Destroyer of Cities t-5

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Where’s Aegypt?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘A hundred stades or less off the bow,’ Diokles said, and he didn’t bother to hide his bitterness. ‘Might as well be ten thousand stades, Satyrus. It’ll be in the eye of the wind in ten minutes, and we can’t row into this. And we haven’t had a hot meal in three days. The rowers aren’t fresh, we’re short on food and very short on drinking water, and there’s no haven short of Alexandria into the wind or back to Cyprus. Into the teeth of the enemy.’

  Somewhere in Diokles’ recitation, Satyrus came awake. He had to piss, and he was afraid to do it. Afraid of the stream of dark red urine. Somewhere in the fight off Cyprian Salamis, he had discovered that he loved life and had a great many things that he wanted to do. And now he wondered how badly he was hurt. It scared him more than all the fighting had scared him, more than the threat of a storm.

  Facing his fears, he rose to his feet, stumbled to the rail and relieved himself. The stream was as red as Tyrian dye.

  ‘Where are the enemy?’ he asked. He felt faint, but he wasn’t going to surrender to it.

  ‘Due north. If you can get up on the stern rail, you ought to be able to see them,’ Diokles said.

  ‘How much left in the day?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘An hour, at most. Hard to guess with this odd light.’ Diokles shook his head. ‘I’m sorry I was late. Men are saying. . it was close. We might have made the difference.’

  Satyrus managed a bitter laugh. ‘Five ships? Diokles, don’t be so self-important. We lost by sixty ships. Menelaeus stayed in port and let us die. We were never in that fight, my friend, and all you would have done was die.’

  ‘And yet you took a ship — a beautiful ship,’ Diokles said.

  ‘I’m a clever bastard and my father is halfway to a god,’ Satyrus said, intending humour. He climbed the rail, balancing on the slippery wood and clinging to the arching wood of the ship’s stern that rose over the helmsman’s station.

  He could see them, just helm up in the failing light. He counted fifteen before he grew confused. He slipped back to the deck, feeling clumsy and light-headed.

  ‘Get us alongside Arete,’ he said. ‘Have you ever seen weather like this?’

  Diokles shrugged. ‘No. But one of the Aegyptian marines says he’s seen it upriver, and it means a sandstorm.’

  Their eyes met. Satyrus had seen small sandstorms to the east, in the Sinai. ‘That’s where I’ve seen the copper sky,’ he said.

  Diokles shrugged. ‘Sure, if you have. Any ideas?’

  ‘Yes,’ Satyrus said. ‘My idea is that we should ask Neiron.’

  Draco, who had been one of Satyrus’ companions from childhood — who had once mistaken the King of the Bosporus for a child prostitute in the Macedonian barracks at Heraklea — came up and embraced him. ‘I hear that was one fine fight,’ he said. ‘Young Necho seems to think that you and Apollodorus are gods.’

  ‘Gods don’t get wounded as often as I do,’ Satyrus complained.

  ‘That’s pretty much what I said. Here, have some warm wine. Always good for you when you take a wound. Boys say you’re pissing blood.’ Draco, as always, was the very king of straight talk.

  ‘I am,’ Satyrus mumbled.

  ‘Yeah, well, stop acting as if this is the end.’ Draco laughed. ‘How has a big bastard like you got through as many fights as you have and never pissed blood?’ He laughed again, a little cruel in his attitude. ‘I–I thought I was going to die, the first time. And it went on for days. Days!’ He laughed a third time.

  Diokles pointed at the Arete, now under their lee. ‘Lord?’ he said.

  ‘Thanks,’ Satyrus replied. He leaned out, cupped his hands and called, ‘Neiron!’ so loud that his back and kidneys hurt all over again.

  Neiron appeared and waved.

  ‘Sandstorm?’ Satyrus called. He pantomimed puzzlement like a tragic actor.

  Neiron nodded agreement and waved. ‘Yes!’ he roared back, his deep-sea voice carrying like the voice of Poseidon.

  The problem was that Satyrus had to have this conversation out loud, where every man on the deck and most of the rowers could hear him. Their confidence in their king was not going to be increased by the process.

  ‘What do you suggest?’ Satyrus called.

  Neiron looked blank.

