The moon was yellow and huge on the horizon. The small ship crashed onto the beach in the twilight, hissing up shingle and tilting so far over it came close to rolling. The crew inside had rowed to the point of death to escape their pursuers. It had not been enough. Some eighty of them had floated her, then rattled out the oars while Persian sailors beat the water and chanted in time. That had been two nights before, with all their friends and colleagues murdered on the beach.

The second night had been spent at anchor, lost in darkness on an unknown shore without a single lamp lit. Even then, they’d barely slept, waiting for shadows to come out of the night. In that part of the sea, there were just too many shoals and sandbanks, ready to trap the unwary and leave them helpless. If the Persians had come close, hunting, they never saw them. Yet at the first grey light, three black galleys were there, far off on the cold waves, already turning to begin the chase once more.

That day had driven the crews to madness. They had rowed with their eyes closed, concentrating on just going on and going on, stroke after stroke, while the Persians drew closer. It was easier to pursue, always. Men were born hunters and it sapped the will to be chased down like a deer in the forest or fish in a net.

However long it had been, they had exhausted themselves, reached a limit. Four of them had burst their hearts and fallen still and tinged with blue into the hold, untended even by their friends. There were greater stakes.

They had discussed the best place to reach the mainland, with a dozen different choices. The only moment of joy that day had come when one of the Persian ships ran aground on a sandbank they all knew as The Nail. They had cheered then, hoping the others would break off to rescue or attach ropes to the unfortunate ones. They had not. Two ships had swept the sea behind them, relentlessly.

In the end, the choice had been made by their own weakness. A better cove lay further down the coast, but none of them thought they could reach it. Even the beaching speed they tried to bring about was feeble, so that the ship still rocked in the waves.

They tumbled out, collapsing onto the sand on hands and knees, while friends roared at them to get up and begin running. They helped each other, the strong dragging the weakest, while the Persians aimed at the shore and surged forward.

By the time the soldiers landed, they found only tracks heading over the dunes, inland. The officer walked to the top to stare out into the mainland of Greece, the first time he had set foot in the realm of his king’s enemies. He turned to his second in command, a friend, but also a man he suspected reported to the king’s spymaster. The officer looked into darkness, but there was no sign of the Greeks.