Belisarius - Destiny's Shield Part 21

There were perhaps six thousand Malwa cavalrymen directly involved in this first major clash of the two armies. In less than two minutes, between the volley and the lance charge, they had suffered casualties in excess of fifteen percent-a horrendous rate, measured by the standards of any human army in history.

Then, the bloodletting worsened. The front ranks of the Malwa had been brought to a complete halt. Many of them, along with their horses, were spilled to the ground. Those still in the saddle were off-balance, bewildered, shocked.

The Malwa charging from behind had seen little of the battle due to the dust and the noise. Still driving their horses, they slammed into the immobil-ized ma.s.s at the front. Thousands of Malwa hors.e.m.e.n were now hopelessly tangled up and being driven w.i.l.l.y-nilly against the Roman line.

Belisarius had been planning to call the retreat as soon as the initial clash was done. But now, seeing the confusion in the Malwa ranks, he ordered a standing fight. The cornicens blew again. The rear ranks of the cataphracts moved up, filling out the front line. The gaps were closed; the hors.e.m.e.n were almost shoulder to shoulder.

Flanked by Valentinian and Anastasius, Belisarius took a place in the center of the line. His lance had already been discarded. The Ye-tai that lance had spitted in the first clash had taken it with him, as he fell to the ground. The general drew his sword-not the spatha he generally favored, but the long Persian-style cavalry sword which he carried in a baldric. He rose in the stirrups and struck down a Malwa before him. The heavy sword cut through the man's helmet and split his skull.

Belisarius jerked loose the sword, struck another foe. Another. Another.

As before in battle, Aide was a.s.sisting him, giving the general almost superhuman reflexes and an uncanny ability to perceive everything sharply and clearly. But the a.s.sistance was almost moot. This battle-this brawl-called for strength and endurance, not speed and agility.

No matter. Belisarius was a big man, and a powerful one. His endurance had been shaped by the teachings and training of Maurice-who considered stamina the soldier's best friend-and his skill with a sword, by Valentinian. At no time in the ensuing fray did he fail to cut down his opponent, and at no time was he in danger of being struck down himself. That would have been true even if Valentinian had not been there to protect him on the left, just as the giant Anastasius did on his right.

That battle was as savage as any Belisarius had ever seen-on that scale, at least-and he was no stranger to mayhem. It was more like butchers chopping meat than anything else. The Malwa at the front could barely wield their weapons, so great was the press. The Romans hammered them down; hammered the ones who were pushed atop the corpses; hammered the ones who came after them.

At many places along the line, after a few minutes, the battle effectively ended. The Greeks could no longer reach live enemies, due to the obstruction of the dead ones.

The Malwa at the front began to recoil. The ones pressing from the rear had finally sensed the tide and eased away, allowing the men before them to stagger back. Belisarius, sensing the break in the battle, left off his merciless swordwork. Quickly, he scanned the front. He was in the very middle of the Roman ranks, and could no longer see either end of the battle line. But he knew the danger. For all their losses, the Malwa greatly outnumbered his Constantinople troops. Whether from conscious direction by their commanders, or the simple flow of individuals, they would soon be curling around his flanks.

He gave two quick orders. The cornicens blew, then blew again.

The first order was for the retrieval of casualties. The cataphracts, hearing that call, shouted their fury and contempt at the Malwa. It was as if the entire Constantinople unit was sneering, as one man.

We whipped your f.u.c.king worthless b.u.t.ts. Now, we'll take the time to gather up our own, before we amble on our way. f.u.c.k you. You don't like it? Try and do something about it!

For all their braggadocio, the Greeks did not linger at the task. They were veterans, and knew as well as their general the danger of being outflanked before they could make their retreat. So, one cataphract aiding another, they quickly gathered up their casualties and draped them across their horses.

It did not take long, even though the Greeks took the time to collect the dead as well as the wounded. Their casualties had been incredibly light-much lighter than they had expected. Much lighter. They were almost shocked, once they realized how few bodies there were to retrieve.

The retreat started. Belisarius had been concerned about that retreat, before the battle. It is always difficult to keep soldiers, even the best of soldiers, under control at such times. There is an powerful tendency for men to speed up, anxious to gain distance from a pursuing enemy. Whether quickly, or almost imperceptibly, a retreat can easily turn into a chaotic rout.

