Satyrus nodded. He knew they were right. But it hurt to watch ships fall out of the columns, their rowers already spent, or just too slow – ill-built or trailing weed.
If Eumeles has his second squadron at Tanais – if they are oared up and ready . . .
The second hour of afternoon crawled by. Satyrus took a turn at an oar, as did Theron. Neiron clung to the steering oar. Men were taking turns – sailors, even the most willing of the marines. On the
Lotus
, they had practised this, and even at such a fast pull, a man knew he’d get a break.
Satyrus rowed a full hour by the sand-glass. The men around him smiled at him, and he loved every one of them for their eagerness.
‘We’ll catch the bastard, right enow!’ called his mate across the aisle, as they lulled together. ‘Never you moind, sir. Never you moind it.’
He grinned back, his heart raised by this pronouncement by a man who had to know far less about the chances of the day than he did himself, and then he went forward, the fear sweated out.
By now half of his own fleet was gone behind him, lost over the edge of the world.
‘Two hours to the Tanais at this rate,’ Neiron said. He was nodding, as if he could hear music. The staff still thumped the deck, a fast but steady heartbeat. ‘Still six hours of light.’
Satyrus made himself look forward.
Eumeles’ fleet was suddenly
close
.
‘When did that happen?’ he said, and his voice broke.
Neiron grinned, and so did every other man on the command deck. ‘We got all the officers to row,’ he said. ‘Must have made a difference.’ Then Neiron pointed. ‘We broke their hearts,’ he said.
Theron nodded. ‘We are the better men,’ he said.
It was a race while it had contestants. Now it was just predator and prey.
Panther’s
Hyacinth
drew the first blood, smashing his beak into the oar bank of a heavy trireme whose rowers were so tired that they didn’t even attempt to turn their ship and fight. Panther crippled the enemy ship expertly and rowed on, barely losing way.
As
Lotus
swept past the cripple, his archers shot down into the
helpless crew, and they surrendered, the captain kneeling on his deck and begging for mercy.
Eumeles’ ships lost their nerve completely as soon as they saw the loss of the first ship, and they began to scatter. In the rearward ships, more than a dozen raised sail and tried to sail clear, going west across the wind as best they could. A few made it; most were caught, helpless, and smashed. The Rhodians, who could raise sail faster, ate their wind and killed them.
The afternoon was old and the
Lotus
’s mast was casting a long shadow when Eumeles’ navarch decided to turn and fight. The Tanais headland was well in sight, with a beacon burning clearly on the height of the bluff. Satyrus didn’t know what the signal was or for whom it was meant, but that was the site of his mother’s city.
The mouth of the river was only twenty more stades along the coast, hidden by the multiple headlands, but Satyrus knew the seamarks here as well as any captain. The enemy ships had to fight, or run upriver – and the river was shallow in midsummer. They turned, and their tired rowers formed a ragged line. Just one ship stood on, racing for the mouth of the Tanais.
Satyrus looked around and realized that, by the irony of the gods, he would face Eumeles outnumbered, because his ships had chased off to the west after the stragglers or stopped to loot the defeated. He had his own ships, and one Rhodian, and the
Glory of Demeter
formed next to him. Daedalus leaned over the rail and waved his fist. Satyrus waved back as Helios put his aspis on his arm.
‘Twenty to ten,’ Satyrus said.
Neiron wrinkled his lip and spat in the water. ‘They’re spent,’ he said. He pointed his bearded chin at the rowers without taking his eyes off the enemy line. ‘Ours are just scenting victory. And
this
is the moment for revenge, Satyrus.’
Satyrus smiled. ‘In other words, I should tell them so,’ he said.
Neiron nodded.
Satyrus ran forward and leaned over into the oar deck. ‘Eumeles has just formed a sloppy-arse line and he’s going to fight. His rowers are finished. Are you finished?’
They didn’t roar. But they growled, a low sound that made the ship tremble.
