A Burning Sea

by Theodore Brun

  The fleet was clear of the promontory now and wheeled south. Across the straits, Erlan saw the silhouettes of the hills of Asia Minor, saw lights glimmering on their dark slopes, and found himself wondering what they were. Hearth fires in shepherds’ huts? A man and wife finishing supper, turning into their bed, oblivious that the fate of the world hung in the balance?

  A lookout cry broke his thoughts. ‘There away! Off the starboard bow!’

  Men raced to the gunwale. He and Einar were close behind. It took a moment for his gaze to adjust to the darkness, but there, strung out across the strait, was a long line of torch flames. From the sterncastle, Arbasdos ordered the fleet to steer wide. ‘We don’t want to run over the poor sods.’ The trumpet call sounded and the fire-runner at the head of the fleet changed course.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘What, didn’t Leo tell you?’ Davit’s teeth flashed in a grin. ‘It’s his last surprise.’

  ‘Surprise?’

  ‘A trick, man! Another of his schemes to scupper the Arabs.’

  The Belisarius drew level with the first of the torches. Only then did Erlan see that under each torch was a skiff; little boats so small even the fire-runners dwarfed them, and full of swarthy men, half-naked and lean as rats, apparently rowing hard for the safety of the Golden Horn.

  ‘But who are they?’ asked Erlan, still mystified.

  ‘They’re deserters.’

  ‘What the hell are they deserting from, out here?’ muttered Einar.

  Davit laughed. ‘From the Egyptian fleet, of course. Those ships won’t get far without their crews, will they?’ And now the sailors in the lead skiffs started yelling in triumph as the first fire-runner swept past, punching the air and hailing the emperor at the top of their lungs.

  ‘Does the general know where they’re anchored?’ asked Erlan.

  ‘Simple. Follow the bones to the lion’s lair.’ Davit pointed at the trail of torches that stretched all the way to the headland in the distance. The Byzantine attack fleet were about midway across the Bosporus now.

  Erlan peered past the flares mounted on the lead-ships into the darkness ahead. He saw something, a large shadow stirring over the water. . . and the hairs on his neck prickled. ‘It looks like the lion is coming to us.’

  The lookouts on the lead fire-runners started braying their alarms. Ships were appearing around the headland. Big ships of war, the beat of their oars slow and menacing as vultures’ wings.

  ‘Dromons,’ muttered Davit. ‘They would have been imperial ships once.’ He jerked the strap of his helmet tighter. ‘I guess the Egyptians have more balls than sense.’

  ‘Attack formation!’ bellowed Arbasdos above them. The trumpets blasted in reply. The lead fire-runners closed on each other till their oars were nearly overlapping. The drums beat louder and in unison now.

  ‘Not a sight to forget, eh?’ said Erlan, feeling his pulse ratchet a notch higher.

  ‘Aye,’ growled Einar. ‘Glad we’re seeing it from this side, not that one.’

  ‘Ready the fire,’ screamed Arbasdos, his voice straining to be heard above the beating of the drums. The fire marines, all dressed in protective leather aprons and hoods, started moving about their weapon with greater purpose. Half a mile across the black waves, two dozen or more war-ships emerged around the point and formed up into double columns, aimed like twin spear-shafts at the heart of the Byzantine fleet.

  ‘The sailors in that lead boat must be brave men,’ muttered Erlan.

  ‘They’ll be throwing up a few prayers to Allah,’ returned Davit.

  ‘Why bother?’ said Einar. ‘They’ll be seeing him face to face soon enough.’

  Suddenly Arbasdos came thumping down the steps to the main deck. ‘Christ’s blood! I can’t see a damn thing from up there.’ He stomped forward towards the forecastle. Davit shouted after him. ‘Strategos! Wait, General! You’ll be too exposed.’

  Arbasdos rounded on him. ‘If I can’t see, how am I supposed to direct the fucking fleet?’

  Davit swore and followed him. Einar shrugged and fell in behind, with Erlan bringing up the rear. If that puckered arsehole wanted to put himself in harm’s way, then like it or not their duty lay that way, too. The strategos stomped along the deck, bellowing encouragement to the rowers below. He took the steps up to the forecastle two at a time. The others followed. Only Erlan hesitated, his attention snared for a second by the fire-machine lurking under the foredeck like a worm in its lair. There was a laugh above him. He looked up to see Davit at the top of the steps. ‘Know how it works?’