Not this time. Within seconds, Belisarius knew he had nothing to fear. The Constantinople men, it was obvious, did not even consider themselves to be retreating. They were simply leaving, because there was nothing more to be done at the moment.

An easy canter, no more. The ranks reformed, even dressed their lines.

Belisarius took his place at the rear, during that retreat, just as he had taken a place at the front during the charge. The Greeks noticed-again-and a great cheer surged through their ranks. Belisarius! Belisarius!

He smiled-he even waved-but he took no other notice of the acclaim. He spent most of the time, during that almost-leisurely retreat, staring over his shoulder. Watching the enemy. Gauging. a.s.sessing.

He caught sight of Syrian and Arab units charging forward, ready to provide covering fire for the cataphracts. He waved them off. There was no need. The Malwa were pursuing, true. But it was not a furious, frenzied charge led by eager warriors. It was a sodden, leaden, sullen movement, driven forward by screaming Ye-tai.

The Malwa cavalrymen had had enough of Romans, for the moment.

Belisarius turned back, satisfied, and glanced at the sun. It was not yet noontime. He thought the Malwa commanders would not be able to drive their army back into battle for at least two hours. Possibly three.

Plenty of time. He had taken no pleasure in the killing. He never had, in any battle he had ever fought. But he did take satisfaction in a job well done, and he intended to do the same again. In two hours. Possibly three.

Plenty of time, for a craftsman at his trade.

Chapter 19.

Two and a half hours later, the enemy began taking positions for the a.s.sault on the villa. The Malwa forces lined up on the open ground east of the royal compound, at a distance of half a mile. The front lines were composed of cavalry regulars, backed by Ye-tai. The rocket wagons, guarded by the Kushans, were brought to a halt fifty yards behind the front ranks. The kshatriya, overseen by Mahaveda priests, removed the tarpaulins covering the wagons and began unloading rockets and firing troughs. Within a few minutes, they had the artillery devices set up. There were eighteen of the rocket troughs, erected in a single line, s.p.a.ced thirty feet apart.

From a room on the second floor of the villa, Belisarius studied the Malwa formation with his telescope. Standing just behind him were the top officers of the Syrian and Constantinople troops forted up in the imperial compound-Bouzes and Coutzes, Agathius and Cyril. They were listening intently as Belisarius pa.s.sed on his a.s.sessment of the situation.

The general began by examining the rockets, but spent little time on that problem. Once the first two or three had been erected, he was satisfied that he understood them perfectly. The rockets were the same type he had seen-at much closer range-during the sea battle he had fought against pirates while traveling to India on a Malwa emba.s.sy s.h.i.+p. In that battle, the rockets had wreaked havoc on the Arab s.h.i.+ps. But, he told his officers, he did not think they would have that effect here.

"Most of the damage done by the rockets in the pirate battle," he explained, lowering the telescope for a moment, "was incendiary. The pirate galleys, like all wooden boats, were bonfires waiting to happen."

Seeing the puzzlement on the faces of Bouzes and Coutzes, the two Constantinople officers chuckled.

"Farm boys!" snorted Cyril. "You think 'cause a boat's floating on water that she won't burn? s.h.i.+t. The planks are made of the driest wood anyone can find, and what's worse-"

"-they're caulked with pitch," concluded Agathius. Like his fellow Greek, the chiliarch was smirking-that particular, unmistakable, insufferable smirk which seafarers the world over bestow upon landlubbers.

"Not to mention the cordage and the sails," added Cyril.

Bouzes and Coutzes, Thracian leaders of a Syrian army, took no offense at the Greeks' sarcasm. On some other day, they might. But not on the day when those same Greeks had given the enemy such a thorough pounding. They simply grinned, shrugged at their ignorance, and studied the interior of the villa with new and enlightened eyes.

"A different matter altogether, isn't it?" commented Belisarius.

Under the fancy trappings and elaborate decorations, the royal compound was about as fireproof as a granite tor. The walls were made of kiln-fired brick, and the sloping roof was covered with tiles. Neither would burn-those bricks and tiles had been made in ovens-and he was quite sure the thick walls could withstand the explosive power of the rockets' relatively small warheads.

