The drummer reacted fast. Within seconds the larboard oars were jammed into the water, slewing the bows around and tilting the deck as the huge Arab war-ships bore down from the north. The Belisarius had been caught nearly dead in the water. So had most of the Byzantine fleet except for the fire-runners busy with the Egyptian force ahead.

The command to turn took an age to relay to the other ships and already the Byzantine line was in disarray. The lead Arab was not an arrow’s flight away. Erlan could see their proud figureheads – serpents and eagles and lions – he saw human faces too, thickets of spear-points and the gigantic iron ram trained straight at them.

‘The only way is to engage the fire,’ he heard Arbasdos saying.

‘The others aren’t ready, General,’ cried Davit.

The strategos laughed like a madman. ‘Then the lazy cunts had better catch up. ATTACK!’

The drummer found his rhythm, slow at first until the hull picked up speed, then faster and faster till his sticks were a blur. Somehow the rowers kept time, oars dipping, levering the boat through the black water till the night air whistled past Erlan’s ears. He unsheathed Wrathling, its hilt an old friend in this strange world.

The lead Arab ship was on a course to their larboard side. Behind it on either flank were many others. The Belisarius held its line, an oblique dagger thrust into the heart of the Arab fleet, its oars beating like fury. There was a strange, haunting moment as the two ships swept past each other on different bearings. Then the air filled with arrows, hailing onto the deck with a hellish rattle. But all other sights and sounds were obliterated in the instant the lion’s head belched out its fierce tongue of fire.

A rush. A roar. Thunder rolling into a terrifying eruption of heat that seared Erlan’s face.

‘So this is what it’s like to ride a dragon’s back!’ Einar’s bellow was swallowed by the din, and he let out a howl like a wolf. Erlan couldn’t deny the thrill he felt in his own blood.

Their jet of flame doused the stern of the lead ship, but the massive hull piled on unchecked, smashing into the Heraclius on their left and rising up out of the water like a titan before crashing down again on top of the dromon’s broadside. Splinters burst everywhere. A few Byzantine mariners managed to lob fire-pots up onto the deck of the gigantic Arab ship, even in that moment of their doom. The men were dead an instant later but their last act was deadly. Their pots smashed, streaking liquid fire over the rigging and a dozen Arab seamen in the bows. The stern was already a furnace. The galley was lost even as the Heraclius sank beneath it.