They'd never make it. Not in the Thar, in the hot season.
"I understand the arithmetic," Belisarius said harshly. "It's still our only chance."
"You'll lead the party, Ashot. Abbu, you go with him. Pick three of your bedouin for the remaining men."
Ashot's eyes widened, a little. Abbu's didn't.
"No. I'll stay here with the men."
"Be off, Ashot. There's no time to waste. And there will be no argument. No discussion at all."
He turned and started walking away from the well.
Are you sure? asked Aide, uncertainly.
Yes. These men have been with me for years. I'm not leaving them to die. Not that, whatever else.
Aide said nothing. His own survival was not at stake. There were things that could destroy Aide, Belisarius knew, although the jewel had always been reticent about explaining exactly what they were. But merely being without water for a few weeks—or even a few years—was not one of them.
When Ashot returned, most likely he would find Aide in a pouch hanging from a corpse's neck. But the jewel would be as alive as ever.
Working through Ousanas would be the easiest for you, I think, Belisarius mused. But he's probably not influential enough. You might try Rao, although there might be the same problem. The best would be Damodara, if you could reach him.
I don't want to talk about it.
I don't want to talk about it.
* * *
Ashot and Abbu left after sundown. Once they were gone, Belisarius addressed his bucellarii and the remaining Arab scouts.
"We don't have much of a chance, men. But it'll be improved if we set up good shelters from the sun. So let's work on that tonight. Also, we want to eat as little as possible. Eating uses up water, too."
One of the cataphracts asked: "Are you going to set up a rationing system?"
Several of the Arabs who heard the question started shaking their heads.
"No," said Belisarius firmly. "Once we make an even division of what's left, drink whenever you're thirsty. If fact, after a few hours, drink something even if you're not thirsty."
That cataphract and a few others seemed confused. Apparently, they didn't have much experience with the desert.
"Rationing water as a way of staying alive in the desert is a fable," Belisarius explained. "It does more harm than good. You're only going to live as long as your body has enough water, no matter what you do. All rationing does is weaken you quicker. So drink as much as you want, whenever you want. The bigger danger, actually, is that you won't drink often enough."
One of the bedouin grunted his agreement. "Listen to the general."
"Oh, sure," said the cataphract hastily. "I was just wondering."
* * *
Later that night, after the camp was made, Aide spoke for the first time since the decision had been made.
They're not, really. But since I stayed with them, they have a barrier to fear.
Yes. I understand. I always wondered.
Why Alexander the Great poured onto the sand a helmet full of water that one of his soldiers had offered him, in that terrible retreat from India through the desert. It just seemed flamboyant, to me.
Belisarius smiled. Well, it was flamboyant. But that was the nature of the man. I'd have just told the soldier to return the water to the common share. That difference aside, yes, that's why he did it. His men might have died anyway. But by refusing the water, Alexander made sure they didn't panic. Which would have killed them even quicker.
We still need to talk about the future. Your future. If you can reach Damodara—
I don't want to talk about that.
After a while, he added: I'm not ready.
I understand. We have some days yet.
* * *
Meeting Raghunath Rao in the flesh was perhaps the oddest experience Antonina had ever had. That was not so much because she already knew a great deal about him, but because of one specific thing she knew.
In another world, another future, another time, another universe, she had met the man. Had known him for decades, in fact, since he'd been Belisarius' slave.
In the end, she'd been murdered by the Malwa. Murdered, and then flayed, so her skin-sack could serve as another trophy. In his last battle in that universe, Belisarius had rescued her skin, and taken it with him when he leapt into a cauldron.
She knew the story, since her husband had told her once. And she also knew that it had been Rao who washed the skin, to cleanse it of the Malwa filth, before her husband took it into the fire.
What did you say to a man who once washed your flayed skin?
But the time had come. Having exchanged greetings with the Empress of Andhra, Antonina was now being introduced to her consort.
Rao bowed deeply, then extended his hands.
"It's nice to finally meet you," she said. Feeling like an idiot.
* * *
"Use the mortars," Kungas commanded. "As many as we've got."
"We've got a lot of mortars," Kujulo pointed out.
Kungas pointed at the Malwa army scrambling away from the pass. Obviously, whatever else they'd expected, they hadn't thought Kungas would come plunging out of the Hindu Kush with twenty thousand men. Like a flash flood of steel.
"They're already panicked. Pound them, Kujulo. Pound them as furiously as you can. I don't care if we run out of gunpowder in a few minutes. Mortars will do it."
* * *
Less than an hour later, the way out of the Peshawar Vale was clear. The Malwa army guarding Margalla pass had broken like a stick. Splintered, rather, with pieces running everywhere.
"No pursuit," Kungas commanded. "It'll take the Malwa days to rally them. That gives us time to reach the headwaters of the Sutlej before an army can reach us from Multan."
Kujulo cocked his head. "You've decided, then?"
"Yes. We'll take the gamble. I want that bitch dead. With us coming behind her, right on her heels, we can drive her into the trap."
"The one Belisarius will be setting for her."
Kujulo cocked his head the other way. Kungas had to fight down a chuckle. With the plume on his helmet, he reminded the king of a confused bird.
"Ah. You've been told something."
"No," said Kungas. "I'm just guessing."
His head still cocked, Kujulo winced. "Big gamble. Based on a guess."
* * *
After Kujulo left to organize the march, Kungas summoned the Ye-tai deserters. They'd been standing nearby, garbed in their fancy new uniforms. Irene had had them made up quickly by her seamstresses, substituting flamboyance where time hadn't allowed good workmanship.
The armor, of course, was the same they'd been wearing when they arrived in Peshawar. The well-worn and utilitarian gear looked especially drab, against that colorful new fabric and gaudy design.
"You're promoted," he told the squad leader. "I think we'll use Greek ranks for the Royal Sarmatian Guards. That'll make you sound exotic. Exciting."
"Whatever you say, Your Majesty."
"You're a tribune. The rest are hecatontarchs."
The squad leader pondered the matter, briefly.
"What do those titles mean, exactly? Your Majesty."
"I'd say that's up to you, isn't it? Get me some deserters. Lots of them." He waved a hand at the low hills around them, much of their slopes now it shadowed by the setting sun. "They'll be out there."
Kungas shrugged. "You won't find many other than Ye-tai bold enough to come in. But it doesn't matter. Anyone who's willing to swear his mother was Sarmatian."
* * *
After the king left, the tribune turned to his mates.
* * *
When the Emperor of Malwa reached the door leading into the inner sanctum of the imperial palace—the ultimate inner sanctum; the real one—he paused for a moment, his lips tightly pursed.
That was partly because he'd have to submit to a personal search, the moment he entered, at the hands of Link's special Khmer guards. It was the only time the divine emperor suffered such an indignity. As the years had passed, Skandagupta found that increasingly distasteful.
But that was only part of the matter, and probably not the largest part. The emperor hadn't come down here in well over a year. Entering the inner sanctum below the palace was always disturbing, in a way that dealing with Malwa's overlord through one of the Great Ladies who served as its sheath was not.
He wasn't sure why. Perhaps because the machines in the chambers beyond were completely unfathomable. A cold, metallic reminder that even the Malwa emperor himself was nothing but a device, in the hands of the new gods.
He wasn't even sure why he had come, this day. He'd been driven simply by a powerful impulse to do so.
Skandagupta was not given to introspection, however. A few seconds later, he opened the door.
There was no lock. He'd had to pass through several sets of guards to get down here, and the chamber immediately beyond the door had more guards still. Those quiet, frightening special assassins.
* * *
The personal inspection was brief, but not perfunctory in the least. Feeling polluted by the touch of the guards' hands, Skandagupta was ushered into the inner sanctum.
Great Lady Rani was there to greet him. She would be Great Lady Sati's replacement, if and when the time came. Standing against a nearby wall, their heads submissively bowed, were the four Khmer women who attended her, simultaneously, as servants, confidants—and, mostly, tutors. They were trained in the cult's temple in far-off Cambodia, and then trained still further by Link itself once they arrived in Kausambi.
"Welcome, Emperor," said Great Lady Rani, in that eight-year-old girl's voice that was always so discordant to Skandagupta.
No more so than Sati's had once been, of course. Or, he imagined, Holi's in times past, although he himself was not old enough to remember Holi as a small girl. Link's sheaths, once selected, were separated from the dynastic clan and brought up in ways that soon made them quite unlike any other girls. Link would not consume them until the time came, once their predecessor had died. But the overlord communed with them frequently beforehand, using the machines—somehow—to instill its spirit into their child's minds. By the time they were six, they were no longer children in any sense of that term that meant anything.
The Emperor didn't answer for a moment, his eyes moving across the machines in a corner. He did not understand those machines; never had, and never would. He did not even understand how Link had managed to bring them here from the future, all those many years ago. Malwa's overlord had told him once that the effort had been so immense—so expensive, in ways of calculating cost that Skandagupta did not understand either—that it would be almost impossible to duplicate.
"What may I do for you?" she repeated.
The Emperor shook his head impatiently. "Nothing, really. I just wanted..."
He couldn't find the conclusion to that sentence. He tried, but couldn't.
"I just wanted to visit, " he finally said, lamely. "See how you were."
"How else would I be?" The eyes in the eight-year-old face belonged to no woman at all, of any age. "Ready, as I have always been."
Skandagupta cleared his throat. "Surely it won't come to that. Not for many years. Great Lady Sati is still quite young."
"Most likely. But nothing is certain."
He cleared his throat again. "I'll be going, now."
* * *
When he reached the landing of the stairs that led down to the inner sanctum, he was puffing heavily from the climb. Not for the first time, wishing he could make the trip in a palanquin carried by slaves.
Impossible, of course. Not only was the staircase much too narrow, but Link would have forbidden it anyway.
Well, not exactly. Link would allow slaves to come down to the inner sanctum. It had done so, now and then, for an occasional special purpose.
But then the Khmer assassins killed them, so what was the point? The emperor would still have to climb back up.
* * *
He was in a foul mood, therefore, when he reached his private audience chamber and was finally able to relax on his throne.
After hearing what his aides had to report, his mood grew fouler still.
"They blew up the tunnels again?" Angrily, he slapped the armrest of the throne. "That's enough! Tear down every building in that quarter of the city, within three hundred yards of Damodara's palace. Raze it all to the ground! Then dig up everything. They can't have placed mines everywhere."
He took a deep breath. "And have the commander of the project executed. Whoever he is."
"He did not survive the explosion, Your Majesty."
Skandagupta slapped the armrest again. "Do as I command!"
* * *
His aides hurried from the chamber, before the emperor's wrath could single out one of them to substitute for the now-dead commander. Despite the great rewards, serving Skandagupta had always been a rather risky proposition. If not as coldly savage as his father, he was also less predictable and given to sudden whims.
In times past, those whims had often produced great largesse for his aides.
No longer. The escape of Damodara's family, combined with Damodara's rebellion, had unsettled Skandagupta in ways that the Andhran and Persian and Roman wars had never done. For weeks, his whims had only been murderous.
