Shield of Thunder t-2 Read online

  All that remained was to choose the manner of her death. Piria held tight to the dagger Kalliades had given her. She had seen how sharp it was as she hacked away her hair. It would slice swiftly through her throat as the pirates advanced on her.

  Neither of the men spoke to her as they approached the squalid little settlement. What a place to die, she thought. A few filthy buildings erected around a well and farther off some twenty hastily built shacks to house the workers in the flax fields. An old dog stirred on the street as they approached, watching them warily. No one else was in sight.

  Kalliades walked to the well and sat down on the low wall at its rim. “I can smell fresh bread,” Banokles said, heading off toward one of the larger buildings. Piria thought about running, then saw a group of six pirates walking up from the beach. Banokles saw them, too, and with a curse returned to Kalliades’ side. The pirates glanced at one another, uncertain. Then they slowly approached, fanning out to form a semicircle around the well.

  “Where is Arelos?” Kalliades asked. One of the men, round-shouldered and thin, shrugged but did not reply. His hand was on his sword hilt. Piria saw that the others were watching him, waiting for an order to attack. Then Kalliades spoke to him again, his voice harsh and challenging. “Then go and find him, goat face. Tell him Kalliades has issued the challenge and will await him here.” The power and the contempt in his tone stunned them.

  “He’ll slice you into pieces,” said the thin man, more wary now.

  Kalliades ignored him. “I thought you were going to find bread,” he said to Banokles.

  “Bread? What about these sheep shaggers?” Banokles gestured toward the waiting pirates.

  “Let them find their own bread. Oh, and on your way, kill that goat-faced whoreson I told to fetch Arelos.”

  Banokles grinned and drew his sword.

  “Wait! Wait!” the pirate cried, stepping back several paces. “I am on my way.”

  “Be quick,” Kalliades ordered. “I am tired, I’m hungry, and I’m irritable.”

  The man sped away, heading back down toward the beach. Banokles pushed his way through the other pirates and walked off in search of the bakery.

  Piria stood very quietly, trying not to look at the remaining five men. But she could not avoid it and saw they were staring at her.

  “You cut her hair off?” one of the men asked Kalliades. He was short, with a round face and a flattened nose. “By the gods, she was plain as a rock before. Now she’s just plain ugly.”

  “I think she has great beauty,” Kalliades responded. “And a man with a face like a pig’s arse should think twice before talking of ugliness.” Several of the pirates chuckled. Even the insulted man grinned.

  “Well, ugly or not, I missed out on her yesterday,” he said. “You won’t object if we have a little fun before Arelos gets here?”

  “Oh, I object,” Kalliades said.

  “Why? She’s not yours.”

  Kalliades smiled. “We are walking the same road, she and I. You understand the Law of the Road?” The man shook his head. “It is a Mykene custom. Travelers in a hostile land agree to become brothers in arms for the duration of the journey. So an attack on her becomes an attack on me. Are you as skillful as Baros?”

  “No.”

  “Are any of you?”

  “Baros was a great fighter.”

  Kalliades shook his head. “No, he wasn’t. Not even average.”

  “Well, Arelos is a great swordsman,” the man said. “You’ll find that out soon enough.”

  “You think you can beat him?” another man asked. He was older than the others, and his thick arms showed the scars of many fights.

  “When I do, I might make you captain, Horakos,” Kalliades told him.

  Horakos laughed. “Not me. I don’t like giving orders. You might ask Sekundos. He’s a good man, knows the sea. You realize Arelos might not accept the challenge? He might just tell us to cut you down.”

  Kalliades said nothing. Banokles appeared, his arms laden with loaves. “Brought some extras, lads,” he said, passing out the food. The pirates sat down on the ground, Banokles among them. “Will you want my cuirass, Kalliades?”

  “No.”

  “Arelos will probably wear armor.”

  “No, he won’t,” Kalliades said, pointing back down toward the beach. Some thirty men were marching up the dusty road. At the center strode the powerful figure of Arelos.

  Piria watched them come and lifted her dagger. Arelos was almost as large as Banokles, his arms heavily muscled. He had a broad, flat face, flame-red hair, and deep-set green eyes that just now were blazing with anger. He wore no armor, but a sword belt was strapped to his waist.

