Shield of Thunder (3 page)

Kalliades turned toward the powerful warrior. “A fire will be seen,” he said quietly. “They will come for us.”

“They will come for us anyway. Might as well be now, while I’m still angry.”

“You have no reason to be angry at them,” Kalliades pointed out wearily.

“I’m not. I’m angry with
you.
The woman meant nothing to us.”

“I know.”

“And it’s not as if we saved her for long. There’s no way off this island. We’ll likely be dead by noon tomorrow.”

“I know that, too.”

Banokles said nothing more for a while. He moved alongside Kalliades and glared out at the night.

“I thought you were going to light a fire,” Kalliades said.

“Don’t have the patience,” Banokles grumbled, scratching at his thick beard. “Always end up cutting my fingers on the flints.” He shivered. “Cold for this time of year,” he added.

“You wouldn’t be so cold if you hadn’t covered the woman who means nothing to us with your cloak. Go and gather some dead wood. I’ll start the fire.” Kalliades moved away from the cave mouth, took some dried bark from the pouch at his side, and shredded it. Then, with smooth strokes, he struck flint stones together, sending showers of sparks into the bark. It took some time, but finally a tiny plume of smoke showed. Dropping to his belly, Kalliades blew gentle breaths over the tinder. A flame sprang up. Banokles returned, dropping a pile of sticks and branches to the ground.

“See anything?” Kalliades asked him.

“No. They’ll come after sunrise, I expect.”

The two young men sat in silence for a while, enjoying the warmth from the small fire.

“So,” Banokles said at last, “are you going to tell me why we killed four of our comrades?”

“They weren’t our comrades. We were just sailing with them.”

“You know what I mean.”

“They were going to kill her, Banokles.”

“I know that, too. I was there. What did that have to do with us?”

Kalliades did not reply, but he glanced once more at the sleeping woman.

He had first seen her only the previous day piloting a small sailboat, her fair hair gold in the sunlight and tied back from her face. She had been dressed in a white knee-length tunic with a belt embroidered with gold wire. The sun had been low in the sky, a light breeze propelling her craft toward the islands. She had seemed oblivious to the danger as the two pirate ships had closed on her. Then the first of the ships had cut across her bow. Too late she had tried to avoid capture, tugging at the sail rope, seeking to alter course and make a run for the beach. Kalliades had watched her from the deck of the second ship. There was no panic in her. But the little boat could not outrun galleys manned by skilled oarsmen.

The first ship closed in, grappling lines hurled over the side, the bronze hooks biting into the timbers of her sailboat. Several pirates clambered over the side of the ship and jumped down into her craft. The woman tried to fight them, but they overpowered her, blows raining down on her body.

“Probably a runaway,” Banokles remarked as the two of them watched the semiconscious woman being hauled to the deck of the first ship. From where they stood, on the deck of the second vessel, both men could see what followed. The crewmen gathered around her, tearing off her white tunic and ripping away the expensive belt. Kalliades turned away in disgust.

The ships had beached that night on Lion’s Head Isle, on the sea route to Kios. The woman had been dragged across the beach and into a small stand of trees by the captain of the second ship, a burly Kretan with a shaved head. She had seemed docile then, her spirit apparently broken. It had been a ruse. As the captain had raped her, she somehow had managed to pull his dagger from its sheath and rip the blade across his throat. No one had seen it, and it was some time before his body was found.

The furious crew had set off to search for her. Kalliades and Banokles had wandered away with a jug of wine. They had found a grove of olive trees and had sat quietly drinking.

“Arelos was not a happy man,” Banokles had observed. Kalliades had said nothing. Arelos was the captain of the first ship and kinsman to the man slain by the runaway. He had built a reputation for savagery and swordcraft and was feared along the southern coasts. Given any other choice, Kalliades would never have sailed with him, but he and Banokles were hunted men. To stay in Mykene would have meant torture and death. The ships of Arelos had offered them a means of escape.

“You are very quiet tonight. What is bothering you?” Banokles continued as they sat in the quiet of the grove.

“We need to quit this crew,” Kalliades said. “Apart from Sekundos and maybe a couple of others, they are scum. It offends me to be in their company.”

“You want to wait until we are farther east?”

“No. We’ll leave tomorrow. Other ships will beach here. We’ll find a captain who will take us on. Then we’ll make our way to Lykia. Plenty of mercenary posts there, protecting trade caravans from bandits, escorting rich merchants.”

“I’d like to be rich,” Banokles said. “I could buy a slave girl.”

“If you were rich, you could buy a hundred slave girls.”

