"The way they was running," snarled Bias, "they won't stop short of Kameiros."
The pressure from behind forced the foremost Antigonians forward. They were pushed upon us willy-nilly, thrusting furiously with their spears. One of our men went down with a scream and a gurgle. The next instant a spear point, darting out of the dark like a serpent's tongue, pierced my right leg below the knee. Feeling the sting of the steel, I struck at the man who had speared me and missed. As I put my weight on the wounded leg, it folded under me.
Down I went. A spear point glanced off my helmet; another was stopped by my leathern corselet. There was a confusion of legs all around me. I seemed to be alone in a forest of bronze-greaved Antigonian limbs, all tramping past me.
Then came a great yelling. The greaved legs stumbled back towards the penthouse. A tall figure loomed into the feeble lantern light, swinging a sword twice the length of mine and uttering hideous cries in the gargling Keltic tongue. I did not have to see the red mustache to recognize my former slave. The long sword flashed in the lantern light; an Antigonian cried out and fell off the mole with a splash. Others followed Kavaros.
Somebody caught my ankles and pulled me out of the press. At the base of the mole they hauled me to my feet.
"Are you still alive?" someone asked.
"I hope so," I said.
"Good. You don't look it, with that blood all over you."
They had fetched back the bodies of several more who had fallen in the fight for the mole, but I seemed the only one still living. Rhodian soldiers, summoned by trumpet blasts, were streaming out the harbor gate and hastening to the base of the mole, where Eros stood. Officers strove to get them into order.
The group that had rushed the Antigonians now fell back to the base of the mole. Some began gathering stones and timbers and building a barricade across the mole, a few paces out from its base.
The Antigonians, meanwhile, held off. They now held nine-tenths of the mole, including the two penthouses. For a while they stood in a bristling line across the mole, shields and spears at ready. Then the line broke and retreated. Behind them other Antigonians had also been erecting a barricade, using the benches and other simple furniture that we had placed in the penthouses, and stones pried up from the paving of the mole.
Darkness overhung the two groups of men, lightened fitfully by torches and lanterns. There was a buzz of talk, the grunting and panting of men moving heavy weights, and the thump of stones and timbers dropped into place.
Bias found me and looked at the wound in my leg. He said: "Here, Onas! Help Chares back and tie him up; then report to me."
With one arm about the stalwart Egyptian's neck, I hobbled back to his house in downtown Rhodes. His wife, Nembto, cleansed my wound with healing herbs and bound it up. Despite the ache that soon set in, I caught a little sleep before dawn—sleep, however, in which I dreamt that a shark was slowly chewing off my leg, all the while making love to me in King Demetrios' voice.
The fog was turning to pearl when I was awakened. Onas was there with Berosos and two others of the crew to carry me home on a litter made of spear shafts. We had not yet reached home when trumpets blew from all quarters. My friends did the last block to my house at a trot, summoned my parents, stammered hasty explanations, and ran off to take up their duties.
My mother almost fainted when she saw me, for my clothes and I had been drenched with Antigonian blood and I had washed off but little of it at Onas' house. Both parents made a great fuss over me. I realized that, in their own ways, they really loved me more than my cross-grained nature deserved from them.
Now the fog was lifting. I said: "Dear ones, please get me to the roof, where I can see!"
"Don't be silly, son," they exclaimed in the same breath. Despite my protests, my father and Sosias bore me off to bed and propped me up with pillows. My father said:
"Stop fidgeting like a fresh-caught fish, Chares! If you're not careful, you'll start your wound bleeding again. I will personally go up to the roof from time to time and bring you a report on the battle."
I ate a little and slept a little, in spite of the fact that, by straining an ear, I could plainly hear the cries and crashes of the growing battle. When my father came in again, he said:
"Several hundred of Demetrios' men hold the mole and the catapults on it, which they have turned about to face the shore. They've also moored to the mole two engines, each made up of a pair of ships lashed together and a wooden platform, bearing several powerful catapults. With these engines they have driven our men back from the waterfront. Now I must see to the foundry. I'll tell you more later."
It would take more than a mere battle to distract my father for long from the careful and efficient operation of his establishment. Later in the day he resumed his account:
"Demetrios' whole fleet is attacking the harbor. Herakles, but the man has ingenious ideas! First comes a pair of triremes pushing a boom of logs studded with spikes, to protect his ships from a sudden sortie by our little fleet. Then come two more sea engines, each of which is a tower mounted on a pair of hulls. Lastly come a swarm of small craft bearing troops and more catapults."
"Ye gods, could I only be there to strike one blow for my city!" I cried, twisting on my bed. "How are we doing?"
"It's too early to tell. When I came down, missiles were flying like raindrops from both sides."
"Father!" I said. "Tell Mother to put up some lunches and have the slaves take them down to the harbor and give them to Onas. This will be a long day and my crew will be hungry-"
"Aye-aye, sir!" said my father with a twinkle. "We're hampered by having only one man slave, Sosias, and he is out looking for a physician for you. But I'll see that your crew is fed."
"I don't need a physician for this scratch," I said. "And what's become of the other servants?"
"Kion and Daos have enlisted, and Pontikos has disappeared. Now lie quietly. As long as you're wounded, I'm your commanding officer."
I lay unhappily while my mother read to me to take my mind off the ache in my leg and the distant uproar. But even the duel between fleet Achilleus and noble Hektor seemed petty and amateurish compared to the mighty struggle now raging.
My father came in before dinner, wearing his old cuirass and looking haggard. He explained:
"Word was sent for the reservists to stand by, though happily we weren't needed. By the gods and spirits, though, for a time I thought we were done for! Demetrios' sea towers were pushed up to the waterfront by triremes. Then his archers in the towers drove our men from the harbor wall, which they overtopped."
"What saved us?"
"Incendiary darts from our catapults. We got a nice little fire blazing on one of the towers, and both were pulled back. Now Demetrios has settled down to a heavy bombardment of the harbor wall with his stone throwers. That's the booming you hear."
My mother felt my forehead. "He has a fever, Nikon. We simply must get Doctor Heron."
"Sosias has been looking for him for hours," said my father. "But all the physicians are busy at the walls. We shall have to depend on prayer and common sense."
There came a knocking on the outer door. It was Kavaros, with dents in his helmet, a bandage around his left arm, and a glow in his eyes.
"Ah, young sir, it is living again that I am," he said. "Was it not you that was pulled out by the feet, this morning in that shindy on the mole?"
"Yes. Where did you get that whopping great barbarian sword?"
Kavaros pulled out the blade. "Indeed and a better tool for fighting it is than these little choppers you use, which do be good only for cutting up a piece of meat into hash for the old people who have no teeth left. One of my officers, who picked it up in Ulyria, gave it to me. But not so well made is it as those of the Tektosages, which have more spring to the blade. Now, let me think, I came here for some reason. Oh, Battery-leader Bias wants Master Chares at the armory to help him sort the arrows and sling bullets and things they are picking up."