Chapter 30
Spoils of the Sea
“Land, starboard side!”
Startled by Tiphys’s voice, Danae slipped from where she’d been leaning on the prow rail, gazing into the marbled sea. An uneventful two weeks had passed since the Argo left Lemnos, with little for her to do but stare at the empty ocean.
Jason appeared beside her, following the navigator’s leathery finger to a bank of rock coming into focus through the haze, nestled in the fingers of a large bay. Danae squinted. What she’d first taken for a cliff face, now appeared to be the yellow stone wall of a vast fortress.
“If my eyes don’t lie,” said Tiphys. “I’d say that’s Troy.”
“Yes,” Jason breathed excitedly. “Priam’s kingdom.”
As they watched the shore, a fleet of ships emerged from a harbor in the shadow of the fortress wall. Their crimson sails were emblazoned with white suns overlaid by crossed black tridents, and gilded figureheads spearheaded their prows.
“The royal fleet!” said Jason. He turned to Danae, his eyes dancing. “It is not widely known, but Prince Paris of Troy himself spent much of his youth as a farmhand, oblivious to his true parentage.”
“Perhaps it is a sign, Captain,” said Danae. It did no harm to occasionally stroke his ego.
“I am sure of it.” Jason’s face shone with unbridled hunger as he turned back to gaze at the Trojan ships. “One day, I will stand at the prow of my own fleet, my crest imprinted on the sails. Who knows—gods willing—in time Iolcos might not be the only kingdom under my command.”
As he spoke, Danae thought how dangerous it would be if a man like Jason wielded a power like hers.
After sighting Troy, the Argo left the waters of the Aegean, and sailed toward the inland sea of the Propontis through a passage known as the Hellespont.
Danae stood on the stern platform, staring at the rocky dunes and rearing hills rippling past to her left.
Shielding her eyes from the sun, she squinted for any dwellings or glints of metal.
To her right, Jason did the same. After their encounter on Lemnos, they had become a wary vessel, and the Hellespont was the perfect location to ambush an unsuspecting ship.
But as the hours trickled by and the Argo sliced through the channel unhindered, the knot of tension between Danae’s shoulders began to melt. The rugged banks and beaches appeared completely deserted.
“How long ’til we clear the channel?” Jason asked Tiphys.
“A few hours yet, Captain.”
Jason tracked the movement of the sun across the bleached sky. “We’ll drop anchor as soon as we reach the Propontis. We don’t have much daylight left.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Look there, a ship!” Orpheus had abandoned his oar and was pointing ahead.
Heading toward the Argo was a single-mast sailboat about two-thirds the size of their penteconter. No shields flanked her sides, and the oiled hull bore no markings save the wear of the sea’s tongue.
“They look like fishermen!” called Ancaeus.
The bearskin warrior was right. As the vessel drew nearer, Danae could see nets trailing from the side of the ship. The five men aboard waved their sea-weathered arms, grinning at the Argonauts.
“Might be worth seeing if they’ve got stock to trade, Captain,” said Tiphys.
“An excellent idea,” Jason replied. “Argonauts, haul in the oars!”
The captain bounded down to the mid-deck, and Danae followed him, already salivating at the prospect of fresh fish. As they drew closer, she could see an array of crates and nets strewn in the belly of the tub.
She stopped and as calmly as her now thundering heart would allow sidled over to Hylas.
“They aren’t fishermen,” she murmured.
A string of confusion hitched his brow.
“The nets, look at them, all tangled together. Trust me, no fisherman would ever keep his netting that way.”
He held her gaze for a moment, then gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Their faces masking into smiles, Danae and Hylas moved along the boat, whispering to Atalanta, Telamon, Peleus and the others.
Jason was leaning over the side of the Argo, beckoning to the fishermen to steer toward them.
When Danae reached Heracles, the hero’s lips twitched into a smirk.
“At last, some entertainment.”
“Do you have fish to trade?” Jason yelled across the narrowing stretch of water between their ships.
“We have a lot of fish!” A bearded man in a worn brown tunic nodded enthusiastically.
Danae’s chest bubbled with anger. She thought of how carefully her father tended his nets, the hours he spent weaving, darning and folding them. The fishermen of Naxos cared about their craft, they respected the sea and the creatures that dwelt in her depths.
She forced herself to grin at the imposters while moving closer to Jason. “They’re not fishermen,” she whispered.
The captain’s face fell. “What?”
