> The Wrath of Alexander the Great

The Wrath of Alexander the Great

by

Terry McCarthy

     
     
      AUTHOR'S NOTE

     
          In 332 B.C., Alexander the Great marched his continent-crushing army into Asia Minor intent on nothing less than the conquest of the enormous Persian Empire, the largest empire the world had ever seen. Alexander was first challenged by advance Persian forces at the River Granicus but routed them easily.
          Alarmed at Alexander's success, Persia's King Darius summoned the finest soldiers from every corner of his far-flung empire, including the fabulously wealthy Phoenician island city of Tyre. Tyre entreated their far off daughter-city, Carthage, to send their boldest officer - Commander Barkane - and soon Alexander was in for a surprise.
     
     
     
       

CHAPTER 1

Captain Sajan's chin itched wickedly beneath his thick beard. He groaned in the darkness and tugged against the shackles that held him fast to the stone wall behind him. No good. The iron had become no weaker and, he, no stronger. His shoulders ached with pain but what did it matter? He would be dead in a few hours and then the pain would be gone. He spat angrily at the thought.
      The stillness of the cell belied the howling storm outside that tore without rest at the big island. This was not a night to be at sea, he thought. A dozen men dozed around him; they lay scattered about sleeping soundly in the deep hour despite the storm. His fellow prisoners were as young and green as the guards outside. And just as worthless, thought Sajan. How did I get tossed in here with these low fools? An accomplished big-water captain, Sajan considered them all beneath him, that it was only his poor luck that put him here to die an ignominious death on Cyprus, of all places, for the Phoenician captain hated the Greeks. Curse the gods that I am to perish on Alexander's soil!
      More cave than cell, this military brig was little more than a half-finished cavern hewn high into a steep 

hillside. It overlooked a jumble of crumbling dockside buildings that served this remote military port.
      While the men slept, the storm spat occasional wisps of rain through a single barred window at the ceiling, cut there not for the pleasure of sunlight but for the necessity of ventilation. The crude bars as a deterrent to escape were redundant. It was a forty-foot sheer drop to the docks below. No one had ever escaped this place, not that this was the type of jail one escaped from. The only inmates in here were drunken soldiers disciplined for a day or two before suffering a peevish return to their units, and as such, they slept unrestrained all over the cell. Only Captain Sajan was chained and he cursed the others as they slept. He was here because this was the nearest military facility controlled by the Greek General Bousardis who had been chasing Sajan on and off again for years and would be eager to hear of Sajan’s long-awaited execution.
      Sajan had watched the others whisper about him, though none had spoken to him. Everyone knew it was bad luck to consort with a condemned man. He knew none of them and none of them knew him. So they had left him alone and by now the constant claps of thunder and whipping of the wind outside had so numbed them all that everyone snored heavily. All but Sajan. He watched a sand spider silently lower itself

from the ceiling on the tiniest of filaments. That spider carried one mean bite, he knew. The nasty little creatures are everywhere on this island. Blast them and all things Greek!
      He wrinkled his nose at the stench of the damp place; the vomit and urine of soldiers soaked with too much drink. Worse than the hold of a storm-tossed ship. Desperate to clear his head, his eyes roamed restlessly about the dim cell. His gaze settled on one sleeping soldier in particular. There he lies, thought Sajan - hasn't moved a muscle in hours. That soldier had been all piss and vinegar when they first dragged him in - alternately mumbling and shouting so unintelligibly no one could even determine what unit he was from. Here was one top-of-the-line drunk, Sajan thought. The man reeked of poor wine. Field spit, they called it; fermented in haste and drunk the same way. Though Sajan had had his share of drunken binges, he still glared through the darkness at the anonymous soldier. How dare you despoil my death with your drunkenness. Grubby Greek!
      The drunk had made quite the commotion upon his arrival. He had kicked and cursed the guards ineffectively and they had taunted him in return and tossed him into a corner like a banquet-carcass picked clean and then