"This is madness," murmured one aide to another. He allowed himself that indiscretion, since they were brothers. "What difference does it make, if they stay in hiding? Unless Damodara can breach the walls—if he manages to get to Kausambi at all—what does it matter? Just a few more rats in a cellar somewhere, a little bigger than most."
They were outside the palace now, out of range of any possible spies or eavesdroppers. Gloomily, the aide's brother agreed. "All the emperor's doing is keeping the city unsettled. Now, the reaction when we destroy an entire section..."
He shook his head. "Madness, indeed."
But since they were now walking past the outer wall of the palace, the conversation ended. No fear of eavesdroppers here, either. But the long row of ragged heads on pikes—entire rotting bodies on stakes, often enough—made it all a moot point.
Obey or die, after all, is not hard to understand.
* * *
Abbu returned the next day, with his Arab scouts.
"Ashot stayed behind, with the Rajputs," he explained tersely. "Just keep out of the sun and don't move any more than you must. They'll be here tomorrow. Thousands of camels, carrying enough water to fill a lake. We won't even lose the horses."
Belisarius laughed. "What an ignominious ending to my dramatic gesture!"
Now that salvation was at hand, Abbu's normally pessimistic temperament returned.
"Do not be so sure, general! Rajputs are cunning beasts. It may be a trap. The water, poisoned."
That made Belisarius laugh again. "Seven thousand Rajputs need poisoned water to kill five hundred Romans?"
"You have a reputation," Abbu insisted.
The
Punjab,
North of the Iron Triangle
"This is the craziest thing I've ever seen," muttered Maurice. "Even for Persians."
Menander shook his head. Not because he disagreed with Kungas, but simply in...
No, not that. Sitting on his horse on a small knoll with a good view of the battlefield, Menander could see the insane charge that Emperor Khusrau had ordered against the Malwa line.
He could also see the fortifications of that line itself, and the guns that were spewing forth destruction. He didn't even want to think about the carnage that must be happening in front of them.
He could remember a time in his life when he would have thought that furious charge might carry the day. However insane it was, no one could doubt the courage and the tenacity of the thousands of Persian heavy cavalrymen who were hurling themselves and their armored horses against the Malwa. But, even though he was still a young man, Menander had now seen enough of gunpowder warfare to know that the Persian effort was hopeless. If the Malwa had been low on ammunition, things might have been different. But the fortifications they'd erected on the west bank of the Indus to guard their flank against just such an attack could be easily re-supplied by barges crossing the river. In fact, he could see two such barges being rowed across the Indus right now.
Against demoralized troops already half-ready to surrender or flee, the charge might have worked. It wouldn't work here. The morale of the Malwa army had suffered a great deal, to be sure, from their defeats over the past two years. But they were still the largest and most powerful army in the world, and their soldiers knew it.
They knew something else, too. They knew that trying to surrender to—or flee from—an assault like the Persians had launched, was impossible anyway. If they broke, they'd just get butchered.
It didn't help any, of course, that the Persians were shouting the battle cry of Charax! as they charged. Whether because their emperor had ordered it or because of their own fury, Menander didn't know. But he knew—and so did the Malwa soldiers manning the fortresses—that the Persians might as well have been using the battle cry of No Quarter.
"Let's go, lad," said Maurice quietly. "We made an appearance as observers, since Khusrau invited us. But now that the diplomacy's done, staying any longer is just pointless. This isn't really a battle, in the first place. It's just an emperor ridding himself of troublesome noblemen."
He turned his horse and began trotting away. Menander followed.
"You've met Khusrau. Did he strike you as being as dumb as an ox?"
Menander couldn't help but smile, a little. "No. Not in the least."
"Right." Maurice jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Not even an ox would be dumb enough to think that charge might succeed."
* * *
Maurice was slandering the Persian emperor, actually. It was true that breaking the power of the sahrdaran and vurzurgan families was part of the reason Khusrau had ordered the charge. But it wasn't the only reason. It wasn't even the most important reason.
There would be no way to eliminate the great families simply through one battle, after all. Not all of their men had come to India, even leaving aside the Suren, and not all of them would die before the walls of the Malwa.
Not even most of them, in fact. Khusrau was no stranger to war, and knew perfectly well that no battle results in casualties worse than perhaps one-quarter of the men engaged, unless they get trapped, and many of those would recover from their wounds. It was amazing, really, how many men survived what, from a distance, looked like a sheer bloodbath.
There was no chance of a trap here, nor of enemy pursuit once the Persians cavalrymen finally retreated. Many sahrdaran and vurzurgan would die this day, to be sure. But most of them wouldn't. He'd bleed the great families, but he wouldn't do more than weaken them some.
So, the emperor hadn't even stayed to watch, once he ordered the assault. Quietly, almost surreptitiously—and far enough from the Malwa lines not to be observed—he'd slipped away from his camp with two thousand of his best imperial cavalry.
Light cavalry. Over half of them Arabs, in fact.
He'd be gone for several days. Khusrau didn't believe in cavalry charges against heavy fortifications any more than Maurice did. But since he came from a nation that had always been a cavalry power, he'd given much thought to the proper uses of cavalry in the new era of gunpowder.
Assaults against fortresses were pointless. Raids against a specific target, were not.
* * *
Two days later, he was vindicated.
Next to him, also sitting on a horse carefully screened from the river by high reeds, the chief of the emperor's personal cavalry smiled.
"You were right, Your Majesty. As always."
Almost gloating, the emperor's eyes went back to the target of the raid. One of the two ironclads had its engines steaming, but it was still tied to the dock like the other. From the casual manner of the sailors and soldiers moving about on the docks, Khusrau thought the engines were running simply as part of routine care. What the Roman naval expert Menander called "maintenance." Khusrau didn't know much about the newfangled warships, but he knew they needed a lot of it. The things were cantankerous.
"No point in trying to capture them," he said, regretfully.
The Persians had no one who could operate the things. Even the Roman experts would need time to figure out the different mechanisms—and time was not going to be available. Khusrau was quite sure his two thousand cavalrymen could break through the small garrison protecting the Malwa naval base and burn the ships before reinforcements could arrive. But it would have to be done very quickly, if they were to survive themselves. They'd had to cross a ford to get to this side of the Indus, far upstream from the battlefield—upstream from the naval base, in fact—and they'd have to cross the same ford to make their escape.
With his superb light cavalry, the emperor thought they could do it. But not if they dawdled, trying to make complex foreign equipment work.
And why bother? These were the only two ironclads the Malwa had built on the Indus. Once they were destroyed, they had no way—no quick and easy way, at least—to bring their ironclads from the other rivers. All of the rivers in the Punjab connected to the Indus eventually—but only at the Iron Triangle.
Which was held by the Romans. Who had an ironclad of their own. Which they had not dared to use because of these two ironclads. Which would shortly no longer exist.
"Do it," the emperor commanded.
* * *
He did not participate personally in the charge and the battle that followed. He was brave enough, certainly, but doing so was unnecessary—would even be even foolish. Persians did not expect their emperors to be warriors also.
What they did expect was that their emperors would present them with victories.
* * *
The ironclads burned very nicely. Khusrau had worried, a bit, that they might not. But the Malwa built them the same way the Romans did, just as Menander and Justinian had said they would. An iron shell over a wooden hull.
Almost as nicely as the emperor's victory would burn in the hearts of his soldiers, after he returned to his camp. Where the sahrdaran and vurzurgan who had insisted on that insane assault—the emperor himself had been doubtful, and made sure everyone knew it—would be low-spirited and shamefaced.
* * *
"I don't care if those sorry bastards up north are getting hammered by the Kushans!" General Samudra shouted at the mahaveda priest. Angrily, he pointed a finger to the west. "I've got Persians hammering on me right here! They just destroyed our ironclads on the Indus!"
The priest's face was stiff. He was one of several such whom Great Lady Sati had left behind to keep an eye on the military leadership. Without, however, giving them the authority to actually over-ride any military decisions made by Samudra.
From the priests' point of view, that was unfortunate. From Samudra's point of view, it was a blessing. What priests knew about warfare could be inscribed on the world's smallest tablet.
"Absolutely not!" he continued, lowering his voice a little but speaking every bit as firmly. "I've already sent couriers with orders to the expedition I sent in relief to turn back. We need them here."
The priest wasn't going to give up that easily. "The Kushans are out of the Margalla Pass, now!"
"So what?" sneered Samudra. "Fifteen thousand Kushans—twenty at most, and don't believe that nonsense about fifty thousand—can't do anything to threaten us here. Sixty—maybe seventy—thousand Romans and Persians can."
"They can threaten Great Lady Sati!"
For a moment, that caused Samudra to pause. But only for a moment, before the sneer was back.
"Don't meddle in affairs that you know nothing about, priest. If you think the Kushans are going to leave their kingdom unprotected while they hare off trying to intercept the Great Lady—"
He shook his head, the way a man does upon hearing an absurd theory or proposition. "Ridiculous. Besides, by now she'll have reached the headwaters of the Sutlej. That's a hundred miles from the Margalla Pass. It would take an army of twenty thousand men—assuming they have that many to begin with—a week and a half to cover the distance."
He cleared his throat sententiously. "Had you any experience in these matters, you would understand that a large army cannot travel faster than ten miles a day."
He hoped the words didn't ring as false to the priest as they did to him, the moment he said them. That ten mile a day average was...
An average. No more, no less. It did not apply to every army. Samudra had had Kushan forces under his command, in times past, and knew that a well-trained and well-led Kushan army could march two or three times faster than that—even while fighting small battles and skirmishes along the way.
"By the time they got to the headwaters of the Sutlej—assuming they were foolish enough to make the attempt in the first place—Great Lady Sati's forces will have already reached the headwaters of the Ganges. It's conceivable, I suppose, that the Kushans might be mad enough to venture so far into the northern Punjab, but no enemy force—not that size!—will be lunatic enough to enter the Ganges plain. The garrison at Mathura alone has forty thousand men!"
The priest stared at him from under lowered brows. Clearly enough, he was not persuaded by Samudra's arguments. But, just as clearly, he did not have the military knowledge to pick apart the logic. So, after a moment, he turned and walked away stiffly.
Samudra, however, did have the knowledge. And, now that he thought upon the matter more fully, be was becoming more uneasy by the minute.
The northern Punjab had not been ravaged much by the war, and it was the most fertile portion of the Punjab because it got more rain during the monsoon season than the rest of the province. If the Kushans were willing to abandon their logistics train and cut across the area relying on forage, they could cover possibly thirty miles a day. Twenty, for a surety.
The terrain was good, too. Excellent, from the standpoint of a marching army. From Peshawar ran the ancient trade route known as the Uttar Path or North Way, which crossed into the Ganges plain and ran all the way to the Bay of Bengal on the other side of the sub-continent. That was the same route that Great Lady Sati herself planned to take in her return to Kausambi, once she reached it by following the Sutlej.
By now, Samudra was staring to the north, not really seeing anything except in his mind. A fast-moving Kushan army, unrestrained by a logistics train, marching down the Uttar Path from the Margalla hills with no army in their way any longer...
