Greek Fire

by James Boschert

  “It takes a great amount of skill and training to know exactly when the upper tank is ready to use. I am only just trained enough to make it work,” Ioannes explained to Talon.

  He showed Talon the device in the middle of the large copper pipe. “This is a vent that allows the fire liquid to escape when the pressure is high enough.” He began to turn the tap but Talon stopped him, fearful that he was about to make the fire operate.

  Ioannes gave him a sardonic smile. “It is not going to do anything, Sir. The tank is not full and it is cold so the liquid will not flow.”

  Talon stood back relieved. The image of the flame reaching out from the ship was still vivid in his memory.

  It all sounded very complicated to him. “Where does the liquid come from?” he asked.

  “I am not sure, but I think it comes from the north of the Black Sea where it is collected. Do not ask me what it is, because I do not know. There are men in Constantinople who process it when it comes to the city in ships.”

  “Is that what makes this stink?” Talon asked him, wrinkling his nose because up close to the apparatus the smell that pervaded the ship was very pronounced. It burned his nostrils. “It stinks like a whiff of Hell,” he added.

  Ioannes nodded with a wry smile on his scantily bearded face. “It is kept in copper tanks, and we have only one more on this ship which was brought on board when the Arabs captured the men-of-war. Yes, this stuff stinks.”

  Talon let him go while he continued to stare at the device, trying to fully understand the mechanism.

  *****

  Several days later Talon brought Caravello up from below. The man looked very much the worse for wear. His clothes were still bloodied from his wound and the bandage on his wrist was encrusted in his own blood. He looked haggard and frightened, which was what Talon intended. He looked about him, blinking and squinting in the daylight, and then, seeing Talon on the afterdeck beckoning, he walked stiffly up the stairs and came to face him.

  “You have stolen my ship. Who are you, and why? You know that you are pirates, and I shall inform the authorities as to what you have done.” He sounded unsure of himself, however.

  Talon gazed at him from where he stood next to Guy and the steering men.

  “You do not remember me?” he asked Caravello.

  The Genoese stared at him. “How should I know you?” he said, anger beginning to flush his jowls.

  “Hark back to a time in Alexandria, captain, when you and a friend of yours took silver from three men who just wanted to go with you to Cyprus. You have been to Alexandria, have you not?”

  The captain nodded slowly. “I have been there, but what has this to do with me?”

  “You and your friend took our silver and agreed to take us to Cyprus, almost three years ago, captain. You do not remember the fight on the quayside, where your friend betrayed us and one of my companions was killed?”

  Recognition slowly dawned in Caravello’s eyes. “It was you?” he asked with a puzzled frown.

  “Yes, it was I and my companions. One died on the docks right in front of you, and the other two were taken away to become slaves,” Talon said this last with enough venom to cause Caravello to take a nervous step back.

  “I could not prevent it!” he said. “He was the one who betrayed you, not I.”

  “I realized that at the time,” Talon said with less force. “But you have been involved in another piece of treachery, and this time it involved Greek Fire and the stealing of it for the Arab fleet.”

  Caravello was by now looking nervous and trapped. “How do you know this? Who are you?” he demanded again.

  “My name is Sir Talon of the Knights Templar, and you will be my prisoner as we sail to Acre, where you can kick your heels in a cold Templar dungeon before the spring comes when I shall take you back to Constantinople to account for your crimes.”

  Caravello gasped and then stammered, “I am not guilty of any crimes, I swear it.”

  “You do not know the Senator Spartenos? You do not know of the betrayal of the two naval vessels to the Arab fleet and the theft of the apparatus on the deck below?” Talon looked at him with contempt. “It was pure chance that we came upon some debris in the sea and found survivors who told us all about it. Not only that, we now have another witness who is on this ship with us who will, I am sure, testify against you for the murder of his companions whom you tortured for the knowledge of the apparatus down below.”