discarded. Now the man lay as still as the clammy stone walls of the cell.
      Sajan glared at the slumbering drunk, furious that since he himself was to be executed at dawn he would be dead before the drunk even woke up and that thought made him hate the man all the more.
      Too long in one place, sighed Sajan. Damnable gods.  A capable captain could earn a healthy living plying the busy waters of the Mediterranean. Tariff evasion and nocturnal smuggling paid even more. Sajan never bothered to curse his choices; he only cursed his luck. He spat on the floor again. Now they had him and he would pay.
      Sajan thought he should rest, but why? I'll be asleep for good soon enough.
      He was the only one awake and so the first to hear the muffled shouting from the docks at the foot of the cliffs below. The big cell had no door to speak of, just a wall of iron grating with a crude gate at one end. An outcropping of rock served as a protective overhang above the guards outside, though the guards huddled close to the grate to keep out of the rain. Sajan watched the guards rub their eyes awake. They put their hands to their ears and leaned toward the sound, trying to hear above the wind and rain.
      "What?!" one of them shouted down the hill.
       

The brig was burrowed straight into the cliffs and steep stairs of stone ran from the front of the brig down to the harbor below. Backwater that this harbor was, it was the only suitable port for fleet-ships on the eastern end of Cyprus. The rest of the coast hereabouts was all steep cliff and crashing water; inaccessible shoreline and not a suitable place from which to escape, either, unless one considered a leap into the foaming sea an escape. And Sajan did not. Cyprus was a big island but held little promise for him even if he could get away and the mainland was impossibly far away.
      A brief break in the wind helped Sajan make out the shouting. He heard "Fire!" and the guards stiffened at the alarm and most of them stampeded down the stairs to the docks leaving only a pair to guard the cell.
      Fire? thought Sajan. In all this rain? The wind drove storm-spray through the single, barred window every few seconds, and that window was, Sajan knew, leeward of the storm outside, so the driving rain must be ferocious. Fire?   
      Sajan sniffed the air for smoke. None. Must be driven off by the furious weather, he thought. The disturbance outside was muffled by the storm and none of the inmates even stirred. Sajan looked again across all the sleeping bodies in the cell then jerked with a start. Where was the

drunk? Of all the men in the cell, surely he would be the last to be disturbed. There he is. The man had perched himself upon a ledge beneath the high window and one of his arms poked out through the bars into the pouring rain outside. A lightning flash illuminated his fist long enough for Sajan to see the man's fingers flashing first one digit, then three, and then one again.
      He is signaling someone.
      One of the drowsy guards noticed the drunk.
      "You there! Get you down from there!" No sooner had the words left the guard's lips when the drunk hopped from the ledge as something blasted in from outside the window and clattered loudly off the ceiling stones. It took a moment before Sajan realized what it was. An arrow. It left a splatter of rain behind it. A thin line was attached to the arrow. The drunk snatched it and quickly began hauling up the line and Sajan could see that whatever the man was pulling up, it was heavy.
      The drunk’s actions took the guards by complete surprise. They were not accustomed to escape attempts for delinquent soldiers had no thoughts of escape – weren't they going back to their units soon?
      "Alarm!" shouted the guards and they stumbled back and forth in a frantic attempt to find the bolt-keys to the

iron grating.
      The rest of the prisoners began waking and watched bleary-eyed as the drunk finally hauled up his prize. Even in the dim light the captain recognized it immediately, as a sea captain would. It was a tidal anchor. Forged of wrought iron, it was small but strong and attached to a heavy chain that dropped out the window into the darkness below.
      Dripping wet, two more guards appeared out of the rain and now four guards fumbled with the keys and shouted at the drunk all at once.
      "You there, stop!" 
      "Cease, blast you!" 
      But the drunk was fast. He wedged the anchor into the bars at the window and banged the thing tight with his fist so that it held fast. Then Sajan saw that the man had a second chain and was charging across the cell pulling the second chain behind him.
      One of the inmates jumped to his feet in the drunk's path. "What do you think...," the inmate began to say but without hesitation the drunk drove his fist into the man’s stomach and the inmate doubled over on the floor clutching his midsection. Another man stepped forward but the drunk raised another threatening fist and the man wisely cowered

