Destroyer of Cities t-5

by Christian Cameron

  Satyrus was unengaged, still retching, and he could see an enemy trireme, low in the water from his vantage, coming around the wreckage to ram them broadside or break their oars.

  He spat and raised his head. ‘Oars in!’ he called. ‘Starboard side!’

  Philaeus heard him, with the help of the gods — and repeated the order. ‘Starboard-side oars in!’ he roared, and Anaxagoras sang it, and the oars came in as if the ship were a machine built by mighty Hephaestos — and the trireme’s bronze beak struck low into their unprotected side and the timbers held.

  Idomeneus raced his archers to the engaged side. ‘All together, now — loose!’ he called, and twenty arrows fell into the trireme’s unprotected rowers. Then all the starboard-side engines fired together — one, two, three, their bolts going downwards at point-blank range, down through men and benches and probably right through the bottom of the enemy ship.

  The enemy trireme tried desperately to back water, but he had twenty dead rowers or more, and his oar loom was in chaos, his oar master nearly cut in half by an iron bolt thicker than a man’s arm. The trireme wallowed in the swell, and Idomeneus ordered another volley right at Satyrus’ ear.

  ‘The king is finishing off his adversary,’ Apollodorus said.

  Satyrus felt his head clearing. ‘Get me water.’

  ‘Wine?’ Apollodorus asked, and thrust a canteen under his nose.

  Satyrus drank, spat and drank again. ‘Good wine,’ he said.

  ‘Why die with the taste of cheap wine on your lips?’ Apollodorus asked.

  Anaxagoras was bent over the Lesvian boy. Satyrus tottered over.

  ‘Alive?’ he asked.

  ‘He’ll dance again, if the gods will it,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘I’ve seen this done — never done it myself. I need help.’

  Satyrus crouched by him, and Apollodorus, with two marines, took the boy’s shoulders and held him while Anaxagoras searched with slippery fingers. ‘Got it!’ he said. He had a loop of sinew in his fingers — a piece of bowstring. ‘Apollo, brace my fingers. Pull!’ he said to a marine, and the other man pulled on the sinew like a poacher pulling a snare — and shook his head.

  Blood spurted across the deck.

  Satyrus looked up. Neiron was calling — pointing.

  ‘Sailors, here!’ Satyrus called, and gave Charmides’ feet to two men. He loved the boy, but he had four hundred men to save.

  ‘It’s too slippery!’ grunted the marine.

  Two more low triremes were coming out of the enemy line. They were warier than the first, but they had the marines to board, at least between them.

  ‘Leave him!’ Satyrus called up to Idomeneus. He waved at the stricken trireme under his feet — a ship he could take if he could get ten marines into the hull, but for what?

  He glanced up, and saw both of the archers in the masthead shoot — they were methodical, and fast, for men shooting from a swaying basket. The one tapped the other and pointed at something out over the bow.

  Satyrus couldn’t watch any longer. ‘All engines, all archers — that one!’ he cried, and his voice broke from fatigue, already. He pointed a spear — whose spear? Where was it from? — at the nearest of the two new attackers, and almost as quickly as thought an iron bolt flashed out and struck the trireme’s bow a glancing blow and then it wheeled down the rowing deck. The enemy rowers lost the stroke and fell off to their starboard, and the other ship was coming on alone.

  He had time to note that the engines killed comparatively few men. But they killed them in a spectacular, horrifying fashion, so that they sapped an entire ship’s morale.

  Satyrus stumbled back to the helmsman’s position. Thrasos was screaming, down on his stomach, an arrow in his back low and deadly. Satyrus looked to port for the first time in what seemed like hours and saw a big penteres — a ship as big as his own — approaching broadside on. Their archers were shooting across at him. Even as he watched, an arrow screeched off the bronze facing of his aspis and vanished behind his shoulder.

  ‘You have to get Idomeneus to fire at their archers!’ Neiron screamed, while ducking under his aspis.

  Satyrus shook his head. Neiron couldn’t see, but the broadside-on penteres was not the greatest threat. The two triremes were. Amidships, the huddle of men over the body of Charmides gave a cry, and men pumped their fists. There was a heavy crash as the enemy trireme hit their starboard side, and then all of Idomeneus’ men leaned out over the side and shot straight down into the bow of the enemy ship.

