Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

by Christian Cameron

  Apollodorus’ men met them like gods with a charge of their own – heavily outnumbered, but desperate and charged with Apollodorus’ quiet courage – and the sight of Arete’s foremast looming up close. Demetrios was back-pedalling like a crab on his hands and knees, trying to get to his feet. Satyrus managed to cling to consciousness – Demetrios was leaking blood from under his helmet, but Satyrus had to assume that was just a broken nose. That’s why they’re dumping every marine they have into my ship, he thought. Save the king, indeed. He got to his feet, as did Demetrios, just a spear length or two apart.

  ‘You are the man I wanted to fight,’ Demetrios said. He drew his sword with a deadly flourish. Under his helmet, the bastard was grinning. ‘The Hektor to my Achilles. A worthy hero for me to conquer – not poor old Ptolemy.’

  Satyrus could see that Demetrios was fresher, and unwounded, and thought, as if from a distance, that if the man had simply struck without the Hektor speech, he might have finished the fight there and then. Satyrus was unarmed – in bashing Demetrios’ helmet, he had shattered the pommel of his sword and the bone hilt was in shards. Satyrus dropped it, stepped back once and his now empty hand found a spear stuck in the railing by his shoulder. He pulled the weapon free, skipped his return speech, set his feet, took a choking breath and threw.

  The spear was not light. It was a full-weight longche, the weapon most marines carried, and Satyrus took a big step forward as he released, the whole weight of his hips behind the missile, and it struck the Antigonid king right in the centre of his torso, knocking him flat to the deck. But kings wear good armour, and Satyrus’ best throw didn’t lodge – no mortal blow – but skittered away down the deck.

  Satyrus stumbled two paces. The enemy marines from the first rush were rallied – and then stopped in their tracks to see their gallant king laid low, again. Instead of a making charge that would have finished Satyrus, they were gathering around the fallen Demetrios. They were poised to rush into the rear of Apollodorus’ men—

  Oarsmen erupted out of the rowing decks, led by Stesagoras swinging a great twin-bladed bronze axe. The axe head glowed like fire – like fire . . .

  Like fire.

  Satyrus gulped another breath while he considered his ludicrous plan, which appeared fully formed in his head like Athena from Zeus, and another while Stesagoras cut a swathe through the enemy front rank with the axe, before the inevitable – a spear in his guts and death, for him.

  It was one of the hardest decisions of Satyrus’ life, because the natural decision – the Heraklean decision – was to throw himself swinging into that fight and die with his newly freed oarsmen, with Stesagoras, a gallant man who had just died like a hero.

  But in the flash of Stesagoras’ axe, Satyrus saw a way to save them all – a poor chance, but some chance.

  He leaped down the central ladder of the ship in a single jump of faith, and fell flat when some outside blow moved the ship. He got to his feet, tried to ignore his own blood all around him on the deck and staggered forward along the central gangway. There were oarsmen here – only the bravest, most desperate, least sane had joined Stesagoras – and he pushed past them, headed forward, past the midships stations, past the forward rowers, past the elite lead oarsmen who sat in the bow, to the tabernacle, the small space under the forward tower and over the ram where the sailors kept the fire pot that allowed them to heat iron or to start fires on the beach. A heavy, carefully protected clay pot the size of a man’s head that was full of coals set in leaf mould and bark to smoulder slowly. Satyrus picked it up by the heavy linen wrap which surrounded it – sailors fear fire the way Ares fears Athena – and pushed himself erect, got to the forward ladder and climbed, now two horse lengths behind the fighting. He climbed up the ladder on willpower and staggered to the side of the ship, and looked up at the immense height of the enemy’s sides – and his heart seemed to stop, to die within his breast. At his most fit, unwounded, he would never have been able to throw the heavy pot over the enemy rail.

  He took a shuddering breath and stood straight. An arrow struck his helmet and ricocheted away, and a second hit his chest so hard that he staggered, but the point didn’t puncture his armour and he got his feet under him and lifted the pot off the deck by the linen bag, and in a moment of inspiration he whirled it above his head – the pain in his back flared as if the coals had burst into flame there – and he ignored the pain for the movement, the purity of the great circle over his head, and he twirled, his feet moving nimbly, and then, when it seemed right, when the god spoke to him, he let the fire pot go.

