The Gryphon's Skull

“A pestilence!” Mencdernos exclaimed as the vessel emerged fromthe concealment of a headland on the northern coast of Andros and raced toward the Aphrodite.

“What do we do now?” Sostratos said. “Maybe we should have tried coming through yesterday afternoon.”

“Bastard was probably lurking here then, too,” Menedemos said. “There aren't many honest uses for a hemiolia, anyhow.” The two-banked galley was short and lean and one of the swiftest things afloat. Her crew had already taken down the mast and stowed it abaft of the permanent rowing benches of the upper bank.

“Turn towards 'em and try and scare 'em off?” Diokles asked.

“That's what I'm going to do,” Menedemos answered. “They can't have a crew much bigger than ours, so why would they want to mix it up?” He swung the Aphrodite

into a tight turn toward the hemiolia. “Up the stroke, if you please.”

“Right you are, skipper.” The keleustes smote the bronze square more quickly still, shouting, “Come on, boys! Put your backs into it! Let's make that polluted vulture run for his nest!”

“I hope he will run,” Sostratos said quietly.

“So do I,” Menedemos answered. The hemiolia gave no sign of sheering off. Its rowers worked their oars at least as smoothly as those of the Aphrodite. The men whose benches had been taken up to give room to stow the mast and yard now stood by the gunwale, ready—or acting ready—to swarm aboard the merchant galley.

“Do you want me to take your bow, the way I did on the run up to Khalkis?” Sostratos asked.

“Yes, go ahead; duck under the tillers and do that,” Menedemos told him. “Then go forward. Use your own judgment about when to start shooting. Aim for their officers if you see the chance.”

“I understand.” His cousin got the bow and the quiver, then hurried up between the two rows of panting, sweating rowers toward the foredeck. The men who powered the Aphrodite couldn't see what was going on, which was true of the rowers in every sea fight since before the Trojan War. As far as the ship went, the rowers were just tools. Menedemos and Diokles had to get the best use from them.

On came the hemiolia. “Doesn't look like those whoresons want to quit at all, does it?” the oarmaster said.

“No,” Menedemos said unhappily. He was unhappy; he'd taken the Aphrodite closer to Andros than to Euboia because he'd worriedmore about pirates on the southern coast of the latter island. That meant this pirate ship hadn't had to go so far to close with the akatos. More unhappily still, Menedemos went on, “We couldn't very well have run away. A hemiolia will run down any other kind of ship on the sea.”

Diokles didn't argue. That was so obviously true, no one could argue. Most pirates, though, didn't reckon a fight with the large crew of another galley likely to be profitable. If this captain proved an exception . . .

Menedemos picked a spot not far aft of the hemiolia's bow where he hoped to drive home his ram. The other skipper, the man handling the pirate ship's steering oars, would be picking his target on the Aphrodite. “Go on,” Menedemos muttered. “Run for home, crows take you.”

Aristeidas sang out: “They're shooting!”

Sure enough, arrows arced through the air toward the Aphrodite. The first shots splashed into the sea well short of the ship. Archers always started shooting too soon. No, almost always—Sostratos stood calmly on the small foredeck, a shaft nocked but the bow not yet drawn. If anyone could wait till he had the chance to make his missiles count, Menedemos' cousin was the man.

A shaft thudded into the stempost, a couple of cubits from Sostratos' head. That seemed to spur him into action. He thrust the bow forward on a stiff left arm, drew the string back to his ear as the Persians had taught Hellenes to do, and let fly. No one aboard the onrushing hemiolia fell, so Menedemos supposed he missed. He pulled another arrow from the quiver and shot again.

This time, Menedemos heard the howl of pain across the narrowing gap. “Eugef

he called. “Well shot!”

A moment later, one of the Aphrodites rowers let out a similar howl and clutched at his shoulder. He lost the stroke; his oar fouled that of the man behind him. The merchant galley tried to swerve. Menedemos worked the steering oars to keep it pointed at the pirate ship. “Clear that oar!” Diokles shouted. A couple of sailors who weren't rowing pulled it inboard.

More arrows struck the akatos' planking. The pirates had several archers, the Aphrodite only Sostratos. Several shafts whistled past him as they tried to bring him down. None bit. As coolly as if exercising at a gymnasion, he kept shooting back. Another pirate wailed. He fell into the sea with a splash.

“Oh, very well shot!” Menedemos exclaimed.

“They aren't pulling away,” Dioldes said.

“I see that,” Menedemos answered. “Let's see if we can take out their portside oars and cripple them.”