away, as did the rest of the men in the cell. Best leave this one alone, they all thought, as the drunk darted across the cell toward Sajan, chain in hand.
      Sajan was too stunned to say a word. The drunk shoved him aside and spun the chain through the crude eye-bolts that held the captain to the wall, snapped the chain fast, and quickly ran back to the window unmolested this time by the confused mob in the cell. Sajan had seen the man’s face up close for only a moment but that had been enough. Though he stunk of the gutter, the man was no red-eyed drunk; far from it. He is as alert as a snake, thought Sajan.
      The drunk produced a twist of cloth and tossed it out the window just as the guards succeeded with the lock at last. The wide grate groaned open and the guards burst into the cell.
      Outside and four stories below the barred window, a cloaked figure crouched in the shadows, vainly trying to stay dry while the rain poured over his hood and down his back. He was a big man, so wide the cloak barely covered him. It was a good thing he knew his hand signals well because the sound of the rain drumming all around drowned out everything but the distant shouts of alarm. He nervously spun a knife in his hand, the knife stained black to prevent telltale reflection, not that that would be a

problem tonight. The man’s other weapons were at the ready; sword and bow and quiver, and when he saw the twist of cloth flutter from the window he turned to a cart waiting behind him; a quarry cart overloaded with cut stone and as heavy as a rich man's villa. Attached to the cart were the two chains that led up to the window above. The cart was held in place on the steep hillside by two stones chocked behind the wheels. The hooded man kicked the stones free and the cart rolled away. The chain obediently followed, slithering through the mud like a reptile and as the cart gathered speed, it took up the slack in the chain. The chain lifted off the ground as the cart careened off a rise and plunged down the steep slope, the shadowy man jumping free just as the thick chain snapped taut.
      Up in the cell the guards rushed through the crowd toward the drunk who dove to the floor just as they reached him. The anchor in the window above their heads bit into the bars, the chain shrieked, the stone crumbled, and the bars exploded from the window in a shower of stone and dust, sending the guards staggering back. But the chains’ work was only half-way done. The other length of chain that ran to Sajan’s irons rattled tight, groaned, and yanked Sajan's eye-bolts from the wall, flipping Sajan head over heels before snapping away. The iron chain whipped angril

through the cell and slapped a handful of men aside as it whistled away out the window. One of the guards took the chain across his face and sunk to the floor, moaning in pain.
      Before the other guards could gather themselves the drunk kicked one of them to the floor and slammed the remaining two into the stone wall.
      The drunk turned to Sajan, "Now, if you please!"
      Sajan could hardly believe that his hands were free at last. He scrambled to his feet and leapt up toward the window where the drunk grabbed him by the shoulders.
      "Out!" said the drunk and he shoved Sajan into the rubble-strewn opening. Sajan began to protest. He knew how high up they were. But the drunk glared at him, "Grab the rope." and to Sajan’s surprise there was a rope outside and he had no choice but to take it in his hands as the drunk pushed him out into the rain.
      Sajan should have been grateful as this was apparently his escape, but instead, he was offended by the rough manner in which the drunk 'assisted' him out the window. The man heaved him painfully through the broken opening as if he were nothing more than bagged game. Sajan cursed the drunk but scrambled out into the weather nonetheless only to be shocked by the conditions outside, the fierce rain

and the screaming wind a dramatic change from the stuffy cell behind them.
      Another kick to his back urged him down the rope. "Keep moving!" Sajan heard the drunk shout just above him and then the drunk was out the window too. Sajan recognized the rope immediately; swing-line, the type of line used for climbing aboard ship. The grip was true and considering the howlingly wet weather, the drunk had chosen his hemp well. 
      Sajan had no idea who his rescuer was and the captain wasn't accustomed to making friends with anyone, much less a stranger as belligerent as this one. As soon as the captain's feet hit the ground his instincts took over and he turned and ran - only to fall sprawling face-first in the mud. Someone had tripped him and before he could recover that same someone seized him by the collar and hauled him none-too-gently to his feet.
      The big hooded man with the quarry cart had him by the neck. The big man said not a word. He only growled from beneath his soaking hood and pinned Sajan against the stone wall. There was little Sajan could do. The man was as big as a house. Sajan saw that one of the man's eyes was normal while the other looked off-center, which made the big man's appearance all the more unnerving. Just then the drunk reached the bottom, produced a dagger, and grabbed Sajan