  He halted a little way from Kalliades, who stood and spoke. “I challenge you, Arelos, for the right to lead the crew. As custom dictates, you may fight or you may accept my leadership.”

  “Kill him!” Arelos said, drawing his sword.

  Kalliades’ laughter rang out, the sound rich and merry and so inappropriate to the moment that it stopped them in their tracks. Then he spoke. “Your men predicted you’d be too gutless to fight me. They obviously know you better than I. Of course, now that we stand here facing one another, I can feel your fear. Tell me, how did a sheep-shagging coward become a captain of pirates?” As he spoke, Kalliades took a swift step toward Arelos. The pirate leader backed away.

  “I said kill him!” he screamed.

  “Wait! No one move!” Horakos shouted. Rising to his feet, he stared at Arelos. “You know the Law of the Sea. You cannot refuse a challenge from a crewman. If you do, you are leader no longer and we vote for a new captain.”

  “So,” Arelos said, staring hard at the man, “you have chosen to go against me, Horakos. When I have cut the heart from this Mykene, I will strangle you with your own entrails.” Swinging back toward Kalliades, he forced a laugh. “I hope the shag the whore gave you was worth it. Because now there is only pain. And when I’ve finished with you, I’ll cut her apart a joint at a time.”

  “No, you will not,” Kalliades said, his voice soft. “You know it in your heart, Arelos. You are about to walk the Dark Road, and your guts are turning to water.”

  With a roar of rage Arelos leaped to the attack.

  And Kalliades stepped in to meet him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE SACKER OF CITIES

  A short while earlier Sekundos the Kretan had watched Arelos stalk from the beach, almost half the men following him. He had not even been tempted to join them. Obviously they had located the runaways and were out for blood.

  Sekundos sat by the ashes of the previous night’s fire, his thoughts somber. He had been a pirate for more than a lifetime. He had outlived all five of his sons and one of his grandsons. Yet still, though his hair was now iron-gray and his limbs ached in the wet winter months, he had lost none of his love for the Great Green, the feel of the trade winds on his leathered features, the salt spray on his skin.

  He no longer fooled himself, as some of the younger men did, that piracy was a noble venture conducted by heroes. It was merely a way of ensuring food and clothing for his family and a little wealth to pass on to his heirs.

  Sekundos once had commanded three ships of his own, but ill weather had seen him lose two, and the third had been sunk the previous summer by the madman Helikaon—may the gods curse him! Sekundos’ last surviving son had been commanding the vessel at the time, and now his bones lay moldering below the Great Green. No man should outlive his children, Sekundos thought.

  Now, far in excess of sixty years of age, Sekundos had joined the crews of the loathsome Arelos. The man was lucky, which was why he had risen to command two ships, but as far as Sekundos was concerned, he was an idiot. True, he was a good swordsman, but he also reveled in murder and slaughter, which was not profitable. Captured men or women could be sold in the slave markets of Kretos or the cities of the eastern coast. Dead men were worth nothing.

  And Arelos had gathered around
him too many like-minded men, which led inevitably to scenes like the one the previous day, when they had captured a young woman who would have fetched as much as sixty silver rings in Kretos. First they had swarmed over her like wild animals, and now she was marked for death.

  Sekundos hated such stupidity.

  He had been cheered when the Mykene pair had joined the crew. Kalliades was a quiet man, but he had a brain, and the lout with him was strong and, Sekundos guessed, loyal. They were like the men he used to sail with, stalwart and steady. Now they, too, were to be killed.

  Thirty years earlier Sekundos would have waited for his moment and challenged Arelos to a duel for the right to captain the ships. Now he merely accepted his orders, hoping their luck would hold and he would return home for the winter laden with booty. Somehow he doubted it. Slave raids were always profitable, even though they did not yield the treasure gained by plundering ships carrying gold ingots or silver bars. Still, how many of those could Arelos guarantee in any season? Most of them sailed from the high eastern coasts, usually accompanied by a war galley for protection. And then there was Helikaon the Burner. Sekundos shivered at the thought of him.

