Killer Of Men Part 42

But Heraklides, always the voice of reason, came up to me out of the dark and wouldn't let me act in anger. 'Miltiades has been a good lord to you, and you owe him better than this,' he said. And he was right, although at the time I growled at him.

Herk fed me a cup of wine, his arm around my shoulders. My men were standing around, waiting for my word, and there was some pus.h.i.+ng and shoving at the edges between them and Miltiades' men.

'This won't end well,' Herk insisted. 'Listen to me, boy. I knew you when you were a new free man. A pais. You're a big man now, a captain, lord of five hundred rowers and marines. Every merchant in the Aegean p.i.s.ses himself when your name is said aloud but you are nothing without a base and a lord. And if we squabble with Miltiades, who will fight the Medes?'

'I am not not nothing,' I said. But I knew that he was right. I couldn't keep a crew together by myself unless I wanted to engage in pure piracy, b.l.o.o.d.y murder for profit. And I did not. Herac.l.i.tus was too strong in me, even then. In fact, what I liked least about Miltiades was his ceaseless search for profit. nothing,' I said. But I knew that he was right. I couldn't keep a crew together by myself unless I wanted to engage in pure piracy, b.l.o.o.d.y murder for profit. And I did not. Herac.l.i.tus was too strong in me, even then. In fact, what I liked least about Miltiades was his ceaseless search for profit.

I remember sitting there, on a damp rock just above the tide line, my feet in the sea-wrack, when I heard a raven not a gull, but a raven, cawing in the dark, like Lord Apollo's voice speaking. I held up a hand to silence Herk and I listened, and then I got to my feet and walked off down the beach to where Paramanos and Miltiades were arguing. Herk followed at my heels, clearly afraid I was about to open the breach but I was not. The G.o.d had given me the answer, and I thrust between Paramanos and Miltiades and shouted for them to listen. Their faces were backlit by the big fires we had burning at the sentry posts we didn't want the Syrians to surprise us, either.

'We should all go,' I said.

That silenced them.

I almost remember what I said. I felt as if Lord Apollo stood at my side, whispering fine words, good arguments, into my ear. Or perhaps Herac.l.i.tus, his servant.

'Listen, lord. You think I am blinded by love perhaps I am. But if the Mede is foolish enough to send eight s.h.i.+ps away, we can catch them and destroy them. And then the balance is ours. It might make him hesitate. It will increase our power over the Phoenicians.' I paused. 'If we take take those s.h.i.+ps-' those s.h.i.+ps-'

Honeyed words, Homer calls them. No sooner were they out of my mouth than Paramanos was agreeing. Sometimes, there is a right answer an answer that suits every man. It took us less time than it takes to heat a beaker of wine to convince our lord that we had a winning strategy, and then he grinned, drank wine and clasped my hand, and we were friends again, instead of rival pirates.

We left in complete darkness. That was the campaign where I learned the value of having all all my men in high training the value of making my rowers feel as elite as the hoplites felt. We left that beach like champions. We left our fires burning to deceive the enemy and we raced north under oars, and every man felt as if he was swept along on Nike's wings. my men in high training the value of making my rowers feel as elite as the hoplites felt. We left that beach like champions. We left our fires burning to deceive the enemy and we raced north under oars, and every man felt as if he was swept along on Nike's wings.

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We came on Myrcinus as the sun set on the third day. The lower town was afire and the Syrian s.h.i.+ps were drawn up on the rocky beach south of the town.

Miltiades summoned me aboard his s.h.i.+p, and I leaped from my helmsman's rail to Paramanos's and then on to the Ajax Ajax, the black-hulled Athenian trireme that was Miltiades' pride. Cimon and Herk were already there. We never slowed we were under sail, the wind under our sterns, and our sails must have looked like flowers of fire in the ruddy light.

Miltiades' face was lit as if from within. He was a foot taller than a mortal man, his hair glowed in the sunset as if he was an immortal and his words flowed thick and fast.

'Beach your s.h.i.+ps as you find room,' he said. 'Get ash.o.r.e, get their s.h.i.+ps and sweep the beach clean. Paramanos, you and Arimnestos land your full compliment, every man on the beach. Form tight and get between us and the town.' He grinned. 'Once we own those hulls, this campaign is over. Their commander is a fool.'

