Read Troy 02 - Shield of Thunder for Free Online Page B

predicted you’d be too gutless to fight me. They obviously know you better than I. Of course, now that we stand here facing one another, I can feel your fear. Tell me, how did a sheep-shagging coward become a captain of pirates?” As he spoke, Kalliades took a swift step toward Arelos. The pirate leader backed away.
    “I said kill him!” he screamed.
    “Wait! No one move!” Horakos shouted. Rising to his feet, he stared at Arelos. “You know the Law of the Sea. You cannot refuse a challenge from a crewman. If you do, you are leader no longer and we vote for a new captain.”
    “So,” Arelos said, staring hard at the man, “you have chosen to go against me, Horakos. When I have cut the heart from this Mykene, I will strangle you with your own entrails.” Swinging back toward Kalliades, he forced a laugh. “I hope the shag the whore gave you was worth it. Because now there is only pain. And when I’ve finished with you, I’ll cut her apart a joint at a time.”
    “No, you will not,” Kalliades said, his voice soft. “You know it in your heart, Arelos. You are about to walk the Dark Road, and your guts are turning to water.”
    With a roar of rage Arelos leaped to the attack.
    And Kalliades stepped in to meet him.

CHAPTER THREE

    THE SACKER OF CITIES
    A short while earlier Sekundos the Kretan had watched Arelos stalk from the beach, almost half the men following him. He had not even been tempted to join them. Obviously they had located the runaways and were out for blood.
    Sekundos sat by the ashes of the previous night’s fire, his thoughts somber. He had been a pirate for more than a lifetime. He had outlived all five of his sons and one of his grandsons. Yet still, though his hair was now iron-gray and his limbs ached in the wet winter months, he had lost none of his love for the Great Green, the feel of the trade winds on his leathered features, the salt spray on his skin.
    He no longer fooled himself, as some of the younger men did, that piracy was a noble venture conducted by heroes. It was merely a way of ensuring food and clothing for his family and a little wealth to pass on to his heirs.
    Sekundos once had commanded three ships of his own, but ill weather had seen him lose two, and the third had been sunk the previous summer by the madman Helikaon—may the gods curse him! Sekundos’ last surviving son had been commanding the vessel at the time, and now his bones lay moldering below the Great Green. No man should outlive his children, Sekundos thought.
    Now, far in excess of sixty years of age, Sekundos had joined the crews of the loathsome Arelos. The man was lucky, which was why he had risen to command two ships, but as far as Sekundos was concerned, he was an idiot. True, he was a good swordsman, but he also reveled in murder and slaughter, which was not profitable. Captured men or women could be sold in the slave markets of Kretos or the cities of the eastern coast. Dead men were worth nothing.
    And Arelos had gathered around him too many like-minded men, which led inevitably to scenes like the one the previous day, when they had captured a young woman who would have fetched as much as sixty silver rings in Kretos. First they had swarmed over her like wild animals, and now she was marked for death.
    Sekundos hated such stupidity.
    He had been cheered when the Mykene pair had joined the crew. Kalliades was a quiet man, but he had a brain, and the lout with him was strong and, Sekundos guessed, loyal. They were like the men he used to sail with, stalwart and steady. Now they, too, were to be killed.
    Thirty years earlier Sekundos would have waited for his moment and challenged Arelos to a duel for the right to captain the ships. Now he merely accepted his orders, hoping their luck would hold and he would return home for the winter laden with booty. Somehow he doubted it. Slave raids were always profitable, even though they did not yield the treasure gained by plundering ships carrying gold ingots