Funeral Games (55 page)

The boatsail fell in rush of heavy linen that filled the deck so that Satyrus was covered, swathed as if in a burial sheet, and the boat seemed to steer wildly, the stern shooting out to the port side and the heavy bow pivoting as the helmsman seemed to have lost control of his vessel. Satyrus grasped at the heavy linen, swimming through it in increasing desperation. There was a man screaming, and then he was free of the cloth, and they were screened from the rush of the pirates by the high side of the merchantman towering above them as they turned and turned, their deck crew stiffening the ship by leaning far out on the port side while their rowers pulled or backed at Peleus’s direct command, because the oar master was a headless corpse whose blood continued to be a spreading stain on the boatsail.

‘Pull, port! Drag, starboard! Half-deck, racing speed!’ Peleus called and Satyrus was out of the cloth and jumping on to the steering platform.

‘Take the helm, boy!’ Peleus said. ‘It’s your plan!’

‘Where are you going?’ Satyrus asked. In the bow, he could see his sister nocking an arrow. His palm slapped the steering oar and he spoke automatically. ‘I have the helm,’ he said.

‘You have the helm,’ Peleus responded. He grinned. ‘We need an oar master.’ He jumped for the platform amidships. Before he was up on the half-deck, he called, ‘Give way, all!’ And then, his voice swelling in power, ‘Ramming speed!’

Satyrus had never, in his wildest dreams of heroism, imagined steering a ship in combat. This was the art for which helmsmen got the highest pay.

‘Right between them, boy!’ Peleus shouted. ‘Don’t get fancy - fuck them in the oars!’

That made it through his fear-addled brain. An oar-rake. He took a moment to breathe - really breathe, all the way in and all the way out. One glance at his wake and then he steadied down.

They had turned all the way, like a hairpin, around the Athenian merchant ship, their whole manoeuvre screened from the two pirates by the grain ship’s high sides.

The bow swung clear of the merchantman. Using the big hull for cover, and even as a fulcrum, the
Lotus
had turned all the way around, losing very little of her speed, and now, with all banks pulling with the expertise that Leon paid for, they shot out from the merchant’s stern like one of the bolts fired by the enemy’s machine.

The two pirates were abreast, close to their prey and eager to cut off escape. The apparent success of the last bolt had made them cocky - a ship steering wild, with her oars all over the place was no threat to anyone.

In heartbeats, the situation was transformed, and the big hemitrieres emerged from the stern of the grain ship less than a stade from them. Their combined speeds of closing left the pirates only heartbeats to react.

‘Oars in!’ Peleus roared, and all along the decks, the oarsmen grabbed their oars and hauled them inboard, sometimes fouling each other, sometimes injuring themselves, desperate to get the oars clear of the imminent collision. They practised this. The oars began to come in, all eighteen feet of oak coming across the benches until the handles rested under the opposite thwart.

Satyrus stood straight, a wild grin plastered on his face, the smell of cat fur streaming off the wind, and he flicked the steering oar as he had seen Peleus do, so that
Lotus
’s bronze beak kicked a few feet to the starboard side without a major change of direction, and then their own archers fired, all together, his sister’s body leaning into the shot like the goddess herself - she nocked and shot, nocked—

He flicked the oar back and
Lotus
’s bow moved and crashed into the oar box of the top deck of the older Athenian boat, so that
Lotus
’s heavy cat-head ripped the light outrigger right off the side of the smaller boat, and oarsmen screamed as they were snuffed out by thousands of pounds of wood and metal driven by three hundred arms. Inside their hull, their own shattered oars ripped them to death, the sharp fragments of the wood lashing like spears in the hands of giants, shards of hardwood filling the hull, the ends in the water driven up and up into the decks, breaking bones and slashing skin, while the ram crushed the outer hull and the men who had been rowing there a moment before.