They could intercept Great Lady Sati.
Possibly. It depended on how fast her own march had been. But Samudra knew full well that with the size of the army she'd taken with her, mostly infantry and with elephant-borne chaundoli, she wouldn't be moving all that quickly.
He opened his mouth, about to issue orders—that army coming back would curse him, for sending them north yet again, but better the curses of soldiers—far better—than—
A horrific chain of explosions shattered his purpose.
Gaping, Samudra spun around, now facing south by southwest.
"What happened?" The chain of explosions was continuing. As loud as it was, it seemed strangely muffled. Samudra detected what might be...
One of his aides coughed. "General, I think the Romans are blowing up their mine field in the river."
"That's ridiculous! Our ironclads—"
He broke off so suddenly the last word ended in a choke.
"They're only blowing the mine field in the Indus," the same officer continued, his tone apologetic. "Not the one in the Chenab."
The Malwa had no ironclads left in the Indus. The Persians had destroyed them. There was nothing to stop the Roman warships from sallying up the river, firing at troops who had no way to shoot back except small arms and light cannon. Great Lady Sati had dismantled the heavy batteries that had once been positioned along the east bank of the Indus, once the ironclads came into service, in order to move them across the river as a shield against a possible Roman flank attack.
They could be turned around to face the river, but that would take at least a full day—and Samudra was quite sure the Romans or Persians or both would be attacking those forts again as soon as the Roman ironclad got up there and started firing on them.
Perhaps the heavy batteries at Multan could be brought down...
His earlier intentions completely forgotten, Samudra began issuing a blizzard of new orders.
* * *
"Let's hope this works," Menander muttered to himself, as the Justinian steamed at full speed up the river. "If the engine breaks down..."
He eyed the engine house warily. The damn gadget was more reliable than it had been when the former emperor after whom the ironclad had been named designed it, but it was still very far from being what anyone in his right mind would call "dependable."
Not for the first time, Meander contemplated ruefully the odd twists of fate that had wound up putting him in charge of the Roman army's brown-water naval forces, instead of becoming a simple cataphract liked he'd planned to be.
When he said as much to his second-in-command, the newly-promoted former Puckle gunner, Leo Constantes laughed.
"Today? Be glad you're not a cataphract—or you'd be taking part in the crazy charge Sittas is leading."
* * *
Sittas himself was downright gleeful. He'd been frustrated for months, ever since the battle on the north lines of the Iron Triangle had settled down into a siege. There was really no place for heavy cavalry in such a fight, except to stay in reserve in the unlikely event of a Malwa breakthrough. Now, finally—!
He was tempted to step up the pace, but managed to resist with no huge difficulty. Sittas was too experienced a horseman not to know that if he arrived with blown horses at the Malwa fortifications that had driven back the Persians a few days before, he might as well not have come at all.
Besides, they were nearing the Persian lines. Sittas didn't like Persians, and never had. No Roman he knew did except Belisarius—who was hopelessly eccentric—and those who had married Persian women, who at least had a reasonable excuse. Not even Sittas would deny that Persian women were attractive.
The men, on the other hand—pah!
"Look smart, lads!" he bellowed over his shoulder. "A fancy trot, now! Let's rub salt into their wounds!"
* * *
The Persian sahrdaran and vurzurgan glared at the Roman cavalrymen the whole way through their camp. The dehgans who fell in behind Sittas' cavalry, on the other hand, seemed more philosophical about the matter. Or perhaps they were simply more sanguine. This time it would be Romans leading the charge against those damn Malwa guns. It remained to be seen how cocky they'd still be in a few hours.
* * *
"All right," Maurice said to his top officers, gathered in the command bunker. "Remember: make the sallies as threatening as you can, without suffering heavy casualties. We've got no more chance of storming the Malwa lines facing us here than they have of storming the Iron Triangle. All we've got to do is pin them, so Samudra can't pull out troops to reinforce his right flank. Any questions?"
"What if they make a sally?" one of the officers asked. "If they break through anywhere, we don't have Sittas and his thousands of cavalrymen to drive them back."
Maurice shrugged. "We'll scramble, that's all."
* * *
When the Justinian came in sight of the Malwa fortifications on the west bank, Menander let out a whoop of exultation. The Punjabi peasants who'd managed to escape the labor gangs and desert to the Romans had told them that the Malwa hadn't positioned any guns on the river side of the fortifications. What they hadn't said—or hadn't been asked—was that they'd also never bothered to put up walls sheltering the guns from the river, either. Why bother, when they had the ironclads?
The gun ramps and platforms were completely exposed. The thousands of Malwa gunners and riflemen manning the lines would have no shelter at all from the Justinian.
"Load case shot!" he bellowed.
As his gun crews went about the labor, his eyes scanned the east bank of the river. There were some Malwa fortifications there also, but nothing substantial. What was more important was that he couldn't see any sign of big guns. A few small pieces, here and there, but the Victrix could handle those well enough. The fireship wasn't an ironclad, but her thick wooden walls should be able to handle anything the Malwa had on the spot. And by the time they could bring up heavy artillery, the Victrix would have done her job and gotten back downriver and out of range.
And quite a job it would be, too. Menander contemplated the mass of barges tied up to the wharves. There were only two crossing the river. The rest...
"You're kindling, boys," he gloated. "I'd recommend you get ashore quickly."
He turned to the signalman. "Tell the Victrix to come up."
A few seconds later, the signal flags having done their work, he saw heavy steam pouring out of the Victrix's funnel. She'd be here very shortly.
But he had his own work to do. By now, the Justinian was just coming abreast of the first fortress. There was something almost comical about the way the Malwa soldiers were frantically trying to move the big guns facing landward and get them turned around.
It was a pointless effort, of course. But what else were they to do, except gape in consternation? The handguns and small artillery they had would just bounce off the Roman ironclad.
They wouldn't bounce off Menander, on the other hand. Constantes and the signalman had already retreated into the pilot's armored turret. Hurriedly, Menander followed them.
Once inside, he leaned over the speaking tube.
* * *
Sittas waited until the Justinian had steamed completely past the fortifications, shelling them as it went.
"Now!" he bellowed, and sent his horse into the charge. Six thousand Roman cataphracts came after him—and after them, over twice that number of Persian dehgans.
* * *
"Back again," Menander commanded. The Justinian had finished its turn. That was always a slow and delicate business, in the relatively narrow confines of the river. He'd had to be more careful than usual, too, since he didn't have good charts of this stretch of the Indus.
But the work was done, and the enemy was about to get savaged again. They were still as defenseless as ever. More so, actually, since he could see they were starting to panic.
And well they might. By now, close to twenty thousand heavy cavalrymen would be thundering at them. If they'd still had their big guns intact, they could have sneered at that charge, as they'd done a few days earlier.
None of the guns had been dismounted, true enough, since Menander hadn't used anything heavier than case shot. Nor would he again, since the plan was to capture the guns intact. But he'd inflicted heavy casualties on the crews and ammunition carriers, and even managed to blow up one of the smaller ammunition dumps that had been overly exposed. They'd be in no shape to resist the kind of charge Sittas would press, all the more so since they'd have to do so with Menander firing on them again from their rear.
The barges across the river were making a nice conflagration, too. And—wonder of wonders—the wind was blowing the smoke away from the river. Menander had worried that if the smoke blew the other way he might find himself blinded.
"It's a miracle, lads," he said cheerfully to the other men in the turret. "The one and only time in my life I've seen a military operation work exactly according to plan."
The engine coughed. The Justinian lurched.
Silence. The Justinian glided gently downriver with the current, its engine dead.
"Idiot!" Menander hissed at himself. "You had to go and say it!"
Sighing, he studied the riverbank for a moment. "Can you keep her steady in midriver?"
"Yes, sir," replied the pilot.
"All right, then." He leaned over the speaking tube again. "Relax, boys. All that happens until the engineers get the engines running again is just that we have more time to aim. Let 'em have it."
* * *
The fighting that afternoon at the front lines was brutal, but the casualties never got bad enough for Maurice to start worrying. And the Malwa never tried any sallies at all.
* * *
Samudra was too pre-occupied to order any. All his attention was concentrated on the desperate effort to get reinforcements to the Indus in time to keep the Romans and Persians from crossing. It was bad enough that he'd lost the forts on the opposite bank. It wouldn't take the enemy long to turn the guns around and built new berms to shelter them. The Persians and Romans were already working like bees to get it done. As it was, he'd henceforth be pressed on his western flank as well as the southern front. But let them get a toehold on his side of the river...
Samudra managed to stave off that disaster. But it took two days to do so.
It wasn't until the morning of the third day that he remembered the Kushans at MargallaPass. By which time it was too late to do anything.
Near Mayapur, on the Ganges
"It's them, Great King," said the Pathan scout, pointing to the east. "Must be. No general—not even a Malwa—would be leading a large army from a chaundoli."
"How close are they to the Ganges?"
"For us, Great King, a day's march. For them, two. By mid-afternoon on the day after tomorrow, they will have reached Mayapur. They will need to wait until the next day to ford the river. The Ganges is still quick-moving, just coming out of the Silawik hills and the rapids. They would be foolish—very foolish—to cross it after sundown."
"Unless they were forced to..." Kungas mused. "Do you know if there's high ground nearby?"
"Yes, Great King. I have been to the shrines at Mayapur, to see the Footstep of God."
Kungas was not surprised. The Pathans were not Hindus, but like tribesmen in many places they were as likely to adopt the gods of other people as their own. Mayapur—also known as Gangadwara—was an ancient religious site, which had drawn pilgrims for centuries. It was said that Vishnu had left his footprint there, at the exact spot where the holy Ganges left the mountains.
The Pathan's hands moved surely in the air, sketching the topography. "Here, below, is the Ganges. Here—not far—there is a ridge. Very steep. There is a temple on the crest. I have been to it."
"Is the river within mortar range of the ridge?"
"Yes. The big mortars, anyway. And the flatland by the river is wide enough to hold the whole Malwa army, while they wait to cross." The Pathan grinned fiercely. "They will be relaxed and happy, now that they are finally out of the hills and entering the plain. You will slaughter them like lambs, Great King."
As he studied the distant hills, Kungas pondered the man's use of the title Great King. That was no title that Kungas himself had adopted or decreed, and this scout was not the first Pathan whom Kungas had heard use the expression. From what he could tell, in fact, it seemed to have become—or was becoming, at least—the generally accepted term for him among the tribesmen.
There were subtleties in that phrase, if you knew—as Kungas did—the ways of thought of the mountain folk. People from lands accustomed to kings and emperors would think nothing of it. "Great" was simply one of many adjectives routinely attached to such rulers. A rather modest one, in fact, compared to the "divine" appellation of Indian tradition. Even the relatively egalitarian Axumites, when they indulged themselves in formal oratory, plastered such labels as "He Who Brought The Dawn" onto their monarchs.
Something else was involved here. Great king—where the Kushans themselves simply called him "king." The title added a certain necessary distance, for the Pathans. Kungas was not their king. Not the authority to whom they directly answered, who were their own clan leaders. But they would acknowledge that he was the overlord of the region, and would serve him in that capacity.