  ‘We have to get clear!’ Neiron shouted. ‘They’re concentrating on us! Gods only know why!’

  At some level of his tactical thought, the notion that they were matched against five enemy ships pleased Satyrus extremely. But it couldn’t last, and the timbers of his strong new ship would not stand for many more ramming attempts, despite all the manoeuvring Neiron could manage and the puny size of the enemy rams. But he blessed the shipwrights, and every obol he’d paid them.

  Another volley of arrows came in, hitting his shield like wind hitting a man’s cloak in a storm at sea, and two hit his leg on the greave and a third his helmet, so that he staggered.

  Two marines appeared from amidships, bearing big shields. ‘Apollodorus says to let us protect the helm,’ Phillip of Tarsus said. He was an old friend, a veteran of all Satyrus’ battles, and allowed the king to feel that he was leaving Neiron in good hands.

  Overhead, his masthead archers had switched targets. They began to shoot into the penteres to port — and every other arrow seemed to mark a man down. Even as Satyrus ducked and moved aft, stepping over a shocking number of bodies — Polycrates, dead with a pair of javelins in him — and what was he even doing above decks? Satyrus saw, in his peripheral vision, as the enemy oar master went down, rose to his feet and took a second arrow in the top of his shoulder and fell like a sacrificial victim — and the enemy helm was empty.

  The port-side engines fired, point blank — everything was suddenly point blank. They were clearing their opposite numbers, firing into the enemy engines, an excellent strategy and one Satyrus wished he had thought of himself.

  He looked down and realised that he was losing blood — in a bad way, flowing out of his groin.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, and stumbled.

  ‘Hold hard there, Achilles!’ Anaxagoras said, getting a shoulder under his sword arm. ‘If you fall, we’ll all be too busy weeping to fight.’

  ‘I’m hurt — shit. Look at the blood.’ Satyrus couldn’t even work out where it was coming from, but his back hurt enough for five wounds. The sight of his own blood made him feel weak.

  Arrows hit his shield. Anaxagoras winced and looked down to where an arrow had passed right through his thigh. He opened his mouth and fell silently to the deck.

  Idomeneus had switched targets — high in the forward tower, his men had swept all three of the trireme’s command decks, and now he was firing volleys into the penteres to port.

  Satyrus shot a look over the starboard side. One of the triremes had fallen foul of the other’s oars, and they were no threat — at least, not for some long minutes.

  Satyrus made his way across his own ship to the port side, but the penteres had had enough. His rowers were untouched, but his top deck ran with blood — an easy thing for poets to sing about, but in this case, the archers and engines had massacred the sailors and enemy archers, and there was no armour to be seen. Someone was telling the rowers to row — but there was no command.

  Satyrus looked up at his masthead. ‘Where is the king?’ he called.

  ‘Moving south. Prize in tow.’ Came the reply.

  ‘Where’s that big ship? The huge wide-arse?’ Satyrus shouted.

  ‘Half a stade north!’ they called.

  Satyrus turned — and his back hurt. But he wasn’t dead yet, and it was time to do more than survive, noble as that seemed against the odds.

  Apollodorus. He had his marines formed under the loom of the tower — safe, for the moment.


  ‘Apollodorus — see the penteres? No crew on deck. Fine ship.’ Satyrus knew when a little acting was called for. ‘I rather fancy her. Let’s take her.’

  The men whooped.

  Satyrus ran aft. ‘I’m taking the penteres and turning her around. You go through the hole and head south.’

  ‘South?’ Neiron asked.

  Satyrus nodded. ‘If we’re winning, you and I will break their line. If we’re losing, we’re running downwind to our own ships. Either way, we go south. If you lose me, and we’re losing, go for Alexandria. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, lord!’ Neiron said. ‘Go with the gods!’

  ‘Stesagoras!’ Satyrus managed to attract his attention. Apollodorus had a dozen men throwing grapples, and Neiron already had the oars out. ‘Stesagoras — you and every sailor not required to manage the foresail. And a spare foresail and a yard. And right now.’

