Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities by Christian Cameron

Athens as was possible. A glut was fine. A glut would mean low prices and exports. But he couldn’t force events. He could only manipulate them.
    Dionysus shrugged, and his chins wobbled. ‘You know perfectly well that we sell our grain to Athens,’ he said. ‘You argued for the policy, and you pushed me to support Antigonus. Now he has all the warships. Surely my grain fleet can proceed as it would?’
    Stratokles shook his head. ‘If only it were so simple,’ he began.
    ‘Don’t patronise me, Athenian!’ Dionysus shot back. ‘Dekas can’t really control the pirates, is what you mean. Or he may not want to control them. So we need young Achilles out there to help us punch through the straits.’
    Stratokles nodded. ‘My lord, that is exactly what I mean.’
    Dionysus nodded, and the nod spread over the fat of his body like ripples spreading in a pool from a thrown rock. ‘So – if that’s the situation, where is young Satyrus?’
    At this question, Amastris looked up. ‘Exactly. Where is he?’
    Dionysus pointed out over the mole. ‘His ships have been there all night, but the boy has yet to come ashore. And Nestor says that some of the ships have slipped away.’
    Stratokles felt a touch of ice in his spine. ‘Slipped away?’ he asked. He walked to the edge of the balcony and looked out over the bay.
    His self-control was excellent, but it didn’t prevent a single, sharp curse.
    ‘Well?’ Dionysus asked.
    Stratokles didn’t need to count the ships riding at anchor in the strong spring sun. He had been guilty of seeing what he expected to see. He shook his head. ‘My lord, Satyrus has taken his warships and gone.’
    ‘Gone where ?’ Amastris asked. The whine in her voice boded ill for her maids – and for her intelligencer.
    Stratokles shook his head. ‘He didn’t ask for your fleet?’ he asked the tyrant.
    ‘Satyrus of Tanais hasn’t even been ashore,’ Nestor said from the door.
    Nine hundred stades to the south and west, Satyrus’ entire war fleet, minus just two triremes away at Olbia, rode under oars in the last light of the sun, their masts struck down on deck. Behind them were all six of the gargantuan Athenian-built grain ships.
    ‘Well,’ Diokles said, watching the sky, ‘the weather’s with us. Any last thoughts?’
    Satyrus looked around the deck of Arête at all of his other captains – Neiron himself, Sandakes and Akes and Gelon of Sicily. ‘Let’s sacrifice,’ Satyrus said. He went into the stern – still feeling as if he was walking across the agora, his flagship was so big – to where the altar of Poseidon was set into the rise of the stern boards that covered the head and back of the helmsman. Satyrus took the lead of a young kid, a black one, and looked into its eyes. The animal had perfect horns and bright eyes, and it looked at him—
    He drew and slashed its throat in one trained movement, then stepped slightly to the side to let the blood flow past him, and the priest of Poseidon, Leosthenes, caught the blood in a bowl. Then the priest used his own knife to open the animal.
    He looked at the entrails carefully, rubbing the liver back and forth between his hands. He put his nose down and smelled it – not something that Satyrus had seen before from a priest. Then he nodded.
    ‘Victory,’ he said. ‘Complete, entire and yours, lord.’
    Satyrus was not used to hearing such emphatic pronouncements. ‘May you be correct,’ Satyrus said.
    The priest cut the liver free from the animal and raised it, still dripping blood. He turned to the sailors, oarsmen and marines who waited a respectful distance down the deck. On an older ship, they couldn’t have approached even this close as there’d have been no deck to stand on, only a gangway over the rowers’ benches.
    ‘Victory!’ the priest shouted.
    The men roared, and on twenty other ships, they took up the cry.
    Night, and full darkness. Satyrus’ Arête led the way, with the tide running hard out of the