  It was never going over the enemy rail. For an instant, in the perfect physical moment as he spun, he had thought that perhaps, by the glory of Herakles . . . but his throw was too flat.

  Too flat, and too hard. No arc at all, and it shot like one of the bolts of the war engines, straight as an arrow across the deck and over the water – into the staved-in oar port where Apollodorus’ first missile had hit, so that where the iron bolt struck, all the oarsmen were dead; the pot went through the hole and shattered, spilling coals onto the summer-dried wood of the rowing benches, and there was no one by to pour a canteen of water or wine on them.

  And then Satyrus had to turn away, because it had been an act of desperation, and the gods had, at least, seen his throw go aboard the enemy, but there was no result – no smoke, no tongue of flame.

  His sword was broken, lost somewhere. His aspis was leaning against the podium where the fire pot usually rested in the tabernacle, close under his feet but as far as Hyperborea.

  But there were plenty of them on the deck, and Satyrus scooped up a short, heavy weapon almost like an iron mace, and an aspis, stripped from one of his own dead marines.

  Now for death.

  He was behind the enemy marines, and he would kill a few of them before they, in desperation, turned on him. He took a great shuddering breath, and his back hurt, and he wondered why it would matter how many enemy marines he killed – he was going to die, and were they not men, as he was? Perhaps better men. Perhaps men with loves, with lives ashore. He was saddened, as he cleared the breastplate from his neck and freed his right arm for one more fight, to discover how little he had to live for. My sister, he thought. And her son. They will miss me, and I them. Pater, I have failed, and I am sorry.

  Then, by an act of will, he banished doubt, banished self-pity, shook his head to get the sweat out of his eyes and charged into the rear of the Antigonid marines.

  He pulled up short – no need to commit suicide – and slammed his heavy sword into the back of a helmeted head, and the man fell. Satyrus took his time; his shoulder hurt. He put a second man down, and a third, and now they were aware of him.

  But instead of closing on him in a pack, Satyrus saw, as if down a tunnel, as one of those things men talk about over wine – the real veterans, the men who’ve stood in the closest fights and who find humour in the horror, or at least room to live with it – the Antigonid marines slide to the right and Apollodorus’ men, exhausted, just let them go, as if, by agreement, the vicious fight was over. Each side watched the other like dogs in a dogfight, but no weapon moved, and Satyrus joined the unspoken truce, although he was in a position to reap another man or two. It was, in fact, the oddest moment he had known in combat.

  Satyrus stepped up to Apollodorus, who stood, unwounded and magnificent, in the midst of a dozen of his men, the survivors of the fight.

  The truce was broken when enemy marines began falling as if cut down with a scythe – arrows, appearing out of the air, took two of them even as Satyrus slumped over, the pain in his back conquering his training so that he could no longer stand erect. Arete, game to the end, had ranged alongside, and her archers were reaping the enemy. Even as he watched, Idomeneus leaned far over his own rail and shot an officer who was trying to force another charge.

  In the stern of Atlantae, a knot of enemy marines, shields over their heads in desperation, were lifting Demetrios the Golden off the
deck where he lay as if dead, and passing him up the side of his great ship. Sailors and oarsmen cut at each other – Satyrus could no longer determine which side was winning, but the enemy marines were dying and they had clearly had enough, and even as he watched, the balance was changing. He was sure of it.

  ‘One more charge!’ He managed. He raised his borrowed sword, and Apollodorus lapped his shield onto Satyrus’.

  As a charge, it wasn’t much – they stumbled down the deck in a line, but Satyrus had read his opponents right. Their king was down and the archers were killing them and they had no way to reply. For some reason, all the archery from their own mighty ship had ceased. Satyrus’ short shield wall shoved the enemy into the helmsman’s station at the stern. One brave man stood his ground to cover the retreat of his comrades – and for a few long seconds he held Apollodorus and Satyrus both, his shield everywhere. He managed to slice Satyrus along the calf, and he got his spear point into Apollodorus’ shoulder and then Necho, in the second rank, knocked him flat with his butt-spike and the melee surged over him, but Demetrios was gone, and most of the rest of the enemy marines had escaped due to the superb bravery of one man.