  Stesagoras nodded and ran down a ladder.

  Satyrus looked over at the penteres. Even as he watched, Neiron and Philaeus got the oars out — just the aft oars, a miracle of command and control — and laid the Arete’s ram gently alongside the enemy’s stern, making a path for Apollodorus’ marines. They rushed the handful of enemy marines left — one was shot down even as he rose from cover. Satyrus had meant to lead the rush aboard, and instead he was the last armoured man to cross, and there was nothing alive on the enemy deck, a deck remarkably like his own, but with only one engine a side, fixed forward, and now wrecked. All this he took in in a glance, and then he had the steering oars in his arms.

  Stesagoras crossed after him, and twenty sailors with a great bundle of canvas and a long yard.

  ‘Get the foremast up,’ Satyrus said. ‘And the sail and yard on it. I need you at the helm, here.’ He turned to Apollodorus. ‘Storm the oar galleys,’ he said. ‘Accept no resistance, and tell them that if they row, we’ll free them, and if they fight, we’ll sink them here.’

  Apollodorus grinned — the man was untouched amid the maelstrom, not a mark on him. ‘Aye, lord,’ he said. ‘Give me a moment to persuade them, and I wager they’ll row as well as any in Piraeus.’

  The man charged down the central ladder with all his marines.

  The Arete had blood running from her scuppers, and one of her port-side machines was a wreck — and from here he could see the damage to deck and rail, and shattered strakes in the hull that had to be leaking water — but Neiron had her under way and moving well, already half a boat length off, scattering the little triremes the way a shark scatters bream.

  ‘I need an oar master,’ Satyrus said. ‘Stesagoras — who do I take?’

  Stesagoras shook his head. ‘Laertes is my best, and he’s putting up that mast. Patrocles was the big voice when we were coming up to fight.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Well, he’s loud. Get him amidships.’ He stooped at the stern and spat blood into the water and his eyes caught the ship’s name, done in Asiatic Greek letters of gold under the stern planks — Atlantae; the huntress, beloved of Artemis, his sister’s heroine. Satyrus decided to take this as a good omen, although when he raised his head he saw stars, and he had to spit blood again to clear his mouth of the bitter copper taste.

  He decided to let himself believe that there was less blood flowing out of his back — in reality, if it was as bad as he’d feared, he should have passed out. As he was still standing, the odds were he’d live, unless the god of Contagion and Infection struck him with a poisoned arrow. He offered a prayer to Apollo, and another to Poseidon, and yet a third to Hephaestos for the fine construction of his ship — and then Apollodorus was up, breathing like a bellows but grinning.

  ‘Slaves!’ he said. ‘It’s a miracle from Ares, lord!’ He embraced his king — under the circumstances, it was an embrace that Satyrus was happy to return.

  Slave rowers meant men who would be free if their new side won the battle; men with no loyalty whatsoever to their dead masters.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Go below — get this right. We’re going to back oars for two ship lengths — and then we’re going to turn hard to port, port oars reversed. Forty strokes back, port side reverse benches, fifteen strokes all ahead.’

  ‘Forty back, port reverse, fifteen, port reverse, all ahead,’ Apollodorus said. ‘Ares — I’m a marine, not a sailor.’ And he was gone.

  The new oar master had a spear. He broke it between his hands to be rid of the saurauter, and thumped time on the deck.

  ‘Row!’ Satyrus called. ‘All benches back!’

  Fear, or passion, or courage — it scarcely mattered, but the rowers were motivated and the ship moved — heavily for five strokes, and then like a bolt from an engine, so that Satyrus realised that his estimate of forty strokes was far too high. But he also knew what changing orders on a raw crew would mean. The stern shot ‘ahead’, and the ship began to turn to port — simply because his steering oars couldn’t correct from the temporary ‘bow’. But he was turning in the direction he’d wanted. He was just plunging much deeper into the enemy second line than he’d intended.

  It was empty here. To the south, he could see the giant tenner crushing one of Ptolemy’s penteres, and turning to engage a pair of quadremes — ships that were otherwise considered heavy, but in this case, hopelessly outmatched. And to the north — ruin. Ptolemy was not winning.