‘Ten minutes,’ Satyrus shouted, his voice rising. ‘Ten minutes of
your best, and they are ours. Blood in the water and silver in our hands!’
The growl rose. Like a wind rising, the growl came up as the whole oar bank cocked back, the oars at the top of their motion, and as the oars bit, every voice on the
Lotus
spoke and the ship seemed to leap forward with its own spirit.
His ships formed up on him so that they were in a loose arrowhead. Two of the slower ships, scenting a fight, came up from behind, rowing for all they had, close enough now to engage as a second line.
‘Not the battle I’d planned,’ Satyrus said.
No one said anything.
‘But I’ll take it,’ Satyrus said. He looked at the enemy line, now less than a stade away. ‘Diekplous against their admiral,’ he said, pointing out the blue-hulled ship in the centre of the line.
Satyrus’s ships were moving much faster than their opponents – indeed, the enemy squadron was oar-tip to oar-tip, in close order, but many of their ships were partly turned or still manoeuvring to close gaps, and they had very little forward motion. The
Golden Lotus
was a whole ship’s length ahead of her line, but the
Troy
was now so close behind that she was in line with the
Glory of Demeter
and they were all moving at the speed of a galloping horse, the wind of their passage like a song of speed and madness.
‘Are you taking command?’ Neiron asked quietly.
‘No,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’ll board with the marines.’
Neiron nodded, and Satyrus winked at Helios, suddenly feeling as if he had the stature of the gods. Win or lose, he was done. He’d brought his fleet to Tanais, and now it was down to muscle and spirit.
We are the better men.
Theron handed him his helmet. He pulled it on, fastened the cheekpieces and together they ran forward.
‘Oars in!’ Neiron roared, and Philaeus echoed in his singer’s voice. Even as Satyrus ran, he had to jump to avoid the oar shafts coming across the lower deck.
It was eerie, the silence as they hurtled forward. Satyrus stopped just short of the marines’ box in the bow, grabbed the rail and pressed tight. Helios did the same.
‘Brace!’ yelled the marine captain.
Satyrus caught a glimpse – they were going in bow to bow.
Poseidon,
they were going in right on the enemy ram!
It was terrifying in the bow, where the ram was part of you. His sphincter tightened and his whole body convulsed.
Neiron flicked the steering oars and the bow of the
Golden Lotus
seemed to dart to the left the length of a man – just enough to change the angle of their attack. The bow of the
Lotus
slammed into the enemy’s upper-deck rowers’ box and
pushed
the enemy bow, just a horse-length, but suddenly the enemy ram was pointing east and not south, and their own bow was ripping the strakes off the enemy ship.
As the impact brought them almost to a stop, Satyrus leaned forward to the marine captain. ‘Clear the command deck. Ignore the rowers.’
The marine grinned.
‘Blood in the water!’ Satyrus yelled and leaped up on to the rail, heedless of the weight of his armour. He was on the rail for a fraction of a heartbeat, but for that instant time froze, and he saw the length of the enemy vessel – saw that he would be the first to board – and he felt that he was a god.
Then he was on their deck. One leg slipped from under him and a deck sailor went for him with a spear and died with an arrow in him, then Satyrus was up on his feet, pushing his shield into a man’s gut. Hacking under it, over it, he brought the man down and pushed forward, pushed again then dumped his next opponent into the rowers and set his feet on the narrow catwalk. The marines on the command deck rushed him, but they had to come one at a time and the reforged Aegyptian sword sang in his hand. He glanced a heavy overhand cut deliberately off the man’s shield, then rotated on his hips, driving forward with his sword foot and cutting
back
with the long kopis. He took the first marine’s head clean off at the neck with the power of his blow, and his men let out a cry together.
The next man flinched and died with Helios’s spear in his groin, pushed
under
both their shields, and Satyrus was free to push forward again. He could feel the weight of his own men behind him – and then more men were dropping on to the deck.
‘Clear the command deck!’ Satyrus roared.
The man behind the man he was facing was already turning to run.