Good enough, certainly for the moment.
Kujulo was frowning slightly, looking at the Pathan. "Are you sure—"
Kungas waved his hand. "If a Pathan scout says it's Great Lady Sati, it's Great Lady Sati."
The man looked very pleased. Kungas' following question, however, had him frowning also.
The Pathan's hands moved again, but no longer surely, as if groping a little. "Hard to say, Great King. Very large army. Many hundreds of hundreds."
Kungas left off further questioning. The Pathan was not only illiterate, but had a concept of arithmetic that faded away somewhere into the distance after the number "one hundred." Even that number was a borrowed Greek term. And, although the man was an experienced warrior, he was the veteran of mountain fights. Feuds between clans, clashes with expeditions from the lowlands—none of them involving forces on the scale of battles between civilized nations. Any estimate he gave of the size of Sati's army would be meaningless.
He nodded, dismissing the scout, and turned to Kujulo. "We'll need some of our own soldiers to do a reasonably accurate count. Send off a party guided by the scout."
"And in the meantime? Continue the march?"
"No. As hard as we've pressed them the past few days, the men need a rest." He glanced at the sky, gauging the sun. "I'll want a long march tomorrow, though, and it'll be a hard one, followed by a night march after a few hours rest. I want to be at that ridge before Sati can cross the river."
Kujulo started to move off. Kungas called him back.
"One other thing. By now, the bitch will be suspicious because we've cut the telegraph lines. Take three thousand men and march immediately. Stay to the south. She'll send back a scouting expedition. Three thousand should be enough to drive them off—but make sure you draw their attention to the south."
Kujulo nodded. "While you march by night and slip past them to the north."
"Yes. If it works, we'll come onto the ridge opposite the river. They won't know we're there until they start crossing."
Kujulo's grin was every bit as savage as the Pathan's. "A big army—tens of thousands of soldiers—in the middle of a river crossing. Like catching an enemy while he's shitting. Good thing you made us wait to get more ammunition for the mortars, before we left Margalla Pass."
"We only lost a day, thanks to Irene's efficiency, and I knew we'd make it up in the march."
"True. Best quartermaster I ever saw, she is. Stupid Pathans. If they had any brains, they'd know it was just plain and simple 'king'—but with a very great queen."
He hurried off, then, leaving Kungas behind to ponder the question of whether or not he'd just seen his royal self deeply insulted.
Being an eminently sane and rational man who'd begun life as a simple soldier, it took him no more than a second to dismiss the silly notion. But he knew his grandson—great-grandson, for sure—would think otherwise. There were perils to claiming Alexander and Siddhartha Gautama as the ancestors of a dynasty. It tended to produce a steep and rapid decline in the intelligence of the dynasty's succeeding generations.
But that was a problem for a later decade. In the coming few days, Kungas would be quite satisfied if he could tear the flanks of the army escorting Malwa's overlord to what he thought was its final battle.
He probably couldn't manage to destroy the monster itself, unfortunately. But if Kungas was right, Belisarius was waiting to pounce on the creature somewhere down the Ganges. He'd kill the monster, if it was already bleeding.
* * *
"Another splendid speech," said Jaimal approvingly.
Next to him, Udai Singh nodded. "I knew—I remembered—that your Hindi was excellent. But I didn't know you were an orator, as well."
Belisarius glanced at the men riding beside him. Over the days of hard marches since they'd left Ajmer, a subtle change had come in the way Jaimal acted toward the Roman general. Udai Singh, also.
In the beginning, they'd both been stiffly proper. Their new emperor and Rana Sanga had ordered them to place the Rajputs under Belisarius' command, and they had done so dutifully and energetically. But it had been clear enough that some hostility lurked beneath the polite surface.
Belisarius had wondered about that. He'd found it surprising. True, they'd been enemies until very recently. But the clashes between Belisarius' army and Damodara's had been gallant affairs, certainly by the standards of the Malwa war. He hadn't though there'd be any real grudges left, now that they were allied. There'd certainly been no indication of personal animosity from either Damodara himself or Rana Sanga, when Belisarius met them for a parlay in the midst of their campaign in Persia.
Now that the harsh pace the Roman general had set his Rajput army had brought them to the Yamuna thirty miles north of Mathura the hostility seemed to have vanished. Belisarius had led an army of twenty thousand men on a march of well over two hundred miles in nine days—something Rajputs would boast about for generations. But he didn't think it was that feat alone that accounted for the change, much less the inspiring speeches he'd given along the way. Jaimal and Udai Singh were both well-educated. Their praise of his rhetoric had the flavor of aesthetes, not soldiers.
The march had been ruthless as well as harsh. Ruthless toward everyone. Lamed horses were left behind, injured men were left behind—and the fields they passed through plundered and stripped of anything edible to either man or horse. The villages too, since at this time of year most of the foodstuffs were stored.
There had been no atrocities, as such, committed upon the peasantry. But that hardly mattered. Those poor folk lived close to the edge of existence. Stripped of the stored foodstuffs they depended upon until the next harvest, many of them would die. If not of starvation in their little villages, of disease and exposure after they desperately took to the roads to find refuge elsewhere.
If the war was won quickly, Belisarius would urge Damodara to send relief to the area. But there was no way to know if that would ever happen. Despite that uncertainty, Belisarius had ordered it done. In a life that had seen many cruel acts, including the slaughter of the Nika revolt, he thought this was perhaps the cruelest thing he'd ever done.
And... Jaimal and Udai Singh's veiled anger had faded with each day they witnessed it.
He thought he understood, finally. The two were among Rana Sanga's closest aides. They would surely have been with Sanga when he pursued Belisarius across India after his escape from Kausambi.
Three years ago, that had been.
"So," he said to them, "have you finally forgiven me for the butchered couriers?"
Both Rajputs seemed to flush. After a moment, Jaimal said softly: "Yes, General. I thought at the time it was just savagery."
"It was savagery," said Belisarius. "The couriers—even more, the soldiers at the station—were just common folk. Boys, two of them. I remember. The memory plagues me, still, especially when I see children."
He swept his head in a little half-circle. "Complete innocents. No different, really, than the peasants I have been condemning to death these past days. I did it then, I do it now, and whatever my regrets I will make no apologies. Even less today, than I would have then. Because today—"
He drew his sword and pointed forward with it, in a gesture that did not seem histrionic at all. Neither to him nor to the two men he rode beside.
"Three years ago, I behaved like a beast to escape a monster. Today—finally—I do so to kill the thing."
Both Jaimal and Udai Singh tightened their jaws. Not in anger, but simply in determination.
"Here, do you think?" asked Jaimal. "Or on the Ganges?"
"Somewhere between here and the Ganges, most likely. The monster would not have crossed to the headwaters of the Yamuna, I don't think. With the Rajputs beginning to revolt, there'd have been too much risk. Better to take the longer but surer northerly route and cross to the Footstep of God. But once into the great plain, it'll want the garrison at Mathura for reinforcements before it goes on to meet Damodara at Kausambi."
That brought some good cheer. All three turned in the saddle and looked behind them. There was nothing to see except an ocean of horsemen and dust, of course.
"Mathura," gloated Udai Singh. "Which is behind us. The Malwa beast will have to face us with what it has."
"It was a great march, General Belisarius," added Jaimal.
So it had been. Great enough, even, to wash away great sins.
* * *
"It is unseemly for a woman to lead warriors!" That came from one of the five Pathan chiefs sitting across from Irene in the throne room and glaring at her. He was the oldest, she thought. It was hard to know. They all looked liked ancient prunes to her, dried too long in the sun.
"Unthinkable!" she agreed. The vigorous headshake that followed caused her veil to ripple in reverse synchrony to her ponytail. "The thought is impossible to even contemplate. No, no. I was thinking that you should lead the armies when they march out. You and the rest of the clan chiefs."
The five chiefs continued to glare at her.
First, because they suspected her of mockery. "Armies" was a ridiculous term—even to them—to apply to separate columns of Pathan horsemen, not one of which would number more than six or seven hundred men. Clan rivalries and disputes made it difficult for Pathans to combine their forces closely.
Second, because she'd boxed them, and they knew it. The young clansmen were becoming more boisterous and insistent with every passing day. Lately, even disrespectful.
Their Great King—another term to cause old chiefs to scowl—was adding to his glory and where were the Pathan warriors?
Were they to hide in their villages?
It would not be long, the five old chiefs knew, before the ultimate insult was spoken aloud.
Old women! Our chiefs—so-called—are nothing but old women!
"We have no mortars," grumbled one of the chiefs. "How are we to fight Malwa armies without mortars?"
"Of course you do," Irene disagreed, in a cheerful tone of voice. "The new mortars of the Pathans have become famous."
That wasn't... exactly true. They were indeed famous, in a way, simply because the Kushans were astonished that illiterate and ignorant Pathans had managed to built mortars at all. But no Kushan soldier in his right mind would trust one enough to fire the thing.
Irene found it rather amazing. When it came to anything else, Pathans were as hostile to innovation as so many cats would be to the suggestion they adopt vegetarianism. But show them a new weapon—one that was effective, anyway—and within a very short time they would be modeling their own after it. Much more effectively than she'd ever imagined such a primitive folk could do.
Before the old chiefs could take further umbrage, she added: "What you lack is ammunition. Which I can supply you."
Boxed again. The glares darkened.
"Oh, yes, lots of ammunition." She pointed her finger out the palace window, toward the new arsenal. "It's made over there. By old women. Many old women."
* * *
After they stalked out of the palace, Irene summoned her aides. "Send a telegraph message to the station at Margalla Pass. Tell them to send couriers after Kungas."
"Yes, Your Majesty. And the message to be taken to the king?"
By now, Irene had taken off her veil. The smile thus displayed was a gleaming thing. "Tell the king that I have persuaded the Pathans to provide us with troops to help guard the passes. They say ten thousand, but let's figure seven. Two thousand will go to Margalla Pass, the rest to Kohat Pass. If there's any threat, it's more likely to come from the south."
One of the aides frowned. "They won't stay in the passes, Your Majesty. They'll set off to raid the lowlands."
"Of course they will. Better yet. We'll have a screen all over the northern Punjab of thousands of cavalrymen, who'll warn us of any large approaching enemy force. They'll scamper back to the passes when we need them, rather than face Malwa regulars in the open. Pathans are ignorant beyond belief, but they're not actually stupid. Not when it comes to war, anyway."
She leaned back in her chair, basking in self-admiration. Not so much because she'd just relieved her husband of a great worry, but simply because—once again—she'd outfoxed clan chiefs.
"Tell the king he needn't worry about guarding his kingdom. With Pathan reinforcements, I can hold the passes against any Malwa army likely to be sent against us. He's free to do whatever his judgment dictates is the best course."
She detested those old men. Absolutely, completely, thoroughly, utterly detested them.
"Ha!" she barked. "If they'd sent their old women to negotiate, I'd have been lost!"
* * *
Emperor Skandagupta goggled at the telegraph message in his hand.
"Mathura? Mathura? How did an enemy army get to Mathura?"