“Not sure I could handle a hundred. Five, maybe.” He chuckled. “Yes, five would be good. Five plump dark-haired girls. With big eyes.” Banokles drank some more, then belched. “Ah, I can feel the spirit of Dionysus seeping into my bones. I wish one of those plump girls was here now.”

Kalliades laughed. “Your mind is always occupied by either drink or sex. Does nothing else interest you?”

“Food. A good meal, a jug of wine, followed by a plump woman squealing beneath me.”

“With your weight on her, no wonder she’d be squealing.”

Banokles laughed. “That’s not why they squeal. Women adore me because I am handsome and strong and hung like a horse.”

“You neglect to mention that you always pay them.”

“Of course I pay them. Just as I pay for my wine and my food. What point are you trying to make?”

“Obviously a poor one.”

Around midnight, as they were preparing to sleep, they heard shouts. Then the woman staggered into the grove, chased by five crewmen. Already weak from the ugly events of the day, she stumbled, falling to the ground close to where Kalliades was sitting. Her white tunic was ripped and filthy and stained with blood. A crewman named Baros ran in, a wickedly curved knife in his hand. He was lean and tall with close-set dark eyes. He liked to be called Baros the Killer. “I’m going to gut you like a fish,” he snarled.

She looked up at Kalliades then, her face pale in the moonlight, her expression one of exhausted desperation and fear. It was an expression he had seen before, one that had haunted him since childhood. The memory speared through him, and he saw again the flames and heard the pitiful screams.

Surging to his feet, he stood between the man and his victim. “Put the knife away,” he ordered.

The move surprised the crewman. “She’s for death,” he said. “Arelos ordered it.” He stepped toward Kalliades. “Do not seek to come between me and my prey. I have slain men from every land around the Great Green. You want your blood spilled here, your guts laid out on the grass?”

Kalliades’ short sword hissed from its scabbard. “There is no need for anyone to die,” he said softly. “But I’ll not allow the woman to be hurt further.”

Baros shook his head. “I told Arelos he should have cut your throats and taken your armor. You just can’t trust a Mykene.” He sheathed his knife and stepped back, drawing his sword. “Now you are in for a lesson. I have fought more duels than any man of the crew.”

“It is not a large crew,” Kalliades pointed out.

Baros leaped forward with surprising speed. Kalliades parried the thrust, then stepped in, hammering his elbow into the man’s face. Baros fell back. “Kill him!” he screamed. The other four surged forward. Kalliades killed the first, and drunken Banokles hurled himself at the others. Baros darted in again, but this time Kalliades was ready. He blocked the thrust, rolled his wrist, and sent a riposte that opened Baros’ throat. Banokles had killed one man and was grappling with another. Kalliades ran to his aid just as the fifth man slashed his sword toward Banokles’ face. Banokles saw the blow coming and swung the man he was fighting to meet it. The blade cleared his assailant’s neck.

As Kalliades charged in, the surviving crewman turned and ran away into the night.

Sitting now beside the crackling fire in the cave, he glanced at Banokles. “I am sorry to have brought you to this, my friend. You deserved better.”

Banokles took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You are a strange one, Kalliades,” he said, shaking his head. “But life with you is never dull.” He yawned. “If I am going to kill sixty men tomorrow, I’ll need some rest.”

“They won’t all come. Some will be left with the ships. Others will be whoring. Probably no more than ten or fifteen.”

“Oh, I’ll rest easier knowing that.” Loosening the straps of his battered breastplate, Banokles lifted it clear and dropped it to the ground. “Never could sleep properly in armor,” he said, then stretched himself out beside the fire. Within moments his breathing had deepened.

Kalliades added wood to the fire, then returned to the cave mouth. A cool breeze was blowing, and the sky was ablaze with stars. Banokles was right: There was no way off the island, and tomorrow the pirate crew would come hunting them. He sat lost in thought for some time, then heard a stealthy movement behind him. Rising swiftly, he turned to see the blood-smeared woman advancing on him, a fist-sized stone in her hand. Her bright blue eyes shone with hatred.

“You won’t need that,” he said, backing away. “You are in no danger tonight.”

“You lie!” she said, her voice harsh, trembling with anger. Kalliades drew his dagger and saw her tense. Casually he tossed the blade to the floor at her feet.

“I do not lie. Take the weapon. Tomorrow you will need it, for they will be coming for us.”

The woman crouched and tried to pick up the fallen dagger. But she lost her balance and half fell. Kalliades remained where he was. “You need to rest,” he said.

“I remember you now,” she told him. “You and your friend fought the men who were attacking me. Why?”

