by Chuck Dixon
His bare leg touched a scorching heat. Dwayne looked back to see they were massed about the brick brazier now. The boys tasked with cauterizing wounds stood by the furnace, holding the glowing brands in their hands, and staring like lost sheep as the fight encircled them.
Dwayne plucked the helmet from Xin’s head. The man protested before turning back to the fight. The Ranger brushed the boys away and shoveled the helmet into the open mouth of the furnace to bring up a scoopful of glowing embers. He held the helmet by the chinstrap like a bucket. The heat singed the hair from his hand and arm. He ignored it. Dwayne snatched one of the iron brands from a startled boy.
Swinging the brand in one fist and the smoking helmet in the other, Dwayne broke through his own shield wall to brain a Carthaginian spearman. The man stumbled back lifeless, making a depression in the line as his weight dragged down shields and spears.
Without pause, the Ranger widened the hole he’d made with a backhand to an armored soldier. He could feel the man’s ribs snap; the resonance of the blow climbed the shaft of the iron brand. Shouts rose behind him, but he did not turn. He stabbed out and plunged the searing point of the brand deep into another soldier’s open mouth. A bubbling shriek rose from the man and he tumbled to the boards, rolling into the legs of his brothers and howling madly.
Dwayne pounded a path through the massed boarders with the brand and the helmet serving as red hot flails. The boarders fell back before him, gnashing teeth and moaning in fear. He was in their ranks like a barb, and there was no room for them to bring their spears to bear against him.
A bull of a man, in shining plate armor and a helmet crested with boar’s hair, broke through the press of bodies. He swung a heavy long-bladed sword at Dwayne with both hands. Dwayne swept the blow aside with the smoking helmet spraying embers. The boarders reared away in terror. The Ranger swung the brand low, sweeping the swordsmen’s legs from under him. Continuing forward, Dwayne stepped up on the man’s chest plates and hurled the helmet airborne in a looping overhand throw.
His throw failed to reach the deck of the Carthaginian ship. The helmet clattered against the hull spilling coals. It fell between the lines slung by the boarders to fall to the water with a hiss. The damp wood of the hull smoldered momentarily but would not catch.
The Carthaginians recovered from their initial shock and lunged toward him with feral grins. Armed only with the cooling iron he flailed about him, hammering at helmed and bare heads with a howl of fury. An explosion of sound behind him answered his roar.
Ahinadab was at the head of a mob rushing forward from the mast. Dwayne looked at the desperate faces and recognized some as rowers he’d seen below. The captain brought the full complement from the lower decks in one last counterattack to clear the decks of boarders. Xin was among them as well as Yada and the rowing boss. Yada swung a spar tipped with an iron gaffe. The barrel-chested helmsman shrieked like a madman and threw the spar to Dwayne.
Dwayne caught the spar and spun it wide to bowl over the closest boarders. The captain and his crew were into the fight. The rowers were ferocious. Delirious from exhaustion and shouting berserker cries they smashed onto the crowded prow deck swinging chains, clubs, hammers, and fists.
The swarming deck was lit by a sudden overhead light, and then another. Dwayne looked above to see a crimson glow with tails of flame arcing above, with a second and a third following the same course. They were helmets filled with hot coals. They soared high over the Lion’s prow to land on the tilted deck of the Carthaginian vessel in a shower of light. Another landed in the folds of the sail hovering lank in its spars above them.
A dozen hands had taken up Dwayne’s example. But they had tied lengths of rope to the helmet straps and swung them overhead like slings. The longer range and higher trajectory easily reached the trireme’s deck and sail.
Flames climbed the four hundred square feet of tar-infused hemp. The sail was fully ablaze in moments. Another shower of embers found purchase somewhere on the deck, and greasy black smoke was pouring from the oarlocks. The Carthaginians still aboard the trireme turned to fight the blaze that was spreading along their decks. That left the boarders abandoned at the mercy of the emboldened company of the Lion.
