The Lion sat at anchor. Most of its company lay where they had dropped the night before. The deck was littered with snoring men sound asleep by others who had died of wounds in the night or been dispatched with a blade across the throat to end their suffering. Below decks, the oarsmen lay atop their benches or draped over the barrels of stowed oars. Clouds of flies gathered above the sticky reservoir of blood that blackened the deck forward of the mast.
The tireless Ahinadab ordered a skeleton watch armed with spears to discourage anyone from either ship who might have ideas about boarding the Lion. They walked the deck with oil lamps to illuminate the water about them. They lanced a few pitiful survivors who managed to climb the hull and listened to the wheedling cries for mercy from others. Those men tired long before dawn light and either sank in the black water or swam for their grounded sister ship.
The captain kept a wary eye on the beached Carthaginians. For the moment, the men aboard the wolf’s head trireme were consumed with their own troubles. They made no aggressive move toward the Lion. There were barques visible aboard the tilted deck that could be rowed over to assault the Phoenician craft. They remained secured with lines to the tilted deck.
The full company of the Lion woke as the sunlight crossed the decks. They were put to work washing the decks clear of the stinking remains of the night before. Limbs, fingers, heads, and piles of unidentifiable human tripe were tossed overboard. Buckets of seawater were tossed on the boards to wash the blood, shit, piss, and teeth out through the scuppers. The Lion was streaked with dark stripes of crimson as though it was dying of many wounds.
The few baskets of edibles that were not sacrificed to lighten the hold were rationed out under the watchful eye of Xin. He leaned on his ax and judged each meager portion of dried fish, onions, dates, and nuts scooped into the cupped hands of the hungry crewmen. Their bowls were thrown into the sea during the chase. Each man was allowed a mouthful of water from the skins kept under guard where they were slung from the tiller deck. There was grumbling. But each man knew that supplies were tight, and they had a long way to travel before they reached a welcoming port. If the gods and the seas were not favorable, they would starve before making landfall again.
Dwayne and Caroline awoke with every muscle sore and heads pounding from dehydration. They drank their portion of brackish water and took their ration. They sat with backs to the freeboard and chewed slowly.
“I’d do last night all over again for some McDonald’s,” Dwayne said.
Praxus crouched down by them, licking fish oil from his fingers. He’d stripped off his filthy singlet and was buck naked. Caroline turned away, pretending interest in a gull that landed on the deck to pick up a length of stringy tissue it found lying there.
“Your clothing stinks of feces. You should remove it.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Do you still think we are spies?” Caroline asked, ignoring him.
“I suppose not,” he said.
“What will happen now?” she asked. “We will depart with the tide.”
“I mean, what of us?” Caroline touched a hand to Dwayne’s arm.
“You will be sold. Nothing has changed.” He turned to walk away from them.
“I can’t believe we’re here because of something that little snot wrote,” she said.
“Look hard enough, and there’s an asshole behind every mission,” Dwayne said.
The bowl of the sleeping volcano began to fill again as the sun crossed the sky to sink in the west. The Lion prepared for departure. A chain of men was formed to bail out the bilge. A crew went below to caulk with cloth hammered in place using wedges those places where the cedar planks parted. The ship was seaworthy enough to see them clear of the crater and the twisting channel beyond. These ships were built stout to take punishment. With the truss line restored in place, the Lion’s keel held true. The cedar hull-planks settled back in place. The tenons secured themselves in their mortices. The bireme was scarred but whole.
The oarsmen dipped blistered hands into an amphora of lanolin to soothe their torn skin. They sat at their benches and ran out the oars.
A voice hailed the Lion. The main deck crew lined the freeboards to watch a barque rowing to them from the beached trireme. A dozen men pulled oars. A man stood in the boat, calling from cupped hands in a basso voice. He was black-bearded and wore a helmet trimmed in gold that caught the sunlight, throwing off a glare that reflected off the water. A chest plate of silver-embossed bronze could be seen beneath a cloak of white ostrich feathers. He looked equal parts splendid and ridiculous standing in the bobbing rowboat.
Ahinadab leaned on the railing and held a hand up. He roared a warning. The rowers on the barque lifted their oars from the water. The squat boat rose and fell on the swells that lapped the Lion’s hull.
Praxus translated the exchange for Caroline and Dwayne.
“You will come no further,” Ahinadab called.
“I am Yaroah Melqart, second master of the Wolf of the Sea,” the man in military finery shouted in his rich baritone.
“Second master? Is your captain hiding somewhere on your shitty boat?”
“He is dead. He fell on his sword in shame at being brought low by you thieves.”
“Thieves, are we? You would admit you were outfought by mere thieves? Or will you return to Hamilcar and tell him you faced a mighty armada rather than be thought cowards
