The Gryphon's Skull

“Same trick we pulled on the trireme, eh?” After a moment's thought, the oarmaster dipped his head. “Worth a try. Safer than ramming, that's certain.”

Another sailor on the Aphrodite—not a man pulling an oar— screeched and crumpled, clutching his leg. The hemiolia was terrifyingly close now, her oars rising and falling, rising and falling in smooth unison. Seeing how well the pirates rowed worried Menedemos. With a crew like that and a fast, fast ship, their skipper could make plans of his own. If he swerved at the last instant. . .

“Portside oars—in!” Diokles bellowed. At the same time, the pirate ship's keleustes roared out an order of his own. And, at the same time as the Aphrodite's, portside rowers brought their oars inboard, so did the hemiolia's. Neither hull crushed the other ship's oars beneath it; neither set of rowers had arms broken and shoulders dislocated as oars flew out of control.

But the men who would have sat at the rear of the hemiolia's upper bank of oars had none to serve once the ship's mast was stowed. As the two ships passed close enough to spit from one to the other, several of them flung grappling hooks at the Aphrodite.

“Cut those lines! Cut them, by the gods!” Menedemos shouted.

Suddenly locked together in an embrace of anything but love, the two galleys pivoted around a common axis. The Aphrodite's sailors frantically hacked at the ropes attached to the grapples, while the pirates hauled on those lines and drew the ships closer together yet.

With wild cries that hardly sounded like Greek at all, the first pirates leaped across three or four cubits of open water and onto the merchant galley.

Sostratos shot one last arrow at the shouting men aboard the hemiolia, then set down Menedemos' bow, yanked his sword from the scabbard, and rushed to join the fight in the waist of the Aphrodite, “Dung-eating, temple-robbing whoresons!” he screamed, and swung the sword in an arc of iron at a pirate who was kicking a sailor in the face.

The blade bit between neck and shoulder. Blood spurted. It stank like hot iron. The pirate let out a horrible screech. He whirled toward Sostratos, who stabbed him in the belly. The fellow crumpled. Sostratos stepped on him to get at the next foe.

Madness in a very small space—that was how Sostratos remembered the fight afterwards. The Aphrodite's crew by itself crowded the akatos. Having twice as many men aboard the ship meant, in essence, that no one had room for anything but seizing the closest foe and trying to kill him. Even telling who was friend and who foe wasn't easy; one of the Aphrodite's sailors almost brained Sostratos with a belaying pin.

“Aphrodite!” he shouted over and over. “Aphro—oof!” A pirate who'd lost whatever weapon he carried punched him in the belly. He folded up, then made himself straighten, more by sheer force of will than anything else. If I go down, they'll trample me to death, he thought.

He grabbed at the nearest man to steady himself. It was another pirate: the fellow had a big gold hoop in each ear, wearing his wealth thus instead of in rings. Sostratos didn't have room to use his sword—hanging on to it was hard enough. But his left hand was free. He took hold of one of those rings and yanked with all his strength. The ring tore free. The pirate roared in pain. The earring remained on Sostratos' index finger.

Well, I just made a profit on the day, he thought: the first foolish thing that popped into his head. Now I have to see if I live long enough to enjoy it. That, unfortunately, made more sense.

When the press cleared a little, he traded sword strokes with another pirate. It was nothing like practice in the gymnasion. The Aphrodite pitched and rolled underfoot as the waves and the surge of men, now here, now there, made her rock. Sailors and pirates ah1 around were pushing and shoving and shouting and cursing. Sostratos worried about a knife in the back almost as much as he did about the blade with which the fellow in front of him was trying to drink his life.

The pirate, who wore a crestless bronze helmet, a sword belt, and nothing else, had ferocity but no great skill. He beat Sostratos' sword aside when the Rhodian thrust at his chest. Sostratos' next blow, though, took him in the side of the head. That helm kept his skull unsplit, but he staggered even so. Sostratos sprang forward and pushed with all his strength. Arms flailing, the pirate went over the rail and fell into the Aegean.