roughly by his dense beard.
      "Follow orders and you live. Cross me, and I’ll kill you myself."
      Just below them lay the run-down wharf where Greek cargo ships were tied up in neat rows.
      "Run!" the drunk said, and the three left the rope dangling behind them, but instead of following the cart downhill to the sea, they went the other way. Uphill to the cliffs.
      Home to the great Alexander's Mediterranean Fleet command, Cyprus was no frontier. The whole island was crawling with his soldiers. In addition to the shouts of "Alarm!" and "Fire!", now came the cries of "Escape!" as Alexander's sleeping troops woke and mobilized, slow to respond in the inclement weather. Over his shoulder, Sajan could see a squad of cavalry assembling in confusion far down the wharf, their muffled shouting nearly obliterated by the blinding wind and rain. The storm had blotted out all night light, too; no moonlight, not even a ray of starlight shone. Even so, a squad of horsemen were soon galloping through the muck up the sopping mountain, headed their way.
      The drunk steered the three of them slipping and sliding between a row of decrepit salting shacks, the wet

stench of smoked fish biting at their nostrils. Now in addition to the shouting behind them they heard a more ominous sound; the blaring of alarm horns. That meant more horsemen.
      But the drunk and his assistant answered by unexpectedly producing three horses of their own from behind a shed. The horses had oddly-shaped bundles tied to their backs. Sajan would soon see why. With a loud "Hy’a!" the drunk slapped the horses on their haunches and the horses burst from behind the buildings and sped away down the wharf. The bundles on the horses' backs made silhouettes of men, as if the horses had riders on their backs.
      And then the drunk had them running again up the wharf past the last of the drying huts. The angry shouts of their pursuers grew closer. They glanced over their shoulders and saw another dozen horsemen burst onto the wharf. Half of the horsemen broke off in pursuit of the drunk’s decoy horses. But only half. The other half turned their way and Sajan noticed the drunk curse under his breath. More alarm horns joined the cacophony behind them. The horsemen were closing in.
      The dockyards gave way to the steep cliffs at last and a muddy path appeared that wound its way up the rocky

heights that rose all around the harbor. Sajan paused, his hands on his knees, his lungs struggling for breath, but a smart blow to his back sent him face first into the mud a second time. Again it was the big man and again the big man yanked Sajan to his feet.
      "Rest later," the drunk said. Sajan cursed them but the men only pushed Sajan forward into the teeth of the wind and rain as the three charged on up the path. The angry heavens boomed thunder. Lightning flash followed lightning flash, each bright flash startling them as much as the one before. But the mysterious men did not slow and kicked Sajan along if he faltered in the slightest. These men are demons, thought Sajan.
      Both of them bore short swords in leather scabbards that flapped against their thighs, and the compact bow-and-quiver kits strapped over their shoulders bounced on their backs as they ran and Sajan gasped. Those were Phoenician composite bows! Who are these two?
      The three of them fell to all fours as they pulled themselves up the slippery rocks. Then they all heard the noise at once over the drumming rain. A piercing horn blast not a hundred paces behind them. Sajan lost his feet for a moment and his ankle twisted on the rocks. The pain shot up the length of his leg and he cursed the drunk.
       