  ‘What do we do?’ Satyrus asked.

  Neiron put his hands to his mouth. ‘Pray!’ he called.

  ‘Oh, that’s fucking helpful,’ Diokles muttered at Satyrus’ side.

  ‘Should we run north?’ Satyrus called. He hoped — he prayed — that Neiron could read into his suggestion: north, so that their sails would keep them moving, keep the seas astern, keep the deadly sand at their backs. But right into the enemy squadron.

  Neiron looked surprised — even stunned.

  The wind howled, and the first gustful of sand stung them, and everyone scrambled for spare cloaks and light wool chitons to wrap round their heads.

  Satyrus stayed at the rail, watching his senior navarch, a man with ten times his own sea-keeping experience. Neiron talked to someone at the helm — the man between the oars.

  ‘YES!’ he roared back.

  Suddenly Satyrus felt his pulse quicken and his gorge rise. All very well when it was just a bold idea. Now it was real, taking six ships and their exhausted crews into the teeth of a larger enemy force. But dark was close.

  ‘Head of the line, if you please, Diokles,’ Satyrus said. No point in waiting. ‘Get the foresail laid to by the mast and have every sailor you’ve got hold it down. Ready to raise, on the yard. Understood?’

  Diokles laughed. ‘I taught you this trick.’

  Satyrus grinned back. ‘So you did. I want the other ships to see you doing it and get the message.’

  Diokles nodded. He gave orders — a series of rapid orders that sent men running in every direction.

  ‘Helios — gold aspis into the stern. Fast as you can.’ Satyrus went to the helmsman’s station. Helios, awake for a few minutes, managed to get the great gold-finished shield out of its cover and stood by him.

  ‘Raise it so they know there’s a signal coming,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Foresail laid to. Ready to come about — oars are warned.’ Diokles nodded. ‘You’d best do it — it’s going to be hard to get the heavier ships around already with the wind. We’ve barely headway with the rowers going full on.’

  Satyrus turned to Helios. ‘Signal — READY.’

  Four of the five ships sent a return flash. The fifth, Atlantae, probably didn’t even have a signalling shield.

  ‘Signal “SHIPS TO COME ABOUT IN SUCCESSION”.’ Satyrus raised an eyebrow at Diokles, who shrugged.

  ‘We’ve practised it fifty times,’ he said.

  Helios had brought Satyrus his best cloak when the sandstorm started — a glorious Tyrian purple with embroidered eagles, ravens and stars. It was warm and thick at his throat, pinned with the family raven done in gold by Temerix the smith, a gift for his mother. He held it around himself for a long moment. He could remember his mother wearing the raven pin at her throat when she gave justice at Tanais when he was a boy. The memory pierced him like the pain in his kidneys. Then he ripped the cloak off over his head, stood on the stern rail and offered the cloak to the sea.

  ‘Poseidon, Lord of Horses, take this as a token of the hecatomb I will send thee, and spare my ships!’ he called into the wind, and let the cloak go. It caught the wind and swirled — up, then down, spreading flat on the sea as if a sea nymph intended to spread a picnic on it — and then it was gone, as if plucked down by some invisible hand.

  ‘Signal COME ABOUT,’ Satyrus said.

  Oinoe, temporarily the lead ship, was ready, and port-side rowers dragged their oars while the starboard men continued to row forward, and the ship turned so fast that Satyrus barely had time to fear for his stability as the full force of the south wind out of Africa caught her broadside, but the rowers were pulling for their lives, and the bow came round �
�� round fast, and before Satyrus could even frame the words, Diokles ordered that the foresail be set, and the whole deck crew and all the marines raised the yard, sail and all, and the wind caught it, even brailed tight, and suddenly the ship’s motion was altogether different, smoother, less choppy.

  Arete was next in line, and she followed Oinoe around in fine style, although her port side leaned so close to the surface in the turn that all decks must have taken water. Aboard Oinoe, the bulkhead pumps were manned already, and water flew high into the wind from all three pumps as men raised and lowered the handles — brave men, men who had to stand on the rail to work the wooden pumps.

  ‘Rowers stand down and close the oar ports,’ Satyrus said to Diokles, without taking his eyes from the ships following him.

