Stella Gemmell - Fall of Kings

Rowers were at their benches, rowing for all they were worth to turn the great galley around. The other crewmen were tearing down the lines, cutting lengths for themselves and the oarsmen. All kept glancing fearfully as the giant wave bore down on them.

Helikaon grabbed some rope and ran to the aft deck, where Oniacus needed all his strength to brace the steering oar to one side. The Xanthos was turning in a tight circle. Helikaon lent his strength to the oar and took another swift look at the wave. It was mountainous and getting bigger by the moment, filling the whole of his vision. Can the ship climb it? he asked himself. All he was certain of was that it must not hit them beam-on. It would destroy the galley in a moment. Their only hope was to steer straight into it. The oars and the wooden fins Khalkeus had bolted to the hull would keep the ship stable.

“We will tie the oar centrally,” he told Oniacus, “but it will need the strength of both of us as well to keep it steady.”

“If we can do it at all,” his friend replied grimly, his terror palpable.

The ship was heading into the wave now. Helikaon cut the rope in half, then looped half around his waist, tying it to the side rails. He did the same thing for Oniacus, who was holding the oar in a death grip.

“The nephthar, Golden One!” he cried suddenly. “What about the clay balls? If we survive this, they will be smashed and broken.”

Helikaon looked up to the wave, which was nearly upon them. “They will be washed away,” he shouted. “That is the least of our worries.”

The prow of the ship began to rise as the swell in front of the wave reached them. All along the deck Helikaon saw the wide eyes of terrified men leaning into the oars, horror at their backs, rowing like men possessed.

“Row, you cowsons! Row for your lives!” he bellowed at them.

The wave hit them, and Helikaon felt the whole ship shudder as if she were snapping in two. Then there was a hideous groan, and she started to climb. It is not possible, he told himself. The wave is too high. He fought down the panic in his chest. If any ship can do it, the Xanthos can, he thought.

Then they were underwater. Helikaon could see nothing but swirling sea all around, and he felt the air punched out of his chest as the galley lurched to one side, throwing him against the steering oar. He was tossed about like a rag doll, concentrating only on keeping his hands to the oar, holding it tight, feeling Oniacus’ hands there, too. It was impossible to steer. All they could do was hold on tight and try not to drown.

For a moment he emerged from the water and caught a terrifying glimpse of the ship suspended vertically above him, the oarsmen rowing like madmen, though most of the oars were out of the water. Then the sea came over his head again, and all he could glimpse was the blue and green of its depths.

The ship lurched and spun, pitched and heaved. It went on so long that Helikaon thought it would never stop. He no longer could tell which way was up or down or if he was rising in the sea or sinking through the depths. He could not tell if the hideous sounds in his ears were those of the ship groaning, the men crying, or his tortured lungs screaming.

Suddenly there was air to breathe again, and he quickly took a breath, ready to plunge deep again. But he realized they no longer were underwater. The ship had crested the great wave.

For a instant he feared that he was falling, that the ship was plummeting into a deep trough behind the wave. But looking ahead, he realized there was no hideous drop, only a gentle slope. It was as if the great-hearted Xanthos had climbed a giant step in the sea. Helikaon leaned over and vomited up a stomachful of seawater.

He looked along the deck. Nearly half the rowing benches were empty, the oarsmen claimed by Poseidon. Many of the men were hanging, drowned or unconscious, from the ropes tying them to the benches. The mast had been ripped away, as had most of the rails and many of the oars.

Oniacus lay on the deck beside him, half-drowned, one arm hideously dislocated from its socket. Helikaon started to untie his ropes, dread in his heart. He had to find Andromache and the boys. If he had nearly drowned on the top deck, how could anyone still be alive lower down in the ship?

He felt a hand on his arm. Gray-faced with pain and shock, Oniacus had pulled himself up; he put out his good hand to stop Helikaon from untying himself. He pointed ahead of them, terror in his eyes.

“There’s another one coming!” he cried.

The man who once had been called Gershom stood in the darkness that lay over Egypte and gazed toward the north.

Patience was a skill he had learned only recently. As a young man he had needed only such patience as was required by a royal prince accustomed to every whim being instantly obeyed, that is, none at all. Then had come the day when, in drunken anger, he had killed two royal guardsmen. He had had the choice of being blinded and buried alive or fleeing the country of Egypte. He fled. As a fugitive, working in the copper mines of Kypros, he again had little use for patience. He worked until exhausted, then slept, then worked again.

Then he had fallen in with the sea people, roving traders, pirates, and raiders from the far northern fastnesses of the Great Green. He seldom thought of those days now, of his time with Helikaon on the great galley Xanthos, of his good friend Oniacus, of Xander, and of the people of Troy he had known for a few brief years. Word had reached him of the armies besieging the city of Troy; only in recent days had he heard of the death of Hektor, and he grieved for a man he hardly knew. He wondered at the fortunes of Andromache and her son and hoped that she was with Helikaon and was happy.

The affliction that had fallen on Egypte two days before had come out of the north: great waves that had devastated the land and a dark cloud of ash that had rolled across the sky, bringing perpetual night. The waves had swept up the river Nile, overflowing its low banks, destroying crops, demolishing homes, and drowning thousands. Then, from out of the river, polluted by ashfall and turned to the color of blood by the violent churning of the red Nile mud, had come millions of frogs and clouds of flying, biting insects. The frogs had invaded homes and crawled and hopped through meager food supplies. The insects had filled the air so that it was hard to breathe without sucking them in. They bit any exposed skin, spreading sickness throughout the land.

Standing on a rooftop in the darkness, the prophet heard a sound behind him. He turned to find hawk-faced Yeshua. “The sun will not rise again today,” his friend said with certainty. “The people are crying out to you to save them. They believe you have caused this catastrophe.”

“Why would they think that?”

“You asked the pharaoh to free the desert people from their slavery. He refused. Then the sun disappeared and the waves came. The Egypteians believe our god, the one god, is stronger than their own deities, and he is punishing them.”

“But does the pharaoh believe that?”

“He’s your brother. What do you think?”

Ahmose had gone to see the pharaoh, his half brother Rameses, risking bringing on himself the brutal punishment he long had escaped, and asked the ruler to allow the desert slaves to leave the land of Egypte. Rameses had refused. Seated on his high gold-encrusted throne, his beloved son beside him, Rameses had laughed at him for his naďvete.

“For the sake of our childhood friendship,” he had said, “I will not have you killed this time. But do not presume on that friendship further. Did you really expect me to wave my hand and release the slaves just because you, a known criminal, asked me to?”