"They're on us, damn you!"
      If there was a reply, it was drowned out by another boom of thunder as a battery of lightning flashes lit up the storm from one horizon to the next. The rain was so thick everything was a blur.
      The rising path took them ever higher over the bay below. Sajan watched the storm swells rock the local fishing boats at their moorings far below, tossing them about as if they were corks and a thought occurred to him that took away what little breath he had left. This madman doesn't mean to escape by boat in this weather? Sajan swore out loud.
      "By Zeus!" How else does one escape an island?
      The rain obscured everything below now and the path twisted steeply. The drunk urged them up. But Sajan stopped and glared at him through the blinding rain.
      "The horses will have us!"
      But the drunk wasn't pausing for conversation. He merely blinked the rain from his eyes and shoved Sajan forward once again. "No horse will follow where we’re going," the man said.
      They could see the horsemen quickly winding up the path from below. One of them was making very fast way. If Sajan knew his horses he would have recognized that that

horse was a hill pony and as capable as a goat when it came to rocks and steep. Still the drunk pushed them forward, slipping and scrambling over stones and mud, the narrow path now made a stream by the unending rain.
      The three of them were panting desperately now from the climb, the drunk’s dripping hair swinging across his face. Finally they emerged onto a high sandy clearing with rock walls towering all around. The clearing opened only on one side – a straight drop off the cliff that spilled away to the sea a hundred feet below.
      They were trapped.
      Soldiers behind them, rock walls all around, and a naked cliff face that dropped only to the crashing sea. Captain Sajan seethed.
      "Villains! What kind of escape is this?"
      "Move!" The drunk pushed Sajan to the very edge of the cliff. The captain looked down. The wind and the rain and the vertical drop-off combined to create a writhing mist below them. Sajan’s legs went weak. The dizzying height made his stomach turn and he stumbled back. A descent into that swirling maelstrom was madness.
      "You can't be serious?" Sajan said.
      The horns of their many pursuers blared up the path behind them.
       

The driving rain obscured the ocean at the bottom of the cliff but Sajan could look farther out to sea. What he saw there made his heart skip a beat. Bobbing in the unruly waves was a skiff and he recognized it. The harbor-master's skiff.
      Now, in the darkness and the driving rain, hair plastered in an unruly mess across his eyes and cheeks, the first hint of a smile crossed the drunk’s face.
      "Not a comfortable craft, but the fastest sailor in these parts. Am I right, Captain?"
      Sajan was too stunned to reply. The drunk kicked away some rocks at the edge of the cliff to reveal two stout swing-lines anchored there, too; climbing lines like the ones they used to escape the brig. The ropes dangled over the edge and disappeared into the mist below.
      The drunk ordered his big partner down and Sajan watched as the big man paused only to mutter, "Poseidon be kind," before seizing one of the ropes and scrambling down the cliff hand-over-hand as if he'd done this sort of thing all his life. The man's lazy eye seemed to look both ways at once and in another moment he had vanished from view into the swirling mist.
       The steady rain hammered away on the drunk with such force it bounced back up above his shoulders in a watery

halo. The man's face was marked with scars and he was missing half of his left ear. With a wicked grin, he handed the other rope to Sajan.
      "All aboard," he said.
      The horns of the horsemen grew nearer but Sajan squared his feet and crossed his arms across his chest in defiance, shaking his thick beard toward the sea.
      "Certain death," he shouted.
      The drunk only laughed at him and pointed back where they had just come from. "For you, that way is certain death." At that moment the first of the horsemen burst from the path and onto the muddy cliff-top. The man on the hill pony. He had outdistanced the others and without hesitation drew a long-sword and charged. This persuaded Sajan at last and he grabbed the rope and lowered himself over the edge, cursing the drunk and Zeus and everyone else that came to mind.
      The charging horseman rapidly closed the gap but the drunk waited until Sajan was on the rope and descending before reacting, and though it seemed too late, all in one motion the drunk spun, knelt, and put an arrow to bow! The horseman was nearly on him, but the drunk held his ground.
      The drunk figured the horse would shy at the first sight of the cliff edge and he was right. The horse lost

