Killer of Men (40 page)

I was thinking like a nineteen-year-old with an oath to fulfil.

I turned to Nearchos. ‘If those ships are crushed, we lose the battle,’ I said, pointing to the north. And the gods sent me an inspiration, because ships were sprinting out of the centre to help the exiles – Lesbian ships. ‘Epaphroditos is going too! We have to support him!’

Nearchos rose to the moment. ‘Go!’ he said. ‘Let my father follow
me
!’

I was sure that I had been hired to prevent just this sort of incident.

‘Troas! Take the oars!’ I pushed him into the steering rig. ‘Nearchos – get forward with the marines and be ready to lead the boarders.’ Lord Achilles would have a fit, I knew – but I wasn’t sending the boy anywhere I wasn’t going myself.

Troas got between the steering oars, and we were turning even as I ordered the last increase in speed. All our decks were rowing now, and the oar masters were thumping the deck with their canes, so that the whole ship rang with the tempo.

We were turning out of the second line, heading across the bows of other Cretan lords. It was exhilarating. There is something to war at sea – the speed of a ramming ship, the brilliance of the sea, the wind, the oarsmen singing the Paean. I felt like a god come to Earth. My fear fell away, our bow swept north and then we slipped into our new course as if it was carved like a trough in the sea, and we were moving as fast as a galloping horse.

‘You have it?’ I asked Troas. My not-quite-father-in-law was, in effect, commanding the ship.

‘Never done this before!’ he said, but he laughed. Some men rise to their moment. Troas – a man who could bargain for his daughter’s virtue – was ready for his, and we stooped on the Phoenicians like a hawk on doves.

I saw the first engagements in the centre. Archi got his ship turned in plenty of time and up to full speed. He had a light trireme and he turned like a cat, passing
between
the first Phoenicians he met. One ship got his oars in, but the other got oar-raked, the broken shafts of the oars ripping men’s arms and the splinters flying like arrows. Men
die
when their oars are shattered.

It was a brilliant stroke, but Archi would have a professional helmsman, as good as any Phoenician – indeed, the man might be a Phoenician. He was through in five heartbeats, right through their first line.

‘Follow that ship,’ I said to Troas. ‘At all costs. Ram what you have to.’

Troas grinned.

The faster of the two Phoenicians – the one that hadn’t lost his oars – was now closing with us at a terrific rate. A sea-fight is a scary thing, friends. It starts very slowly, but once everyone decides to engage, the speed is bewildering. Two ships at full stretch come together as fast as two galloping horses. Imagine it in your head – we were ram to ram with this enemy, our ships the same weight.

I paused and turned back to Troas. ‘
Diekplous
?’ I asked. ‘Ram to ram?’

He shook his head. ‘At the last minute, I’ll go left,’ he said. ‘A little flick to port and we’re into his oars.’

‘I’ll warn the rowers!’ I said, and ran to the command platform. ‘On my command – all starboard-side oars inboard!’ I roared.

The oar masters all raised hands, showing me they’d heard. Otherwise, their attention was on the stroke. One missed beat here and we were all drowned men.

Over my shoulder, the enemy trireme looked as big as a citadel. And fast as a porpoise.

And I had no one to help me. When
exactly
do you order your oars in? How long
exactly
does it take ninety men to drag their oars inboard?

I stood on the balls of my feet. I flicked a glance at the enemy – and saw that there was a second ship just abaft him.

Troas had seen it too – and it was too damned late to change our minds.

‘Ready to ram!’ I screamed.

Forward, the marines and Nearchos would be bracing against the bow.

The rowers would be praying.

Troas was grinning like a madman.

I wanted to shit myself.

I glanced at the enemy. So close it felt as if we should already have hit – I could see the face of their marine captain, and an arrow clanked against my helmet and flicked away. Good shooting.

‘Starboard side!’ I yelled. Wait for another stroke. Don’t give the game away.

‘Oars in!’ I roared, blowing my voice for a day in one great shout, trying to use the strength of my lungs to get the oars in through the ports.

Whamm
. We hit so hard that I fell and lost my helmet. It fell between the benches and vanished below.