  ‘We’re going to fight under sail,’ Diokles asked.

  ‘I don’t have a lot of fighting in mind, my friend,’ Satyrus answered. ‘I intend to run right down between their squadrons, and if you want to fire your engines, be my guest. But look, Diokles — what choice have they? Turn broadside to this wind to try and move to stop us?’

  They were passing Atlantae. Her inexperienced officers had made a mistake, and were turning on the spot rather than playing ‘follow the leader’ and turning in succession. The rowers were tired, and the volley of strange and unexpected orders had caught them out, and oars were flailing out of time. The ship crept around, took a big wave square on the flank and the whole ship shuddered.

  Someone up forward had climbed the foresail mast and cut the lashings on the sail — it spread with a crack that carried like lightning, and the ropes attached held. One blew out, but the rest merely strained and suddenly the head of the stricken ship came round like a restless horse turning under her rider.

  For whatever reason, Troy duplicated Atlantae’s movements and further confused the manoeuvre by turning to starboard rather than to port, so that she just missed falling foul of Atlantae, her bow shaving past Atlantae’s stern and her oars, by the luck of the gods, pulling in just at the point of closest approach.

  Diokles walked to the rail and threw his sword over the side, gold hilt, scabbard and all, the fruit of a whole season of fighting in the year that Satyrus and his sister had won their kingdoms. ‘Poseidon be with us!’ he called to the restless, red-hued sea.

  But they were around, all six of them. By the will of the gods, they were in two sloppy columns, with Oinoe and Arete following Plataea, while Troy was well to the west and slightly behind Atlantae and Marathon far astern, her confused navarch having tried to compromise between the two styles of turn. Now he was six stades behind.

  But they were around. They had their sails up and the storm was under their sterns, the rising sea rolling in against the part of the ship designed to meet a Mediterranean storm.

  And dead ahead were the Antigonid ships. The badly executed turn meant that Satyrus’ ships were not a cohesive whole, but spread over several stades of sea. There was no possibility of communication or further manoeuvre, with the wind howling and screaming, the foresails blown into rock-hard bubbles of canvas in the bows, the steering oars thrumming like live things.

  ‘If we did ram. .’ Satyrus said, and paused.

  Diokles’ eye grew wide. ‘We’d die. The bow would blow in. Lord, we’ve never moved a ship this size at this speed. We’re moving faster than a galloping horse.’

  Satyrus nodded. Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this speed, the ram might cut the enemy ship in half, breaking every strake — and they would sail on-

  Lunacy.

  Satyrus was grinning. ‘Smile, Diokles! This is going to work.’

  Diokles had to shout to be heard. ‘It is the best plan, given where we are,’ he said. ‘But it is not dark yet.’

  Satyrus got up on the rail and was soaked to the skin by the flying sea — even this far aft, spume rose off the crashing bow and soaked everyone. He missed his cloak. He couldn’t find the Antigonid ships for a moment, and then there they were — so close aboard he’d mistaken them for his own.

  Even as he looked, Neiron’s marines opened fire with their machines. Satyrus could see the bolts fly, black against the red-bronze sky, but they were far too small to see after the moment of launch.

  But the Antigonids — at least some of them — had decided to turn. Satyrus watched one of the lead penteres start its turn, oars coming out and moving, port side forward, starboard side reversed. It was well done, and the ship came about like an automaton, reversing its course with a professionalism that called for admiration.

  The second ship chose to drag oars and turn to port, and someone misunderstood the order and the port-side loom crashed in missed strokes, the whole rhythm lost as the ship lost way and wallowed in the trough of the last wave.

  The next wave, sweeping down from Africa, caught the oars first and threw them up, and men must have died as the oars were forced into the ship and off their thole pins, but it scarcely mattered because a heartbeat later the wave reached the hull and rolled it back, and someone forward let go of a corner of their brailed-up foresail — the whole sail was ripped from the hands of its crew and before Satyrus could blink, the ship was gone, turned turtle and sunk under the great wave that even now was under Oinoe’s counter. But the wreckage was still there, just under the surface, as was always true in a battle, and the first ship that had turned so bravely struck it with the whole weight of the storm behind her.

