Tyrant: King of the Bosporus Read Online Free PDF

covered in blood and wounded several times – his left thigh was lacerated with shallow wounds so that blood ran down his legs like lava from a new volcano. He held up a hand, the same way he would when he’d been fighting the
pankration
on the sands of the palaestra in Alexandria and he took a fall. He managed a smile. ‘Still in the fight, eh?’ he said.
    Satyrus took his hand and hauled him to his feet. He looked fore and aft along the deck. The marines from the heavy green quadrireme were rallying in the bows of their own ship, and a shower of arrows swept the decks of
Herakles
.
    ‘We could board him,’ Satyrus said.
    ‘If you want to die gloriously, that would be your path,’ Abraham said by his elbow. He was wrapping his shield arm in linen stripped from a corpse. ‘Look!’
    The two golden-hulled triremes from Pantecapaeum were almost aboard them, rowing hard – but their speed had fallen off, because they’d started their sprint too early and their crews were under-trained.In the press of ships, they couldn’t see what was friend and what was foe. Behind them were a dozen more triremes.
    ‘We could take him,’ Satyrus said.
    ‘You are possessed by a bad spirit,’ Abraham said. ‘Do not succumb to these blandishments.’ He leaned in. ‘You must live, or all this is for nothing.
Get your head out of your arse and think like a commander.
’
    Satyrus felt the heat in his own face – felt rage boiling up in his limbs. But he also saw the faces of the men around him. He saw Theron’s nod of agreement. The marines’ studied blankness.
    ‘Very well,’ he said, more harshly than he wanted. He looked across to the
Falcon
. ‘Abraham, keep us from getting boarded again. When I have
Herakles
clear of that green bastard, take command and row clear. Understand? Theron – someone get Theron looked after. No, better – sling him across to
Falcon
.’
    His head was clear – tired, but clear. It was like waking from a fever. Now he could
see
, and what he saw was the last few moments of a disaster. As soon as the pair of golden triremes figured out which side was which, he’d be dead.
    He leaped for his own ship and landed with a clash of bronze on the deck. ‘Diokles!’ he roared.
    ‘Aye!’ his helmsman called. The arrow was gone from his thigh and a loop of wool was tied in its place.
    ‘Port-side oars! Pole off! Pole off the
Herakles
!’ Satyrus ran to Neiron, who was lying at the foot of his mast, mouthing orders to Thron, one of the Aegyptian boys who served the sailors. The boy shrilled the orders down into the rowing decks.
    ‘Still with me?’ Satyrus asked Neiron, who raised an eyebrow.
    ‘Must be nice . . . young.’ He croaked. ‘Poseidon, I hurt. Hermes who watches the sailormen, watch over me. Arggh!’ he shouted, and his back arched.
    Along the deck, a handful of deck-crewmen pulled Theron aboard and dropped him unceremoniously to the deck so that they could return to using pikes to pole off the
Herakles
. Satyrus loosed the ties on Neiron’s cuirass and then, without warning, pulled the arrowhead from the wound. It had gone in only the depth of a finger end, or even less – enough to bleed like a spring, but not necessarily mortal.
    Satyrus stood in his place. ‘Port side, push!’ he shouted. Rowersused the blades of their oars to push against the hull of the
Herakles
. ‘Push!’
    ‘We’re away!’ Diokles called from the stern. The gap between the two ships was growing.
Falcon
was light – fifty strong men could pole him off very quickly.
    Quick glance aft – the golden hulls were changing direction, the early sun catching the bronze of their rams and turning them to fire. He wasn’t going to make it.
    He wasn’t going to stop trying, either.
    ‘Switch your benches!’ he roared, the full stretch of his voice, as if a restraint had burst in his chest and now he could use all of his lungs.
    A thin cheer from the green quadrireme. The enemy crews were shouting for