Satyrus was utterly exhausted – past the point of careful decision-making, past the point of hope and fear. He merely acted. He was in the bow, naked except for his boots, strapping a tow-stuffed aspis to the outside of the hull over the holes. The stress on the bow had ripped every patch free and started the water again, and the oarsmen were rowing with the lowest rowing deck half full of water and worse to come.
Satyrus pinned the shield over the holes – it covered all three – while two Urartian deck-crewmen drew the ropes over and through it tight. Satyrus was fighting the sea and his own fatigue, and even as he pushed, a wave caught something on the shield and all the ropes slipped. His arm hurt – the salt water licked at the deep cut there and the pain was intense.
Water began to rush in once more.
'Fuck it,' Satyrus said. He didn't think he had the energy to start again, so instead, he pushed the shield back into the ropes by the simple expedient of falling on the upper rim – and then past it into the water. He grabbed hold of the naked bow timbers as the water hit him, wrenching his shoulder, and got his head above water. Now the force of the ship's passage pinned him against the shield, and the shield was held in place.
'Pull, you bastards!' Satyrus managed.
Ba'alaz, the bigger of the two, hauled his rope back until it sang.
Kariaz, the smaller, belayed it against a cross-member that had supported the weight of the ram and then hauled on the other line until Ba'alaz got to him and added his weight.
'She's home, master!' Ba'alaz said.
Satyrus was already sinking under the bow. 'Stand up and fight, boy!'
Theron stood over him on the sand of the palaestra, his hands still in the fighting stance of the pankration.
'Are you down? If you are one of mine, get up! Get up and fight!'
Theron was even larger here – and the sands stretched to an infinite horizon. Theron towered over him, his lion-skin chlamys whipping in the winds – the smell of wet cat.
'Get up and fight!'
Satyrus struggled to get a foot under his own weight – to rise on an arm. All the weight of the world seemed to press him down. He got an arm out from under his body and he pushed against the sand. The force pinning him to the ground was like the hand of the gods. He pushed.
Suddenly, the weight on his back released…
Only the will of the gods kept Satyrus alive – his foot caught in the mess of old rope and canvas that marked their first attempts to fother the bow, and he was held there, drowning, until Theron reached into the water and pulled him up by sheer strength. It took Diokles hundreds of heartbeats to revive him – or so they told him after his choking breaths had turned to steady breathing.
'You were there,' Satyrus said to Theron, catching his hand.
'So I was,' Theron agreed. He wiped his nose. One of the wounds on his thigh had opened, and watery blood ran down his leg, deeply marked where he had stripped off his greaves.
'No – I saw it. Was I dead?' Satyrus asked.
He could see on their faces that they thought his wits were wandering, so he didn't say more. 'Any sign of the other ships?' he asked.
Diokles shook his head. He'd been at the steering oar for ten hours.
'None,' he said. 'We ran west. They ran east.' He shrugged.
Theron slumped heavily. 'Zeus Soter, lad. If you'd left me, you'd be halfway to Rhodos now.'
Satyrus managed a smile. 'Sounds bleak, doesn't it? We're much better off as we are.'
Diokles stared ahead woodenly.
Satyrus made his shoulders rise off the deck. To one of the boys, he said, 'Get my satchel.' To Diokles, he said, 'We're not dead yet.'
'Close,' Diokles said.
Satyrus put raw wool on Theron's thigh, twisting the ends as Philokles had taught him, washing the wound as Sophokles – a traitor, a poisoner, an assassin, but an excellent doctor – had instructed him years before in Heraklea.
Heraklea, where Amastris would be tonight. Would she see the sunset? He looked out to the west, where the sun was setting as they edged into the low-lying swamps. There was nothing on this coast – nothing but the channels of a hundred forgotten watercourses and the swamps their passage left.
He could just see the land under the setting sun, and just north of the brightest part of the sun's red disc, he saw the notch of a sail. He pointed.
'Poseidon's watery dick,' Diokles said. 'Zeus Casios who conquers all the waters. Thetis of the glistening breasts.'
Satyrus could just about manage to stand erect. 'Could be Dionysius,' he said hopefully.
Diokles shook his head, spat over the side. 'That golden bastard who shaved our stern.' He looked forward. 'That rig of yours strong enough that we could rig the boatsail after dark?'
Satyrus was watching. The oarsmen were tired – so tired that the ship had little more than steerage way despite all banks rowing. 'He doesn't see us,' he said.
'We're on the dark horizon and all our masts are struck down,' Diokles said. 'But it means that we can't get in with the land. We could sink in the night, and you know it. We need to get this hulk ashore.'
'There's nothing on this shore but mud and bugs,' Satyrus said.
'A man can wade through mud, and bugs don't usually kill you,' Diokles said. 'With the ram gone, there's nothing holding that bow together but four copper bolts – hear me, sir? We will not make Tomis, or wherever you think we can get. If the wind comes up and there are cross-waves, we're gone.'
Satyrus wanted to rant that this wasn't his fault and Diokles was being unfair, but he lacked the energy. 'So?'
'So we need to land,' Diokles said. He looked at Theron.
Theron shrugged. 'You put me in command of a ship,' he said. 'I won't take one again! I grew up with the sea and still I know nothing of him. But Diokles seems to have the right of it, lad. When the wind rises towards morning, we'll open like a flower. Philokles would ask you to think of the oarsmen.'
Satyrus nodded. Despite everything, his eyelids sank, as if he was going to fall asleep, cold and wet, huddled by the rail of a sinking ship.
'As soon as dark falls,' he said, 'we raise the boatsail mast. If that holds, we raise the mainmast. We turn north and put his bow into the mud. Get every oarsmen up on deck with his sea bag and every weapon we have aboard. Serve out the dead marines' gear and all the stuff we got off the enemy. If we can run him far enough ashore, we save the drinking water.'
Diokles nodded. His lip curled in a fraction of a smile. 'I was afraid you'd decide to try and board the bastard and take him.'
Satyrus stretched warily. The idea of getting back into his armour made his body hurt all over again. 'I thought about it,' he said, by way of humour.
'That's what I'm afraid of,' Diokles said. Full dark, and half a moon – a clear, cool night with enough starlight to read a scroll. As soon as the Falcon got his boatsail up, his motion changed. Diokles got the deckhands to bring their bags on deck and then sent all of them aft except the work party for the mainmast. Satyrus stood in the bows, his hands on the lines fothering the shield. His shield.
Not that he could do much if the patch gave way, except curse, and drown.
He turned and watched the mainmast rise. A spar that big could sink them if it fell from its cradle of lines and hit the deck, but he lacked the energy to worry about such a thing. Instead, he watched the pink western horizon. The enemy vessel – if it was an enemy – was invisible, hull down and sail down. He might even have landed for the night, although few sailors would risk the mudflats on this stretch of coast.
The thought made him give a tired smile, because he was about to beach his precious Falcon on those very mudflats. And he'd never get Falcon back. His grip on the cross-brace tightened.