It was a momentary respite. Dwayne realized that the two ships were still locked together. They might burn or sink together unless they could be released from one another. Another painful contingency was the imminent possibility of the crew of the trireme giving up on fighting the fire on their own vessel and bringing their entire complement into the fight to take the Lion. It was going to turn into a duel for survival that only one side could win. With the entire crew including the oarsmen now slaking their bloodlust, there was no one working to withdraw them from the suicide pact in which they were trapped.
49
Fire on the Water
Below decks, Caroline was up to her chest in swirling water.
“I can no longer hold the peg!” Praxus cried.
“Why not?”
“The water is too high! We are doomed!” The boy waded for the narrow passageway that led aft.
Caroline grabbed a fistful of his hair.
“Take a deep breath, asshole,” she snarled and plunged Praxus under the surface.
She hammered away at the end of a peg held in place by the submerged Praxus. They had freed over half of the cleats, but there were more to go. Progress in releasing the ram was slowed by the peg setters’ need to resurface for air. Some of them had fled in terror even before the dappled light of flames reached them from above. A choking smoke was filling the narrow gap between the rising water and the deck boards above. Many of the boys fled the suffocating confines for the fresher air above, clambering up the slanting deck toward the sounds of battle ringing in the open air.
Atem was weeping with rage and cursing them for cowards. He struggled with a long iron rod to free a cross beam. The flat tooth of the rod was shoved between the beam and the hull strake. He pulled with all his weight, layers of wiry muscle standing up on his arms like ropes. Caroline reached into the murky water and grabbed a handful of Praxus’ hair. She pulled him up and thrust him toward Atem, who was rocking his weight on the pry bar.
The three of them hung their weight from the bar and bore down with all they had. The stout rod bowed under the combined downward pressure. They were rewarded with the keening sound of wood grain separating. The grain of the crossbeam split down the middle. The cleat squealed in protest. The beam shifted. One end came free with a crack to drop into the water.
A grinding sound rose from where the hull curved to join at the prow. Cleats groaned in protest as they were torn from the joins where the crossbeams came together. The Lion shuddered like its namesake awakening from a long sleep. The deck rose up in a sudden motion that threw Caroline and the others into the boards above them and then back into the water. The deck leveled out, and the water at the prow rolled abaft into the main hold in a sweeping wave.
Caroline sat up sputtering in the sloshing bilge. Atem and Praxus pressed themselves against the hull and rolled their eyes in wonder.
“We freed the ram!” she called to them in English.
They blinked dumbly at her.
“Nos liberavit arietis!”
Praxus grinned at her, eyes wide with a mad joy.
The mast of the trireme was a swaying tower of flame. The canted deck of the looming ship was invisible behind dense smoke rising from every opening in its hull. The angle of the deck grew sharper as the vessel sank along the port side to the bow. The Lion’s prow dipped deeper into the water even as the stern of the Carthaginian rose.
The men of the Lion had taken back the foredeck. Crewmen dispatched the enemy wounded with blade and clubs. Those boarders still alive dropped to their knees on the blood-drenched deck and held empty hands before them. These had their throats slit, and their bodies were tossed over the side.
Embers drifted from the burning ship to fall on the deck of the Lion to land hissin
g in the lakes of blood. Xin, covered in gore that shone black in the firelight, gestured to crewmen who tossed buckets of seawater over the exposed boards and beat at live sparks with strips of wet cloth.
Dwayne scanned the deck tilting above them. Figures stood shrieking against the pall of smoke lining the rails despite being discouraged by spearmen on the Lion. A stench of frying meat reached his nostrils. Men were leaping to the sea from the trireme to escape the inferno.
Ahinadab bawled at the surviving oarsmen who drifted sullenly back to the oar decks. He seethed dire threats at them and encouraged one with a kick in the ass that sent the man sprawling. The moment of camaraderie he shared with them in his locker room pep talk was over. He was the boss now, and he’d skin every last one of them if they didn’t get to their oars and pull the Lion’s ass out of this deadly entanglement.
