The Last Fire of Syracuse

The timber of the *Soter* groaned under the weight of five hundred bushels of grain and the copper-jacketed pump clanking in her hold. Across the Great Harbour, the hills above Syracuse bled red against the dusk, lit by Roman siege engines hurling earthen jars of Greek fire into the outer district of Achradina. Your father's sheepskin charts lay unrolled across the binnacle, weighted at the corners by lead sinkers and greasy tallow candles. Out past the shoals of Plemmyrium, Marcellus's warships sat anchored in a crescent, black hulls blotting out the eastern swell. Cydon spat an amber stream of mastic juice across the steering deck. He rubbed the raw knuckle where his left index finger had been sheared off by an Illyrian boarding pike twelve seasons ago. 'Your father could smell a Roman trireme on a flat calm, lad,' Cydon rasped, leaning his weight against the oak tiller. 'He also knew when to wait for the moon to die. If we slip moorings while the shore battery is still pounding the quayside, we'll give Marcellus target practice before we clear the moles.' Phila hauled herself up the ladderway from the bilge, wiping grease from her cheek with the hem of her soot-streaked tunic.…