'Or it is a trap,' his younger son said. He shrugged.

Cimon, the older son, shook his head. 'Don't be a stubborn a.s.s, little brother. There's no trap because they shouldn't know we could even be be here!' here!'

Miltiades nodded his approval of his older son's thinking. 'Even if it is a trap,' he said, 'there's not much they can do to us if we keep our s.h.i.+ps manned and only land our marines. You two can cover us on the beach if we have to run, your crews are fast.' He laughed. 'Oh, I can feel the power of the G.o.ds, companions! We are about to burn the Great King's beard!'

We were five stades off the beach when I leaped back to Paramanos's s.h.i.+p. The Medes and the Syrians could see us coming, and men were running down from the burning town to form on the beach. Most of them were Greeks I could see from their arms. In the centre was a knot of Persians, but their line wasn't long enough to cover the whole length of the beach, even two deep.

But there were other men Thracians. Some of them came down from the town in clumps, like thick honey dripping from the comb. Others hung back.

The enemy commander had hired Thracians. It probably wasn't hard, because from all we heard, the locals detested Aristagoras as much as we did. I had never faced them, but I heard that they were t.i.tans, big, tough men with no fear of death. I always doubted such tales, but the men I could see in the red light of sunset had tattoos like black slashes on their faces and around their arms, and they held heavy swords and long spears.

'I'm going for the town as soon as we break their line,' I said to Paramanos. 'I know that you don't have to follow me.' I looked at him.

He shrugged. 'No,' he said. 'I don't.' He pointed at the Thracians there were more of them every heartbeat. 'You think we can break that?'

We were three stades out from the beach. I got up on the rail where it rose to protect the helmsman and balanced there, waiting for the rise of the wave. 'Watch me,' I boasted, and jumped.

I landed on my own deck. 'Bow first!' I said. 'Marines aft! Empty the first ten benches forward and send all those men aft!' I waved at my deck master. 'Sails down! Then masts!'

The other s.h.i.+ps were starting to turn, because they intended to beach stern first a necessary precaution to prevent their ram-bows from digging so deep into the sand and gravel that the s.h.i.+p was damaged or worse, could never be brought off.

I caught a stay and swung up on the rail. 'Stephanos!' I called. He was behind me in line, in the smaller Raven's Wing Raven's Wing. I had to wait while he came forward precious time, while my bow rowers ran back, dragging their cus.h.i.+ons, unsure what they were supposed to do while the deck crew swarmed over the masts, caught in the midst of arming, and the marines cl.u.s.tered by the helmsman's bench. Hermogenes was in full armour, and Idomeneus looked like a hero in a solid bronze thorax with silver work and a fine helmet with a towering crest shaped like a heron.

'My lord?' Stephanos called back.

'Into the port!' I said. 'Land your full crew and take the Thracians from behind! See?'

Indeed, the little port itself was covered by a mole. There were two s.h.i.+ps moored to the mole, and no defenders because the lower town had been lost, so there was no longer any point in holding the harbour. Before the lower walls fell, there had no doubt been a garrison on the mole. I had seen this and Miltiades had not. If Raven's Wing Raven's Wing could get into the harbour, her marines would be could get into the harbour, her marines would be behind behind the enemy line. the enemy line.

Stephanos turned away, already calling orders, and his s.h.i.+p turned, went to ramming speed and sprinted for the mole.

'On me!' I shouted, and ran forward as far as the amids.h.i.+ps command station at the foot of the mast. 'Get that mast down!' I called to the deck crew who looked like hoplites. Pirates are always better-armed than other men, with the pick of many dead men's gear to plunder, and I dare say that my sailors had better armour than the front rank of many a city.

The deck crew let the mast down on to the central gangplank, with all the marines and thirty rowers to speed things along.

We pa.s.sed the other s.h.i.+ps, who were all still turning or backing ash.o.r.e. The smaller Ember Ember was already halfway around. was already halfway around.