  ‘The Devil’s magic, ain’t it?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Sound the attack!’ cried Arbasdos, now hanging off the prow. He seemed to be enjoying himself for once. Trumpets blared and the deeper horns boomed all around them, their sound rippling out from the Belisarius to the other Byzantine ships. Erlan climbed up to the bow-deck.

  Three ranks of fire-runners moved ahead. Erlan was almost disappointed not to be with them as they stretched away in front, feeling his breath shortening in anticipation of the crack of timber at first contact. Then, an instant before impact, came the sudden blinding gush of flame, the bronze beast-heads roaring like fury and scalding death in splaying arcs over the Egyptian vanguard. In an eye-blink the front ships of each column were engulfed in a whirling fire-storm, but still they ploughed onward into the Byzantine ranks in a furrow of splintering wood. There were cheers and battle-cries, a hail of spears and arrows, and the sound of rending timber. Already dozens were dead and more would soon burn in that hellish furnace. The air was filled with screaming and the acrid reek of burned oil. Yet the discipline of the Byzantine fire-runners was remarkable, hunting down each dromon as the enemy columns scattered. The dromons wallowed and reeled, trying in vain to turn or ram the little fire-ships. Men jumped into the sea which was already awash with fire. Bodies floated by like human torches, some still alive, writhing in pain. But the flames continued to burn.

  It was awesome. And sickening.

  Erlan turned away. But as he did, he glimpsed something which froze his blood. More shadows moving to the north. Beasts lurking in the darkness. Then the shadows took solid form and he knew what he saw.

  ‘Skip,’ he said in Norse, his throat dry.

  ‘Hey?’ said Einar, turning.

  ‘Skip,’ he said again. Only the third time did he think to speak in Greek. ‘SHIPS!’ he screamed, emptying his lungs.

  Because the Arab fleet had come to the fight.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  ‘Turn, you bastards! Turn!’

  Arbasdos’s voice of authority was now a raging primal scream.

  The drummer reacted fast. Within seconds the larboard oars were jammed into the water, slewing the bows around and tilting the deck as the huge Arab war-ships bore down from the north. The Belisarius had been caught nearly dead in the water. So had most of the Byzantine fleet except for the fire-runners busy with the Egyptian force ahead.

  The command to turn took an age to relay to the other ships and already the Byzantine line was in disarray. The lead Arab was not an arrow’s flight away. Erlan could see their proud figureheads – serpents and eagles and lions – he saw human faces too, thickets of spear-points and the gigantic iron ram trained straight at them.

  ‘The only way is to engage the fire,’ he heard Arbasdos saying.

  ‘The others aren’t ready, General,’ cried Davit.

  The strategos laughed like a madman. ‘Then the lazy cunts had better catch up. ATTACK!’

  The drummer found his rhythm, slow at first until the hull picked up speed, then faster and faster till his sticks were a blur. Somehow the rowers kept time, oars dipping, levering the boat through the black water till the night air whistled past Erlan’s ears. He unsheathed Wrathling, its hilt an old friend in this strange world.

  The lead Arab ship was on a course to their larboard side. Behind it on either flank were many others. The Belisarius h
eld its line, an oblique dagger thrust into the heart of the Arab fleet, its oars beating like fury. There was a strange, haunting moment as the two ships swept past each other on different bearings. Then the air filled with arrows, hailing onto the deck with a hellish rattle. But all other sights and sounds were obliterated in the instant the lion’s head belched out its fierce tongue of fire.

  A rush. A roar. Thunder rolling into a terrifying eruption of heat that seared Erlan’s face.

  ‘So this is what it’s like to ride a dragon’s back!’ Einar’s bellow was swallowed by the din, and he let out a howl like a wolf. Erlan couldn’t deny the thrill he felt in his own blood.

  Their jet of flame doused the stern of the lead ship, but the massive hull piled on unchecked, smashing into the Heraclius on their left and rising up out of the water like a titan before crashing down again on top of the dromon’s broadside. Splinters burst everywhere. A few Byzantine mariners managed to lob fire-pots up onto the deck of the gigantic Arab ship, even in that moment of their doom. The men were dead an instant later but their last act was deadly. Their pots smashed, streaking liquid fire over the rigging and a dozen Arab seamen in the bows. The stern was already a furnace. The galley was lost even as the Heraclius sank beneath it.

