out of this deadly entanglement.
The tide of men above them broke, and Carthaginians leaped the freeboards to land on the deck of the Lion. They tumbled one atop the other in an avalanche of flesh. Dwayne led the attack to kill each one who set foot on the Lion. The new boarders died swiftly as they fought to regain their footing on the slick and tilted deck. But more were coming as the