I had just time to line up the marines and sailors and rowers behind me. They filled the central catwalk all the way aft to the helmsman, and filled the small deck around him, pus.h.i.+ng the stern down in the water and raising the bronze-tipped bow. The weight of the mast and the sail helped, too. I pushed the men farther back, and again, pus.h.i.+ng against them with my s.h.i.+eld to pack them tight in the stern.

'When we beach,' I roared, 'every man follow me! We will form under the bow and cut our way up the beach! Our war cry is "Heracles!"' I looked aft and raised my spear, and my voice filled my chest like the sound of a G.o.d. 'Are you ready?' I shouted, and the oar master shouted 'Oars in! Brace!' and we struck.

Our bow went right up the beach. I was too far aft to see it, but I'm told that our ram actually broke their line, scattering men to the right and left.

'Follow me!' I called and raced forward between the oar benches, along the catwalk, over the bow, and I jumped without breaking stride into a clump of Ionian Greeks still shocked by the arrival of the s.h.i.+p.

They had no order, and I got my feet under me and my spear licked out and ripped the back of a man's knee behind his greave. Blood spurted, red as red in the dying sunlight, and then I looked at a second man, my eyes locking with his under the bronze brows of our helmets, and my spear shot out and caught another another man oldest trick in the world caught him between his thorax and his helmet, ripping up his chest and plunging deep into his neck, stealing his life. He fell off the spear point and I reversed my spear, thrusting underarm with the b.u.t.t-spike. I thrust deliberately into the aspis of a fourth man. He was trying to retreat under my feet, the sand thumped as other men came off the man oldest trick in the world caught him between his thorax and his helmet, ripping up his chest and plunging deep into his neck, stealing his life. He fell off the spear point and I reversed my spear, thrusting underarm with the b.u.t.t-spike. I thrust deliberately into the aspis of a fourth man. He was trying to retreat under my feet, the sand thumped as other men came off the Storm Cutter Storm Cutter's bow. I knew that in a fight like that, I had to attack attack and keep attacking until my arm failed me, because as soon as they recovered from the shock, they'd turn back into warriors and kill me.

My b.u.t.t-spike stuck in the bronze face of his s.h.i.+eld. I ripped it out and thrust again, knocking him back and off balance by attacking his s.h.i.+eld. I could feel feel Idomeneus behind me, so I pushed forward, thrust into my opponent's s.h.i.+eld and when the tip stuck I used it as a lever and prised his aspis to the right. Idomeneus killed him with a quick thrust over my shoulder. Idomeneus behind me, so I pushed forward, thrust into my opponent's s.h.i.+eld and when the tip stuck I used it as a lever and prised his aspis to the right. Idomeneus killed him with a quick thrust over my shoulder.

All my marines were on the beach, and my deck crew was pouring in behind them, the s.h.i.+eld wall forming, hardening the way bronze hardens when you pour the molten stuff on a slate floor to make a sheet, and even as the wall solidified we pressed forward up the beach.

The Ionian Greeks I had been fighting were in flight, and I risked a look pushed my helmet back on my brow and looked left and right. To the left, the town burned, throwing an evil light on the beach. On the road from the town were two hundred or more Thracians. Their leader was inciting them to deeds of valour, or simply promising them loot I didn't understand a word of his language, but I knew what that body language and those gestures meant.

The other s.h.i.+ps were landing. Briseis Briseis was stern to stern with my was stern to stern with my Storm Cutter Storm Cutter and Herakleides was sending his marines right down and Herakleides was sending his marines right down Storm Cutter Storm Cutter, over the bow and onto the beach, leading his men himself. Oh, I loved him like a brother that hour.

To my right, the big knot of Persians and Phoenician marines was wheeling towards me, intent on pus.h.i.+ng me off the beach before the other s.h.i.+ps were ash.o.r.e.

My men were like the runners in the fight at the pa.s.s. We were drawing all the enemy to us, while the other s.h.i.+ps got their marines ash.o.r.e. I knew the game. I roared defiance at them. I was was Ares. I raised my spear over my head and told them they were all dead men, in Persian. Ares. I raised my spear over my head and told them they were all dead men, in Persian.