Satyrus took a blow on his shield – an immense blow – and his shield split. He cut twice, as fast as he could, and then a third time,
and then a fourth, and his opponent fended off every blow, but Satyrus’s blows were so fast and so hard that the man couldn’t launch an attack, though his shield was being pounded to splinters in turn.
Satyrus cut low, cut high and the man blocked, their swords ringing together like a hammer and anvil, the strokes keening over the wind. Satyrus began the feint for the Harmodius blow and his opponent stepped back to void his attack. He tripped over the body of a sailor behind him and went down. Satyrus stepped over him on to the command deck, leaving his fate to Helios. He had fought well.
He felt Helios’s shoulder pressed into his back, and then it was gone as the boy pushed up the catwalk next to him. Then Theron was on his right, and as soon as he had flanks, he advanced, his shield foot forward. The man who faced him across the deck wore elaborate purple plumes in a plain Attic helmet and a long red cloak. Marines stood on either side of him and he cursed them for running, and there was a lull – one of those moments when men stop fighting for no reason, or every reason.
‘Eumeles!’ Satyrus called.
The man in the purple feather laughed. It was a hollow laugh, but not a coward’s. ‘Eumeles has run,’ the plumes said. ‘I’m Aulus, the navarch of Pantecapaeum.’
Satyrus took a deep, shuddering breath, and then another. Disappoint ment flooded him. ‘I want Eumeles,’ he said. ‘Drop your sword and I’ll spare every man on this deck.’
Aulus shook his head. ‘When I’m bought, I stay bought,’ he said, and slapped the face of his aspis with his blade. ‘Come and take me.’
‘Herakles!’ Satyrus roared, and he went across the deck like a dart from a war machine. His aspis shattered as he rammed it into the enemy navarch’s, but his sword was already moving and he ignored the massive pain in his shield arm and cut from high to low. He felt his blade bite into the man’s thigh below his shield and the man screamed into his face.
And then the deck was clear, and they were moving on the waves. He looked down from the platform into the rowing decks, and the rowers looked back with slack, exhausted faces, almost uncaring if they lived or died.
He dropped the remnants of his aspis on the deck.
‘Theron,’ he panted. ‘Theron – take command of this ship.’
Theron saluted silently.
Satyrus got over the rail with a hundred times the effort with which he’d come aboard and all but fell into his own ship. But willing hands caught him and put him on his feet, and Philaeus embraced him.
‘Look, lord!’ he shouted in Satyrus’s ear, as if Satyrus might have become deaf.
Neiron was pounding his back.
The sea battle, such as it had been, was already over. And the enemy squadron on the distant beach was still there, bows moving in the gentle seas, sterns still clenched in the mud. One enemy ship was skimming the waves, just going ashore.
‘That will be Eumeles,’ Satyrus said. ‘We’re not done yet.’
Neiron pointed at the enemy camp beyond their line of ships. At the landward edge of the camp, an army was formed, and beyond it, men were dying.
‘Ares,’ Satyrus muttered.
‘They started the battle without us,’ Neiron said.
Satyrus couldn’t make out who was fighting, although he could see Urvara’s Grass Cat standard on a far hill.
‘But . . .’ Satyrus shook his head. His sword arm was a dead thing, and he massaged the muscle at the top of his arm. ‘To Tartarus with them. We’ve
won
. We don’t
need
a land battle.’
Neiron pointed at a swirling cavalry melee several stades away to the east. ‘Try telling them.’
Satyrus took a deep breath, tempted to rail against the gods. A land battle just risked his sister without accomplishing anything. By crushing Eumeles at sea and trapping him here, far from his city, the
war
was over. He breathed again.
‘Helios!’ he called. ‘Signal “All ships rally on me”.’
Helios had a bandage on his arm and a blank look on his face.
‘Helios!’ Satyrus said again.
‘Lord?’ the boy answered.
‘Signal “All ships rally on me”!’ Satyrus put a hand on the boy’s head. ‘You going to live, lad?’
Helios nodded sheepishly.