Lotus
passed between her enemies, and left the former Athenian hull a drifting wreck while she caught many of the Phoenician’s oars in the water. The heavy-hulled Phoenician didn’t take the damage that the Athenian did, but he was labouring, and before his oar master could make corrections he was turning because his starboard oars were undamaged. They could hear the oar master screaming, even as Peleus rose to his feet.

‘Oars out!’ he roared. ‘Blood in the water and silver in our hands, boys!’ and the oars shot out of the ports like the legs of a live monster as the
Lotus
continued to coast, on and on, her momentum almost unchecked by the oar-rake down the side of the opposing ships.

Melitta, graceful as an acrobat, leaped up on the port-side gunwale, balanced a heartbeat and shot the Phoenician oar master as he roared orders. Satyrus saw the other deck officers on the stricken ship staring, their mouths open, as his sister jumped down, avoiding with athletic contempt the shafts aimed at her.

‘On my mark!’ Peleus called. ‘Port side give way! Starboard side to reverse your benches! Ready about! Pull, you bastards! Pull for hearth and home!’ He raised his stick and hit the mast. ‘Pull!’

Like the legs of an enormous water bug, the oars dipped and pulled, each side pulling in opposite directions, and the deck tilted absurdly. Satyrus could see that the archers in the bow had stopped shooting and were hanging on to avoid being tipped over the side.

The heavy Phoenician was wallowing in the beach swell, his rowers paralysed with fear, their oar master dead with a Sakje barb in his voice box. Peleus looked down at Satyrus as the ram seemed to cross the beach. They were turning so fast that Satyrus was afraid that they might capsize, and even as he watched, the marines and the archers began to pull themselves outboard to stiffen the ship, led by Xenophon, who jumped fearlessly for the outrigger as if unaware that a missed jump meant drowning in his armour. But Satyrus could again feel the change as soon as his friend’s weight went outboard of the rail, and again as other marines joined in - they were above the waterline and outside the hull, and still the bow came round - the Phoenician was almost broadside-on to them now, the two ships parallel. If the archers had stayed in the bow, they could have fired again, but all of them, even his sister, were hanging off the port-side rail, and still
Lotus
’s head came around, and the beach swell caught the Phoenician again and pushed her bow back. Men were trying to get her around, but no one seemed to be in charge.

Peleus waved to get his attention. ‘You going for the kill, boy?’ he shouted.

Satyrus nodded, his eyes fixed on the enemy ship.

‘Marines, get back in the bow!’ Peleus shouted. ‘We need to get the bow down - and clear. Prepare to back-water on my command, all decks!’

Satyrus wrapped both arms around the steering oar against the shock and watched his sister roll inboard like a sea nymph and bounce to her feet, racing for the bows and scattering arrows from her upturned quiver.

And then the bow began to slide across the Phoenician, and Peleus called the stroke - the whole ship rocked as the starboard-side oarsmen reversed their benches, and he had to put his breastbone against the oar to keep it steady, and then the first stroke fell like a hundred axes and the bow leaped forward and down as the marines dropped to the fighting deck, and the rowers, led by Peleus, began to sing the Paean.

Melitta was right in the bow, pressed flat against Xenophon, crushing him against the breastwork of the bow, where all fifteen of them were crammed in a little wooden box to weight the ram and be ready to board. Suddenly she had another view of the fight she had lusted for since the day began - because over the scaled bronze of Xeno’s shoulder piece she could see the white faces of the panicked foe, and dead men, and shark’s fins already cutting the water. The men in the Phoenician knew they were dead. And for the first time, death was real to Melitta - their deaths, and thus her own - and her throat filled with bile.

Karpos, the marine captain, raised his head from his forearms. ‘When we hit,’ he said calmly, ‘you archers shoot, and the rest of you don’t fucking move until we know whether the ram is stuck or not. I don’t want any of you left behind when we pull our bronze dick out of that fucker. Got me?’ he asked, his voice as rough as gravel, and then he was down, an arrow right through his armour. Melitta froze in the moment of nocking an arrow.

