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.I stepped on his throat and blocked a blow meant for Lekthes, then one of the Aeolians doubled up my opponent with a vicious blow to the man’s stomach and they broke.We hunted them through the boat, and killed them all.It isn’t pretty to say it but, with a wind rising and the peril of mutiny and the blood hot, we didn’t take any prisoners.Syrian Phoenicians can’t hide among Greeks, and we weren’t too fussy about who had carried a broken oar shaft and who hadn’t.When I came back aft, my arm still numb and my feet as red with the blood as if I’d been treading grapes in Boeotia, I found four more Phoenicians clustered around the helmsman’s bench.Their pointed beards gave them away.I raised my arm to kill them and the nearest put up his arm to protect himself.‘Stop!’ the Nubian demanded.‘Stop it!’ He tried to catch my arm, and I socked him in the face with my sword fist.He fell back into the steering rig and the ship yawed.His nose pumped blood but he was back on his feet.‘Stop it! Or Poseidon will take us!’ he said.That got through my blood-drunk head.‘They’re trying to surrender!’ he said again.‘Zeus Soter, lord! These are noblemen, worth ransom.This one was my navarch.Stop it!’ He was screaming at me while leaning all his weight on the oars, and I saw that while I’d been slaughtering Syrians, the wind had come up.‘Get forward,’ I said to the four Phoenicians.‘Throw the bodies over the side.’ I knew it was heartless, but the bastards had tried to take my ship and I suspected that these four fine noblemen were just as guilty – or more guilty.After the slaughter of forty Syrians, we were down to half a compliment of rowers.The coast was nowhere in sight and the wind was shifting around.My new helmsman looked at me as if he thought I was mad.I looked at him as if he was a traitor.‘You seem awfully friendly with the Phoenicians,’ I said.I’d broken his nose.He shook his head to clear it.‘I don’t know who the fuck you are,’ he said, ‘with your barbaric Greek and your murderous temper, but we all used to be friends with the merchants of Tyre.I’ve traded with them all my life.’There was something funny about a black man in an Asian chiton telling me that I was a barbarian.I laughed.‘You are a brave man,’ I said.‘Fuck your mother,’ he growled.‘We’re all going to die anyway.’ He spat over the side.‘You just killed the whole lower oar deck.We don’t have the manpower to beach the ship.’I laughed again.‘We’ll stay at sea, then.Nothing to fear from a night at sea.’ I laughed, and pointed at the blood running out of the oar ports.‘Poseidon has had his share of sacrifices,’ I said.His eyes said that he didn’t agree.‘And the ship is rid of vermin,’ I added.If I was going to play the mad captain, I’d play it to the hilt.Even the Cretans were different in the morning.They might still be useless, but now they were terrified of me, and that made them better sailors.Paramanos got us in with the coast of Asia – the long east – west reach south of Aeolis and west of Lydia, full of pirates and dangerous rocks.But he knew that coast, and we ran west with the new storm at our backs all night, and morning showed the teeth of the mountains dead ahead.‘Unless we row south,’ Paramanos said, ‘we’re dead men.’I agreed, so I had all three decks rowing – well, at least the two I could man – in the grey rain, and we had the sea broadside on, pouring through the oar ports and pushing us steadily west for all the southing that we made, which was precious little.Some time in that endless grey day, I sent the deck crew to row, and even gave orders for the handful of armed Aeolians who still stood by to serve wine to every man, strip their armour and take up an oar.My left arm was still numb, and even in the rain I could see a bruise as black as the darkest night where the oar had hit me, but I knew that I had to row.Leadership is an odd thing – sometimes you want your men to fear you as they fear the gods, at others you need them to love you like a long-lost brother.So I settled to an upper-deck bench, and for the first time I could see how much water was swirling down in the hold below me.My stomach clenched.We were a third full of water, and if the Phoenicians had still been manning the lower benches, they’d have been drowning.I called to the Nubian and told him that we were full of water.I could see him smile at my ignorance.He was conning the ship – of course he would know just how sluggish we were.Truly, I was a piss-poor commander.I had too much to learn.It was a Phoenician ship, and it had tackle I didn’t understand [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.I stepped on his throat and blocked a blow meant for Lekthes, then one of the Aeolians doubled up my opponent with a vicious blow to the man’s stomach and they broke.We hunted them through the boat, and killed them all.It isn’t pretty to say it but, with a wind rising and the peril of mutiny and the blood hot, we didn’t take any prisoners.Syrian Phoenicians can’t hide among Greeks, and we weren’t too fussy about who had carried a broken oar shaft and who hadn’t.When I came back aft, my arm still numb and my feet as red with the blood as if I’d been treading grapes in Boeotia, I found four more Phoenicians clustered around the helmsman’s bench.Their pointed beards gave them away.I raised my arm to kill them and the nearest put up his arm to protect himself.‘Stop!’ the Nubian demanded.‘Stop it!’ He tried to catch my arm, and I socked him in the face with my sword fist.He fell back into the steering rig and the ship yawed.His nose pumped blood but he was back on his feet.‘Stop it! Or Poseidon will take us!’ he said.That got through my blood-drunk head.‘They’re trying to surrender!’ he said again.‘Zeus Soter, lord! These are noblemen, worth ransom.This one was my navarch.Stop it!’ He was screaming at me while leaning all his weight on the oars, and I saw that while I’d been slaughtering Syrians, the wind had come up.‘Get forward,’ I said to the four Phoenicians.‘Throw the bodies over the side.’ I knew it was heartless, but the bastards had tried to take my ship and I suspected that these four fine noblemen were just as guilty – or more guilty.After the slaughter of forty Syrians, we were down to half a compliment of rowers.The coast was nowhere in sight and the wind was shifting around.My new helmsman looked at me as if he thought I was mad.I looked at him as if he was a traitor.‘You seem awfully friendly with the Phoenicians,’ I said.I’d broken his nose.He shook his head to clear it.‘I don’t know who the fuck you are,’ he said, ‘with your barbaric Greek and your murderous temper, but we all used to be friends with the merchants of Tyre.I’ve traded with them all my life.’There was something funny about a black man in an Asian chiton telling me that I was a barbarian.I laughed.‘You are a brave man,’ I said.‘Fuck your mother,’ he growled.‘We’re all going to die anyway.’ He spat over the side.‘You just killed the whole lower oar deck.We don’t have the manpower to beach the ship.’I laughed again.‘We’ll stay at sea, then.Nothing to fear from a night at sea.’ I laughed, and pointed at the blood running out of the oar ports.‘Poseidon has had his share of sacrifices,’ I said.His eyes said that he didn’t agree.‘And the ship is rid of vermin,’ I added.If I was going to play the mad captain, I’d play it to the hilt.Even the Cretans were different in the morning.They might still be useless, but now they were terrified of me, and that made them better sailors.Paramanos got us in with the coast of Asia – the long east – west reach south of Aeolis and west of Lydia, full of pirates and dangerous rocks.But he knew that coast, and we ran west with the new storm at our backs all night, and morning showed the teeth of the mountains dead ahead.‘Unless we row south,’ Paramanos said, ‘we’re dead men.’I agreed, so I had all three decks rowing – well, at least the two I could man – in the grey rain, and we had the sea broadside on, pouring through the oar ports and pushing us steadily west for all the southing that we made, which was precious little.Some time in that endless grey day, I sent the deck crew to row, and even gave orders for the handful of armed Aeolians who still stood by to serve wine to every man, strip their armour and take up an oar.My left arm was still numb, and even in the rain I could see a bruise as black as the darkest night where the oar had hit me, but I knew that I had to row.Leadership is an odd thing – sometimes you want your men to fear you as they fear the gods, at others you need them to love you like a long-lost brother.So I settled to an upper-deck bench, and for the first time I could see how much water was swirling down in the hold below me.My stomach clenched.We were a third full of water, and if the Phoenicians had still been manning the lower benches, they’d have been drowning.I called to the Nubian and told him that we were full of water.I could see him smile at my ignorance.He was conning the ship – of course he would know just how sluggish we were.Truly, I was a piss-poor commander.I had too much to learn.It was a Phoenician ship, and it had tackle I didn’t understand [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]