its nerve and skidded to a stop, throwing its rider off balance. The drunk let his arrow fly.
      Sajan kept moving down the rope. He chanced a look below and gulped again at the height. He couldn’t see the big man below him in the mist; only the twirling rope next to him told him the man was still descending on the other line. Sajan could see now that the cliff was not square. The top lip of it jutted out at first but then the body of it caved away in toward the island so that the cliff-face fell away and Sajan found himself dangling in midair and he cursed the dramatic geography of the island; now it was just he and the rope and he cursed the gods all the more.
      Above him, the drunk’s arrow had taken the horseman in the thigh. The man cried out, the horse wheeled, and the drunk lunged forward. He yanked hard on the horseman’s leg, causing the man to correct in the other direction and when he did so, the drunk reversed course and the horseman was launched from his saddle. His horse cantered away in fright, careful to stay well clear of the cliff-edge.
      The drunk was upon the horseman and before the horseman could draw his weapon, the drunk struck the man hard to the side of the head with the hilt of his sword and the man collapsed in the mud. The drunk looked up to see the other horsemen appear on the clearing from the path

below. He hadn’t much time! He sheathed his sword and spun for the cliff-edge, grabbed a rope, and disappeared over the side just as another flash of lightning illuminated the clearing. The stunned horseman struggled to his feet. The drunk was already shimmying down the mountainside while the horseman ran to the head of the path. He began shouting to the others as they arrived.
      "Demons!" the man shouted. "Ghosts, by Athena!"
      Down the ropes, Sajan swallowed hard. He knew the drunk’s big companion must be nearly down by now while he was still only halfway down the cliff.
      "Hurry!" he heard.
      Sajan looked up to see the drunk descending fast and shouting at him from the other rope. At that moment Sajan felt his rope lurch awkwardly. Then it began to twist between his fingers and Sajan started spinning. The rope jerked again and he felt it pull...pulling up. The soldiers above were pulling him back up! Panic seized his belly for there was certain death above and a terrifying fall below.
      Again the drunk was shouting at him from the other rope.
      "Let go!"
      But the fear of the fall gripped the captain. He looked down again but still couldn't see the sea for the

heavy mist. They would kill him above but he still couldn't bring himself to let go of the rope. Sajan spat at the air. The drunk’s man has made it but not me, damn him!
      Fear turned his hands to stone even as he felt himself hoisted back up. More soldiers must have arrived and they were apparently putting their backs into it. He looked up and the rain battered his face and stung his eyes so painfully he closed them to the narrowest of slits. Now the drunk's rope was going back up, too. Sajan chanced another glance down to the boiling sea again. There he is! The drunk’s big companion was splashing toward the skiff, the skiff itself half swamped by the storm.
      Now they were hoisted so high back again to the cliff-edge that Sajan could hear the shouts of the soldiers pulling hard from just above. Then came another blast of lightning and he looked up to see the drunk suddenly near. The man had maneuvered his rope close to Sajan’s and had his own rope twisted around one forearm so that his other hand was free to wield a sword. There was a mad look in the man’s eye and he swung the sword directly at Sajan’s head. Sajan ducked instinctively but the blade was not meant for him.
      It was meant for the rope.
      The sword whizzed just above Sajan’s scalp, whacking

through the rope with a snap. Sajan held a suddenly lifeless rope and the cliff above him sped away. A wordless cry erupted from the pit of his stomach and rushed out his throat as he saw the drunk above him swing his sword again, this time through his own rope and then the drunk, too, was falling with him through the rain.
      The bastard has cut us both free.
      And then Sajan was upside down. His head spun and the rain seemed to cease its relentless beating as he and the drunk fell with a cloud of rain-drops and the lightning from the storm reflected in the drops so that they sparkled like a bucketful of diamonds falling from the sky. There was no sound but the scream coming from his own throat, then - whumpf!
      The sudden impact with the sea blasted the air from his chest and a flash of pain shot across his shoulders. His ears were suddenly filled with the sound of water and bubbles and the stormy froth of the Mediterranean Sea. His limbs hung as useless as a jelly fish but only for a moment, for he was seized by the hair and yanked to the surface. He gulped for air but the surface of the storm-lashed sea whipped up so much water that he only succeeded in swallowing more ocean and it occurred to him the sea below was no more wet than the relentless rain above. He