True, the roof tiles would probably shatter under a direct hit by a rocket. Belisarius did not think there would be many such hits, if any. He knew from experience that the Malwa rockets were not only erratic in their trajectories, but erratic in their destruction as well. They had no contact fuses. They simply exploded whenever the burning fuel reached the warhead. In order to shatter the roof, a rocket would have to hit directly-not at a glancing angle-and explode at just the right time.

The likelihood of that happening, in his estimation, was not much greater than being hit by lightning. And if, against all odds, a rocket should score a direct hit- "Might break in the roof tiles," commented Bouzes.

Belisarius shrugged. "The tiles are supported by heavy beams. Wooden beams, yes. But these beams aren't anything like the thin planks of pirate galleys. They're much thicker, and, what's more important, not saturated with inflammable pitch."

He began studying the positions of the Malwa cavalry, now. Again, pa.s.sing on his conclusions.

"They'll start with a rocket barrage, and then follow it up with a direct a.s.sault." A moment's silence, then: "I thought so. They're dismounting, now. It'll be an infantry attack."

"Those are cavalry!" protested Coutzes.

Belisarius pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. He remembered, from three years before, that Coutzes and Bouzes had been trained in the cavalry tradition. The young Thracian commander, it was obvious, had still not quite abandoned his contempt for foot-fighting.

His brother, however, had.

"Don't be stupid. We've been training our own men to be dragoons. Why shouldn't the Malwa?"

"Well said," murmured Belisarius. For a moment, he took his eye from the telescope and glanced at Coutzes.

"You're about to see why I insisted on training our cavalry to fight on foot. I know you think that was a waste of time-"

He drove over Coutzes' little protest. "-but the reason I did so was because I knew the time would come when we'd be able to arm those dragoons with grenades. And handcannons, I'm hoping."

He nodded toward the enemy, visible through the window.

"They already have grenades. The kshatriya are starting to pa.s.s them out to the regulars."

He took up the telescope again, and continued his scrutiny.

"They'll come in waves. Probably be one grenadier for every ten soldiers. The Ye-tai will be scattered through the lines in small squads, driving the regulars forward and pressing the a.s.sault. Some of the kshatriya will be in those lines, too, but most of them will stay at the center with the priests, manning the rockets. They'll also help the Kushans guard the wagons. They might-d.a.m.n!"

He stiffened, staring through the telescope intently.

"d.a.m.n," he repeated. "They're bringing up the Kushans. All two thousand of them."

"On foot?" asked Agathius.

Belisarius lowered the telescope, nodded. Then, with a bit of a rueful smile: "Kushans, in my experience, don't have any fetishes when it comes to fighting. On foot, on horse, on boats-it doesn't matter to them. Whatever, they'll do it well. Very well."

He turned away from the window. It was obvious from his stance and expression that he had reached a decision. His officers gathered closer.

"This changes things," Belisarius announced. "As you know, I'd wanted to wait until tomorrow before bringing in Maurice and his boys."

He tapped the palm of his hand with the telescope, emphasizing his words.

"We're going to beat these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, one way or the other. But I want more than that-I want to pulverize them. The best way to do that is to rout them early in the morning, so we've got a full day for pursuit."

The officers nodded. All of them-even the two young brothers-were experienced combatants. They knew that a battle won at the end of day was a battle half-won. The kind of relentless, driving pursuit which could utterly destroy a retreating enemy was simply impossible once daylight was gone.

Agathius glanced out the window. "It's still before noon," he mused. "If the battle starts soon enough-"

Belisarius shook his head. "I'd wanted to let the Malwa spend all day hammering their heads against us here. Bleed them dry, exhaust them-then hit them at dawn with a ma.s.sive flank attack by Maurice and Kurush. The attack would break their army, and then we'd sally out of the villa and drive over them."

He saw that his officers still didn't understand. He didn't blame them. Their brief experience with Malwa soldiers had not prepared them for the Kushans.

"The Kushans are a different breed. They won't come at us in a ma.s.s, chivvied by Ye-tai, depending on their grenades to do the work. They'll come at us like the best kind of Roman infantry would attack this place."