  The previous year Helikaon had captured a pirate ship and burned it with the crew still on board, their hands lashed to the rails. Only an idiot like Arelos would consider sailing into Dardanian waters, haunt of Helikaon’s dread ship, the Xanthos.

  Idly Sekundos stirred the ashes of the fire with a stick, seeking glowing embers to feed a new blaze. When at last he had the fire going again, he sat beside it, the cold of the night still in his bones.

  Several of the older crewmen joined him by the fire. “Going to be a fine day,” said Molon, a stocky man of middle years. He handed Sekundos a chunk of stale black bread. “I would guess they found the Mykene pair. I hope they don’t drag them back here for torture.”

  “They won’t drag them anywhere,” Sekundos said. “You don’t take men like that alive.”

  Molon stared out over the hills. “They’ll kill the woman, too,” he said. “Waste of a good slave. A hundred silver rings, I reckon.”

  “More like sixty,” Sekundos said. “Wasn’t pretty enough to make more, even with the golden hair. And too tall. Kretans don’t like tall women.”

  “I’ll wager they don’t like throat cutters much, either,” remarked a thin, round-shouldered man with a wispy beard. He was young and new to the sea. Sekundos did not like him much.

  “Well, we wouldn’t tell them that, would we, Lochos?” replied Molon.

  “Surprising how word gets out,” the thin man said. “The whisper would go around the slave market even before the bidding started.”

  “Why do you think Kalliades did it?” Molon asked.

  Sekundos shrugged. “Maybe he just didn’t like Baros. For a copper ring I’d have gutted him myself.”

  Lochos laughed. “A copper ring—and the gods giving you forty years back, old man. Baros was a fine fighter.”

  “Not fine enough,” Molon put in. “They say Kalliades killed him in a heartbeat. Say what you like about Mykene warriors, you wouldn’t want to get in a scrap with one.”

  Another ship had beached the night before, its crew setting a cookfire some hundred paces farther along the rocky shoreline. It was an old vessel with a high curved prow, similar to the first ship Sekundos had owned. He gazed at it fondly, noting how well it had been cared for. Not a sign of barnacles, and there was fresh linseed oil on the timbers.

  “Arelos is thinking of taking her,” Lochos said. “Only about thirty in the crew.”

  Sekundos sighed. “You note the crimson eyes painted on the bow?”

  “Yes. What of it?”

  “It is the Penelope, out of Ithaka. You recall the stocky man with the wide golden belt and the red-gold beard? The first ashore late yesterday? That is Odysseus. They call him the man without enemies. A lot of young sailors think that’s because he is such an amusing storyteller. It is not. It is because when he was a young warrior, Odysseus killed all his enemies. Back in the days when he was known as the Sacker of Cities. Take a look at the big black man sitting sharpening knives. That is Bias. He can hurl a javelin with such power that it could damn near go right through a bony man like you, Lochos. And you see the blond giant by the fire? That is Leukon. Last summer he fought in the games at Pylos. He’s a fighter, and one blow from his fist would cave in your skull. There’s not one man in Odysseus’ crew who can’t be counted on when the thunder rolls. Take the Penelope? We’d lose more than half our men—and the rest would carry wounds.”

  “You say.” Lochos sneered. “But all I saw yesterday was a fat old man in a golden belt, and most of his crew look ancient and worn out—just like you. I could take him.”

  “I’ll enjoy watching you try,” Sekundos said, stretching and climbing slowly to his feet. “Of course you need to remember something.”

  “What’s that?” Lochos asked.

  Sekundos’ foot slammed into the seated man’s face, knocking him backward, blood spraying from his broken nose. He struggled to rise, but Sekundos leaped on him, hammering his fist twice more into the injured nose. Then Sekundos grabbed him by the throat and hauled him upright. “You need to remember that us old ones are sneaky bastards. Take Odysseus? He’d pin your ears back and swallow you whole. And what he shit out would be worth more than you are.” Sekundos threw the dazed man to the ground, then returned to his seat.

  “You are in a foul mood,” Molon said amiably.

  “No, I am in a good mood. If it was foul, I’d have cut his damned throat.”