  ‘Cut the grapples!’ Satyrus bellowed – or perhaps inside his head he bellowed, because what came out was between a groan and a squeak. But Apollodorus, untouched, heard him, and leaped for the side. Satyrus stayed with him, bludgeoning a wounded enemy sailor to the deck when he tried to resist the marine captain, and Satyrus got his shield up to cover Apollodorus against archery fire.

  Twice they moved to cut another hawser, each time sawing at the rope like children cutting string with dull knives, until the motion of the stricken Atlantae changed and they were free. Satyrus could not believe that they were alive – that they were afloat – that they weren’t taking the hideous damage of the immense line of war engines that hovered over their heads, a horse length away – ten engines on this side alone.

  But even as he raised his head from cutting the last grapple, he smelled the smoke. The enemy leviathan was pouring smoke like a wounded beast drips blood – smoke from the entry point forward and more smoke amidships, coming out of oar ports so that the whole incredible beast seemed to leak blood.

  ‘Pole her off!’ Satyrus croaked, and Apollodorus repeated the order. Satyrus stumbled from the ship’s side, pain forgotten in a surge of hope – real hope. He crossed the deck to the port side and got his hands on the rail. ‘Pass us a line and tow us clear!’ he called.

  ‘Get off that wreck!’ Neiron shouted back. ‘Abandon ship!’

  Satyrus felt the god in him, and he stood taller, towering over the pain in his back. ‘No! Get us a line and tow our stern clear!’

  The fire on the enemy ship was burning now, flames visible all along his side, and Satyrus saw a curious change in his own men, exhausted heroes from the fight – they panicked, as if fire was an enemy too dreadful to be faced – or perhaps, after such prolonged stress, they simply couldn’t endure another crisis. Men – brave men – broke away from the side, ran across the deck and cowered against the port-side bulkhead. A sailor dared the jump to the Arete and leaped, only to miss his grip, fall between the hulls and be crushed like an insect as the waves threw the two hulls together.

  If the flames get aboard— Satyrus caught the line that a sailor threw him and moved forward with it, belaying it on the stump of the foremast.

  ‘Come on, lads,’ he croaked. ‘Almost there. Don’t burn to death – no point. We’re going to live. Come on!’ he waved, and the two men closest to him trusted him – came away from the illusory safety of the bulkhead and joined him in fastening the tow rope.

  ‘Get the deck crew moving and get the foresail back up,’ Satyrus said. They both looked too wild-eyed to respond. Satyrus stumbled away; everything was a matter of heartbeats now.

  The tow rope began to straighten.

  Satyrus saw the marine, Necho, by the rail.

  ‘Necho! Stand up, man! Come and get these sailors to do their duty. Come on!’ Satyrus called. He slapped the man on the back, as one comrade to another – and Necho’s face cleared and his courage returned.

  ‘My lord?’ he said, as a man awakening from sleep.

  ‘Foremast up! And the sail cleared away so that it doesn’t catch fire!’ Satyrus called, as loud as his throat could manage, and Necho looked as if he understood. Then Satyrus went aft. He could feel the Atlantae leaning to port with the tow, and he knew she was moving – not fast, but her bow was coming off the enemy vessel.

  Apollodorus had never panicked. He and Laertes were in the stern, pushing at the enemy stern with spears, trying to pole off. The fire was so hot here that Satyrus knew another moment of terror – sparks were coming aboard, hissing into the pools of blood that lay like puddles after a rain shower where the fighting had been thickest.

  Other men had followed Satyrus, and they threw themselves against the spears and long poles, pushing with what strength they had left, and as one more sailor leaped to help them the stern moved, and suddenly they were sliding through the water, the bow curving off to port to follow Arete, and Satyrus felt life in his steering oars. The brave man – the one who had held them there at the very end – was lying across the steering oars, fouling them, and Satyrus got his feet and Apollodorus his head and they moved him a few feet, setting him down as gently as they could in unspoken respect for his heroism.

