Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities by Christian Cameron Page B

darkness.
    He was answered with a murmur – almost a growl.
    ‘Dark out there,’ Satyrus said, enunciating like a trained orator. That’s why they train you , he thought. So that your voice carries in the assembly – or the oar decks . ‘We’re going after the pirate fleet in the dark,’ he said, slowly and carefully. ‘We’ll be landing our marines to take the town. If we win, every man here will share in the loot. Understand?’
    This time, the answering growl was loud, like that of an animal ready to leap. Some men said, ‘Do the thing!’ and others merely grunted, ‘That’s right.’
    An older thranite at Satyrus’ left hand barked a laugh. ‘We heard the omen,’ he said. ‘Silver in our hands!’
    Satyrus slapped him on the back and climbed the short ladder to the main deck. It was brighter towards the stern – a triangle of oil lamps had been lit – fifteen lamps, carefully primed and maintained half the night for this moment. In less than a hundred heartbeats, similar lamps were kindled on all the rest of the ships, so that Satyrus’ small fleet seemed to glow.
    ‘Battle pace,’ Neiron said to the drummer who kept the oar beat. On a ship as big as the Arête , the oar master couldn’t keep the stroke by voice alone. Before he finished speaking, the ship seemed to cough – a short, sharp scrape as sixty-two upper-deck oars were run out of their oar ports together.
    The drum had been silent as they crept down the channel, but now, on all the ships, drums rolled.
    The oars slid out and bent as the full crew pulled on them.
    Even the Arête , easily the biggest ship in the squadron, leaped ahead.
    Satyrus went forward and leaned out over the ram, watching the water flow by, feeling the speed and power of his ship. His eyes flicked over the big ballistae, unmanned and encased in painted canvas. Too dark for shooting; but he longed to use them.
    Neiron was at the steering oars, and he took the big ship in first. The original intention had been to clear any opposition, but there wasn’t a single enemy ship manned, and now the Arête swept forward, the deepest hull and the most likely to run aground. They steered for the beach, passing just inshore of the moored warships, tied in long rows with heavy canvas thrown loosely over their rowing benches.
    ‘Pirates,’ Satyrus said, with contempt. ‘Bastards can’t even be bothered to maintain the ships they use to prey on others.’ But in his mind he saw men hiding under that loosely flung canvas.
    Helios choked something in the dark. The young man had been taken by pirates as a boy. Left to himself, he’d have killed every pirate on the sea. He, at least, was entirely in favour of his master’s choice of campaign.
    A stade from the shore, and there was shouting in the town. Men were running onto the beach, calling out in fear.
    ‘Rowed of all!’ called the oar master from amidships. Satyrus wasn’t commanding anything this night – or rather, he was commanding everything. He had his armour on, and a cloak, and once they were ashore he’d take command. But he was letting his beautiful ship have her first fight in the hands of other men, and he wanted to leap in and shout orders, ram an empty ship for the sheer joy of it—
    ‘Brace!’ Neiron called from the steering oars, and all the marines and deck crewmen caught hold of something.
    The ram clipped one of the beached warships, bow to bow, except that Arête ’s ram towered over the smaller ship the way an elephant towers over a horse, and the beached pirate ship had her bow crushed as if she were made of paper. Then the bigger ship ground to a halt, cushioned by the shattering of the smaller ship’s frames and sewn planks.
    Satyrus rose from his brace, put his helmet on his head and toggled the cheekpieces under his chin.
    ‘Marines!’ he called, and Draco roared behind him, and then they were pouring over the bow into the stricken vessel and racing down her central catwalk, using the