David Gemmell: Shield of Thunder

“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.