The senior of the three generals facing him swallowed. His life and those of his two subordinates hung by a thread. As each week had passed since the beginning of Damodara's rebellion, the emperor's fury had become more savage. By now, there were over seven hundred heads or corpses impaled on the palace walls.
Still, he didn't dare lie. "We're not sure, Your Majesty. Some of the reports we've gotten describe them as Rajputs."
Skandagupta crumbled the message and hurled it to the floor. "Why would Rajput rebels be moving north of Mathura? You idiot! If they came from Rajputana, they'd be trying to join up with Damodara."
He pursed his lips and spit on the general. "Who has still not been stopped by my supposedly mighty armies! You don't even know where he is, any longer!"
"Still far south of the Yamuna, surely," said the general, in as soothing a tone as he could manage. "A large army cannot move quickly, as you know. From your own great military experience."
In point of fact, Skandagupta had no military experience at all, beyond sitting in a huge pavilion and watching his armies reduce rebel cities. But he seemed slightly mollified by the compliment.
"True," he grunted. "Still... why have the reports been so spotty?"
The general didn't dare give an honest answer. Because most of the garrisons—and telegraph operators—flee before Damodara arrives at their towns and forts.
Instead, he simply shook his head sagely. "War is very chaotic, Your Majesty. As you know from your own experience. Once the fighting starts, information always becomes spotty."
Skandagupta grunted again. Then, pointed to the crumpled message. "Give me that."
One of the slaves attending him hastened to obey. After re-opening the message and studying it for a moment, Skandagupta snarled.
The general and his two subordinates struggled not to sigh with relief. The snarl was familiar. Someone was about to die—but it wouldn't be them.
"Send a telegraph message to the governor at Mathura. The commander of the garrison is to be executed. The sheer incompetence of the man! If not—who knows?—treachery. Why didn't he march out at once in pursuit of the enemy?"
As one man, the generals decided to take that as a rhetorical question. To do otherwise would have been mortal folly. Because you ordered all garrisons to stay at their post no matter what, Your Majesty...
Would not be a wise thing to say to Skandagupta in a rage.
"Whichever officer replaces him in command is ordered to lead an expedition out of Mathura—immediately and with the utmost haste—to deal with this new enemy. Whoever it is."
"How many men from the garrison should he take, Your Majesty?"
Skandagupta slapped the throne's armrest. "Do I need to decide everything? As many as he thinks necessary—but not fewer than thirty thousand! Do you understand? I want this new threat crushed!
That would strip the garrison of three-fourths of its soldiers. More than that, really, since the new commander was sure to take all his best troops with him. His best cavalry and foot soldiers, at least. The experienced artillerymen would remain behind, since there would be no way to haul great guns up the roads by the Yamuna without making the phrase immediately and with the utmost haste a meaningless term. But artillerymen alone could not possibly defend a city as large as Mathura.
None of the generals was about to say that to the emperor, however. As many heads and bodies as there were perched on the palace walls, there were twice as many still-bare stakes waiting. Skandagupta had ordered the walls festooned with the things.
* * *
Damodara and his army reached the Yamuna forty miles downstream of Mathura. They were met there by a small contingent of Ye-tai deserters from the garrison, who'd decided that the phrase Toramana's Ye-tai were words of wisdom.
"Yes, Lord—ah, Your Majesty," said the captain in command of the contingent. "Lord Shankara—he's the new garrison commander—led most of the troops out of the city three days ago. They're headed north, after another army that's invading—ah, rebelling—ah, rightfully resisting—"
Damodara waved the man's fumbling words aside. "Enough, enough. How many did he leave behind?"
"Not more than eight thousand, Your Majesty."
One of the other Ye-tai, emboldened by Damodara's relaxed demeanor, added: "Most of them are piss-poor troops, Your Majesty. Except the artillerymen."
Damodara turned his head and grinned at Rana Sanga. "See? You doubted me! I told you I'd find siege guns—somewhere—and the troops to man them."
He swiveled his head back, bringing the grin to bear on the Ye-tai. "They'll be co-operative, yes?"
The Ye-tai captain gave one of his men a meaningful glance. That worthy cleared his throat and announced:
"My cousin commands one of the batteries. I'll show you the gate it protects."
"They'll co-operate," growled his captain.
Damodara now bestowed the grin on Toramana. "I think these men will fit nicely in your personal regiment, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," agreed Toramana. "But I'm thinking I'll need to form another, before too long."
Mayapur
Kungas waited until the lead elements of Great Lady Sati's army had crossed the river and her chaundoli was just reaching the opposite bank of the Ganges. He'd had to struggle mightily with himself not to give the order to open fire when there was still a chance to catch Sati herself.
But that would have been stupid. The river was within reach of the big mortars, but the range was too great for any accuracy. They'd likely have missed Sati's chaundoli altogether—while leaving her close enough to the main body of her army to rejoin it and provide her soldiers with sure and decisive leadership.
The whole ridge above Mayapur erupted with mortar fire.
This way, the Malwa army would be almost as effectively decapitated as if they'd killed the bitch herself. She'd be stranded on the opposite bank of the river with her own bodyguard and the advance contingents, while the bulk of her army would be caught on this side.
As Kungas had commanded, the mortar shells began landing, most of them in the river itself. The Ganges was too deep to be forded here, this early in garam, except by using guideropes. The soldiers in mid-crossing were moving very slowly and painstakingly. They had not even the minimal protection of being able to evade the incoming shells. They were caught as helplessly as penned sheep.
Explosions churned the river. A river which, within seconds, was streaked with red blood.
Kungas waited until the mortars had fired two more volleys.
"The near bank, now! Big mortars only!"
He didn't have that much ammunition. Even to the near bank, the range was chancy for the small mortars. He wanted to save their ammunition for the charge that would soon be coming.
Clumps of the soldiers packed on the near bank waiting their turn to ford the river were hurled aside by exploding mortar rounds. The casualties as such were fairly light. But, as Kungas had expected, the soldiers were already showing signs of panic. Being caught in the open as they were, by an attack that came as a complete surprise, was unnerving.
He held his breath. This was the critical moment. If that Malwa army had the sort of officers trained by such generals as Belisarius, Damodara, or Rao—or Kungas himself—he was in real trouble. They'd organize an immediate counterattack, leading columns of men up the ridge. Kungas was confident that he'd be able to fend off such a counter-attack long enough to make a successful retreat. But he'd suffer heavy casualties, and this whole risky gamble would have been for nothing.
After a few seconds, he let out the breath. Thereafter, he continued to breathe slowly and deeply, but the tension was gone.
The Malwa officers, instead, were reacting as he had gambled they would. Surely, yes; decisively, yes—but also defensively. They were simply trying to squelch the panic and force the men back into their ranks and lines.
Which, they did. Which, of course, simply made them better targets.
"Idiots," hissed the king's second-in-command, standing next to him atop the ridge.
Kungas shook his head. "Not fair, Vima. Simply officers who've spent too much time in much too close proximity to a superhuman monster. Too many years of rigidity, too many years of expecting perfect orders from above."
The next few minutes were just slaughter. Even the very first rounds had struck accurately, most of them. Kushans were hill-fighters and had adopted the new mortars with something approaching religious fervor. Where other men might see in a Cohorn mortar nothing but an ugly assemblage of angular metal, Kushans lavished the same loving care on the things that other warrior nations lavished on their horses and swords.
Finally, Kungas saw what he was expecting. Several horsemen were driving their mounts recklessly back across the river. Couriers, of course, bringing orders from the Great Lady.
"Well, it was nice while it lasted," chuckled Vima harshly. "How long do you want to hold the ridge?"
"We'll hold it as long as we can keep killing ten of them to one of us. After that—which will be once they get too close for mortars—we'll make our retreat. Nothing glamorous, you understand?"
Vima smiled. "Please, Your Majesty. Do I look like a Persian sahrdaran?"
* * *
"The battery is secure, Emperor," said Toramana.
"I think your Ye-tais should do the honors, then."
Toramana nodded. "Wise, I think. Rajputs pouring through the gate into Mathura would probably make the soldiers of the battery nervous."
After he was gone, Rana Sanga said sourly: "What has the world come to? That men would prefer to surrender to Ye-tai than Rajputs?"
* * *
Within two hours, Mathura was his—and the great siege guns with it.
Only one battery and two barracks of regular troops put up any resistance, once the garrison saw that Damodara's army had gained entry into the city through treachery.
All the soldiers in those two barracks were massacred.
The Ye-tai contingent that served as a security unit for the recalcitrant battery were also massacred. Toramana led the massacre personally, using nothing but Ye-tai troops.
After they surrendered, the surviving artillerymen were lined up. One out of every ten, chosen at random, was decapitated. Damodara thought that would be enough to ensure the obedience of the rest, and he didn't want to waste experienced gunners.
He'd need them, at Kausambi. Soon, now.
* * *
Valentinian straightened up and rubbed his back. "Enough," he growled. "I've stared at this sketch till I'm half-blind."
"It's a good sketch!" protested Rajiv.
"I didn't say it wasn't. And I don't doubt that you and Tarun measured off every pace personally. I just said I've stared at it enough. By now, I've got it memorized."
"Me, too," grunted Anastasius, also straightening up on his stool.
The huge cataphract turned to the assassin squatting on the stable floor next to him. "You?"
Ajatasutra waved his hand. "What does it matter? I won't be one of the poor fellows sweating and bleeding in this desperate endeavor."
Easily, gracefully, he came to his feet. "I'm just a messenger boy, remember?"
The two Roman soldiers looked at each other. Anastasius seemed reasonably philosophical about the matter. Valentinian didn't.
But Valentinian wasn't inclined to argue the point, any more than Anastasius. They'd miss the assassin's skills—miss them mightily—when the time came. But long hours of discussion and argument had led all of them to the same conclusion:
Nothing would matter, if Sanga wasn't there at the right time. That meant someone had to get word to him, across a north Indian plain that was turning into a giant, sprawling, chaotic, confused battlefield.
A simple courier's job—but one that would require the skills of an assassin.
"You don't have to gloat about it!" snapped Valentinian.
* * *
"You don't have to gloat!" complained Photius.
Tahmina gave him that half-serene, half-pitying look that was the single habit of his wife's that the eleven-year-old emperor of Rome positively hated. Especially because she always did it looking down at him. Even while they were sitting.
"Stop whining," she said. "It's not my fault if you make elephants nervous. They seem to like me."
Gingerly, Photius leaned out over the edge of the howdah and gazed at the Bharakucchan street passing below.
"It's not natural," he insisted.
* * *
"Tempting, isn't it?" said Maloji.
From their position on the very crest of the Vindhyas, Rao and Maloji gazed out over the landscape of northern India, fading below them into the distance. Visibility was excellent, since they were still some weeks from the monsoon season.
Rao glanced at Maloji, then at the hill fortress his Maratha soldiers were building some dozens of yards away.
"I won't deny it. We'd still be fools to accept that temptation."