The ship was so close now, Danae could see the whites of the strangers’ eyes. She continued to smile through aching cheeks. “Keep them talking, but we should be ready—”
It was at that moment the five supposed fishermen heaved over the crates on their deck to reveal another half dozen men all armed to the teeth.
“They’re fucking pirates!” shouted Atalanta with glee.
The pirate who’d been conversing with Jason caught a curved sword, thrown to him by another man, and pointed it at the Argo. “Kill them!”
The Argonauts did not need to wait for Jason’s command to dive for their weapons. Danae backed away from the side of the ship as the pirates rushed to leap aboard. Without even having to summon them, her life-threads clustered to her throbbing fingertips, aching to be released.
Save the crew, urged the voice. They need your help.
It was too risky, there were so many bodies crowded onto one small stretch of ship. She would be exposed, and besides, it looked as though the Argonauts were doing just fine without her.
Telamon and Atalanta had boarded the pirate vessel and were merrily gutting the men left behind.
They could not have been more different; Telamon was all grace and technique as though he was dancing at court, whereas Atalanta fought like she drank, furiously and with an unholy appetite.
Yet there was a rhythm that sang in both their bodies when they battled together, an awareness of each other’s patterns that could only be learned by years of fighting side by side.
Back on the Argo the rest of the crew were bludgeoning, maiming and—in the case of an overzealous Ancaeus—decapitating the pillagers who’d dared step foot on their ship.
The twins, Pollux and Castor, hadn’t even paused to take up their weapons and were smashing their way through the pirates’ skulls like they were pottery.
Her back to the stern platform, Danae watched pirate blood spray over the deck.
Then her eyes found Heracles. He stood at the other end of the mid-deck, leaning against the prow platform, his arms folded.
A smile shadowed his mouth as though the pair of them were watching gladiators in a stadium, performing for their pleasure.
She scowled at him. He could end this tussle in a heartbeat, why was he just standing there? Even if he only donned his lion hide, the sight of it would probably be enough to scare the attackers back to their ship.
Then a pirate came careering toward her, sword in hand. His tunic was sliced open, his gut a bloody mess. He lunged at her with the reckless violence of a man with nothing left to lose.
It was inevitable. She could not stop it.
Her power expanded inside her, igniting her skin with tingling energy as she reached for the man.
He was dying, she could feel it, just as she had done with the panther, she could see his life-threads seeping out through his wound. She wanted them. She needed them.
Then Hylas dived between them. He parried the man’s sword with a blow that sent the weapon clattering to the deck and in one smooth motion drove his blade into the soft flesh between the pirate’s neck and shoulder.
Danae felt the man’s death like a limb had been ripped from her body. All that wasted power.
A moan slipped from her lips.
“Did he hurt you?” Hylas put a hand on her arm, his eyes sweeping over her.
Danae managed to regain enough control to shake her head. Beyond him the fight was already over, and the Argonauts were busy heaving the pirates’ bodies into the sea.
“They’ve got wine!” Back on the pirate ship, Atalanta had prized open one of the locked crates to reveal it packed to the brim with amphorae. “A shitload of wine!”
Danae had never seen the warrior look so happy.
When the Hellespont finally opened into the sea of the Propontis, the Argo dropped anchor in the shadow of the jagged Phrygian cliffs.
The crew crowded onto the mid-deck under an indigo sky dappled with stars.
Spirits were high after their victory over the pirates, fueled by the contraband wine they’d decanted into drinking skins.
“I’ve heard,” said Telamon, grinning at the twins, “that your sister is the most beautiful woman in all of Greece.”
“Which one?” said Castor. “We have five.”
“Five beautiful sisters?” Atalanta’s mouth curled into a smirk. “Nice.”
“You know which one.” Telamon wagged his finger. “Married to...oh, what’s his name... King of Sparta.”
“Helen,” said Pollux, with the resignation of someone who’d answered the same question many times before.
“That’s the one!” Telamon took a swig of wine. “This is what I want to know...is she really as beautiful as everyone says? Rumor has it she’s actually—” his eyes slid to Heracles “—the big man’s half sister.”
“Telamon, enough,” said Heracles.
Telamon looked offended. “I just want to know if the God of Thunder fucked their mother.”
Atalanta laughed. The twins glanced at each other, then lunged at Telamon. The three tussled together on the deck until Heracles grabbed the brothers and hurled them across the benches.