choked and coughed and felt his head lifted higher and he managed some air at last.
      Then a head rose from the blowing spray so close to his he jerked with a start. He pulled away but an arm had him and then the head howled over the storm, barking rudely in his face.
      "Swim," the head said.
      It was the drunk.
      He yanked Sajan forward. In a few more breaths the captain began to gather himself and he swam and followed the drunk through the boiling waves. As impossible as the waves were, Sajan was relieved that he wasn’t dangling from a cliff-side; here, there were only fish below, not birds!
      The drunk looked over his shoulder and flinched just as an arrow from the cliffs above plunked into the water next to him. More arrows followed and the two men pawed at the water even faster. But that first arrow turned out to be a lucky shot. Thanks to the savage wind, none of the other arrows came close.
      Suddenly the skiff loomed out of the blowing wind and Sajan could see the big man with the lazy eye aboard already and leaning over the side, reaching for them. Sajan inhaled water and retched and thanked Poseidon for warm Mediterranean summers for the water was rough but not cold.
       

He grabbed the rail of the boat and began to kick himself out of the water when the big man snatched him by his clothing and rough-hauled him over the rail. The rail raked Sajan's chest and he cried out only to be tossed to the floor of the boat as if he were a basket of cheap sea-catch.
      He collapsed in the boat's open bottom awash in seawater, the narrow vessel allowing room for only the men aboard and not much else. The big man was breathing hard and blinking the driving rain from his eyes. He had pulled the anchor up already. The drunk crawled aboard and the big man looked at him expectantly, the way a soldier would look to his superior officer for orders. The drunk only nodded his head and the big man leapt into action and had the blocks free, the rigging tight, and the sail in its slot in seconds.
      The sail snapped full and the boat tugged forward.
      Bruised and dazed, Sajan looked on from the floor of the tossing boat and seized the ribs of the craft to keep from being thrown about like so much loose cargo. He tried in vain to wipe the water from his face and glared at the two men. Were they out of their wits?
      "They'll be after us with every ship in the harbor!" shouted Sajan.
       

The drunk shouted back over his shoulder, "They’ll be after us with every ship on Cyprus!" Then he turned to Sajan and flashed that wicked smile again. "But not until the weather clears. Who would be mad enough to take to sea in this weather?" He laughed over the storm at his own joke. "Bail," he said and he tossed a wooden bucket to Sajan.
      Sajan had no choice but to follow orders for if he did not the little craft would surely sink and he with it. He watched the other two men grin at each other as the storm’s biting wind seized the sail. The boat lurched dangerously from side to side as it picked up speed. The drunk’s man worked the tiller hard while the drunk held the sail-line firm. Captain Sajan crouched and bailed for all he was worth, his sea-legs working hard to keep him on his feet. He could see the drunk was unafraid in the violent water. The arrogant bastard is enjoying himself, thought Sajan.
      Sajan scowled. The big man knew his sea-craft well and he piloted the boat with obvious experience. His eyes darted back and forth measuring the wind and the swells perfectly. The bad eye did not seem to hinder the man's sailing. The storm’s powerful westerly filled the harbor skiff’s two sails and had the slick craft skimming over the waves so swiftly the sea sprayed by in sheets with every

fall of the hull. The drunk was right; she was the fastest sailor in these parts. So they would get away. For now. If they survived these rough seas long enough to find safety in a cove or inlet somewhere.
      Sajan gathered his breath and glowered at the drunk.
      "They'll scour this island until they find us," Sajan said.
      "Cyprus is a big island, ‘eh Captain?  It will take them awhile."
      "What difference does that make?"
      "That gives us plenty of time to make the mainland."
      Sajan went wide-eyed. "The mainland? In this weather?" As if on cue, another lightning blast crackled across the sky and Zeus himself seemed to open his voracious maw above their heads. The sound of his thunder boom-boom-boomed and lingered as if they were not separate thunderclaps at all but rather a continuous eruption of the god's black rage.
      The drunk put his hand on Sajan's shoulder in mock seriousness as the boat pitched in the rough waves, nearly tossing them from their feet. He pointed his thumb at the tiller.
      "Have no fear. If we prove poor sailors, I’ll put you in charge."
      Sajan spat. He looked about the small boat. The thing