I had no intention of awaiting the onset of the enemy. If I waited, the Persians and the Thracians would hit me together and each of them outnumbered me. On the other hand, my rowers were coming over the sides now, and every breath put three more men in the rear ranks.

'The Persians!' I shouted, and I ran forward a few paces and held my spear parallel to the enemy line. 'On me!'

We'd been together all summer. My crew knew what I wanted, and they were beside me in three long breaths, more than a hundred men. A s.h.i.+p's length to my right, I saw Herakleides' black horsetail and I knew his big aspis was locked into the line.

'Heracles!' I roared.

'HERACLES!' came the response like the thousand-fold voice of the G.o.d, and we were off up the beach. The Phoenicians had no bows, and the handful of Persian officers got off one volley I know that I got an arrow in my s.h.i.+eld and then we were into them.

That was hard fighting, no quarter given, and the sun was set low enough that skill was replaced by luck. Twice I caught heavy blows on my sword arm one bent my vambrace without cutting through into my arm and a second blow was the flat of an axe and not the blade, thank the G.o.ds, or my life would have spurted out of my arm. Even so, I dropped my spear and Idomeneus stepped past me while I fell on my knees. A blow that hard unmans you I thought I was finished for a long heartbeat, then my eyes told me that my sword hand was intact, my arm ached but was not broken, and again the vambrace had held and saved my life.

But while I was on my knees, a Mede in a gold helmet and bronze aventail cut at my head with his short akinakes akinakes. His blow landed, and my ears rang. But Hermogenes stood by me, and he made clumsy parries with his spear over my shoulder.

When you are in a real fight, your world is a tunnel formed by the walls of your helmet and the width of the eye slits. I had no idea whether we were winning or losing, but even with my ears ringing and my arm afire, I knew that having their heroic captain on his knees in the sand was not going to help my men win their way up the beach.

I exploded to my feet, pus.h.i.+ng with my Boeotian s.h.i.+eld just as Hermogenes blocked another cut. I got the bronze spine in the Persian's face, trapped his sword arm high, dug my feet in the sand and pushed. He landed another blow, but it sheered my horsehair crest without connecting with my head, and I shook it off and pushed again. He tripped and fell. I punched him with the rim of my s.h.i.+eld, the rim an extension of my fist. A Boeotian s.h.i.+eld lacks the weight and authority of an aspis, but the rim is a weapon in a way that an aspis's rim can never be. I broke his nose with my first left-handed blow, broke his sword arm with the second and crushed his throat with the third as he tried to cover himself with his arms.

I had time to flex my numb hand once, and then I drew my sword from under my arm, fumbled it and dropped it. I remember looking at it lying in the sand and thinking now I'm a dead man.

But the Phoenician marines gave ground, backed away from us ten paces and rallied. They were magnificent fighters, those men they didn't lose heart, just backed off to give the Thracians time to take us in the flank. But their retreat showed them that all their officers were down, and that rattled them. I could see it in the movement of their s.h.i.+elds in the fiery light.

Idomeneus was ahead of me, lithe limbs flas.h.i.+ng. He harried their retreat and the best of my marines followed him, so that our taxis lost cohesion. The better men were willing to keep fighting; the others hung back, pleased to have beaten the Phoenicians and the Medes, and wanting a rest from terror. That's how it always is.

'Thracians!' one of my rowers shouted, just before he leaped from the s.h.i.+p's rail into the surf and ran to join us.

The Thracians were still hesitating, and their hesitation had already cost them the battle. But they might still wreck my men with their charge.

I could hear Miltiades calling his battle cry 'AJAX!' to my right, and I knew that the rest of our men would be coming ash.o.r.e now, and in the time it took to beach a s.h.i.+p, the fight would be over. But there was plenty of time for things to go wrong.

I had to go forward.

'Stephanos is behind the Thracians!' I shouted. 'Follow me!' I stooped and picked up my sword just about. I remember well how little grip I had. But a Greek cannot lead from the second rank. No one would follow such a warrior. So I pushed forward and bellowed 'Heracles!' like an angry bull, trying to get the daimon of combat to fill me and carry me up the beach.