  Then Satyrus settled into the oars. ‘Laertes!’ he said, in what voice he had left. ‘Get the rowers to their stations – oars out.’

  ‘Aye, lord,’ Laertes answered. He had a cut on his brow and blood was running down his face.

  To Apollodorus, Satyrus said, ‘As soon as the rowers have way on us, cut the tow.’

  Apollodorus nodded. ‘You going to pass out?’ he asked.

  Satyrus managed a grim smile. ‘Not if I can help it. Now get to it. We’d look like idiots if some cruiser snapped us up now.’

  13

  The promised storm held off, the clouds towering from the horizon to the very peak of the heavens away to the south and west, so that a superstitious sailor might imagine that Zeus in his wrath was present, hovering over the sea. The sun reflected on the clouds and down on the darkening sea, a sheet of bronze over a sea of blood.

  Arete and Atlantae were not the only ships crewed by heroes – this was evidenced by the fact that the titanic enemy tenner had got her fires out, off to windward, and the column of smoke was carried away by the rising wind. Satyrus could imagine what it must have been like – the rowing decks an inferno, and a handful of brave men forcing themselves into the fire to pour helmets full of water on the flames. But the burning ship had covered their retreat, and the desperation of every Antigonid ship to come the aid of their stricken king had saved Ptolemy’s centre.

  Satyrus, leaning exhausted between the oars of his helm, had no need to count the Ptolemy fleet to see who had won. The result was obvious. Ptolemy’s fleet was badly gored – thirty or more ships lost in the action and the rest moving sluggishly, running downwind towards Aegypt, abandoning their camp.

  The worst of it was that Demetrios and Plistias were so relatively unhurt that their lighter ships were mounting a pursuit. As the storm clouds piled up to the west and the sun set in wrath and thunder, the squadron of penteres – every ship the size and weight of Arete – that had spent the day inactive, facing down Menelaeus and his sixty inactive ships, now came on, rowing powerfully in the fading light, determined to capture a dozen more of Ptolemy’s limping triremes. And from Plistias’ centre emerged another two dozen triremes, equally eager to continue the contest.

  Most of Ptolemy’s ships had left all their masts and sails ashore, and now they ran downwind under the power of their exhausted oarsmen. They were slow. Only darkness would save them.

  Arete and Atlantae had their foresails up, and were ten stades south and east of the rest of the retreating Ptolemy fleet, already safe by the inexorable mathematics of the sea. But in late afternoon, wh
en the last sight of Cyprus was gone, the promontory now below the horizon, and when the storm clouds were beginning to look like something supernatural to the west, Arete’s lookout saw sails to the east and his shouts alerted Laertes, amidships on Atlantae, and he ran aft to Satyrus, who was dozing at his oars.

  ‘Sails to the east,’ he said.

  Satyrus had trouble focusing. Every part of him hurt – and from where he was slouched between the oars, he could see the marines, or at least the dozen survivors, crouched in attitudes that expressed the same weariness and pain.

  ‘I can take the helm,’ Laertes said.

  ‘Have you ever done so?’ Satyrus asked.

  Laertes shook his head. ‘No, lord.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Sail’s drawing well. Rowers are resting. All you have to do is go straight. I’m willing to give you a try, if you’ll take the responsibility.’

  Laertes managed a smile. ‘I would be proud to try, lord.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Put your hands on the oars. Now you say, “I have the helm”.’

  ‘I have the helm,’ Laertes said.

  ‘You have the helm,’ Satyrus said, and slipped under the man’s arms from between the shafts and Laertes passed him, clumsy in his eagerness to do it right. The ship seemed to skip, the stern moving the length of a man’s arm to port as Laertes tried to balance the two shafts, and then he got the pressure right – right enough – and the ship steadied on his course.

  Satyrus walked to the port-side rail and watched the basket suspended from the Arete’s foremast. Neiron was standing at the foot of the mast, and the men in the basket were gesturing and speaking.

  ‘They don’t looked panicked,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘I don’t have the strength to panic,’ Apollodorus said. ‘Lord – it’s a pity that we lost, because that was our best fight.’