第六卷 双雄会 第一百三十五章 塔兰托大海战（七）

Davos felt relieved. When they had planned the crazy scheme of "using himself as bait" beforehand, Seclian and he had laid out detailed arrangements. They positioned a number of warships around Davos's flagship to protect his safety while engaging the enemy in the final contest.

"Warship charging from the left front!"

"Enemy ship to starboard!"

"Enemy ship off the stern on the right!"

...

The three lookouts kept shouting warnings. The Syracusans launched a frenzied attack on Davos's flagship, keeping everyone on board on edge.

"Boarding bridge retract! Boarding bridge retract!" At that moment, the deck sailor at the prow shouted loudly.

Miltias sighed in relief and yelled, "Back oars!"

By now, the sea around the flagship was crowded with enemy pairs of ships locked together, leaving only open space astern.

The sailors immediately began to back water. The flagship had just started moving when the lookout at the stern cried out urgently: "Enemy ship ramming from behind! Enemy ship ramming from behind!"

This Syracusan warship was quite cunning. Using excellent ship-handling skills and the cover of other vessels blocking the view, it darted like a fish through the gaps between ships, rapidly closing on the flagship. When the lookout spotted it, it was only about forty meters away.

Worse, the flagship was backing up, so the distance shrank quickly. Miltias shouted harshly, "Turn to starboard quarter! Turn to starboard quarter!..." He wanted to swing the ship around so the Corvus boarding bridge could be used, but it seemed there was no time.

"Forward oars! Forward oars!..." He changed his order again.

Although the rowers couldn't see what was happening outside, they sensed something wrong from the captain's rapidly shifting orders and tense voice. They grew flustered, and someone even dropped an oar into the sea.

Seeing the enemy ship's bronze ram cutting through the waves as it charged—even being able to make out the faces of the enemy on the prow—Davos's heart jumped into his throat. Martius rushed up with the soldiers and hurriedly stripped off Davos's armor. If the flagship were rammed and sank, they would take Davos and jump into the sea, to be rescued later.

In that split second, from the narrow gap between ships—too narrow for a trireme to pass—a warship shot out diagonally, blocking the path between the enemy ship and the flagship. It was a Daonian fifty-oared ship. In normal naval battles, fifty-oared ships were mostly used for scouting, communication, rescue, and assisting in boarding actions—often used as fast dispatch boats. But in the Daonian fleet, when the new naval tactics were being implemented, Seclian had given the fifty-oared ships a new tactical role. Noting that triremes equipped with the Corvus boarding bridge had become slower and less maneuverable, he used the fifty-oared ships' small size, agility, and speed (up to fifteen or sixteen knots) to block enemy attack routes and allow the main warships to escape.

Naturally, several such ships were maneuvering around the flagship to ensure Davos's safety. Now, the enemy ship had no time to turn. Its bronze ram slammed directly into the fifty-oared ship. With a loud crash, followed by the sounds of splintering wood and the screams and cries of sailors, a huge gash was torn in the smaller ship's side. Seawater rushed in, diluting the blood of the wounded...

Under the weight of the enemy trireme, the fifty-oared ship quickly sank...

But the forward momentum of the enemy trireme was clearly reduced, and it finally came to a halt.

Just as its captain shouted in panic, "Back oars! Back oars!" Davos's flagship had already turned and closed in. The Corvus dropped down.

Davos shouted angrily, "Revenge for our brothers!"

Leading his guards, he personally charged onto the enemy deck...

The Syracusans had originally hoped to use their superior sailing skills and rich naval experience to contend with the Daonians' strange warships. But now they were stunned to discover that although the Daonian warships were less maneuverable, that boarding device was exceptionally flexible. It could swing and drop in every direction and all sorts of ways, so that any enemy ships that came near it could not escape being hooked and were eventually captured.

The Syracusans were completely terrified.

Because of Leptines's stubborn insistence, the assault on Davos's flagship became a final frenzy. More than thirty Syracusan warships that had surrounded Davos's flagship were captured. The Syracusan fleet could no longer hold out...

Leptines screamed hoarsely, "Charge! Let me charge! Let me die here! Let go of me—let me drown! Aah..."