“Oh, Great Zeus, let him answer that question,” Banokles said sleepily from his place by the fire. Sweeping up the dagger, the woman tried to turn to face him but stumbled again.

“Blows to the head can do that,” Banokles said, getting up and wandering over to join them. “You should sit down.”

She stared hard at Kalliades. “I saw you from my boat,” she said. “You were on the second ship. You saw them cut across my bows and throw grappling lines. You watched as they dragged me aboard.”

“Yes. We were sailing with them.”

“You are pirates.”

“We are what we are,” Kalliades conceded.

“I was to be passed to your ship tomorrow. They told me that while they were raping me.”

“It is not
my
ship. I did not give the order to attack you. Nor did I or my comrade take part in what followed. No man could blame you for your anger, but do not direct it at the men who saved you.”

“Now let us hope someone saves
us,
” Banokles added.

“What do you mean?” the woman demanded.

“We are on a small island,” Banokles replied. “We have no gold and no ship. Angry men will come looking for us tomorrow. Now, we are great warriors, Kalliades and I. None better. Well…not now that Argurios is dead. Between us I reckon we could survive against seven or eight warriors. There are around sixty fighting men in the pirate crews. And not one soft-bellied puker among them.”

“You have no plan of escape?”

“Oh, I do not make plans, woman. I drink, I whore, I fight. Kalliades makes plans.”

“Then you are both fools,” she said. “You have brought about your doom.”

“Where I come from slaves are respectful,” Banokles said, an edge of anger in his voice.

“I am no man’s slave!”

“Have the blows to your head knocked all sense from you? Your craft was taken at sea. It carried no banner and no safe conduct. You were captured, and now the pirates own you. Therefore, you are a slave according to the laws of gods and men.”

“Then I piss on the laws of gods and men!”

“Be calm, both of you!” Kalliades ordered. “Where were you sailing to?” he asked her.

“I was heading for Kios.”

“You have family there?”

“No. I had some wealth on the boat, gems and trinkets of gold. I was hoping to find passage on a ship to Troy. The pirates took everything. And more.” She rubbed at her face, scrubbing away at the dried blood.

“There is a stream over there,” Kalliades said. “You could wash your face.”

The woman hesitated. “Then I am not your prisoner?” she asked at last.

“No. You are free to do as you please.”

She stared hard at Kalliades, then at Banokles. “And you did not help me in order to make me your slave or to sell me to others?”

“No,” Kalliades told her.

She seemed to relax then but continued to hold the dagger in a tight fist. “If what you say is true, I should…thank you both,” she said, struggling with the words.

“Oh, don’t thank me,” Banokles said. “I would have let you die.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE SWORD OF ARGURIOS

Kalliades dozed for a while in the cave mouth, his head resting against the rock wall. Banokles was snoring loudly and occasionally muttering in his sleep.

In the predawn Kalliades left the cave and walked to the stream. Kneeling by the bank, he splashed his face, then ran his wet fingers through his close-cropped black hair.

He saw the woman leave the cave. She, too, wandered down to the stream. Tall and slender, she walked with her head high, her movements graceful, like a Kretan dancer. She was not a runaway slave, Kalliades knew. Slaves learned to walk with their heads down, their posture submissive. He did not speak but watched her as she washed the dried blood from her face and arms. Her face was still swollen, and there were bruises around her eyes. Even without the swelling she would not be pretty, he thought. Her face was strong and angular, her brows thick, her nose too prominent. It was a stern face and one that he guessed was a stranger to laughter even in better times.

When she had cleaned herself, she lifted the dagger. For a heartbeat Kalliades thought she was going to cut her own throat. Then she grabbed a length of her blond hair and sawed the dagger through it. The warrior sat silently as she continued to hack at her hair, tossing handfuls to the rocks. Kalliades was mystified. There was no expression on her face, no anger showing. When she had finished, she leaned forward and rubbed her hands across her scalp, shaking loose hairs from her head.

Finally she stepped from the stream and sat down a little way from him. “Aiding me was not wise,” she said.

“I am not a wise man.”

The sky began to lighten, and from where they sat they could see fields covered with thousands of blue flowers. The woman stared at them, and Kalliades saw her expression soften. “It is as if the color of the sky has leached into the earth,” she said softly. “Who would have thought that such beautiful plants could grow in such an arid place? Do you know what they are?”

“They are flax,” he said. “The linen of your tunic came from such plants.”

“How is it turned to cloth?” she asked. Kalliades stared out over the flax fields, remembering the days of his childhood, when he and his little sisters worked the fields of King Nestor, tearing the plants up by the roots, removing the seeds that would be used for medicinal oils or the sealing of timbers, placing the stems in the running water of the stream to rot. “Do you know?” she prompted him.