‘Lock up!’ Xenophon bellowed. The marines got their heads down and the archers pressed on top of them and Melitta put her cheek on the smooth bronze of Xeno’s shoulder piece, trying not to vomit because blood was spitting out of Karpos on her legs. The Paean rose to drown his cries, driving all thoughts from her mind - sweat in her eyes, hot moisture on her legs, an arrow almost forgotten in her fingers.

The longest, loudest crash she had ever heard - the ship seemed to stop dead under her and the pressure on her gut was intense as she crushed Xenophon beneath her, bounced and slammed into the wooden partition at her back.

‘Archers!’ Xeno’s voice cracked as he yelled again, higher pitched but still firm, ‘Archers!’

Melitta nocked without any conscious thought, and her bow arm swept the deck until she saw a man in armour trying to cross the deck.
Loose
.

The arrow went into his shield and she had another on her string. The man next to her shot, and his arrow went into the shield, and then there was another man in armour - their own ship still pushing forward, their ram under the other ship’s spine, so that instead of holing her they were tipping the heavy Phoenician over, driving her starboard gunwale under the water. Every armed man on the pirate was surging for their bow.

‘Stroke!’ roared Peleus and Satyrus together.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Xeno said, and Melitta leaned past him and shot the first armoured man just a few fingers below his shield, and he sank slowly to one knee, the arrow buried in his thigh, and then flopped into the water.

Xeno looked back over the half-deck. And then his eyes met Melitta’s. ‘Repel boarders!’ he yelled, looking at her. ‘Don’t move a fucking foot off this deck!’ he roared at an older marine.

The marine grinned back, leaned forward and hurled a javelin at the first enemy to reach across. The enemy deck was tipping fast, and water was rushing to fill the Phoenician - he was tilted at a wicked angle and there was no hope for him, and the marine’s javelin, a heavy, old-fashioned
lonche
, went through the pirate’s bronze-faced shield and through the bones of his arm - he bellowed and fell into the sea, but there were a dozen men behind him.

Javelins flew both ways - a volley and a counter volley, and then the fighting deck was full of men. Melitta backed away and away again, using her arrows like a Sakje, shooting men in the face and groin when they were close enough to touch Xeno, who fought from behind his heavy aspis and covered her. She lost track - shot, and shot, and saw Xeno take a heavy blow to his helmet. She shot his opponent between the cheekpieces of his ornate Thracian helmet and reached for her next arrow to find that she had none.

There was a scream - rage and triumph and horror - and when she flicked a glance to see what had happened, she saw the enemy trireme turn turtle right over their ram, his other rail falling on their ram with a heavy thud and a hollow sound like a temple bell, so that they rocked deep, men falling flat, but she kept her feet. Xeno fell backwards into her and the last attackers, desperate men, surged forward and she was pinned against the back rail of the fighting platform. She went for her akinakes, got her hand on the horn of the hilt and knew that it was too late as the pirate’s axe went back - a heavy bronze axe that her helmet would never turn - but she pulled the knife anyway. It seemed slow, and the axe paused as Xeno rose into its path, got a hand on the haft and butted the axe-man in the face with the bronze of his helmet. Then he fell into the space at her feet, his body across Karpos’s - she had her knife out and tried to stand, and then a spearhead flashed past her and caught the axe-man in the throat, and suddenly - there was no more fighting.

Her brother was balanced on the rail behind her, weaponless, and Peleus stood below him with an axe of his own.

‘Good throw, boy,’ Peleus said. His voice was hoarser than usual, but otherwise he seemed calm. Then he crumpled like an animal at sacrifice, and she could see the arrow that transfixed his lungs front to back.

Her brother pitched forward on to the enemy dead. ‘Xeno!’ he cried.

Xeno got his head up. ‘Oh,’ he said. He was bleeding.

Melitta looked back at the oarsmen, who were cheering as they backed water. ‘Satyrus!’ she yelled into his ears. ‘You’re the navarch. Peleus is down!’