The starboard-side rowers had their oars in, but it didn’t matter.

Both ships had settled on the same tactics and jibed the same way, so we’d hit beak to beak – the hand of the gods. Our beak – a month out of the shop – held. Theirs broke off. Their ship was filling with water and my mouth was full of blood, Ares only knew why.

‘Starboard oars – out!’ I screeched. My voice was gone, but the petty-officers got the message.

‘Back-water! Nearchos!’ He was still stunned from the impact, but he came to me. His great helmet with bronze wings was a little flattened, and he had it buckled.

‘Get that thing off and take command,’ I said. ‘My voice is gone!’

A sailor clambered up from inside the hull and handed me my helmet. I got it on my head.

Troas was on the ball, and he got the bulk of the sinking Phoenician between us and the next enemy by backing to starboard. The second Phoenician overshot and went past us. I looked back, and most of the right flank’s second line was behind us, coming up fast.

By Poseidon, thugater, that was a fine moment. We’d
sunk a Phoenician in one pass
. Call it luck if you like. It was luck. Nike was with us and her handsomer sister Tyche, too!

And Troas, just by thinking fast and steering, got us around the wreck, our timbers creaking but our ship intact. There was water coming in – I can’t imagine how hard those two ships must have hit – but the sailors were bailing and we weren’t finished yet.

Archi’s ship was gone into the maelstrom in the centre. There were a dozen Phoenicians coming our way.

I looked at Nearchos. ‘Pick one and let’s get it,’ I said. My oath would have to wait. We were, in effect, alone against the Phoenician centre.

The trick to staying alive in a sea-fight is never to show the long side of your ship – the oar banks – to the enemy. If you keep your bow to their bows, there should be a limit to how much damage you can take. Despite what had just happened to the ship we’d killed.

Troas played safe and Nearchos didn’t interfere. We bumped hulls with the second Phoenician ship in line, cathead to cathead, and we damaged his oars a little, but he got most of them inboard. We lost two men – one oar fouled in the port and the loose end killed the rower who should have had it in and knocked the man above him in the oar loft unconscious, and just that small error left us vulnerable, because when the rowers were ordered to put their oars back in the water on the next stroke the whole port bank faltered and we turned to port, losing way and turning across the path of another enemy.

But the gods were with us and he passed us just a spear’s length astern, and then we had our stroke back and we were alive.

But our rowers were tired. I could feel it. Tension is its own fatigue, thugater – the more you are afraid, the more tired you feel. And the more tired you are, the easier it is to feel fear.

I looked around, because suddenly we were between the fights. To the north, Archilogos and Epaphroditos and their allies were engaged with the second line of the Phoenician centre. Behind us, the Cretans were overwhelming the first line by weight of numbers, and the Samians had already polished off the enemy Greeks.

Even Aristagoras could scent victory. He released the centre and left, and the Milesians and the Chians went forward.

In fact, we had won the battle. I knew it and, more important, the Phoenician navarch knew it. His right flank declined the engagement and began to row backwards again. I never saw their signal, but all at once, enemy ships began to flee.

Not the ships around Archi, though. They were locked together with grapples and marines, spear to spear.

I pointed to the fight in the centre.

Nearchos’s fears were gone. He grinned.

‘Now we make you a name,’ I said. Not the words Achilles paid me to say.

But we were young.

Troas put us in well. We actually rowed a little past the mêlée and turned south, taking our first Phoenician in the flank. I was in the bow, my helmet down over my eyes, arms braced against the bulkhead, when we hit, and I could see the upper-deck oarsmen and their round mouths and terrified eyes as our damaged ram broke open their long side. We’d had a full stade to turn and race at our target; the men had the heart for one more burst and we were a heavy ship.

The enemy keel snapped under our ram and the ship broke in half. It was a spectacular kill and every ship in the centre of our line saw us do it. That’s how you make a reputation, honey.

We probably also killed our own ship with that impact. The bow seams probably gave way right there.

We were too wild with the daimon of combat to care. Our beak went home into another enemy lashed alongside the one we’d broken like an old toy, and we spent our remaining momentum scraping down his side and coming to a rest broadside to broadside, oar bank to oar bank.