“Yes, I know.” And he told her of the backbreaking labor of children and women gathering the plants, retting the stems, then, once they had rotted and been left to dry, beating them with wooden hammers. Then the children would sit in the hot sunshine, scraping the stems, removing the last of the wood. After that came the hackling, the exposed fibers being drawn again and again through ever finer combs. Even as he told her of the process, Kalliades found himself wondering at the resilience of women. Despite all she had been through and what probably would lie ahead, she seemed fascinated by this ancient skill. Then he looked into her pale eyes and saw that the interest was merely superficial. Beneath it there was tension and fear. They sat in silence for a while. Then he glanced at her, and their eyes met. “We will stand to the death to prevent them from taking you again. On this you have my oath.”

The woman did not reply, and Kalliades knew she did not believe him. Why should she? he wondered.

As he spoke, Banokles came strolling from the cave, halted at a nearby tree, and raised his tunic. Then he began to urinate with rare gusto, stepping back and aiming the jet of water as high up the trunk as possible.

“What is he doing?” the woman asked.

“He is very proud of the fact that not a man he ever met could piss as high as he can.”

“Why would they want to?”

Kalliades laughed. “You have obviously not spent long in the company of men.” He cursed inwardly as her expression hardened. “A stupid remark,” he said swiftly. “I apologize for it.”

“No need,” she said, forcing a smile. “And I will not be broken by what happened. It is not the first time I have been raped. I tell you this, though: To be raped by strangers is less vile than to be abused by those you have trusted and loved.” Taking a deep breath, she transferred her gaze back to the fields of blue flowers.

“What is your name?”

“When I was a child, they called me Piria. That is what I will use today.”

Banokles walked over to where they sat and slumped down beside Kalliades. He looked at the woman. “That’s an ugly haircut,” he said. “Did you have lice?” Piria ignored him and looked away. Banokles turned his attention to Kalliades. “I’m hungry enough to chew bark off a tree. What say we walk down into the settlement, kill every cowson who comes against us, and find something to eat?”

“I can see why you are not the one who makes plans,” Piria said.

Banokles scowled at her. “With a tongue like that you’ll never find a husband,” he said.

“May those words float to the ears of the Great Goddess,” she said bitterly. “Let Hera make them true!”

Kalliades walked away from them and stood by a twisted tree. From there he could see down over the flax fields to the distant settlement. People were already moving, women and youngsters preparing to work the fields. There was no sign yet of the pirate crew. Behind him he could hear Banokles and the woman bickering.

Troy was where it all had gone wrong, he decided. Before that doomed enterprise he had been considered a fine warrior and a future captain of men. And he had been proud to be selected for the raid on the city. Only the elite had been considered.

It should have been a resounding success, with plunder for all. Hektor, the great Trojan warrior, had been slain in battle, and a rebellious Trojan force would attack the palace, killing King Priam and his other sons. Mykene warriors would follow them in, finishing off any loyal soldiers. The new ruler, his allegiance pledged to the Mykene king, Agamemnon, would reward them royally.

The plan was perfect. Save for three vital elements.

First, the general Agamemnon placed in charge of the raid was a coward named Kolanos, a cruel, malevolent man who had used lies and deceit to bring about the downfall of a legendary Mykene hero. Second, that hero—the great Argurios—had been at the time of the raid in Priam’s palace and had fought to the death to hold the last stairway. And third, Hektor was not dead and had returned in time to lead a force against the Mykene rear. The prospect of victory and riches had vanished. Only the certainty of defeat and death had remained.

The gutless Kolanos had tried to bargain with King Priam, offering to give all Mykene plans to the Trojan king in return for his life. Amazingly, Priam had refused. To honor Argurios, who had died defending him, Priam freed the surviving Mykene, allowing them to return to their ships, along with Kolanos. He had asked only one thing in return: that he might hear Kolanos scream as the ships sailed away.

And he had screamed. The furious survivors had hacked him to pieces even before the galleys had cleared the entrance to the bay.

The journey home had been without incident, and the men, though demoralized by defeat, had been happy to be alive. Back in Mykene they were greeted with scorn, for they had failed in what they had set out to achieve. Worse was to follow.

Kalliades shivered as he recalled how three of the king’s men had burst into his house and sprung upon him, pinning his arms. One had yanked his head back, and then Kleitos, aide to Agamemnon and kinsman to the dead Kolanos, had stepped forward, a thin-bladed dagger in his hand.

“Did you think you were beyond the king’s justice?” Kleitos had said. “Did you think you would be forgiven for killing my brother?”