He looked back to the north, pointing with his chin. "For the first few hundred miles, everything would go well. By now, between them, Damodara and Belisarius will have turned half the Ganges plain into a whirlpool of war. Easy pickings for us, on the edges. But then?"
He shook his head. "There are too many north Indians. And regardless of who wins this civil war, soon enough there will be another empire solidly in place. Then what?"
"Yes, I know. But at least we'd get some of our own back, after all the killing and plundering the bastards did in the Deccan. For that matter, they've still got a huge garrison in Amaravati."
"Not for long, they won't. Shakuntala got the word a few days ago. All of our south Indian allies have agreed to join us in our expedition to Amaravati, once we've finished this line of hill forts. The Cholas and Keralans even look to be sending large armies. Within two months—perhaps three—that garrison will be gone. One way or the other. So will all the others, in the smaller towns and cities. They'll march their bodies out of the Deccan, or we'll scatter their ashes across it."
In truth, the other realms of south India had played no role at all in the actual fighting, up till now. As important as the alliance was for the Andhran empire for diplomatic reasons, most of Shakuntala's subjects—especially the Marathas—were contemptuous of the other Deccan powers.
"Patience, Maloji, patience. They were disunited, and the Malwa terrified them for decades. Now that we've shown they can be beaten, even if Damodara's rebellion fails and Skandagupta keeps the throne, the rest of the Deccan will cleave to us. They'll have no choice, anyway. But with our foreign allies—all the aid we can expect through Bharakuccha, if we need it—they'll even be sanguine about it."
"Bharakuccha," Maloji muttered.
Rao laughed. "Oh, leave off! As great an empire as Andhra has now become, we can well afford to give up one city. Two cities, if you count the Axumite presence in Chowpatty. What do we care? There are other ports we can expand, if we desire it. And having the Ethiopians with their own interests in the Indian trade, we'll automatically have their support also, in the event the Malwa start the war up again."
"No—which is exactly why we agreed to let them have Bharakuccha. They're no threat to us. But they probably have the most powerful navy in the Erythrean Sea, today. That means the Malwa won't be able to prevent the Romans from sending us all the material support we need."
Judging from the expression on his face, Maloji was still not entirely mollified. "But would they?"
"As long as Belisarius is alive, yes," replied Rao serenely. "And he's still a young man."
"A young man leading an army into the middle of the Gangetic plain. Who's to say he's even still alive?"
* * *
Belisarius himself was scowling.
"As bad as Persians!" He matched the old Rajput kings glare for glare. "You've heard the reports. Sati will have at least thirty thousand infantry, half of them armed with muskets and the rest with pikes. We have no more chance of breaking them with cavalry charges that we do riding our horses across the ocean."
As indignant as they were, the kings were quite familiar with warfare. The two brothers Dasal and Jaisal looked away, still glaring, but no longer at Belisarius. One of the other kings, Chachu, was the only one who tried to keep the argument going.
"You have rockets," he pointed out.
Belisarius shrugged. "I've got eight rocket chariots with no more than a dozen rockets each. That's enough to harass the Malwa. It's not the sort of artillery force that would enable me to smash infantry squares."
Chachu fell silent, his angry eyes sweeping across the landscape. It was quite visible, since the command tent they were standing under was no more than an open pavilion. Just enough to shelter them from the hot sun. They were out of sight of the Yamuna, by now, marching north toward the Ganges. Well into garam season, the flat plain was parched and sere.
"It is dishonorable," he muttered.
Belisarius felt his jaws tighten. There was much to admire about Rajputs. There was also much to despise. He thought it was quite typical that Rajput kings would be solely concerned with their honor—when what bothered Belisarius was the destruction he'd soon be visiting upon innocent peasants.
"We... have... no... choice," he said, rasping out the words. "The tactical triangle is simple."
He held up his thumb. "Cavalry cannot break infantry armed with guns, so long as they remain in tight formations and keep discipline. You can be sure and certain that an army led by Malwa's overlord will do so."
His forefinger came up alongside the thumb. "Artillery can smash infantry squares—but we have no artillery worth talking about."
Another finger. "On the other side, Sati has only enough cavalry to give her a scouting screen. Not enough—not nearly enough—to drive us off."
He lowered his hand. "So, we keep the pressure on them—from a bit of a distance—and force them to remain in formation. That means they move slowly, and cannot forage. And there's nothing to forage anyway, because we will burn the land bare around them. Once their supplies run out, they're finished."
In a slightly more conciliatory tone, he added: "If you were mounted archers in the manner of the Persians, I might try the same tactics that defeated the Roman general Crassus at Carrhae. But—we must be honest here—you are not."
Chachu's head came back around. "Rajput archers are as good—!"
"Oh, be quiet!" snapped Dasal. The oldest of the Rajput kings shifted his glare from the landscape to his fellow king. "I have seen Persian dehgans in combat. You haven't. What the Roman general is talking about is not their individual skill as bowmen—although that's much greater than ours also, except for a few like Sanga. Those damn Persians grow up with bows. He's talking about their tactics."
Dasal took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "We do not fight in that manner, it is true. Rajputs are a nation of lancers and swordsmen."
Belisarius nodded. "And there's no way to train an army in such tactics quickly. My own bucellarii have been trained to fight that way, but there are only five hundred of them. Not enough. Not nearly enough."
Chachu's face looked as sour as vinegar. "Where did you learn such a disgraceful method?"
Belisarius' chuckle was completely humorless. "From another Roman defeat, how else? I propose to do to Sati's Malwa army exactly what the Persians did to the army of the Roman Emperor Julian, when he was foolish enough to march into the Mesopotamian countryside in midsummer with no secured lines of supply."
Belisarius' gaze moved across the same landscape. It was richer than that of Mesopotamia, but every bit as dry this time of year. Just more things to burn.
"Julian the Apostate, he was called," Belisarius added softly. "A brilliant commander, in many ways. He defeated the Persians in almost every battle they fought. But he, too, was full of his own inflated sense of glory. I am not. And, Roman or no, I command this army. Your own emperor has so decreed."
He let the silence settle, for a minute. Then, brought his eyes back to the assembled little group of kings. "You will do as I say. As soon as our scouts make the first contact with Sati's army, we will start burning the land. Behind her as well as before her. On both sides of the Ganges, so that even if she manages to find enough boats, it will do her no good."
After the kings had left the pavilion, Belisarius turned to Jaimal and Udai Singh.
Udai shrugged. "It is a low tactic, no doubt about it. But who cares, when the enemy is Malwa?"
* * *
Two days after the battle at Mayapur—such as it was—Kungas and his army had covered thirty-five miles in their retreat to Peshawar. It was a "retreat," of course, only in the most technical sense of the term. They'd left Sati in command of the battlefield, true enough. But they'd accomplished their purpose, and it was now time to hurry back lest the Malwa take advantage of their absence to invade the Vale.
The first of Irene's couriers reached them while they were still in the hills.
Kungas read her message several times over, before showing it to Vima and Kujulo.
"What do you want to do?" asked Vima.
Kungas was already looking back toward the east. After a moment, he turned and gazed at the distant peaks of the Himalayas.
So far off, they were. So majestic, also.
"We'll go back," he said. "I want that bitch dead. No, more. I want to see her dead."
* * *
After traveling perhaps a hundred miles north of the Vindhyas, following the route Damodara and his army had taken, the captain of the assassination team had had enough.
"This is a madhouse," he said to his lieutenant. "Half the garrisons vanished completely, leaving the countryside open to bandits. What's worse, the other half roaming the countryside like bandits themselves."
"And there's only five of us," agreed his subordinate gloomily. "This whole assignment has turned into one stinking mess after another. What do you want to do?"
The captain thought for a moment. "Let's start by getting away from the area Damodara passed through. We'll go east, first, and then see if we can work our way up to Kausambi from the south. It'll take longer, but there'll be less chance of being attacked by dacoits."
The lieutenant nodded. "I can't think of anything better. By the time we get to Kausambi, of course, Damodara will have it under siege. Which will be a fitting end to the most thankless task we've ever been given."
"We can probably make it through the lines," the captain said, trying to sound confident. "Then..."
"Report? To who? Nanda Lal's dead and—I don't know about you—but I really don't want to have to tell the emperor that we've traveled ten thousand miles to accomplished exactly nothing. He's foul-tempered in the best of times."
The captain just smiled. But it was a sickly sort of thing.
The Iron Triangle
"Keep the pressure on," said Maurice firmly. "We'll do that. But that's all we'll do."
He ignored the sour look on Sittas' face. That was a given, and Maurice saw no point in getting into another argument with him. Sittas was the most aggressive commander in the Roman army, a trait which was valuable when it came time for headlong cavalry charges. But that same trait also made him prone to recklessness. The Romans and Persians had been able to seize the Malwa fortresses upstream on the west bank of the Indus simply—and solely—because Menander and his warships had been able to launch an attack on their unprotected rear. No such advantage existed if they tried to carry the fight across to the east bank of the river.
Menander was also looking sour-faced, however, and that Maurice did have to deal with.
"All right," he growled. "You can keep making your sorties up the river—until you spot any signs that the Malwa are bringing over ironclads from the other rivers—"
"Don't be stupid. They'll do it in the simplest way possible. Just pick them up and haul the damn things there."
"A mighty host of slave laborers and ruthless overseers. Which is exactly what the Malwa have."
Maurice decided it was time for a moderate display of temper. He gave a quick glance at Agathius and then slammed his fist onto the table in the command bunker.
"God damn it! Have you all lost your wits so completely that one single victory turns you into drooling babes?"
"Take it easy," said Agathius soothingly. As Maurice had expected, the crippled cataphract commander picked up the cue instantly. He'd been a tremendous asset ever since he arrived in the Triangle.
"There's no need to lose our tempers. Still, Maurice is right. It'll take them some time, but the Malwa will get those ironclads into the Indus. One, at least—and you've already admitted, Menander, that the Justinian probably can't handle even one of them."
Menander still looked sour-faced, but he didn't try to argue the point. The Justinian had mainly been designed to destroy Malwa shipping. Its guns were probably as heavy as anything the Malwa ironclads had, but it wasn't as well armored. They'd been designed to do one thing and one thing only—destroy the Justinian, if it ever came out against them.
Agathius swiveled on his crutches to face Sittas. "And will you please leave off your endless pestering? To be honest, I'm as sick of it as Maurice is. Sittas, even if you could get your cataphracts across the river in the face of enemy fire—"
"Upstream? Where? Anywhere below here and Multan, the Malwa now have fortifications all along the Indus. And if you try to take your cavalry north of Multan..."
He shrugged. "Leave that to the Persians. We need the cavalry here in case the Malwa manage to penetrate our lines somewhere."
For all his stubbornness, Sittas wasn't actually stupid. After a moment, the anger faded from his face, leaving an oddly-rueful expression.
"It's not fair!" he said, half-chuckling. "Once again, that damned Belisarius grabs all the glory work for himself and leaves me to hold the fort."
Unexpectedly, Calopodius spoke up from his communications table. He normally kept silent during these command conferences, unless he was asked to do something.
"Is a shield 'false,' and only a sword 'true'?"
