Troy 02 - Shield of Thunder Read Free Page B

said at last, “are you going to tell me why we killed four of our comrades?”
    “They weren’t our comrades. We were just sailing with them.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    “They were going to kill her, Banokles.”
    “I know that, too. I was there. What did that have to do with us?”
    Kalliades did not reply, but he glanced once more at the sleeping woman.
    He had first seen her only the previous day piloting a small sailboat, her fair hair gold in the sunlight and tied back from her face. She had been dressed in a white knee-length tunic with a belt embroidered with gold wire. The sun had been low in the sky, a light breeze propelling her craft toward the islands. She had seemed oblivious to the danger as the two pirate ships had closed on her. Then the first of the ships had cut across her bow. Too late she had tried to avoid capture, tugging at the sail rope, seeking to alter course and make a run for the beach. Kalliades had watched her from the deck of the second ship. There was no panic in her. But the little boat could not outrun galleys manned by skilled oarsmen.
    The first ship closed in, grappling lines hurled over the side, the bronze hooks biting into the timbers of her sailboat. Several pirates clambered over the side of the ship and jumped down into her craft. The woman tried to fight them, but they overpowered her, blows raining down on her body.
    “Probably a runaway,” Banokles remarked as the two of them watched the semiconscious woman being hauled to the deck of the first ship. From where they stood, on the deck of the second vessel, both men could see what followed. The crewmen gathered around her, tearing off her white tunic and ripping away the expensive belt. Kalliades turned away in disgust.
    The ships had beached that night on Lion’s Head Isle, on the sea route to Kios. The woman had been dragged across the beach and into a small stand of trees by the captain of the second ship, a burly Kretan with a shaved head. She had seemed docile then, her spirit apparently broken. It had been a ruse. As the captain had raped her, she somehow had managed to pull his dagger from its sheath and rip the blade across his throat. No one had seen it, and it was some time before his body was found.
    The furious crew had set off to search for her. Kalliades and Banokles had wandered away with a jug of wine. They had found a grove of olive trees and had sat quietly drinking.
    “Arelos was not a happy man,” Banokles had observed. Kalliades had said nothing. Arelos was the captain of the first ship and kinsman to the man slain by the runaway. He had built a reputation for savagery and swordcraft and was feared along the southern coasts. Given any other choice, Kalliades would never have sailed with him, but he and Banokles were hunted men. To stay in Mykene would have meant torture and death. The ships of Arelos had offered them a means of escape.
    “You are very quiet tonight. What is bothering you?” Banokles continued as they sat in the quiet of the grove.
    “We need to quit this crew,” Kalliades said. “Apart from Sekundos and maybe a couple of others, they are scum. It offends me to be in their company.”
    “You want to wait until we are farther east?”
    “No. We’ll leave tomorrow. Other ships will beach here. We’ll find a captain who will take us on. Then we’ll make our way to Lykia. Plenty of mercenary posts there, protecting trade caravans from bandits, escorting rich merchants.”
    “I’d like to be rich,” Banokles said. “I could buy a slave girl.”
    “If you were rich, you could buy a hundred slave girls.”
    “Not sure I could handle a hundred. Five, maybe.” He chuckled. “Yes, five would be good. Five plump dark-haired girls. With big eyes.” Banokles drank some more, then belched. “Ah, I can feel the spirit of Dionysus seeping into my bones. I wish one of those plump girls was here now.”
    Kalliades laughed. “Your mind is always occupied by either drink or sex.