Christian Cameron: King of the Bosphorus

'Switch benches for normal rowing!' the oar master called.

Satyrus pointed at the second cripple left by the Lotus. 'I want to put that ship down – but don't hit it so hard!' Then he ran aft to Diokles. 'Straight into the blue trireme!' he called.

Diokles narrowed his eyes. 'Not what your uncle ordered,' he said.

'Just do it!' Satyrus said. An arrow hit him in the shoulder, skidded across the scales of his corslet's left shoulder, dug a furrow across the back of his neck and sank into the planking that was supposed to protect the helmsman. 'Ares!' he cursed. He put his hand to his neck and it came away covered in blood.

Satyrus turned to see where the arrow had come from. A dark-hulled trireme was coming up on his port side, from behind, and the enemy ship's archers were trying to clear his helm.

'Where in Hades did he come from?' Satyrus asked. 'Hard to port!'

Diokles swung the oars hard. Satyrus turned forward. 'Port-side oars, all banks, drag your oars!'

The oar master echoed his command and the Falcon turned like his namesake, his stern pulled clear of the oncoming ram. The oar-raked carcass of Glory of Demeter's first victim had hidden the enemy ship, and now he shot by Falcon's stern at ramming speed, already turning to find new prey. Forward, Abraham's marines shot a shower of arrows into the enemy ship's command deck and then he was gone.

Falcon's evasive manoeuvre had carried him out of her place in the formation and now he was heading almost due north, into the oncoming rams of the enemy's relief column.

'Glory of Demeter is through the line,' Diokles said. 'Getting his sail up. Just where we ought to be, sir.'

Satyrus's neck hurt as if he'd been stepped on by a horse. He put a hand to it again and was shocked to see how much blood there was. 'Diokles, we need to go hard to starboard – see the dark green-hulled ship with the golden statue in the bow?'

'I see him,' Diokles answered.

'Right at him – at ramming speed. But just short of him, we turn – and pass under his stern. If he turns towards us-'

'I have it!' Diokles yelled, waving him away.

Satyrus ran for the oar master. 'Ramming speed. Turn to starboard – see the big green? Straight at him – ramming speed. And when I say, a little more. We'll pass under his stern and never touch him.'

Neiron had an arrow in his side. 'Fucking point is in my skin,' he said, face already grey-white with shock. The arrow had punched straight through his tawed-leather cuirass. 'Aye! Starboard bank – drag your oars! Port banks, full speed! Now!' His voice lost none of its power. Then he sank against the mast. 'Pull it out, sir?'

Satyrus glanced forward – the next few heartbeats would be vital.

'As soon as we're past the green,' he said.

'Aye,' Neiron said grimly. His feet slipped out from under him and he sat heavily, with his back against the mast. 'You'd better call the stroke,' he said.

Satyrus stepped over him. 'Pull!' he called. An arrow hit his helmet hard enough that he smelled copper and his ears rang. 'Pull!' he called again. The bow was almost on line – time to stop the turn. 'Cease rowing!' he called. 'All oars! Ramming speed! Now!'

He felt the surge of power under his feet. 'Pull!' he called.

He felt the change in weight as Diokles made a steering adjustment.

The big green ship was turning to meet them. He towered over them – a quadrireme at least, perhaps the biggest ship in the enemy fleet.

'Pull!' Satyrus wanted to get past the green so his bulk would shield them from the rest of the enemy squadrons. He looked down at his oar master, who was losing consciousness, his face as pale and grey as the sea on a cloudy summer day. There was blood coming out from under his cuirass. Another arrow struck deep in the mast, its barbed head a finger deep in the oak.

'Pull!'

Sakje bows.

He glanced south as he took a breath to call the stroke and almost lost his timing. There was Theron's Herakles at ramming speed, bowon to the same target – going ram to ram with a ship of twice his burthen. 'Pull!' he called.

Diokles saw Theron too. 'He'll foul us!' the Phoenician roared. 'Sheer off, Corinthian!'

'All you have, now!' Satyrus roared at the rowers. Falcon moved under his feet. 'Pull!' The great loom of the oars moved, the oars, the length of a Macedonian sarissa, all pulling together like the legs of a water-bug or the wings of a bird. 'Pull!'

Diokles made a sharp adjustment and Satyrus struggled to keep his feet. 'Pull!' he roared. Herakles was not turning – he was in his final attack run, moving as fast as a running horse.

'Pull!'

The green enemy turned to put his bow on to the Herakles – a terrible decision, possibly a misheard order, so that at the last the great ship showed his naked and vulnerable flank to the Falcon's ram.

'Pull!'

Herakles, faster because he'd had a longer start, rammed her just aft of the bow – a single thunderclap – and his bow was forced around.

'Pull!'

Diokles slapped his steering oars with precision, aiming for the gap at the edge of possibility where the stern of the enemy ship would not be in a few heartbeats.

'Pull!'

The green ship shuddered and his stern came at them, swinging sideways through the water with all the transmitted energy of Herakles' attack.

'Pull!' Satyrus roared.

'Brace!' Abraham yelled from over the ram – and they struck, the ram catching the enemy stern just below the helmsman with a hollow boom, and then Satyrus was on his face on the deck.

'Switch your benches!' Satyrus managed from his prone position. 'Do you hear me, there? Switch benches!' he called, trying to rise. There was a sailor on top of him, a deckhand – a dead deckhand. Satyrus got him off, rolled over – his neck awash in pain, his eyes hazed red. The big green ship was above them, and arrows were pouring into the waist of the Falcon. 'Switch your benches!' Satyrus called again. He felt as if he was very far away. Just below his feet, men were getting under their oars.

An arrow hit him in the top of the shoulder. It hurt, and its force knocked him back a step. 'Backstroke!' he shouted, his voice sounding thin and very far away. 'Now!'

The ship gave a shudder like a wounded animal.

'Ram's stuck!' Abraham called. ''Ware boarding!'

Sure enough, there were men coming down the side of the green – leaping aboard Falcon. Satyrus was three steps from his aspis, the huge round shield of the Greek soldiers and marines. It stood in the rack at the edge of the command platform.

Satyrus had an odd moment of hesitation – he almost didn't move. It seemed too far. He just wanted to fall on the deck and bleed.

A javelin, slightly miscast, struck him shaft first and skittered off along the deck.

There was a pair of enemy marines on the command platform. He noticed this with professional interest. How had they come there?

He turned his back on them and grabbed for his aspis. It came to him in stages that were prolonged by the nakedness of his posture to their weapons – his hand on the bronze-shod edge, his right hand lifting it clear of the rack, his left arm pushing into the porpax, his shoulder taking the curved weight as he turned-

Thrunk – as the lead marine crashed shield to shield and the harmonic bronze sounded.

Satyrus set his feet and reached out with his empty right hand to grab the rim of his opponent's shield. One-handed, he ripped the shield round a half-circle to the right, breaking the man's shield arm, and then he slammed the enemy's shield rim into his nose. The man went down and Satyrus leaped at his partner, drawing his father's heavy kopis from under his own shield arm even as he put his head down and rushed his new opponent. Movement from the stern. Satyrus struck his enemy shield to shield and cut hard around the lower edge of the aspis. His blade went deep into the man's thigh and he was over the side. Satyrus whirled, but the man coming from the stern was an armed deck-crewman with a spear – one of his own.