Read Online Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmell - Free Book Online

line of the ship. “You are right. She is moving well. I must ask Khalkeus about it. But first I will speak to our passengers.” Helikaon leapt down the three steps to the main deck and crossed to where the Mykene passengers were standing.
    Even from his vantage point on the rear deck and unable to hear the conversation, Zidantas could tell the elder Mykene hated Helikaon. He stood stiffly, his right hand fingering the hilt of his short sword, his face impassive. Helikaon seemed oblivious to the man’s malevolence. Zidantas saw him chatting, apparently at ease. When at last Helikaon moved away, seeking out Khalkeus at the prow, the bearded Mykene stared after him with a look of anger.
    Zidantas was worried. He had argued against the decision two days earlier when Helikaon had agreed to allow the Mykene to take passage to Troy. “Let them take the
Mirion,
” he had said. “I’ve been watching them overload her with copper. She’ll wallow like a drunken sow. They’ll either be sick the whole voyage or end up dining with Poseidon.”
    “I built the
Xanthos
for cargo
and
passengers,” Helikaon had said. “And Argurios is an ambassador heading for Troy. It would be discourteous to refuse him passage.”
    “Discourteous? We’ve sunk three Mykene galleys now. They hate you.”
    “
Pirate
galleys,” Helikaon corrected. “And the Mykene hate almost everyone. It is their nature.” His blue eyes had grown paler, his expression hardening.
    Zidantas knew that look well, and it always chilled his blood. It brought back memories of blood and death best left locked away in the deep vaults of the subconscious.
    The
Xanthos
powered on. Zidantas leaned in to the steering oar. The ship felt good beneath his feet, and he began to wonder if indeed the Madman from Miletos might have been right. He fervently hoped so.
    Just then he heard one of the crewmen shout: “Man in the water!”
    Zidantas scanned the sea to starboard. At first he saw nothing in the vast emptiness. Then he caught sight of a length of driftwood sliding between the troughs of the waves.
    A man was clinging to it.

V
    THE MAN FROM THE SEA
    I
    Gershom no longer had any lasting sense of where he was or of the links between dreams and reality. The skin of his shoulders and arms had been blistered by the sun; his hands clenched the wood in a death grip he could no longer feel. Voices whispered in his mind, urging him to let go, to know peace. He ignored them.
    Visions swam across his eyes: birds with wings of fire, a man carrying a staff that slithered in his hands, becoming a hooded serpent; a three-headed lion with a scaled body. Then he saw hundreds of young men cutting and crafting a great block of stone. One by one they laid their bodies against it. Slowly they sank into the stone as if it were water. At last all Gershom could see were hands with questing fingers seeking to escape the tomb of rock they had crafted. And the voices continued ceaselessly. One sounded like his grandfather, stern and unforgiving. Another was his mother, pleading with him to behave like a lord, not some drunken oaf. He tried to answer her, but his lips were cracked, his tongue nothing but a dried stick in his mouth. Then came the voice of his little brother, who had died the previous spring: “Be with me, kinsman. It is so lonely here.”
    He might have given in then, but the driftwood tilted and his bloodshot eyes opened. He saw a black horse floating over the sea. After a while he felt something touch his body and opened his eyes. A powerful bald-headed man with a forked beard was floating alongside him. Gershom recognized him but could not remember from where.
    “He is alive!” he heard the man shout. “Throw down a rope.” Then the man spoke to him. “You can let go now. You are safe.”
    Gershom clung on. No dream voices were going to lure him to his death.
    The driftwood thumped against the side of a ship. Gershom looked up at the bank of oars above him. Men were leaning