  Meanwhile a hail of missiles flew at the Belisarius. Archers and mariners fell, some with arrows, some with spears. Others hurled back insults and war-cries, all at a distance. So long as they didn’t close quarters with the Arab ships, they could keep dousing them with flames and moving on. Kallinikos’s deadly fire did the rest.

  Davit disappeared down the steps and returned moments later with a basket crammed with fire-pots. ‘How’s your arm, Northman?’ he grinned, snatching one up. ‘Light the wick and throw the bastard as far as you can!’

  He held it to a torch mounted nearby. The wick caught and wasting no time he flung the thing at the nearest galley. There was a splay of orange and in a second two sailors were alight, beating helplessly at the fire engulfing them. It spread instantly to hands, arms, heads until there were only flailing balls of flame where men had stood before.

  ‘Nasty little buggers, aren’t they?’ Einar picked one out of the pile. Erlan did likewise and soon they were raining them down as fast as they could throw them, not even pausing to see what horror they had inflicted. The chaos was palpable, the order of each fleet completely scattered although there were still Byzantine ships close by them, each one wreaking slaughter on the enemy.

  The closest was another Byzantine dromon – the Narses – hosing down the broadside of a foundering Arab war-ship. Mariners were throwing fire-pots. One man went down under an arrow. The wick of his pot was already lit. He fell, the pot smashed in a shower of flames, there were panicked shouts of warning and before anyone could react an enormous fireball exploded under the foredeck, shooting splinters sky high. In a few seconds, the bows of the Narses were a furnace, flames spreading greedily. Oarsmen went over the side to save themselves. Mariners stripped off armour and flung themselves into the deep. But even there, the water was burning now – great slicks of flame floating past with no sign of abating. Erlan saw a man sucked under the hull while others in the water became targets for more arrows and spears hailing out of the black night. It was pure terror. Horror. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to be done. Except die.

  The Belisarius, meanwhile, was hunting down its next victim. ‘Here comes another bastard,’ yelled Arbasdos, whooping like a child, the dignity of his office long discarded. ‘We’ll soon have these infidel dogs whipped! Keep on!’

  Erlan reached for another fire-pot. Orders flew around him. Their oars ground into the water, checking the run of the hull. He saw Arab faces horror-stricken, heard the wheeze of the syphon handle below, then the whoosh and roar of the fire. Something caught the tail of his eye. There was a weird rush of air and out of the darkness loomed the fierce eyes of a serpent and a massive bow-ram. A curse had barely formed on his lips when the world rolled on its head.

  The deck reared up, flinging him against the strakes as the mass of bronze stove like a giant’s fist into Belisarius’s midships. There was a fearful ripping of wood, oars catapulted into the sky, a blizzard of arrows thudded on the deck.

  Stunned, Erlan saw the sterncastle ranged above him, the whole ship slewing round with the impact of the ram – then the stern plummeted again in a deluge of sea-spray and shattered oars. There must have been a hole the size of a giant’s maw torn out of the hull because the sea started swallowing up the stern, craning the bows up into the sky.

  He managed to sit up. Einar was in a heap just below him. There was Wrathling. He snatched for his hilt as war-cries screeched above and to his right and glancing upwards he saw Arab mariners already on their gunwale, throwing across planks and boarding ladders. Some leaped the gap early in their eagerness to inflict retribution on their tormentors at last.

  ‘On your feet, my friend.’ Davit’s voice. ‘We’ve got ourselves a proper fight.’

  Erlan stood. Arbasdos was groggily drawing his sword. Einar picked himself up, hefting his axe and shield. The oarsmen of the Belisarius were scuttling out of the lower deck like roaches fleeing a flood. The lucky ones had blades and shields to give them some chance against the raining arrows. Above him a whining shriek. ‘Up there!’ someone screamed as a board crashed down onto the gunwale, missing Davit’s head by a whisker.

  ‘With you, lad,’ he heard Einar growl as bodies came rushing down from above.

  Erlan smashed aside the first spear-point and slashed Wrathling’s edge through helm and skull. The Arab fell like lead. Arbasdos was cursing like the Devil to his right. Another Arab, garbed in black, leaped onto the deck. Erlan’s ears were full of the din of slaughter – no different from the gale of Skogul’s storm in the north. Death was death. Steel was steel. And the desperation to live and to kill the same across the world of men. There were flames too, and pricking at the back of his skull the fear that all could, in a heartbeat, vanish in a ball of fire.