  The Genoese twisted his mouth downwards and shook his head. “No! No. Before God I swear I was given this apparatus to take to Cyprus,” he almost whispered. He was clearly very frightened now.

  “How do you know all this?” he finally asked the silent Talon. He could not look him in the eye.

  “For your information, the senator is dead, as are his henchmen. And you know that the Arab fleet was destroyed. I heard that there was a prince involved, but he too must be running for his life as the attempts upon the palaces also failed.”

  “God will surely judge you and I fear find you wanting, but the Byzantine people will be less kind. You betrayed those ships to the Arabs and allowed them to obtain the Fire. They who wished to destroy the city! But thank God those devices are now at the bottom of the sea.”

  “I…I have riches, I can pay! I have much that I could give you for my release,” Caravello whispered his entreaty to Talon, all pretense was now gone. There were beads of sweat on his forehead even though it was not hot.

  “I have enough and do not want your pieces of silver, Caravello. Were it not for the fact that innocent people have died because of your greed and treachery I might consider your release, but that cannot be so now,” Talon said. He turned to Guy. “Have your men take him below. He may have the smaller cabin until we get to Acre where his accommodation will not be so good. Make sure he is guarded well.”

  Guy nodded to the two men who had escorted Caravello to the afterdeck. They took his arms and walked him down the steps to the main deck. They were about to lead him down the short steps when Ioannes calmly walked up to them and threw a large pot of some stinking liquid at Caravello. Caravello staggered back with a scream, his hands flying to his eyes. It covered his face and hair and the entire front of his clothing. Ioannes had made sure that none of it landed on the escort, but then he shouted in Greek.

  “You will take the short road to Hell, Genoese! This is for my friends, and for me.” Then while Caravello staggered back to the side of the ship roaring with pain as the liquid burned his eyes, shaking his head and trying desperately to wipe it from his face, Ioannes threw a lighted oil lamp at him. The flames instantly took hold and within a very short moment Caravello was transformed from a man into a flaming torch that shrieked with agony as he battered at the flames that now engulfed him.

  The men who had been nearby shrank away with horror. Talon leapt down from the afterdeck in two bounds to try and help but there was nothing he could do, the heat of the fiercely burning flames drove him back. Caravello staggered about the deck jerking his arms up and down beating uselessly at the flames that were consuming him, shrieking in a high pitched tone that penetrated the head of every man standing on the deck nearby.

  Caravello gave one last choking scream that died into a whimper and then turned and toppled over the side of the vessel. The ball of flame that had once been a man tumbled into the sea with a loud hiss to sink rapidly beneath the waves, leaving steam hissing on the surface and the stink of burning flesh. Talon rushed to the side with other men and peered down, and to his horror saw the figure still burning as it sank deep into the water, where it finally disappeared in a plume that obscured their view. He stood back stunned with the shock at what he had just witnessed. Other men nearby were crossing themselves and praying, shock written all over their faces. Some were even on their knees praying and weeping. One was even retching over the side.

  Talon cast a frantic look about the deck to see if there was any risk to the ship and found that Guy with great presence o
f mind had strewn sand over the stained deck and thus effectively prevented further fire. But lying on the deck on his face in a puddle of blood lay Ioannes whose thin features wore a frozen expression of triumph.

  “He stabbed himself, Sir! I could not stop him. He…he said...” The man stopped, his eyes wide with the horror of the awful event he had just witnessed.

  “He said what?” Talon almost shouted.

  “He said he would see that man in Hell and we could all go to Hell as well. Then he stabbed himself, right in front of me. But we were all looking at the other…man. I noticed something but I was too late to stop him. God save us!”

  Talon looked down at the inert body of Ioannes. The man had a small slim knife protruding from his chest where he had thrust it up under his ribs into the heart. One hand was still gripping the handle. Ioannes had planned the killing of Caravello carefully, awaiting his opportunity and then executing it with mad determination.