Idomeneus was on his knees when I came up, using his big s.h.i.+eld to cover his body against two Phoenician marines with axes. I ran full tilt over one man and his axe bit through my s.h.i.+eld. The bronze plate over my left arm turned the blade and I hacked at him with my nerveless sword hand like any green ephebe who doesn't know how to hold a sword.

Sometimes, as Herac.l.i.tus says, when skill fails, pa.s.sion must suffice.

Hermogenes took the second man. The man with the axe swung and for a long heartbeat I thought he was gone, but the shaft, not the blade, bit into his s.h.i.+eld. Hermogenes had an aspis, and the tough face turned the shaft with a hollow boom and Hermogenes was on the man, stabbing wildly with his spear. What he lacked in accuracy he made up in ferocity.

Now that we had cleared the ground around Idomeneus struggled to his feet. We shamed the rest of our line forward. The Phoenicians might have rallied then but they didn't. They hesitated for a moment they were brave men, and they knew what the loss of their s.h.i.+ps would mean. But they decided that retreat was the wiser option, and they went up the beach, still cohesive enough to drag their wounded and one of their leaders with them.

The sun had set and the only light was the red autumn sky and the fires of the town. The Thracians still outnumbered us, but they were retreating, flowing up the hillside like a herd of deer, and Stephanos was harrying them from the left, his best runners trying to outrun the Thracians to the crest of the long hill above the town.

I flexed my hand. Some feeling was returning.

At that point, Aristagoras elected to bring his men out of the citadel in a sortie. It was typical of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d too late to help win the victory, too soon to come out in safety. His sortie caught the Thracians in the flank, though, and suddenly they had to turn or be eaten by the new threat and by Stephanos's crew nipping at their heels like a hunting pack.

I could see it all happening in the red light on the hillside above me. It was unreal I have never seen such light again, red as blood and I knew that Ares himself was watching us, that we were on his dance floor, and he would judge us.

I could see the swan on Aristagoras's helmet and I knew who he was. And thanks to the folds in the hill, I could see what neither he nor Stephanos could see there was another contingent of Thracians behind a parallel crest.

And I was already tired.

Too bad. I wanted Aristagoras dead, and I would never have a better chance than now.

I've made all this seem to last a long time, but in truth, Miltiades' marines were still coming off his stern and some of our s.h.i.+ps were just coming ash.o.r.e it had all happened that fast. But if you want to know what fatigue is, fight for your life for three or four hundred heartbeats, then run up a rocky hillside at dusk with a hundred men baying at your heels. My scale s.h.i.+rt felt as if it weighed as much as my body, and my helmet sat on my head like the weight of the world on Atlas's shoulders. Who am I to complain? Many of my rear-rankers had rowed all day.

Up we went, and the Thracians stood against us. I think they were shocked appalled, even that they were being charged. They weren't men who stood in a line to fight, they were wild tribesmen who killed with the ferocity of their charge. I think they stood only because they knew that their allies were in position to take us in the flank. But my men overlapped their flank, so that my own flank files were bound to push right up into their ambush. I didn't have to plan it that way there was no other way it could happen. The hillside wasn't that wide, and its seaside edge was a cliff that rose above the beach.

Paramanos's men were pouring ash.o.r.e from his s.h.i.+p, which was beached beside mine. Turning his s.h.i.+p hadn't taken long yet in that time my crew had broken the Phoenicians, killed the Ionians and run up the hill, and now his men were eager to come up and get their share of the loot.

Thracians were famous for having gold.

My men slowed as we came up to the Thracians. I couldn't blame them there is no such thing as a ferocious charge uphill uphill, at least not on a hill that steep.

'Form tight!' I called, and the men pressed in.

Sorry, honey I should explain. There's no phalanx in a fight like that. No order. We didn't form by rank and file on the beach, nor yet going up the hill. In a fight like that, you are a mob. But my mob had been together in fifty fights, and we didn't need a lot of orders. So when I roared 'Get tight', all the boys in the front rank crowded in on me, and all the rest pushed, and we made a s.h.i.+eld wall in less time than it takes to tell it.

