Read Online Tyrant: King of the Bosporus by Christian Cameron - Free Book Online

said. ‘We’re thirty long parasangs from a friendly town – we’re in enemy country. Even if we can walk through the delta to Tomis, we’ll need every scrap of food in this hull – and our weapons and armour. I need to beach
Falcon
right.’
    ‘And you want to save him, don’t you?’ Diokles said. He nodded.
    ‘Marker on the beach!’ the lookout shouted. ‘Marker and some sort of stream entrance – might be a channel.’
    Satyrus and Diokles shared a glance. Even the entrance of a small stream cutting through the sand would make a channel – allow them to beach the hull where it could be saved.
    Satyrus raced forward, leaped up the standing shrouds and made the
Falcon
roll as he leaned out.
    ‘There you go, sir!’ the lookout said. Satyrus followed his out-thrust arm and saw a cairn of rocks in the rising sun, and just past it, a stream that glowed like a river of fire coming off the high bluffs beyond, and a trace of smoke on the wind.
    Satyrus nodded. ‘Good eye,’ he said, and slid down the stay to the deck, burning his hands and the inside of his thighs in his haste.
    ‘Keep calling the course,’ he shouted up to the lookout.
    ‘Aye!’ the lookout called.
    Diokles had the oar.
    ‘Put us ashore,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’ll con from the bow.’
    ‘If that stream has a sandbar, we’ll never get across it,’ Diokles said.
    ‘Let’s get the sail off him and then we’ll make our throw with Tyche.’ Satyrus gave the orders, and the boatsail came down with reck less efficiency. Every man aboard was aware of how close they were to disaster, even with the shore in sight.
    ‘Make your course due east,’ Satyrus said, as the deck crew were folding the boatsail, their heads turning constantly as they watched the bow’s opening seams and the looming beach.
    ‘Into the sun, aye,’ Diokles said. ‘Helios, be our guide, bright warrior.’
    ‘Bow-on to the creek!’ the lookout shouted.
    ‘Shoaling fast!’ came the voice of the man with the porpoise in the bow. ‘I can see the bottom!’
    ‘Sandbar,’ Diokles managed before the jolt.
    The sandbar hit them like a strong man landing a glancing blow on a shield – it rocked them but they kept their feet, and they heard the bar whisper along the length of the hull, the ship’s momentum driving him over, probably digging a furrow in the old mud as they drove on, the bow now flooding too fast to be saved.
    ‘He’s going,’ Diokles said through clenched teeth.
    ‘No, he’ll last the race,’ Satyrus said. ‘Every man aft! Now!’ Satyrus had been waiting until the stern gave the anticipated dip of coming off that sandbar, and he felt it, like a rider feels the weight change in a horse about to jump. ‘Aft! For your lives!’
    The deck crew pounded aft and the rest of the crew followed, somewhere between discipline and panic, and the bow rose out of the water – not by much, but up he came, the ugly scars of the lost ram and the heavy beam ends showing wet, like the bones from an amputation.
    Diokles grinned at him. ‘That was slick. You’re a quick learner and no mistake,’ he said.
    Bow up, stern down, they glided another ship’s length into the mouth of the creek, and then another, and then with a sigh, the keel grated, slid and stuck. The cessation of movement was so gradual that not a man lost his footing.
    ‘Zeus Soter!’ Satyrus shouted, and every oarsman and sailor gave the cry.
    The deck crew scrambled ashore with ropes and they got the oarsmen off, straight over the side and on to the beach where the stream cut it, men kneeling to kiss the ground and making prayers to the gods as they touched, other men making sure of their equipment.
    It took them half an hour to get everyone on the beach, to set up a hasty encampment. Theron took a pair of marines and set off up the beach to see if the smell of smoke would reveal a farmhouse.
    Satyrus watched the
Falcon
settle in four feet of water with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was