  Talon looked hard at the crewman, but there was no question that the man was telling the truth. He was clearly very distressed at what he had witnessed. It had been a self-inflicted killing and there was now nothing to be done about it. He looked up at Guy who was standing at the rail looking down. Guy shook his head sadly. “He was crazed, Sir Talon. He wanted to have his revenge for his companions and he wanted to die. No one could have suspected he had it in him.”

  *****

  Talon sat in alone the main cabin for the rest of that day and thought about what had happened. The creaking of the ship’s timbers and the muted talk of the crew on the upper deck did little to intrude upon his thoughts.

  He could never have wished upon any man the death he had witnessed that day, and he knew the awful image of what he had seen would stay with him for the rest of his life. He had heard that Nikoporus had died in the early stages of the battle in the center of the fire that had consumed half a fleet. In some cruel way, Niko’s death had been paid for. But now he was faced with a decision.

  The one man who could have operated the Greek Fire apparatus was dead. Perhaps it was for the best. The infernal device was better off in the hands of those Byzantine Greeks who knew how to use it to protect their empire. It was not for the likes of Caravello, who had paid a dreadful price for it, nor was it for the likes of him, Talon. He gave a mental shrug. Let them keep their secret. He did not want any part of it.

  He thought back over the last months and the cruel intrigues that had led up to the events he had seen in Constantinople. That great city would see more of him, now that he had ships and good men to sail them, and—just as importantly—the right to trade with the city. But in the silence of the sumptuous cabin he knew too that although the trade and spoils of war had made him and his companions very rich and would continue to do so it would have only half of his attention. The quest to find his friends was not over, simply interrupted. He calmed himself with thoughts of a garden in Isfahan.

  When Talon finally came on deck the sun was setting on the western horizon of a sea empty of land and vessels other than the three ships, one behind the other under full sail. The crew members who noticed his arrival stopped what they were doing and saluted him respectfully. He went and took a long hard look at the apparatus that squatted on the deck under its coverings of protective cloth. It sat there like a crouching monster, and it stank like one.

  “Guy,” he called up to the afterdeck, “I want that…thing to be thrown overboard and all the trappings that go with it. Everything.”

  Guy, after a look of total surprise, opened his mouth to say something, but then nodded reluctantly and held his tongue. He bade the men to do as Talon had ordered.

  The rumble of the heavy equipment being hauled across the deck and pushed overboard, then the sound of the splashes as it fell into the sea and sank, bore a strange note of finality.

  “God willing, if this good weather holds we will be in Acre within two weeks,” Guy said, as Talon joined him on the after deck.

  The End

  About The Author

  James Boschert

  James Boschert grew up in the then colony of Malaya in the early fifties. He learned first hand about terrorism while there as the Communist insurgency was in full swing. His school was burnt down and the family, while traveling, narrowly survived an ambush, saved by a Gurkha patrol, which drove off the insurgents.

  He went on to join the British army serving in remote places like Borneo and Oman. Later he spent five years in Iran before the revolution, where he played polo with the Iranian Army, developed a passion for the remote Assassin castles found in the high mountains to the north, and learned to understand and speak the Farsi language.

  Escaping Iran during the revolution, he went on to become an engineer and now lives in Arizona on a small ranch with his family and animals.

  Excerpt From A Falcon Flies

  Book V of Talon

  ...There was new respect in the eyes of the Captain when he asked the next question. “How do you know so much of these people?”

  “I suggest that we ask questions of Talon later when we have dealt with the enemy, Captain. I for one want to sleep in my bed with both eyes shut. Not waiting for a dagger in the night.”

  “You are right, Sir Guy,” said the Captain. He turned to his men and began to issue orders. The fighting in the yard had died out and the men were going round killing the remaining wounded. He called over to them and told them to bring two captives to Talon before continuing the search for the hidden Assassins.

  Two of the wounded ‘Assassins were carried to where Talon stood in the middle of the yard with Sir Guy. Having dumped their prisoners unceremoniously and none too gently on the bloody ground, the knights went off to help their own wounded.