All of the commanders peered at him.
"What does that mean?" demanded Sittas.
Calopodius smiled and pointed a finger—almost exactly in the right direction—at his servant Luke, sitting inconspicuously on a chair against a far wall, next to Illus.
The commanders peered at Luke.
"Ah..." said that worthy fellow.
* * *
Antonina took a slow turn on her heels, admiring the huge audience chamber of the Goptri's palace in Bharakuccha.
"Pretty incredible," she said. "You'd think the weight of encrusted gems in the walls alone would collapse the thing."
Ousanas shared none of her sentiments. "Incredible nuisance," he grumbled. He gave Dadaji Holkar a look from under lowered brows. The peshwa of Andhra was standing just a few feet away from them. "Mark my words, Antonina. No sooner will this current world war end than a new one will begin, every nation on earth fighting for possession of this grotesque monument to vanity."
She chuckled softly. "Don't exaggerate. The fighting will be entirely between you and the Marathas. The empires of Rome and Persia and Malwa will only send observers."
Dadaji made a face. Ousanas sneered.
"Ha! Until they observe the obscene wealth piled up here themselves. At which point great armies will be marching. Mark my words!"
Still slowly turning, Antonina considered the problem. To be sure, Ousanas was indulging himself in his beloved Cassandra impersonation. But there did remain a genuine core of concern, underneath.
What were they to do with the Goptri's palace? Except for the palace of the emperor himself at Kausambi, it was the most splendiferous edifice ever erected by the Malwa. And the interior was an even greater source of greed and potential strife than the glorious shell. For every gem encrusted in the walls, there were twenty in the chests piled high in the vaults below. Along with other chests of gold, silver, ivory, valuable spices—everything, it seemed, that a viceroy could flaunt before a conquered half-continent.
There'd been skin-sacks, too, but those the Ethiopian soldiers and Maratha irregulars had taken down immediately, once they took possession of the palace. Since then, they'd simply glared at each other over the rest.
By the time she finished the turn, she had the answer.
"Give it to me," she said. "To my Hospitalers, rather. And to Anna Saronites, and her Wife's Service."
She lowered her eyes to look at Dadaji. "Surely you—or Bindusara, more likely—can devise an equivalent body for Hindus. If so, you will get an equal share in the palace. An equal share in the wealth in the vaults, as well as equal space in the palace itself."
Thoughtfully, Holkar tugged at his ear. "And for the Kushans? Another equal share, if they create a Buddhist hospital service?"
"Hm." He kept tugging at his ear, for a few more seconds. Then, shrugged. "Why not?"
Ousanas' eyes widened, half with outrage and half with... something that seemed remarkably like amusement.
"Preposterous? What of we Axumites? We get nothing?"
"Nonsense," said Antonina. "The Hospitalers are a religious order, not an imperial one. Nothing in the world prevents Ethiopians from joining it. Or creating your own hospital service, if you insist on maintaining your sectarian distinction."
Holkar's hand fell from his ear, to rise again, with forefinger pointing rigidly. "Absolutely not! You Christians already have two hospital services! Three is too many! You would take half the palace!"
"Nonsense," Antonina repeated. "The Wife's Service has no religious affiliation at all. True—so far—all of its members are probably Christians. But they've given medical care to Persians and Indians just as readily as they have to Christians."
The accusing forefinger went back to tugging the ear. "Hm. You propose, then, that every religion be given a share of the palace, provided they create a medical service. And then one other—the Wife's Service—which is free of any sectarian affiliation altogether. Yes?"
"Hm." She began to fear for his earlobe. "Interesting. Keep the kings and emperors at arm's length."
"Arm's length, with the hand holding a pole," Ousanas grunted. "Very long pole. Only way it will work. Kings and emperors are greedy by nature. Let them get within smelling distance of gold and jewels... might as well throw bloody meat into a pond full of sharks."
"True," mused Holkar. "Monks and priests will at least resist temptation for a generation or two. Thereafter, of course—"
"Thereafter is thereafter," said Antonina firmly. "There is a plague coming, long before that 'thereafter' will arrive."
By now, the three of them had drifted closely together, to what an unkind observer might have called a conspiratorial distance.
"Major religions only," insisted Ousanas. "No sects, no factions. Or else the doctrinal fanatics in Alexandria alone would insist their eighty-seven sects were entitled to the entire palace and its vaults—and demand that eighty-six more be built."
Holkar chuckled. "Be even worse among Indians. Hindus are not given to heresy-hunts, but they divide over religious matters even more promiscuously than Christians."
"Agreed," said Antonina, nodding. "One for the Christians, one for the Hindus, one for the Buddhists, and one for the Zoroastrians if the Persians want it. And one non-denominational service."
After a moment, she added: "Better offer a share to the Jews, too, I think. Half a share, at least."
"There aren't that many Jews," protested Ousanas.
"And almost none in India," added Holkar.
"True—and beside the point. One-third of the populace of Alexandria is Jewish. And it will be through Alexandria that the plague enters the Mediterranean."
Ousanas and Holkar stared at her. Then, at each other. Then, back at Antonina.
"A half-share for the Jews," added Holkar. "But if we're going to do that, we'll need to offer a half-share to the Jains, as well."
Ousanas frowned. "What is this adding up to?"
"Six shares all told," Antonina answered. She'd been keeping track. "One of the shares to be divided evenly between the Jews and the Jains."
Now it was her turn to hold up the rigid forefinger of admonition. "But only if they all agree to form hospitals and medical services! We don't need this palace crawling with useless monks and priests, squabbling over everything."
"Certainly don't," said Ousanas. His eyes swept the great room. "One-sixth of this... and the vaults below..."
He grinned, then. That great, gleaming Ousanas grin.
"I do believe they will accept."
* * *
Ajatasutra had no difficulty at all getting out of Kausambi. The guards at the gates were carefully checking everyone who sought to leave the city, but they were only looking for someone who might fit the description of "a great lady and her entourage."
Even dressed at his finest, Ajatasutra bore no resemblance to such. Dressed in the utilitarian garb of an imperial courier and riding a very fine but obviously spirited horse, the guards didn't give him more than a glance. Great ladies traveled only in howdahs and palanquins. Those armed peasants didn't know much, but they knew that. Everybody knew that.
Nor did the assassin have any trouble in the first two days of his journey. Until, mid-morning of the third day, he began encountering the first refugees fleeing from Mathura.
Thereafter, the situation became contradictory. On the one hand, the ever-widening flow of refugees greatly impeded his forward progress. On the other hand, he was cheerfully certain that whatever progress he made was indeed forward.
Only two things in the world could cause such an immense flow of refugees: plague, or an invading army. And none of the refugees looked especially sick.
Frightened, yes; desperate, yes; ill, no.
Damodara was somewhere up ahead. And no longer far away at all.
* * *
"He's within a hundred miles, you—you—!"
Skandagupta lapsed into gasping silence, unable to come up with a word or phrase that properly encapsulated his sentiments toward the generals standing before him.
No longer standing, of course. They were prostrate, now, hoping he might spare their lives.
Stupid-incompetent-worthless-craven-fumbling-halfwitted-stinking-treacherous dogs—
Would have done it. But he was too short of breath to even think of uttering the phrase. Never in his worst nightmares had he imagined Damodara would penetrate the huge Malwa empire this far. All the way from the Deccan, he'd come, in less than two months. Now...
Within a hundred miles of Kausambi!
Only a supreme effort of self-control enabled Skandagupta to refrain from ordering the three generals impaled immediately. He desperately wanted to, but there was a siege coming. As surely and certainly as the sunrise. He could not afford to lose his remaining top generals on the eve of a siege.
Finally, his breathing slowed. "See to the city's defenses!" he barked. "Leave me, you—you—dogs!"
The generals scuttled from the audience chamber.
* * *
Once outside, one of them said to the others: "Perhaps we should we have told him that Damodara will surely be bringing the big guns from Mathura..."
"Don't be a fool," hissed one of the others.
"He'll hear them anyway, once they start firing."
The third general shook his head. "Don't be so sure of that. Within a day he'll be hiding below the palace in the deep bunkers. They say—I've never been down there myself—that you can't hear anything, so deep."
* * *
You couldn't, in fact. That evening, Skandagupta went down to the inner sanctum. Seeking...
Whatever. Reassurance, perhaps. Or simply the deep silence there.
He got none, however. Neither reassurance, nor silence. Just a stern command, in the tones of an eight-year-old girl, to return above and resume his duties.
He did so. The girl was not yet Link. But someday she would be. And, even today, the special assassins would obey her.
* * *
Belisarius studied the sketch that one of the Pathan trackers had made in the dirt. It was a good sketch. Pathans served the Rajput kings as scouts and skirmishers, just as Arabs did for Roman emperors. The man was even less likely to be literate than an Arab, but he had the same keen eye for terrain, the same superb memory for it, and the same ability to translate what he'd seen into symbols drawn in dirt with a knife.
"Two days, then," Belisarius mused. "It would take the monster at least that long to retreat to the Ganges, with such a force."
The Pathan, naturally, had been far less precise in his estimate of the size of Link's army. It could be anywhere between twenty and sixty thousand men, Belisarius figured. Splitting the difference would be as good a guess as any, until he had better reports.
Forty thousand men, then. A force almost twice as large as his own.
Almost all infantry, though. That had been suggested by the earliest reports, and the Pathan scout was able to confirm it. If the man could not tell the difference between five thousand and ten thousand, he could easily distinguish foot soldiers from cavalry. He could do that by the age of four.
"Start burning today?" asked Jaimal.
Belisarius shook his head. "I'd like to, but we can't risk it. The monster could drive its men back across two days' worth of ashes. Even three days' worth, I think."
"With no water?" Jaisal asked skeptically.
"They'll have some. In any event, there are streams here and there, and we can't burn the streams."
"Not much water in those streams," grunted Dasal. "Not in the middle of garam. Still... the monster would lose some men."
"Oh, yes," agreed Belisarius. Then, he shrugged. "But enough? We're outnumbered probably two to one. If we let them get back to the Ganges, they'll be able to cross eventually."
"No fords there. Not anywhere nearby. And we will have burned all the trees they could use for timber."
"Doesn't matter. First of all, because you can't burn all the trees. You know that as well as I do, Jaisal. Not down to the heartwood. And even if you could, what difference would it make? A few days' delay, that's all, while the monster assembled some means to cross. It would manage, eventually. We could hurt them, but not kill them. Not with so great a disparity in numbers. They'd get hungry, but not hungry enough—and they'd have plenty of water. Once they were on the opposite bank of the Ganges, they'd be able to make it to Kausambi. Nothing we could do to stop them."
"By then, Damodara might have taken Kausambi," pointed out Jaimal.
"And he might not, too," said Dasal. The old Rajput king straightened up. "No, I think Belisarius is right. Best to be cautious here."
* * *
A day later, three more Pathan scouts came in with reports. Two from the south, one from the north.
"There is another army coming, General," said one of the two scouts in the first party. He pointed a finger to the south. "From Mathura. Most of the garrison, I think. Many men. Mostly foot soldiers. Maybe five thousand cavalry. Some cannons. Not the great big ones, though."
