‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Vespasian said, making for the hatchway down to the oar-deck. A violent shudder ran through the whole ship, knocking him to the deck just short of the hatch. The first trireme had rammed them but fortunately had been unable to build up sufficient momentum for its bronze-headed ram to pierce the hull timbers. The second trireme definitely had and was now only three hundred paces away. Vespasian dropped his shield and scrambled down the ladder on to the oar-deck.
Rhaskos was addressing the slaves. ‘You have a choice: drown at your oars as the ship goes down or fight with us as free men, to live or die as the gods will. And remember, the pirates will chain you to your oars again if they prevail, but if we beat them off you will still be free, and I will have the Queen confirm that freedom when we return to Thracia. What’s it to be?’
Vespasian opened the door to the small forward cabin. Inside Magnus was unlocking the priest’s foot-irons whilst Sabinus restrained him.
‘Get a move on, boys,’ Vespasian urged.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Magnus asked, fumbling in his haste with Rhoteces’ chains.
‘We’re enlisting a small army,’ Vespasian replied as a large cheer went up from the slaves.
‘Unchain them,’ Rhaskos shouted above the din.
The slave-master and his mates started working up the benches, quickly turning keys for the eager ex-slaves to cast off their shackles.
‘I pray to Amphiaraos that he has shown me the right thing to do and I haven’t misread his message,’ Rhaskos said to Vespasian, brushing past him to make his way back on deck with cheering ex-slaves following in his wake.
‘What did he mean by that?’ Sabinus asked as he and Magnus hauled the still manacled and muttering Rhoteces through the cabin door.
Before Vespasian could reply a deafening crack reverberated around the oar-deck; the ship lurched to starboard, throwing everyone into the air. Sharp splinters of wood exploded all around and a bronze-headed ram burst through the hull, accompanied by the roar of gushing water and headed straight for Vespasian. It came to a sudden halt a hand’s breadth from where he lay with another booming thud as the attacking ship’s bow powered into the quinquereme’s hull. Screams of anguish filled the air. The ship rolled again, lifting the ram, which tore at the fissure, cracking through the planking with a series of ear-splitting reports. Water surged in under high pressure. As the ship rolled back the ram came thumping down on to the deck, splitting it open and crashing through, down into the bilge to crush to a pulp a handful of sick slaves unfortunate enough to be in its path. With another creaking roll the ship settled, bringing the ram back up to the oar-deck where it stayed, rocking menacingly, like a wild beast preparing to pounce, just in front of Vespasian’s face.
‘Bacchus’ bell end,’ he croaked, staring in wide-eyed horror at the ram’s bronze head; on it was engraved in Greek: ‘Greetings to Poseidon’. A piece of mangled slave plopped back down into the bilge.
Magnus recovered first. ‘Come on, sir,’ he shouted, pulling Vespasian up out of the churning water. Ex-slaves dashed past, jumping over the unsteady ram and pounding up the ladder away from the terror of the quickly flooding oar-deck. The slavemasters hurriedly unlocked the remaining rowers and joined the rush to escape. Those too maimed to walk were left behind calling pitifully for aid as the water level rose. Fingers appeared through the gratings to the bilge, but they remained locked and the ram blocked any hope of exit through the smashed deck.
Magnus pushed his way to the foot of the ladder; Sabinus dragged Rhoteces, who was gibbering with fear, behind him. Vespasian followed, his senses gradually returning, and clambered up on to the main deck.
Vespasian picked up his shield, drew his sword and looked around; it was a fearsome sight. Ahead of him pirates hurled themselves from the bow of the second trireme, still embedded in the quinquereme’s hull, and on to the deck. They crashed into the wild melee that was being fed all the time by the arrival of newly armed ex-slaves who, with the pent-up rage of years of servitude freshly released, fought like feral beasts, uncaring of their own safety as they once again experienced the exhilaration of free will. The years spent chained to their oars, incarcerated in that dark dungeon, faded in an instant as they used their powerful limbs to maim and kill, their rotten teeth bared beneath long, matted beards, screaming, almost with joy, like furies.
Seeing that the pirates were being slowly pushed back at the bow Vespasian ran up the deck to where the other trireme had fastened itself, broadside on, with grappling hooks to the Thracian ship. Here the wider front meant that more of the attackers had been able to board and the fighting was less one-sided. Having seen what happens when you let rhomphaia-wielding Thracians get in amongst you the pirates had formed a shield wall. Crouching low behind their shields, ducking beneath the deadly sweeps of the rhomphaiai, they took slow, steady paces forward and were pushing back the crew and marines, who were having difficulty holding their ground. On the flank of the fight closest to him, next to the rail, Vespasian spotted Sabinus and Magnus, both with shields captured in the last fight, standing shoulder to shoulder pushing back at the pirates’ wall; Sabinus mechanically worked his blade whilst Magnus attempted to wield his rhomphaia one-handed. Vespasian rushed to join them, taking care not to slip on the blood that flowed freely on the deck, and pushed in between his brother and the rail; he held his shield firmly in front of him and began jab and thrust.
As the pirate line steadily advanced more of their mates were able to board behind, broadening it, until all sixty of the remaining crew were aboard, adding extra weight to the scrum and putting increasing pressure on the Thracians whose line was becoming thinner as it extended. A couple of the boarders had had their legs swept from under them and lay screaming on the deck, blood spurting from their freshly carved stumps, but otherwise their line remained intact.
‘This is no fucking good,’ Sabinus wheezed as he was forced to take another step back and almost losing his balance as the ship listed suddenly to its bow, ‘we’re sinking. We need to take their ship, not the other way round.’
‘We’ll wheel them so their backs are towards the other fight,’ Vespasian grunted as he stabbed again only to connect with a wooden shield. ‘Then the slaves could take them from behind.’
‘Or the pirates will just swarm all over the deck.’
‘Not if we co-ordinate it and do it very swiftly. Listen out for my shout then quickly give ground.’
Sabinus nodded; Vespasian disengaged and rushed around the rear of the melee. He found Gaidres with Sitalces and Drenis hacking down on the tightly packed shield wall with brutal swipes of their rhomphaiai but doing little to stop its slow advance.
‘Gaidres, with me,’ he shouted. ‘Sitalces, keep the left of the line firm when the right falls back.’
The huge Thracian shouted his acknowledgement and continued to beat ferociously down on the shield in front of him.
With Gaidres closely following, Vespasian ran, downhill, to the melee at the bow. Bodies littered the deck. The ex-slaves’ furious onslaught had driven the pirates back, with heavy losses on both sides, on to their ship. Here they were fighting desperately to prevent their wild, long-haired opponents from boarding them, whilst the trireme’s rowers backed oars in an effort to extricate the ram from the quinquereme’s hull.
‘Gaidres, I need at least fifty of our rowers to follow me; can you control them?’
‘I’ll try,’ the marine replied, looking nervously at the frenzied horde.
A high-pitched, teeth-chilling, rasping grate of wood scraping wood cut in above the screams and clash of weapons and the deck listed ominously; the trireme had released itself. With the support of the ram gone the quinquereme’s bow sagged lower into the water.