  Just then one of the men pointed toward the settlement. “By the gods, isn’t that Kalliades?” he said.

  Sekundos lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunshine. Then he saw them: Kalliades, Banokles, and the girl, walking down toward them. The girl’s hair had been shorn away. Sekundos swore. “That’s another thirty silver rings off the price,” he said.

  “What is that he’s carrying?” Molon asked, pushing himself to his feet.

  Sekundos chuckled. “Clever lad. Should be interesting to see what happens next.”

  The three newcomers were followed onto the beach by a large number of the pirate crew, all keeping their distance. Sekundos waited. Kalliades walked up to the fire and tossed the severed head of Arelos to the sand.

  “We fought the duel,” Kalliades said.

  “So you are the captain now?” Sekundos asked.

  “I have no wish to be captain, Sekundos. Piracy does not suit me. Horakos nominated you.”

  “A great honor, I am sure, lad.” He stared hard at Kalliades. The man had a cut on his cheek that was dripping blood onto his tunic. “You’ll need some stitches in that.”

  “In a while.”

  “And we get the woman back?”

  “No. I keep her. You get the ships.” He glanced down at Lochos, who was lying on his back, holding a cloth to his bleeding nose. “What happened to him?”

  “He attacked my boot with his nose. You’ve got nerve, Kalliades. I’ll say that for you. What makes you think I won’t order the men to hack you to pieces and take the woman?”

  Kalliades shook his head. “You’d have to challenge me, Sekundos. The Law of the Sea. You want to challenge me?”

  Sekundos laughed. “No, lad. You can keep the woman. With her hair slashed like that she’s hardly worth the cost of feeding her.”

  “Whose ship is that?” Kalliades asked, pointing toward the Penelope.

  “Odysseus’.”

  “The storyteller. Always wanted to meet him.”

  “He tells a fine yarn,” Sekundos agreed. “But he doesn’t carry passengers for free.”

  “Then it’s as well that I robbed Arelos after killing him,” said Kalliades, tapping the heavy pouch hanging from his belt. “And now it is decision time for you, my friend. Do we wish each other well and walk away, or did you have other plans?”

  Sekundos considered the question. In reality he had no choice. He
was too old to challenge Kalliades. Then the thought struck him that he was too old to face any challenge. He swung toward the waiting pirates.

  “Do you lads wish to serve under me, or does any other man here want the command?”

  “We’ll serve you, Sekundos,” the thickset Horakos answered. “What are your orders?”

  “Make ready the ships,” he told them. “The wind is fair, and I smell plunder on the sea!” The pirates sent up a cheer and then moved off toward their ships. Sekundos gestured to Kalliades and led him away from the rest. “I do wish you well, lad,” he said, “but be wary of Odysseus. I happen to like the man, but he is—shall we say?—unpredictable. If he learns you are Mykene outlaws, he might just laugh and welcome you like brothers or turn you over to the first Mykene garrison he finds. He has a contradictory nature.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Kalliades told him.

  “Then remember this also: When you meet him, you’ll be reminded of a big old dog, friendly and excitable. Look into his eyes. You’ll see there is also a wolf there.”

  The dreams of Odysseus were troubled. A child was calling to him from beneath the waves, but Odysseus was unable to move. He realized he was tied to the mast of the Penelope. There was no one else on board, yet the oars lifted in unseen hands and cleaved the water in perfect unison. “I cannot reach you,” he shouted to the lost child.

  He awoke with a start to see the blond giant Leukon kneeling by his side. “Something you should see, Odysseus,” he said. Odysseus sucked in a great breath. His heart was still hammering, and his head ached from the surfeit of wine the night before. Pushing himself to his feet, he rubbed at his eyes, then glanced upward. The wind was fresh and gentle, the sky serenely blue. He looked along the beach. A group of pirates had gathered around a large campfire. Odysseus blinked and squinted.

  “That’s a head he’s just tossed beside the fire,” Leukon said. “By the color of the hair I’d say it might be Arelos.”

  “I thought Arelos was taller,” Odysseus muttered. Bias, who had moved alongside, laughed at the comment, but Leukon merely shook his head.