  But Satyrus had time: the enemy’s centre was all but empty, stripped by the ships detached to face Menelaeus and by the failure of the smaller ships to engage Arete successfully.

  Arete was close — twenty horse lengths to port, just turning to go south. But the gap between them was widening because of the speed of Satyrus’ retreat.

  Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, ‘Reverse your benches!’ Satyrus called. ‘Still have your wine?’ he asked Apollodorus.

  Wordlessly, the man put his canteen into Satyrus’ hands.

  The bow began to swing — too fast.

  ‘All benched for rowing ahead!’ Satyrus called. Trying to fight the overswing with his steering oars made his back hurt like ice and fire on bare skin. He’d miscalculated by many degrees of turn — their current course took them right into the side of the distant leviathan, the enemy flagship, which towered above the battle like an elephant over infantry.

  The new oar master was on top of it. ‘Starboard side — trail your oars!’ he roared — no missing that voice. ‘Now row, you bastards!’

  And now they were moving. He was clear of the enemy line and he was moving — right along the sterns of the enemy ships, far too close for comfort. He could do devastating damage — once — with his own ship, but it looked to Satyrus as if the battle had been lost. Upwind, Ptolemy was backing out of the action, covered by the heavy ships of his bodyguard — Poseidon was backing water slowly, her engines still firing away into the triremes that Arete had crippled. But elsewhere, there was little cheer for the Ptolemy side. Menelaeus had either never come out or been bested, and so the Aegyptian centre had collapsed from shoreward — always the weakest part of Amyntas’ plan. To the south, the enemy flag was trying to close the gap to take Ptolemy’s flagship, itself desperately backing oars to get clear of the trap.

  But as he watched, the foremast in the bow of his new capture began to rise, stayed by four lines running aft. The marines were pulling like sailors — not the time, apparently, for old grudges — and the foremast came up and was belayed as smoothly as if it had been done in a yard.

  Neiron was lagging, holding the Arete at a walking pace. He was waiting for his king — when Satyrus ranged alongside, his hands white-knuckling on his oars, afraid he’d slip and send his oar loom into Arete’s oar loom — Neiron called out across the water.

  ‘Fight, lord? Or run?’ he called.

  Satyrus leaned on his oars again. ‘Give me space!’ he called. ‘I want to get clear of their sterns!’ The enemy was far too close. ‘Run!’ he called.

  Neiron waved.

  The Arete turned to port and Satyrus tried to do the same, getting his vulner
able starboard side clear of the enemy, but the port-side steering oar snapped under his hand — probably victim to the original collision and the boarding action. Then chaos ensued, his marines trying to find a spare oar in a strange ship, and their new oarsmen afraid — afraid of massacre, of defeat. Neiron fell in to port, keeping station just a quarter-stade distant. Both had their foresails up now, and with the wind in them they began to move well, even for heavy ships.

  Satyrus spared time for a glance around. He could see trouble to the south — either there were new ships there, or someone had worked out that he was not on their side. But the rear of Demetrios’ fleet was all confusion — the confusion of victory, but no ship challenged them as they began to pull away. Laertes was trying to compensate for the lack of steering oars by trailing the ship’s oars, first one side and then the other, but the result slowed the ship and sent them in a lazy curve back under the sterns of the enemy. No ship responded — no ship seemed to notice them.

  No ship except the great tenner, the mighty deceres that had started the battle behind the centre. Satyrus assumed that the ship was Plistias’ command ship, and he had no intention of engaging. Through no choice of his own, he had to pass close under the stern of the leviathan, and just as he began his pass, wincing to be so close to so much danger, the enemy flagship began to back away from the pair of quadremes that she had engaged — grappling both and boarding them simultaneously, so large was his marine contingent compared to theirs — a hundred men massacring perhaps fifteen on each quadreme, leaving them adrift, with blood running in trickles from the deck edges like a child’s attempt to write on parchment where the rowers had been murdered to save time. And the vast weight of the enemy ship backed under control, her oars sweeping like the legs of some ungainly millipede.

  Neiron saw the enemy flagship begin to move at the same moment that Satyrus saw it begin to back, and both of them shouted orders at their oar masters. The same orders.