But how could his captain allow any harm to come to him? During the charge, he had secretly ordered the rowers to slow down, keeping the flagship on the outskirts of the assault. After this disastrous naval defeat, it was even more necessary to ensure that this naval commander returned safely to Scylletium—otherwise, the fury of that plenipotentiary general would be more than they could bear.

The few remaining Syracusan ships turned tail in panic and fled south. The Daonian fleet did not give chase, as their ships were too slow to catch enemies determined to escape. Most importantly, they had to rescue their sailors in the water and quickly deal with the aftermath.

"Your Majesty! The Syracusan navy has with—withdrawn! We—we have won!!" Amid the cheers of the rowers and guards, Miltias rushed up to him, his face extremely excited as he reported.

Davos stared at the enemy vanishing over the horizon. Suppressing his own excitement, he replied in a slightly trembling voice: "Victory... has only just begun!"

The great naval battle of Tarentum—a massive engagement that would determine the course of the war—finally came to an end after more than two hours.

The Syracusan navy lost two hundred and twenty-three warships, the vast majority of them triremes. The Daonian fleet lost more than forty warships, half of which were fifty-oared ships. The Daonian fleet, at an absolute disadvantage, unexpectedly achieved a great victory over the Syracusan navy, surprising many onlookers.

The battle presented a very different picture from other naval engagements. The Syracusan navy lost so many warships, yet there were few scenes of ships being rammed and sinking, with large numbers of sailors floating in the sea and crying out miserably. Because a total of one hundred and fifty-seven triremes were captured intact by the Daonians. With only minor repairs and their own sailors assigned, they could be put to sea. The Daonian fleet's strength would suddenly more than double.

This truly became a strange occurrence in Greek naval history: in naval warfare, ships normally became fewer as battles raged; no one had ever heard of ships increasing.

While the sailors and soldiers of the Daonian fleet cheered their victory, the shore also erupted.

The Castronites cheered. After witnessing a thrilling sea battle, they knew their homes would no longer be ravaged by the accursed Syracusans.

It was truly a miracle! When he saw the Syracusan ships retreating, Amykles was so stunned that he didn't come to himself for a long time. Although he had clung to a sliver of hope beforehand, it had been mere hope—yet the Daonians had actually turned it into reality! After a long pause, Amykles concluded: "The oracle of Hades has truly been fulfilled! Since Davos was elected king, Daonia has been greatly blessed by the Lord of the Underworld!"

His words actually met with agreement from the Castronite dignitaries around him. One council member asked promptly: "Then, gentlemen... should we still receive the Syracusan envoy?"

"No!" Amykles said resolutely. "Kill him at once!"

"But... wouldn't that be too extreme?" someone worried. "What if it provokes the Syracusan dictator..."

"Aren't you afraid of provoking our neighbor Daonia?" Amykles reminded them. "We have such close dealings with Thurii. The Daonians will know sooner or later that a Syracusan envoy entered the city. Then what will Davos think? What will the Daonian Senate think? Daonia, blessed by the oracle of Hades, has already won a naval battle with such an overwhelming disparity in numbers. They will surely be victorious in the end—just as, decades ago, Athens, blessed by the famous 'Wooden Wall' oracle of Delphi, finally defeated Persia. We must atone for our mistake with such drastic action to show our determination to stand firmly with Daonia!"

The Daonian people had already started cheering for victory even earlier.

When each captured Syracusan trireme was forced to sail close to the beach and then, along the coastline, north into the mouth of the Crati River, every citizen watching the sea battle from the shore rejoiced and waved wildly at the legion soldiers on deck. And the cheers were unending, because the captured Syracusan ships kept coming to the shore.

The other Syracusan warships did not take the opportunity to ram these captured vessels while they moved slowly. On one hand, the Daonian fleet's offensive was too fierce for them to spare the time; on the other, the Syracusans knew that the crews manning those captured ships were their own Syracusan sailors. No one was willing to make such a rash, mad decision—to send comrades they had trained and lived with day after day into a watery grave. And if they did, they would face the anger of their polis's citizens when they returned to their mother city. Moreover, their merciful naval commander, Leptines, would not give such a cruel order.

So, as one captured Syracusan ship after another sailed past the Daonian citizens, everyone understood that victory was not far away. But perhaps afraid of scaring off this hard-won victory, they did not dare to celebrate fully. It was only when the Syracusan fleet retreated that the joy of the Daonian people burst out completely.