Troy 02 - Shield of Thunder Read Online Free

Does nothing else interest you?”
    “Food. A good meal, a jug of wine, followed by a plump woman squealing beneath me.”
    “With your weight on her, no wonder she’d be squealing.”
    Banokles laughed. “That’s not why they squeal. Women adore me because I am handsome and strong and hung like a horse.”
    “You neglect to mention that you always pay them.”
    “Of course I pay them. Just as I pay for my wine and my food. What point are you trying to make?”
    “Obviously a poor one.”
    Around midnight, as they were preparing to sleep, they heard shouts. Then the woman staggered into the grove, chased by five crewmen. Already weak from the ugly events of the day, she stumbled, falling to the ground close to where Kalliades was sitting. Her white tunic was ripped and filthy and stained with blood. A crewman named Baros ran in, a wickedly curved knife in his hand. He was lean and tall with close-set dark eyes. He liked to be called Baros the Killer. “I’m going to gut you like a fish,” he snarled.
    She looked up at Kalliades then, her face pale in the moonlight, her expression one of exhausted desperation and fear. It was an expression he had seen before, one that had haunted him since childhood. The memory speared through him, and he saw again the flames and heard the pitiful screams.
    Surging to his feet, he stood between the man and his victim. “Put the knife away,” he ordered.
    The move surprised the crewman. “She’s for death,” he said. “Arelos ordered it.” He stepped toward Kalliades. “Do not seek to come between me and my prey. I have slain men from every land around the Great Green. You want your blood spilled here, your guts laid out on the grass?”
    Kalliades’ short sword hissed from its scabbard. “There is no need for anyone to die,” he said softly. “But I’ll not allow the woman to be hurt further.”
    Baros shook his head. “I told Arelos he should have cut your throats and taken your armor. You just can’t trust a Mykene.” He sheathed his knife and stepped back, drawing his sword. “Now you are in for a lesson. I have fought more duels than any man of the crew.”
    “It is not a large crew,” Kalliades pointed out.
    Baros leaped forward with surprising speed. Kalliades parried the thrust, then stepped in, hammering his elbow into the man’s face. Baros fell back. “Kill him!” he screamed. The other four surged forward. Kalliades killed the first, and drunken Banokles hurled himself at the others. Baros darted in again, but this time Kalliades was ready. He blocked the thrust, rolled his wrist, and sent a riposte that opened Baros’ throat. Banokles had killed one man and was grappling with another. Kalliades ran to his aid just as the fifth man slashed his sword toward Banokles’ face. Banokles saw the blow coming and swung the man he was fighting to meet it. The blade cleared his assailant’s neck.
    As Kalliades charged in, the surviving crewman turned and ran away into the night.
    Sitting now beside the crackling fire in the cave, he glanced at Banokles. “I am sorry to have brought you to this, my friend. You deserved better.”
    Banokles took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “You are a strange one, Kalliades,” he said, shaking his head. “But life with you is never dull.” He yawned. “If I am going to kill sixty men tomorrow, I’ll need some rest.”
    “They won’t all come. Some will be left with the ships. Others will be whoring. Probably no more than ten or fifteen.”
    “Oh, I’ll rest easier knowing that.” Loosening the straps of his battered breastplate, Banokles lifted it clear and dropped it to the ground. “Never could sleep properly in armor,” he said, then stretched himself out beside the fire. Within moments his breathing had deepened.
    Kalliades added wood to the fire, then returned to the cave mouth. A cool breeze was blowing, and the sky was ablaze with stars. Banokles was right: There was no way off the island, and