Patrick Bowman - Arrow Through the Axes

OTHER BOOKS BY
PATRICK BOWMAN

Torn from Troy: Odyssey of a Slave
Book I (2010)

Cursed by the Sea God: Odyssey of a Slave
Book II (2012)

ARROW THROUGH THE AXES
Copyright 2014 Patrick Bowman

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency).

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Typesetting: Julie Cochrane, in Minion 12 pt on 16
Cover Art & Design: Jake Collinge
Paper: Ancient Forest Friendly Silva (FSC) 100% post-consumer waste, totally chlorine-free and acid-free

Ronsdale Press wishes to thank the following for their support of its publishing program: the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the British Columbia Arts Council and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Book Publishing Tax Credit program.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bowman, Patrick, 1962, author
Arrow through the axes / Patrick Bowman.

(Odyssey of a slave; book III)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55380-323-2 (print)
ISBN 978-1-55380-325-6 (ebook) / ISBN 978-1-55380-324-9 (pdf)

1. Trojan War Juvenile fiction. 2. Odysseus (Greek mythology) Juvenile fiction. I. Title. II. Series: Bowman, Patrick, 1962 . Odyssey of a slave; book III.

PS8603.O97667A77 2014 jC813'.6 C2013-908267-0 C2013-908268-9

At Ronsdale Press we are committed to protecting the environment. To this end we are working with Canopy (formerly Markets Initiative) and printers to phase out our use of paper produced from ancient forests. This book is one step towards that goal.

Printed in Canada by Marquis Book Printing, Quebec

for my mother and father,
who never doubted I would finish

and for my sister Laurie,
who got me started

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank my wife Barbara for keeping the wolf from the door while I was writing, and for letting me bend her ear about plot and character issues every night until she fell asleep. I would also like to thank my sister Laurie, who sorted out my characters motivations for me, and whose observation that the dark ages of ancient Greece and the Trojan War might be connected was the basis for this trilogy. And perhaps most importantly, I would like to thank my publisher, Ronald Hatch, for having taken a risk on an unpublished writer who dreamed of a trilogy.

CHAPTER ONE

The Curse of Helios

SHES NOT NATURAL, no way. Shouldnt be following on us like that, no, never.

Frowning at the guttural Greek voices, I leaned on the stern rail and tried to recapture my thoughts. Safely away from the shore, the Pelagios was now catching enough breeze to leave a visible wake. Behind us lay the island where wed stayed for the last month, held prisoner by an insistent wind that had risen to push us back each time we had tried to leave.

But our escape wasnt the main thing on my mind. It was what Id learned, just before wed pushed off the beach. My sister was alive! I felt a rare smile lift the corners of my mouth. For months Id been certain Melantha was dead, killed by the same Greeks who had enslaved me. Now that I knew she was alive, I was going to find her.

Voices interrupted my thoughts again. Never seen that before. Faster than us, sure. Maybe slower, maybe going another way. But following us? Never. I sighed and turned my head to see Lycos and Lycourgos, two of the younger Greek soldiers, gazing anxiously upward from the rear rowing bench.

Directly behind us, a small black cloud hung low in an otherwise blue sky, hiding the sun. Sitting idle at their rowing benches while we were under sail, the rest of the crew were muttering, casting anxious glances skyward.

Up in the bow, Lopex, commander of the Greeks, reached a decision. Out oars, men! he called. Phidios, set a pace. Procoros, same direction. Waves began slapping at the hull as the oars bit into the water, but it quickly became clear that the cloud was keeping up with us. I peered up at it and shivered. Was I imagining things, or did the centre of the cloud look like a closed eye? Id hoped that by escaping the island, we had also evaded its curse, but now, with the cloud above us, I knew with sick certainty that we hadnt.

Lopex was studying the cloud carefully from the bow deck. He gestured to Zanthos, who obediently twisted his steering oar in the water to take the Pelagios on a gentle turn to starboard. Not much, but enough that the wind could carry the cloud past us to port.

It didnt. As every eye on the ship watched, the cloud visibly changed course, tracking us. The ship began pitching more heavily, and I realized the wind was picking up, spume blowing off the tops of the waves.

Maybe the fates had already judged us. Perhaps what came next would have happened anyway. Just the same, Lopexs next move was exactly the wrong one. Adelphos and Polites, furl the sail! Port side rowers, backwater on my signal! If we cant outrun it, lets see if it can turn corners! He waved to Phidios, who immediately began the stiff-armed gestures to synchronize the new rowing pattern.

For a heavily laden ship, the Pelagios turned quickly, bringing us around into the wind, now rocking the ship with regular heavy gusts. Both sides, standard row! Watch Phidios! GO! Lopex roared over the rising gale. All eyes were turned upwards, mouths moving as each man prayed to his favourite god that the cloud would pass us by.

The gods werent listening. Turning into the wind left us nearly motionless, despite the exertions of the sweating rowers, and the cloud caught up immediately. I held my breath, hoping it might yet blow past, but as it reached a point directly overhead, it stopped. The Greeks peered up fearfully as the cloud began to grow, filling the sky above us like the slow wingspread of a monstrous hunting bird. It spat a sudden torrent of hard rain at us, rain that stung as it struck.

As I clung nervously to the stern rail, watching Zanthos the steersman struggle with his oar, the men began clamouring even louder, their oars dropping unnoticed from their hands to foul the others.

Directly above us, the eye in the cloud was opening.

A furious orange light blazed down as though the sun itself was gazing angrily at us. The sun? The blood drained from my face as I realized whose eye was above us. I curled into a ball at the stern, hoping it would be over soon, damning the fortune that had bound me to Lopex. Why had I been permitted to learn that my sister was alive, only to be destroyed now by the wrath of Helios, god of the sun?

The cloud rumbled. A bolt of lightning, blinding white, leapt from the sky to strike the mast with a massive blast that battered my ears and left me deaf. In the moments to follow, hearing nothing, I saw the end of the Pelagios and its crew as if watching a silent play. The mast had exploded like a pine knot in a giants fire, spraying flaming chunks of wood in all directions. A ten-foot length tumbled backward and smashed into Zanthos as he struggled with his steering oar, ripping a gash across the side of his face and neck before smashing him through the rail into the water. The wooden spar that spread the sail was sent spinning into the forward rowers like a huge saw-edged discus, ripping through men and ship alike before escaping through the starboard railing. Lopex had his mouth open, still shouting orders from the bow but the rowers had given up, cowering in terror beneath their oars.