  And the Euxine squadron sailed on north, moving as fast as a herd of panicked horses on the Sea of Grass. They passed between the outstretched arms of the two Antigonid squadrons and sailed on for Cyprus.

  When Draco went to load the engine on the port side, Satyrus sent Helios to stop him. ‘Tell him that tonight we’re all sailors,’ he said.

  Draco came aft. ‘You’re too soft,’ he said. ‘One split foresail and they’re dead,’ he allowed, pointing at the nearest Antigonid trireme just a stade to port.

  ‘A thousand men just died,’ Satyrus said. ‘So far, Poseidon has preserved ours. Let’s let them go, and see if the god might let us go as well.’

  Draco nodded. ‘You’re soft,’ he said. ‘They’ll be wild to kill us in the morning.’

  Satyrus felt a gust full of sand sting his back.

  ‘Helios!’ he cried. ‘Another chlamys!’

  It was the longest night of Satyrus’ life. Or perhaps the second or third longest. Nights like that are incomparable — while you live them, they are eternal, and when they are over, there is little enough to remember but fear, blown sand, fear and wind, fear and water, fear and the sandy taste of hastily snatched wine.

  When the sun rose, it was never more than a white disc lost in flying sand. Satyrus had the presence of mind to order all the ropes on the foresail checked and replaced — the sand was wearing the lines.

  ‘Cheat west, if you feel you can steer to port at all,’ Satyrus said to the helmsman when there was light. The sand was everywhere. There were little drifts of sand in the bilges, and in his mouth. So much to worry about, and now he could add the worry that they might run right on Cyprus and he’d never know.

  Midday — he guessed — and the rain hit. It hit them like a fist, and a squall tore overhead, ripping the foresail clear off the pole and out into the sea, heeling them over so far that men fell off their benches.

  But Poseidon accepted their sacrifices and let them go, and they got the ship righted and wrestled another scrap of canvas onto the foremast and sailed on at the same nightmare pace into a second night. They were so short on water now that Diokles was sending wine around instead. That wouldn’t last long, and the sand made it worse. They got some water from the rain and drank it all, men laying their chitons out on deck, standing naked in the rain and dark, wringing the clothes nearly dry into their mouths, drinking three-day-old sweat, blood, urine and salt as well as water.

  The second dawn: for most of them, their fourth at sea without a rest, and this for rowers who were used to beaching every night to cook the
ir food. The oarsmen were so hungry they could barely speak, and so dry that when they did open their mouths very little came out.

  Noon on the second day, and the wind began to develop fits and flaws and Satyrus thought it might be blowing itself out. The sand was gone from the air — blessed relief — and men emerged from their head wrappings to stare at the sun on a windblown sea. But the sea wasn’t finished with them yet, and in late afternoon the wind changed direction, turning back from south to north, grew colder and Satyrus put the oarsmen to their oars and turned the ship about again, guessing that he was three hundred stades south-south-west of Rhodes — which was now in the eye of the wind. It might have been funny if he hadn’t been so tired.

  He was so tired he didn’t even notice when he pissed over the side and it was yellow-brown rather than red. Helios did, however, and they laughed together like boys. Of such things are triumph made, when you are in your third day of a storm after a day of battle.

  But they made it through the night alive, although there were oarsmen who were beginning to feel the hunger in ugly ways, and Diokles put marines at the ladders just in case.

  Satyrus had the steering oars — Oinoe was tragically lacking in officers, having sent her best into Atlantae. At present, that looked like a poor decision, as they hadn’t seen another ship in three days.

  But an hour later, Satyrus saw Arete running south with mainsail and foresail set, ten stades off their starboard side, and he yelled and men cheered. Arete steered close and fell in under their stern.

  Just at full dark, they found Atlantae and Plataea rowing patiently into the wind. As soon as they saw who they’d found, the other two ships abandoned rowing, turned and raised their sails. The wind was dwindling to a comfortable roar, and Satyrus guessed his location, put his helm down and ordered the mainmast raised and the mainsail set.

  Dawn found all four running fast, the wind dead astern. Noon revealed Troy dismasted, wallowing in the waves but still afloat, and Satyrus put marines into her — there had been trouble — and Plataea emptied her stores for yards to rig a makeshift foresail mast.