A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (i am reading a book txt) 📕

‘Skip,’ he said in Norse, his throat dry.

‘Hey?’ said Einar, turning.

‘Skip,’ he said again. Only the third time did he think to speak in Greek. ‘SHIPS!’ he screamed, emptying his lungs.

Because the Arab fleet had come to the fight.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

‘Turn, you bastards! Turn!’

Arbasdos’s voice of authority was now a raging primal scream.

The drummer reacted fast. Within seconds the larboard oars were jammed into the water, slewing the bows around and tilting the deck as the huge Arab war-ships bore down from the north. The Belisarius had been caught nearly dead in the water. So had most of the Byzantine fleet except for the fire-runners busy with the Egyptian force ahead.

The command to turn took an age to relay to the other ships and already the Byzantine line was in disarray. The lead Arab was not an arrow’s flight away. Erlan could see their proud figureheads – serpents and eagles and lions – he saw human faces too, thickets of spear-points and the gigantic iron ram trained straight at them.

‘The only way is to engage the fire,’ he heard Arbasdos saying.

‘The others aren’t ready, General,’ cried Davit.

The strategos laughed like a madman. ‘Then the lazy cunts had better catch up. ATTACK!’

The drummer found his rhythm, slow at first until the hull picked up speed, then faster and faster till his sticks were a blur. Somehow the rowers kept time, oars dipping, levering the boat through the black water till the night air whistled past Erlan’s ears. He unsheathed Wrathling, its hilt an old friend in this strange world.

The lead Arab ship was on a course to their larboard side. Behind it on either flank were many others. The Belisarius held its line, an oblique dagger thrust into the heart of the Arab fleet, its oars beating like fury. There was a strange, haunting moment as the two ships swept past each other on different bearings. Then the air filled with arrows, hailing onto the deck with a hellish rattle. But all other sights and sounds were obliterated in the instant the lion’s head belched out its fierce tongue of fire.

A rush. A roar. Thunder rolling into a terrifying eruption of heat that seared Erlan’s face.

‘So this is what it’s like to ride a dragon’s back!’ Einar’s bellow was swallowed by the din, and he let out a howl like a wolf. Erlan couldn’t deny the thrill he felt in his own blood.

Their jet of flame doused the stern of the lead ship, but the massive hull piled on unchecked, smashing into the Heraclius on their left and rising up out of the water like a titan before crashing down again on top of the dromon’s broadside. Splinters burst everywhere. A few Byzantine mariners managed to lob fire-pots up onto the deck of the gigantic Arab ship, even in that moment of their doom. The men were dead an instant later but their last act was deadly. Their pots smashed, streaking liquid fire over the rigging and a dozen Arab seamen in the bows. The stern was already a furnace. The galley was lost even as the Heraclius sank beneath it.

Meanwhile a hail of missiles flew at the Belisarius. Archers and mariners fell, some with arrows, some with spears. Others hurled back insults and war-cries, all at a distance. So long as they didn’t close quarters with the Arab ships, they could keep dousing them with flames and moving on. Kallinikos’s deadly fire did the rest.

Davit disappeared down the steps and returned moments later with a basket crammed with fire-pots. ‘How’s your arm, Northman?’ he grinned, snatching one up. ‘Light the wick and throw the bastard as far as you can!’

He held it to a torch mounted nearby. The wick caught and wasting no time he flung the thing at the nearest galley. There was a splay of orange and in a second two sailors were alight, beating helplessly at the fire engulfing them. It spread instantly to hands, arms, heads until there were only flailing balls of flame where men had stood before.

‘Nasty little buggers, aren’t they?’ Einar picked one out of the pile. Erlan did likewise and soon they were raining them down as fast as they could throw them, not even pausing to see what horror they had inflicted. The chaos was palpable, the order of each fleet completely scattered although there were still Byzantine ships close by them, each one wreaking slaughter on the enemy.

The closest was another Byzantine dromon – the Narses – hosing down the broadside of a foundering Arab war-ship. Mariners were throwing fire-pots. One man went down under an arrow. The wick of his pot was already lit. He fell, the pot smashed in a shower of flames, there were panicked shouts of warning and before anyone could react an enormous fireball exploded under the foredeck, shooting splinters sky high. In a few seconds, the bows of the Narses were a furnace, flames spreading greedily. Oarsmen went over the side to save themselves. Mariners stripped off armour and flung themselves into the deep. But even there, the water was burning now – great slicks of flame floating past with no sign of abating. Erlan saw a man sucked under the hull while others in the water became targets for more arrows and spears hailing out of the black night. It was pure terror. Horror. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to be done. Except die.

The Belisarius, meanwhile, was hunting down its next victim. ‘Here comes another bastard,’ yelled Arbasdos, whooping like a child, the dignity of his office long discarded. ‘We’ll soon have these infidel dogs whipped! Keep on!’

Erlan reached for another fire-pot. Orders flew around him. Their oars ground into the water, checking the run of the hull. He saw Arab faces horror-stricken, heard the wheeze of the syphon handle below, then the whoosh and roar of the fire. Something caught the tail of his eye. There was a weird rush of air and