I leaped up on our ship’s side and Nearchos was beside me, Idomeneus and Lekthes at my back, and the oar benches were emptying.

I balanced on the rail and waved down on to the Phoenician’s deck. ‘After you, my lord!’ I said.

He grinned and we all leaped.

That was a great day, and a great hour. The enemy already knew they were doomed and doomed men seldom fight well. We cleared that first ship faster than it takes to tell it, killing their sailors – all their marines were elsewhere, boarding the Lesbian ships. I cut the captain down by his helmsman and Nearchos gutted the helmsman, and then we went over the side and down into the next ship – another trireme, and now we were coming up behind the Phoenician marines as they fought shield to shield against Lesbians and Chians and Ephesian exiles.

Behind me, the Cretans were clearing the Phoenician decks, tripping from bench to bench. A Cretan ship is a fearsome thing because every bench has another warrior. We were worth five ships’ worth of marines.

My spears were gone and my good sword was in my hand. I was standing on the rail of a Lesbian ship – there were twenty ships all locked together in a single mass of death – and I balanced there for three heartbeats while I looked for Archilogos.

Then I saw him, a flash of blue and gold, still on his feet, his right arm covered in blood and his aspis a flapping mass of splintered wood and collapsed bronze. Some men fight
better
when they are doomed.

And I blessed the gods that they had given me the moment to redeem my oath.

Hah! I killed like the scythe of Hades. I won’t bore you with the tale – oh, you want me to bore you?

It was one of my finest days.

All the doubt left me. I cared nothing for their wives and their children and their petty lives. As fast as my arm moved, they died. If they turned, I cut them down, and if they didn’t turn, I put my sword into their throats and thighs. I could have cleared a ship by myself, but I had Nearchos by my side, and his blade was as fast as mine, and Lekthe’s spear flashed over my head from time to time when I was pressed, and they
died
. The four of us were the cutting edge of a living axe of Cretans, and we flowed over their decks as fast as men can clamber from bench to bench. My right arm was red to the shoulder with the blood of lesser men, dripping down my chest inside my armour, and there was the smell of copper in my nose like an offering to the god of smiths, and still I killed them.

After we cleared our second ship, I got my voice back and called ‘Archilogos!’, and he turned. Because if he died without me, I would never forgive myself. He had to know I was coming.

Another ship, the last before Archi’s, and I was suddenly blade to blade with a giant. To make it worse, he was standing on the command platform and I was in the benches. He was an officer of some sort, because he’d gathered a dozen marines and turned them to face our rush.

I paused. He was huge, and I felt the blood and the fire in my muscles.

‘Spear,’ I said, reaching back, and Lekthes put his in my hand.

That’s right, honey. And he eventually died a lord, and his daughters play with you. I thought you’d recognize the name – I’ve mentioned it a dozen times.

The giant raised his shield, ready for me to throw the spear.

Instead, I charged him. Raising the shield cost him a second, and I got a foot on the platform and my shield went against his, and before I got the other foot up, I slammed my spear point into the side of his helmet, a broad bowl with cheek pieces, riveted in the middle. Phoenicians are masters of many things, but bronze-work is not one of them.

He stumbled back. I’d rung his bell. Then he cut low at my legs, but I dipped the Boeotian and put the bronze-bound base into his sword. Then I slammed my spear into his helmet – again.

In the same place.

He stumbled back, and I roared. I remember that moment best of all, because this giant of a man was
afraid
and that fear was like the scent of blood to a shark.

He cut at my legs again, but I blocked it, stepped in and put my spear point into his helmet a third time, where the brow-ridge met the bowl, and the third time, the rivet popped and the point went under the bad weld, right through the top of his skull.

I stepped over him and a spear punched into my side. By Ares, that was pain – the scales held, but the rib broke, and I was knocked to my knees.

Never saw the blow that got me. There’s a lesson there.

Nearchos got him.

I knelt there, almost dead, unable to raise my head – Ares, the pain; I hurt even thinking about it! And Lekthes and Idomeneus stepped past me, dancing the dance, and men fell back before them. They cleared the platform and I could breathe, although it wasn’t good, and I got a leg under me and then another.