Of the officers standing around him, Bouzes was the most familiar with Belisarius' infantry tactics. The general saw dawning comprehension in his face.

"s.h.i.+t," muttered the young Thracian. He glanced around the room. "The villa's not a fortress, when you come down to it. The fortifications we jury-rigged were designed to fend off grenades, not-"

Belisarius finished the thought.

"Not two thousand of the finest foot soldiers anywhere in the world, charging in squads, aiming to push into every door and portal so they can use their swords and spears."

Cyril scowled. "Let 'em! I don't care how good they are. We're not lambs ourselves, general. Our cataphracts can fight on foot-just watch! With us to back up the Syrians, we'll chop those-"

Belisarius waved his hand.

"That's not the point, Cyril. I don't doubt that we'll beat back the Kushans. But I can guarantee that we won't be doing it without suffering lots of casualties and without being exhausted ourselves, when the day's over. I don't think we'll be in any shape to be pursuing anybody, tomorrow."

He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "I wonder . . ."

Belisarius stepped back to the window and looked through the telescope again. For a minute, he studied the Kushans taking up their position. Then, pressing himself against the wall to the left of the window, he aimed the telescope at a sharp angle, studying something to the southwest.

"We've got no troops stationed at the corrals." He cast a quick, inquisitive glance at Bouzes. The young Thracian shook his head.

"No, sir." His tone grew a bit defensive: "I thought about it, but it's at least half a mile away. There didn't seem any point to-"

Belisarius smiled crookedly.

"No, there wasn't. I'm not criticizing your decision, Bouzes. I just wanted to make sure."

Again, Bouzes shook his head. "We've got n.o.body there, general."

"Good," stated Belisarius. He stared through the telescope for another minute, before turning away from the window.

"We're going to turn everything inside out. Instead of waiting until tomorrow, I'll have Maurice start the counter-attack at the beginning of the battle."

He hesitated. "Well, not quite. I don't think the Kushans will lead the first a.s.sault. Unless that Malwa commander's dumber than a chicken, he won't want to use his best troops until he's softened this place up a bit. He'll let regulars and Ye-tai hammer us with grenades. See what happens. If that doesn't work, then he'll send in the Kushans. They'll head up the second attack. And that's when I'll order Maurice to make his charge."

The look of incomprehension was back on the faces of the general's subordinates. Belisarius' own face broke into a cheerful grin. "The trick to dealing with Kushans, I've learned, is to exploit their talents."

"Begging your pardon, sir," spoke up Cyril, "but I don't understand what you're getting at. If Maurice attacks when the Kushans are still fresh-"

"What will the Kushans do?" demanded Belisarius. "Think, Cyril. And remember-they'll be excellent troops, with good commanders, on foot, suddenly finding themselves caught between a fortified villa and a heavy cavalry charge on their right flank."

Cyril was still frowning. Belisarius drove on.

"The rest of the Malwa army will be shattering, under that charge. Not to mention-"

He turned to Agathius. "Are your boys up for another bit of lance work? A sally, straight out of the villa?"

Agathius grinned. "After that promenade this morning? h.e.l.l, yes. It'll be a b.i.t.c.h, mind you, getting the horses through all those little gates."

Belisarius waved the matter off. "I don't care if the sally's ragged. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that while Maurice and Kurush are breaking the Malwa in half from the flank, the front lines of their army see a new threat coming at them straight ahead. The Ye-tai'll go berserk, trying to force the regulars to stand and fight. But the Kushans-"

"Sweet Jesus, yes," whispered Bouzes. He strode to the window and stared through it at a sharp angle. "They'll break for the corrals, and the barns and horse pens. Only place around where infantry could fort up and have a chance against heavy cavalry."

He stared back at Belisarius. "They'll have to react instantly, general. Are they really that good?"

"I'm counting on it," came the firm reply. "It's a gamble, I know. If they don't-if they stand their ground-then we'll be in one b.l.o.o.d.y mess of a brawl. It'll last all day."

He shrugged. "We'll still win, but half the Malwa army will make their escape."

Cyril and Agathius looked at each other. Then, at Belisarius.