The Thracians threw spears and javelins with the whole weight of the hill behind them, and men fell. A spear came right through my torn Boeotian and the scale s.h.i.+rt turned the wicked point. Ares' hand had turned death aside again.

The right end of my line was lapping over their s.h.i.+eld wall and then extending further as Paramanos's men came up. I could hear his voice and his Cyrenian Greek as he ordered them into line.

'All together!' I sang. My voice held, steady and high. If you want an order to carry in a storm or on a battlefield, you sing.

My Boeotian s.h.i.+eld was flapping in pieces. I used it to bat another javelin out of the air and the spine snapped.

's.h.i.+eld!' I roared.

An oarsman behind me pa.s.sed his forward and Hermogenes held it for me. I dropped the useless corpse of a s.h.i.+eld off my arm and thrust my left hand into the leather porpax of the cheap aspis, and then I was ready.

'All together!' I called again.

'Heracles!' they called back. It wasn't the G.o.d's own roar of the first shout, but it was sufficient to get us forward, and we went up the rocky ground. Someone started the Paean, and our voices rose like sacred incense to Ares, and he must have smiled on us.

Thracians fight with ferocity, but they are not compet.i.tors in an athletic event, the way Greek warriors are, and they don't practise together, dancing the war dances and measuring the swing of their weapons. They stand too far apart to have a solid line, and their crescent-shaped s.h.i.+elds are too small to use in a close fight, where men to the left and right and men in the rear ranks can all take a thrust at you when your tunnel-vision is turned on a single opponent.

They hit us hard with javelins as we started forward, though, and men fell. Gaps were opened in our wall and we weren't deep enough for those holes to close naturally. So the fight that resulted was sheer deadly chaos, and the carnage was grotesque. Skill in arms counted for little it was too dark. But we had the burning town behind us, and they were above us, and we could see them much better than they could see us, and in that fight, a minute advantage of vision was sufficient.

And we sang. That's what I remember the red light of the dying sun, and the Paean of Apollo.

It was no pushover. In the first contact, men fell like weeds cut by a housewife in the garden. I got three men so fast that when my borrowed spear fouled in the third, the first still hadn't given up his life and fallen on his face. I dropped my spear shaft and pulled my sword again. The marines who should have been either side of me were gone, and Idomeneus was in the front rank, and Herk, of all men, his scarlet plume nodding, pushed in beside me.

'Aren't you supposed to be on the beach?' I asked.

He laughed. 'f.u.c.k that!' he shouted.

We all felt the impact as the Thracian charge struck Paramanos's end of the line. The Thracian sub-chief hadn't waited for Paramanos to come over the crest at him. He must have been wise enough to figure that we knew he was there.

I didn't see it, but I've heard the tale often enough. Paramanos went down knocked from his feet by a barbarian and Lekthes stood over his body until he rose. Lekthes died there, like a hero. He took three thrusts, but he didn't fall until Paramanos was back on his feet.

I didn't know it, but Lekthes' moment of heroism steadied the whole line.

Paramanos's men turned, unwilling to abandon their commander, and they stood where they might have broken. Even then, we felt the shock and our line bent back.

But Stephanos was on their other other flank with Aristagoras and his sally, and the fortunes of the Thracians began to ebb like the tide from a salt flat when fishermen go into the surf to collect the catch. Their line disintegrated the way an old linen sail rips when the rope-edge is lashed to the mast and the wind begins to tear at a weakened corner, so that each gust rips a little more of the sail, and then the sail goes, faster and faster, the rip wider and the flank with Aristagoras and his sally, and the fortunes of the Thracians began to ebb like the tide from a salt flat when fishermen go into the surf to collect the catch. Their line disintegrated the way an old linen sail rips when the rope-edge is lashed to the mast and the wind begins to tear at a weakened corner, so that each gust rips a little more of the sail, and then the sail goes, faster and faster, the rip wider and the rate rate of the tear faster with every gust, and then with the noise of a thunderclap, the whole sail rips out of its harness of rope and flutters away into the storm. Just like that, the Thracian line tore asunder. of the tear faster with every gust, and then with the noise of a thunderclap, the whole sail rips out of its harness of rope and flutters away into the storm. Just like that, the Thracian line tore asunder.