  An arrow shot past, skinning a red seam off his hip. He glimpsed a sailor with a curved blade, a flash of beard, black teeth, a spiked helm. Erlan dipped outside the man’s cut, smashed his pommel down on the outstretched forearm, feeling bone shatter, then ripped Wrathling across his face giving its edge a second taste of blood.

  Einar was killing, too, but more Arabs were pouring over the midships into the bloody mayhem. The sea was bubbling up from the stern like a boiling kettle, the pitch of the deck increasing, boarding planks flipping away like twigs in the hands of a child. Some vanished between the ships tipping a dozen Arabs into the fiery waves.

  The drummer was dead, head split like a smashed pom-egranate; the fire-crew had abandoned their hole and were fighting, and dying, on the main deck. The sheer number of blood-mad Arabs was overwhelming, all bent on avenging the Byzantines’ cruelty. Arbasdos was still on his feet, swearing and hacking his way through the Arabs left on the forecastle. Erlan saw Einar hew off a man’s shield arm then bury his axe-blade into his ribs. Gods, he looked a long way from home, the poor bastard, and terrible as Tyr himself.

  Another Arab sprang forward, this one driving the general backwards over a body at his feet. Arbasdos tripped, fell, the Arab spear drew back for the kill but Erlan saw it and lurched forward, thrusting his blade in so hard it drove to the hilt. He wrenched Wrathling free, now a slick of stinking gore. Arrows spat and rattled about him. Behind him sounded a yelp of pain. He turned to see Arbasdos pawing at a shaft in his shoulder. ‘Up,’ screamed Einar at him, ‘up, you miserable turd – there’s more of ’em!’

  There was another crash as the Arabs threw down a second boarding plank. The boat gave a sudden lurch. Dark sea rushed into the hold. Erlan watched in horror as the box of fire-pots slid inexorably towards the edge of the foredeck. It seemed to hover there for a heart-stopping moment, then over it went.

  An instant later a squall of fire ripped up through the floor in a thunderous blast of heat. The whole world was burn
ing. The rear of the foredeck was blown clean away. Arbasdos was screaming. One of his legs was on fire. Erlan called Einar’s name but couldn’t see him. Somehow a boarding plank had survived and down it poured more of the enemy, shrieking like demons.

  ‘Come on, you goat-fucking sons of Shaitan!’ Davit screamed, rearing up like a wounded bull.

  Erlan remembered the emperor’s order. Arbasdos was no traitor, that was for sure. But did he deserve to live?

  ‘The general,’ he screamed at Davit. ‘Secure the general.’ There was no hope for the ship. The stern of the Belisarius was submerged in the churning sea. Her bows were a nightmare of fire and blood and screams and death.

  ‘You save him, Northman!’ shouted Davit in reply. Then Erlan saw Einar, crawling to his knees. He looked dazed, his helmet gone, fire was licking up his torso and catching in the long braids of his rust-brown hair. ‘No!’ Erlan cried. ‘Einar!’ The fat man stood blinking in disbelief at the fire swirling up him. He gave a ragged laugh, swung his axe into the neck of an Arab coming for him, then staggered backwards and toppled over the rail. ‘NO!’ Erlan roared in anguish, raging at his impotence to save his friend. He glanced left and saw the flames on the general were spreading all over him even as he tried to beat them out.

  His mind made up, Erlan seized the general by his collar and dragged him to the rail. Davit was a hulking shadow, hedged in by Arab spears, his sword rising and falling against the flames. A saga death for you, thought Erlan, then hurled the general into the sea and dived after him.

  Water crashed around him. He grabbed hold of the general’s armour, kicking madly to stay afloat. Arbasdos was thrashing around like an eel on a hook, still alight under the water. The flames scorched Erlan’s hand with pain, shocking him, and in a moment which he would curse a hundred times over, Wrathling’s hilt slipped from his grasp. He roared in frustration, his mouth filling with salt water as the blade of his forefathers sank to the seabed.

  His sword was gone but just beyond his reach was a broken oar. He clawed at the water with his empty hand till he had it and hauled Arbasdos over it. ‘The fire!’ wailed the general. ‘For God’s sake!’