  The two young men on the ground were weak from their injuries but still defiant. Talon went up to one of them and without warning slapped him very hard on the face, knocking him flat on his back. The wounded youth gave a startled cry of pain. Talon stooped and very quickly searched the groaning youth. He turned up a knife, just as he expected, and stood back, allowing the angry youth to lie back and glare up at him.

  “Why did you attack this castle?” Talon asked quietly.

  There was only a glare in response while the youth clutched at his wounded chest.

  “I know it was Sinon Rashid Ed Din who sent you, and I respect your courage, but you will tell me why you were sent,” said Talon ominously. There was silence.

  “Are you Fida’i or Rafiqi?” he asked in Arabic.

  There was a startled look from the pair of youths on the ground. Then one spoke to the other in Farsi. “How does this Ferengi know of the Fida’i, or the Rafiqi for that matter?”

  “I do not know, but he speaks Arabic very well for a Ferengi.”

  “I also speak Farsi; I am a Fida’i from Alamut,” said Talon, very quietly this time.

  They stared up at him speechless.

  “You should not have attacked this castle, but I will let you and your companions live if you tell me why you attacked us. You must tell me quickly, as the Knights Templar are thirsty for blood and want to kill you all.”

  “I am dead anyway,” said one of the youths. “We were told to take this castle in revenge for the attack on one of the caravans by your Duke Raymond, may his soul burn in hell,” he gasped with the pain in his chest and lay back. There was blood on his lips and he was very pale.

  Talon knelt by his side. “Why are you here? Have you come from Persia? Did you come from Samiran?” he was referring to the great castle of the ‘Assassins situated at the entrance to the Alborz Mountains, in far away Persia.

  The youth nodded, as did his companion, who had a bad gash in his leg and on his right arm.

  “Is Timsar Esphandiary here in Syria?”

  Again the surprised looks. But the youth with the chest wound was going fast. Talon lifted his head and asked Sir Guy for some water. One of the nearby retainers brought over a skin and Talon allowed some drops to wet the parched lips of
the dying youth.

  “Your bravery will be remembered. What is your name?” he said.

  “Kemal. Tell me, what is your name, Templar?” the youth whispered.

  “Talon, I am Talon,” he told them.

  “Are you the one that killed the lion when only a boy at Samiran?” There was genuine surprise in his weak voice.

  “I am that one.”

  “They still speak of the Ferengi Tal’on who killed the lion,” whispered the youth, then his body racked in Talon’s arms and he died. Talon closed his eyes and laid him back on the bloody ground, covering his face with his head cloth in respect.

  He stood up and went to the other youth.

  “Let me bind up your wounds without fear,” he said.

  “It is Allah’s will that my companion should die. We are Fida’i, Tal’on: Kemal, you and I. What are you doing fighting for the Ferengi as a Templar? I will not fight you now.”

  “First let me bind your wounds, and then we must call your companions and ask them to surrender. I shall ask for quarter and try to send you back to Simon Rashid Ed Din or...is it to the General?”

  “It is to the General, he is near Allepo with the Master of the Syrian Ismaili.”

  Talon’s heart began to pump violently but there was no time to dwell upon the one thing that he wanted to ask most. There was the clash of steel and more shouts as the Templars, their Sergeants and retainers hunted down the remaining ‘Assassins.

  Talon quickly gave Sir Guy the gist of what had been said and told him, “Sir Guy, I think we can do ourselves some good if we do not massacre these people. You should know that we and they both hate the Seljuks and the son of Nur Ed Din.”

  Sir Guy nodded agreement. He shouted for the Captain of the Templars, telling some of the men to run and fetch the Captain and to ask him to pause in his searching while Talon tried to get the ‘Assassins’ out with words rather than by force.

  “I have to have real assurance that they will not be killed if they do come out,” Talon told Sir Guy.