“Kolanos was a traitor who tried to sell us all. He was just like you: brave when surrounded by soldiers and gutless when faced with battle and death. Go on, kill me. Anything would be better than smelling your stinking breath.”

Kleitos had laughed then, and a cold fear had seeped into Kalliades’ bones.

“Kill you? No, Kalliades. Agamemnon King has ordered you to be punished, not killed immediately. No warrior’s death for you. No. I am to put out your eyes, then cut off your fingers. I will leave you your thumbs so that you can gather a little food from beneath the tables of better men.”

Even now the memory was enough to make Kalliades sick with fear.

The thin-bladed knife had been slowly raised, the point creeping toward his left eye.

Then the door had crashed in, and Banokles had surged into the room. A huge fist had hammered into Kleitos’ face, hurling him from his feet. Kalliades had torn himself clear of the startled men holding him. The fight that followed had been brutal and short. Banokles had broken the neck of one soldier. Kalliades had struck the second, forcing him back, giving himself time to draw his dagger and slash it across the soldier’s throat.

Then Kalliades and Banokles had run from the house to the nearby paddock meadow, stolen two horses, and ridden from the settlement.

Agamemnon later called it the Night of the Lion’s Justice. Forty of the men who had survived the attack on Troy were murdered that night; others had their right hands cut off. Kalliades and Banokles were declared fugitives, and golden gifts were offered to any who captured or slew them.

Kalliades gave a rueful smile. Now, having escaped skilled assassins, highly trained soldiers, and doughty warriors seeking bounty, here they were, waiting to be killed by the scum of the sea.

∗ ∗ ∗

Piria sat with the huge warrior, her manner outwardly calm, her heart beating wildly. It seemed to her that a frightened sparrow was caged within her breast, fluttering madly, seeking escape. She had known fear before, yet always she had conquered it with a surge of anger. Not so now.

The day before had been brutal, but she had been filled with fury and then desperation as the pirate crew had overwhelmed her. The savage blows and the piercing pain somehow had rendered her fearless. Piria had ceased to struggle, endured the torment, and waited for her moment. When it came, she had felt a surging sense of triumph as she watched the pirate’s blood spraying from his severed jugular, his open, astonished eyes above her. He had struggled briefly, but she had held him close, feeling his heart beat against her chest. Then the beating had slowed and stopped. Finally she had pushed his body from her and slipped away into the shadows.

Only then did the real terror strike her. Lost and alone on a bleak island, she felt her courage melting away. She ran to a rocky hillside and crouched down behind an outcrop of stone. At some point, though she had no inkling of when it started, she found she was sobbing. Her limbs trembled, and she lay down on the hard ground, her knees drawn up, her arms shielding her face, as if expecting a fresh attack. In the bleakness of her despair she heard the words of the First Priestess lashing her: “Arrogant girl! You boast of your strength when it has never been tested. You sneer at the weakness of the women of the countryside when you have never suffered their distress. You are the daughter of a king, under whose shield you have lived protected. You are sister to a great warrior whose sword would cut the heads from those who offended you. How dare you criticize the women of the fields, whose lives depend on the whims of violent men?”

“I am sorry,” she whispered, her face pressed to the rock, though it was not the answer she had given when the First Priestess had railed at her. She could not remember now exactly what she had said, but it had been defiant and proud. As she had lain among the rocks, all pride had fled from her.

At last, exhausted, she had slept for a little, but the pain in her abused body had wakened her. Just in time, for she could hear footsteps on the hillside.

And she had run for her life, coming at last, her strength gone, to a small grove of trees. There she had expected to die. Instead two men had fought for her, then helped her to a cave high in the hills.

They had not raped her or offered any threat, yet her terror would not subside. She glanced at the man called Banokles. He was heavily muscled, his face brutish and coarse, his blue eyes unable to disguise the lust he felt as he stared at her. There was no defense against him save for the wall of contempt she had created. The small dagger Kalliades had given her would be useless against such a man. He would knock it from her grip and bear her down as the pirates on the ship had.

She swallowed hard, pushing the awful memories away, though it was beyond her skill to shut out the pain of her injuries, the bruising and cuts from punches and slaps, and the piercing of her body.

The big warrior was not looking at her but staring at the tall, slim young man standing some distance away by a twisted tree. She recalled his promise to stand by her, then anger flowed once more.

He is a
pirate.
He will betray you. All men are betrayers. Vile, lustful, and devoid of pity.

Yet he had vowed to protect her.

A man’s promises are like the whispers of a running stream. You can hear them, but they are meaningless sounds. That was what the First Priestess had said.