The tide of men above them broke, and Carthaginians leaped the freeboards to land on the deck of the Lion. They tumbled one atop the other in an avalanche of flesh. Dwayne led the attack to kill each one who set foot on the Lion. The new boarders died swiftly as they fought to regain their footing on the slick and tilted deck. But more were coming as the crew of the trireme abandoned their ship in wave after wave. They would overcome the weary men of the smaller bireme by numbers alone.
Dwayne stood with men lining the prow and speared any Carthaginians trying to climb the hull and lion edifice to board the bireme. A heavily armored man dropped from the ship to land with a clatter on the base of the ram. He stood clawing upward to find the purchase to pull himself aboard. His iron perch gave way beneath him as the ram fell away from the ship like an enormous anchor. It dropped into the chop with an engulfing splash. The armored man was sucked beneath the surface, an anguished squeal cut short.
Released all at once from the burden of the ram, the deck heaved under the defenders with a grating quake. The planks rushed up to meet them. Dwayne fell hard. The shaft of his spear broke under his weight. The blade skittered away over the boards. The rest of the crew crashed to the gore-slick deck. The Lion bobbed back upright. The mast whipped forward and back with a screech of protest from the keelson below. The oarsmen beneath decks were thrown from their benches. Ahinadab slid on his ass to come up hard against the foot of the still-humming mast.
The Carthaginian trireme was a pyre now as it reached flashpoint. The top spar collapsed to the deck, trapping men under a blazing mantle of the sail. Flames greedily consumed the tar infused timbers and raced up the lines. Men leaped from every deck. More struggled in the water to keep their heads above the current crashing in to broach the trireme. They made sounds much like the terrified pigs made when they were tossed to the sea. Many were drawn back toward the careening ship and carried under the hull into the dark water. Those wearing armor vanished from sight with a single cry. Crewmen clung to the broken stems of oars in the golden glitter of the blaze off the choppy foam. Water swept over the freeboard as the ship heeled harder to port, drawn down by the torrent gushing inboard through the crippling wounds to its side. The ship canted sharply, and the hull rolled down to crush men struggling in the water. Down along its port stern and half-submerged, the exposed wood of the ship still burned. Sparks flew up through a thick pall of black smoke streaked with white that blotted the stars.
The rowers on the Lion regained their places and pulled hard to gain distance from the yawning inferno. Yada had returned to the helm and guided them along the shallowing water. The crater lake had reached its lowest ebb and spikes of rocks were revealed by the fallen water levels to either side, leaving only a pond of deep water at the center.
The crippled wolf’s head trireme lay half out of the water where it grounded on rocks. Its crew stood at the rails howling in impotent rage at the Phoenician ship now dropping anchor in what remained of the lake. This amused the crew of the Lion, who jeered back at the careened ship lying beached like an immense evil fish.
The flames of the burning vessel soon had no more to feed upon. The dark closed in. The bowl of black rock echoed with cries. Men in the water called out the names of fellow crewmen or of gods. Their voices grew fewer and fewer as the cataract of the withdrawing tide pulled them under and away. All that remained was the smoke that hung atop the water like a fog rich with the stink of cooked meat.
Dwayne was gasping for air. The rush of adrenaline was leaching from his body and his legs and arms tingled with a chill that he knew meant that pain was coming. He used his body hard for what had felt like a whole day, but he knew was probably less than an hour. It was a good hurt. Pain meant you were alive. He joined the giddy laughter of the crew that rose above the cries of the wounded.
“We kicked their asses!” he roared to those around him who nodded and laughed though they understood not one word. “We. Kicked. Their. Motherfucking. Asses!”
“Dwayne.”
Caroline was beside him. She was drenched, and stank like a shithouse. He crushed her to him and held her close. He rested his cheek on her matted hair and closed his eyes to hold the moment.