was as light as could be. There were no provisions, only a single sail bag wedged behind the bow. These two madmen would be more than busy keeping this featherweight’s keel to the wind. Few were as seasoned at sea as Captain Sajan and he took note of the drunk’s companion and the man’s sure grip on the steering arm. And while Sajan was bigger than most men the drunk’s man was even bigger. He was quick on his feet for his size, too. As for the drunk himself; he was faster than a cobra. But how is he with a short-sword, Sajan wondered? He promised himself he would find out.
      The wind drove them quickly, the cliff and the climbing ropes already far behind them and invisible now in the thundering rain. The nimble skiff had scooted past the promontory that marked the end of the harbor and the easternmost point of Cyprus herself. The drunk wiped blood from his mouth, the blow from one of the guards, Sajan remembered, and clutched the big man’s shoulder, pointing straight ahead beyond the point. "Follow the wind. Straight east." Sajan realized the daring strangers had chosen their weather well. A wind this robust would take them east to the mainland overnight.
      The big man nodded and fingered a talisman dangling from a leather necklace at his neck. The talisman was a dove: The dove of Carthage.
       

The small boat pitched and lurched through the swells like a drunk at midnight but the men knew their sailing and kept a steady course. Sajan alternated between bailing for dear life and rubbing his wrists, red and throbbing still from the chafe of the irons. He watched blood drip steadily from the eyebrow and mouth of the drunk, though the man seemed not to notice. The man's wide green eyes stared out over a nose obviously broken more than once, a nose Sajan would be happy to flatten himself as soon he got the chance. A faded red quiver from which the man was apparently inseparable was slung over his shoulder. Only a professional soldier would hold his weapons so close.
      He watched the drunk survey the swirling sea ahead and then look back in satisfaction at Cyprus shrinking behind them. Blood spilled over his face and beard and the wind splattered the red in unruly splotches and streaks. His long hair was plastered every which way so that the man looked like a blood-soaked Medusa rose from the underworld and Sajan half-thought the man might not be entirely real. Unbothered by the fiendish elements, the man nodded at the big man wrestling with the rudder and patted him on the back in approval.
      "Well done, Markatt," he said.
      Sajan's eyebrows rose. Markatt was a Carthaginian

name, the name of a noble naval family there.
      "My pleasure, Commander," the big man said, his lazy eye staring cross-eyed over the bridge of his nose.
      Commander. That was a high rank indeed: A rank second only to General in the Carthaginian military. There was only one commander on the tip of every tongue across the Mediterranean; the legendary Commander Barkane of Carthage. Sajan figured that commander should be a thousand leagues from here, not deep in the heart of Alexander's controlled territories where every soldier in the Macedonian juggernaut wanted his head.
      That the man had swooped down like an evil bird to snatch him from captivity and now defied Poseidon himself aboard the flimsiest of boats convinced Sajan that the man must be Barkane and so Sajan's mind churned. What would the likes of Barkane want with me?

_______

Surrounded by his general staff, Alexander stood on the sea shore on a blustery evening and stared out over the breaking waves. There she lay just off shore: Tyre. The gleaming Phoenician capital was the jewel of the Mediterranean, the largest island city

in the world - and the wealthiest. Every known trade route from east and west converged here and generation after generation of commerce had funneled riches into the city like nothing the rustic Macedonians had ever imagined. The peerless Phoenician navy protected the island from a state-of-the-art armed harbor. Over the centuries, invader after invader had been slapped away by Tyre’s other defenses; its rocky perch, one-hundred foot walls, and imposing towers. Ship-shattering reefs and shoals surrounded the island in every direction so that a naval assault was impossible. It was said Poseidon himself would always protect her.
      The towers of the city shimmered like gold in the setting sun and the reflections off the tiled parapets there glinted and flashed and stung Alexander’s eyes like a challenge.
      Alexander’s high officers held their tongues. All knew that Alexander was most comfortable fighting on land and that with the sea itself as its impassable moat, the city was untakable. Alexander glared across the waves at the defiant daughter of Poseidon and scoffed. Intelligence had reported the seabed was shallow between the mainland and the island.
      "I shall walk to Tyre without getting my feet wet," he said.
      And so the great task began.