"They're moving very slowly," added the other scout.
Belisarius nodded. "That's good news, actually—although it makes our life more complicated."
Jaisal cocked his head. "Why 'good' news?"
His brother snorted. "Think, youngster. If we've drawn the garrison at Mathura to leave the safety of the city's walls to come up here, we've opened the door to Kausambi for Damodara."
"Oh" Jaisal looked a bit shame-faced.
Belisarius had to fight down a smile. The "youngster" thus admonished had to be somewhere in his mid-seventies.
"Yes," he said. "It makes our life more difficult, of course."
He began to weigh various alternatives in his mind. But once he heard the second report, all those alternatives were discarded.
"Another army?" demanded Dasal. "From the north?"
The scout nodded. "Yes. Maybe two days' march behind the Great Lady's. They're almost at the Ganges. But they move faster than she does. Partly because they're a small army—maybe one-third as big as hers—but mostly because..."
He shook his head, admiringly. "Very fast, they move. Good soldiers."
All the Rajput kings and officers assembled around Belisarius were squinting northward. All of them were frowning deeply.
"From the north?" Dasal repeated. The old king shook his head. "That makes no sense. There is no large Malwa garrison there. No need for one. Not with that great huge army they have in the Punjab. And if they were coming back to the Ganges, they'd be many more of them."
"And why would they bother with the northerly route, at all?" wondere Udai Singh. "They'd simply march through Rajputana. No way we could stop them."
As he listened to their speculations, Belisarius' eyes had widened. Now he whispered, "Son of God."
Dasal's eyes came to him. "What?"
"I can think of one army that could come from that direction. About that size, too—one-third of the monster's. But..."
He shook his head, wonderingly. "Good God, if I'm right—what a great gamble he took."
Belisarius didn't even hear the question.
Of course, he is a great gambler, said Aide.
Decisively, Belisarius turned to the Pathan scout. "I need you to return there. At once. Take however many scouts you need. Find out—"
His thoughts stumbled, a moment. Most Pathans were hopelessly insular. They'd have as much trouble telling one set of foreigners from another as they would telling one thousand from two thousand.
He swept off his helmet, and half-bowed. Then, seized his hair and drew it tightly into his fist. "Their hair. Like this. A 'top-knot,' they call it."
"Oh. Kushans." The scout frowned and looked back to the north. "Could be. I didn't get close enough to see. But they move like Kushans, now that I think about it."
He nodded deeply—the closest any Pathan ever got to a "salute"—and turned to his horse. "Two days, general. I will tell you in two days."
* * *
"And now what?" asked Jaimal, after the scout was gone.
"Start burning—but only behind them. Leave them a clear path forward."
The Rajput officer nodded. "You want them away from the Ganges."
"Yes. But mostly, I want someone else to see a signal. If it's the Kushans, when they see the great smoke from the burning, they'll know."
Belisarius grinned at him. "That I'll be back. All they have to do is hold the Ganges—keep the monster pinned on this side—and I'll be back."
The oldest of the kings grunted. "I understand. Good plan. Now we go teach those shits from Mathura that all they're good for is garrison duty."
"Indeed," said Belisarius. "And we move quickly."
* * *
After they began the forced march, Aide spoke uncertainly.
I don't understand. You must be careful! Link is not stupid. When it sees you are only burning behind its army, it will understand that you are trying to lure it further from the river. It will return, then, not come forward.
I know. And by then Kungas will already be there. They will not cross the Ganges against Kungas' will. Not though they outnumbered him ten-to-one.
Oh. What you're really doing is keeping Link at the Ganges, not drawing it overland—which gives you time to crush the army coming up from Mathura.
Yes. That's where we'll kill the monster's army. Right on the banks of the holy river, caught between two enemies.
Man does not live by water alone. Soon, they'll have nothing to eat—and we have all the time we need to watch them starve. We'll have Link trapped up here—when it needs to be in Kausambi. If Damodara can't do the rest, against Skandagupta alone, he's not the new emperor India needs.
What if that new army isn't the Kushans?
Then we're screwed, said Belisarius cheerfully. I'm a pretty good gambler myself, you know—and you can't gamble if you're not willing to take the risk of getting screwed.
That produced a long silence. Eventually, Aide said:
I can remember a time when I wouldn't have understood a word of that. Especially "screwed." How did a proper little crystal fall into such bad company?
You invited yourself to the party. As a matter of fact, as I recall, you started the party.
That's a very vulgar way of putting it.
The Punjab
By the time Khusrau and his army reached the Kohat Pass, the emperor of the Persians was in an excellent frame of mind.
First, because he'd succeeded in taking most of the western Punjab for his empire. Formally speaking, at least, even if Persian occupation and rule was still almost meaningless for the inhabitants. He hadn't even bothered to leave behind detachments of dehgans under newly-appointed provincial governments to begin establishing an administration.
He would, soon enough. In the meantime, there was still a war to be won and he only had thirty thousand troops at his disposal. Not enough to peel off even small detachments for garrison duty. Not with a Malwa army still in the Punjab that numbered at least one hundred and fifty thousand.
Secondly, because—here and there—he'd been able to grind up some more sahrdaran and vurzurgan hotheads in foolish charges against Malwa garrisons. It was amazing, really, how thick-headed those classes were.
Or, perhaps, it was simply their growing sense of desperation. For centuries, the grandees had been the real power in Persia. True, none of the seven great sahrdaran families or their vurzurgan affiliates ever formally challenged the right of an emperor to rule. Or that the emperor would always come from the imperial clan. But the reality had been that emperors were made and broken, at each and every succession, by the grandees. Those contestants for the throne that got their support, won. Those that didn't, lost their heads.
Their power had stemmed, ultimately, from two sources. One was their control of great swathes of land in a nation that was still almost entirely agricultural, which made them phenomenally wealthy. The other was their ability to field great numbers of armored heavy cavalry, which had been the core of Persia's might for centuries, because of that wealth.
They were losing both, now. Not quickly, no, but surely nonetheless. The huge areas of western India formerly ruled by the Malwa that Khusrau was incorporating into his empire, all of Sind and a third of the Punjab, were not being parceled out to the grandees, as they would have in times past. Instead, Khusrau was adapting the Roman model and setting up an imperial administration, staffed by dehgans who answered directly to him and his appointed governors—most of whom were dehgans themselves.
Worse still, the grandees were witnessing the death knell of the armored horseman as the king of battles. Within a generation, even in Persia, it would be infantry armed with guns who constituted the core of imperial might. Infantry whose soldiers would be drawn, as often as not, from the newly conquered territories. Indian peasants from the Sind or the Punjab, who would answer to the emperor, not the grandees—and would do so willingly, because the Persian emperor had given their clans and tribes a far more just and lenient rule than they'd ever experienced at the hands of the Malwa.
The continued insistence of the grandees to launch their beloved cavalry charges, Khusrau thought, was simply the willful blindness of men who could not accept their coming fate.
So be it. Khusrau was quite happy to oblige them. Why not? They were ferocious cavalry, after all, so they generally managed to seize the small cities and towns they attacked. And every sahrdaran and vurzurgan who died in the doing was one less the emperor would have to quarrel with on the morrow.
By the time the war was over, only the Suren would remain as powerful as they had been, of the seven great families. And under Baresmanas' sure leadership, the Suren were reaching an accommodation with the emperor. They'd long been the premier family of the seven, after all, and now they had the emperor's favor. Unlike the rest, the Suren would accept a role that diminished them as a family but would expand their power and influence as individuals within the empire.
Finally—best of all—there were the dehgans. The knightly class of Persia's nobility had always chafed under the yoke of the grandees. But they'd accepted that yoke, in the past, since they saw no alternative.
Khusrau was giving them an alternative, now, and they were seizing it. For a modest dehgan from a small village, the chance to become an imperial administrator or governor was a far better prospect than anything the grandees would offer. In the increasingly unlikely event that the grandees tried to launch a rebellion against Khusrau, he was not only sure he could crush them easily—but he'd have the assistance of most of the grandees' own feudal retainers in doing so.
* * *
"You're certainly looking cheerful, Your Majesty," said Irene. She'd come to meet him in a pavilion she'd had hastily set up at the crest of the pass, once she got word that the Persian army was approaching the borders of the Kushan kingdom.
Well, not quite at the crest. The pavilion was positioned on a small knoll a few hundreds yards below the crest, and the fortresses the Kushans had built upon it.
Khusrau—very cheerfully—gazed up at those fortifications.
"Very nicely built," he said. "I'd certainly hate to be the one who ever tried to storm them."
Lowering his eyes, and seeing the questioning look in Irene's eyes, Khusrau grinned. "Oh, don't be silly. Yes, I'm in a very good mood. For many reasons. One of them is that I don't have the prospect of watching my army bleed to death on these horrid-looking rocks."
Irene smiled. Khusrau, still grinning, turned slightly and pointed with his finger to the plain below. "I thought I'd found a small town there. With a modest garrison. Just big enough to formally mark the boundary of the Persian empire. And another town like it, a similarly discreet distance below the Margalla Pass. Any objection?"
Irene's smile widened considerably. "Of course not, Your Majesty. The kingdom of the Kushans would not presume to quarrel with whatever the Emperor of Iran and non-Iran chose to do within his own realm."
"Splendid. I'll be off, then. Still many more battles to fight. The Romans—staunch fellows—have most of the Malwa army pinned down at the Triangle, so I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity to plunder and ravage their northerly towns. I might even threaten Multan. Won't try to take it, though. The garrison's too big."
The grin seemed fixed on his face. "Where's King Kungas, by the way?"
Before Irene could answer, he waved his hand. "None of my business, of course."
Irene hesitated, a moment. Then, sure that the Persians had no intentions upon the Vale of Peshawar, she said: "Actually, it is your business. We are allies, after all. My husband took most of our army east, to intercept and ambush the army Great Lady Sati is leading back to the Gangetic plain to fight Damodara. I've gotten word from him. The ambush was successful and he's continuing the pursuit."
That caused the emperor's grin to fade away. His eyebrows lifted. "We'd heard from our spies that she had something like forty thousand troops. Kungas can't possibly—"
"'Pursuit' is perhaps not the right term. He thinks Belisarius is somewhere out there, also, although he's not sure. He'll stay at a distance from Sati's force and simply harass them, until he knows."
"Ah." Khusrau's head swiveled, toward the east. "Belisarius... Yes, he might well be there, by now. He was gone from the Triangle, when I arrived. Maurice was very mysterious about it. But I suspect—I have spies too, you know—that he reached an agreement with the Rajputs. If I'm right, he crossed the Thar with a small force to organize and lead a Rajput rebellion."
Irene's gaze followed his. "I wondered. I could see no way—neither could my husband—that he could lead a sizeable Roman force from the Triangle into the Ganges. But through Rajputana..." She chuckled softly. "It would be quite like him. I worry about that man's soul, sometimes. How will the angels cope with so many angles?"
Khusrau's chuckle was a louder thing. "Say better, how will the devils?"