She broke away and looked at him from arm’s length.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Most of the blood is someone else’s.” He sank to the deck, suddenly exhausted.
She knelt and ran hands over him. Angry bruises to his arms and legs were growing black. A long cut ran down his chest and another gash to his side. Neither was deep. They’d still need sutures. They’d need to be cleaned as well.
“We’re both in bad shape.” He took her wrists to look at her hands. They were raw and bleeding.
“Yeah. Wasn’t it you who told me never to volunteer?” Caroline winced as he pulled a long splinter from her palm. She hadn’t even noticed it.
“Not me. I’m the dope who raises his hand every time. The shit hits the fan, and I’m your man.” He pulled her against him as he lowered his back to the deck.
“Big dope,” she said and rested her head against him, his hand brushing her hair from her brow.
They were both asleep even before they closed their eyes.
50
No Mercy
The morning sun touched the lip of the crater, then descended down the west wall, drawing back the black shadows like a curtain to reveal the aftermath of the night’s battle.
Bloated corpses covered with feeding sea birds lay among the rocks or drifted in the shallows. The bottom of the crater was fogged with smoke from the smoldering wreck of the trireme lying on its side like flotsam along one wall of the gap that led out to the channel. The other trireme sat low in the water with its hull holed by the rocks it struck the night before. Most of the crew worked to bail the rising water from the bilge while others threw any non-essential cargo overboard to lighten the load.
The Lion sat at anchor. Most of its company lay where they had dropped the night before. The deck was littered with snoring men sound asleep by others who had died of wounds in the night or been dispatched with a blade across the throat to end their suffering. Below decks, the oarsmen lay atop their benches or draped over the barrels of stowed oars. Clouds of flies gathered above the sticky reservoir of blood that blackened the deck forward of the mast.
The tireless Ahinadab ordered a skeleton watch armed with spears to discourage anyone from either ship who might have ideas about boarding the Lion. They walked the deck with oil lamps to illuminate the water about them. They lanced a few pitiful survivors who managed to climb the hull and listened to the wheedling cries for mercy from others. Those men tired long before dawn light and either sank in the black water or swam for their grounded sister ship.
The captain kept a wary eye on the beached Carthaginians. For the moment, the men aboard the wolf’s head trireme were consumed with their own troubles. They made no aggressive move toward the Lion. There were barques visible aboard the tilted deck that could be rowed over to assault the Phoenician craft. They remained secured with lines to the tilted deck.
The full company of the
Lion woke as the sunlight crossed the decks. They were put to work washing the decks clear of the stinking remains of the night before. Limbs, fingers, heads, and piles of unidentifiable human tripe were tossed overboard. Buckets of seawater were tossed on the boards to wash the blood, shit, piss, and teeth out through the scuppers. The Lion was streaked with dark stripes of crimson as though it was dying of many wounds.
The few baskets of edibles that were not sacrificed to lighten the hold were rationed out under the watchful eye of Xin. He leaned on his ax and judged each meager portion of dried fish, onions, dates, and nuts scooped into the cupped hands of the hungry crewmen. Their bowls were thrown into the sea during the chase. Each man was allowed a mouthful of water from the skins kept under guard where they were slung from the tiller deck. There was grumbling. But each man knew that supplies were tight, and they had a long way to travel before they reached a welcoming port. If the gods and the seas were not favorable, they would starve before making landfall again.
Dwayne and Caroline awoke with every muscle sore and heads pounding from dehydration. They drank their portion of brackish water and took their ration. They sat with backs to the freeboard and chewed slowly.
“I’d do last night all over again for some McDonald’s,” Dwayne said.
Praxus crouched down by them, licking fish oil from his fingers. He’d stripped off his filthy singlet and was buck naked. Caroline turned away, pretending interest in a gull that landed on the deck to pick up a length of stringy tissue it found lying there.
