Again, he made his way back through the rear building and onto the western grounds. Agathius was waiting, not twenty feet from the doorway. The Constantinople cataphract was already mounted on his horse.
Quickly, Belisarius explained the signal relay. Then: "It"ll be a few minutes. Get me a horse, will you? I won"t be relaying the message. I"ll just come straight back and join you."
He pointed to the doorway.
"As soon as you see me coming through that door, have the cornicens order the sally. That"ll give me just enough time to mount up."
Agathius nodded. Then, with a frown: "Where are your bodyguards?"
Belisarius shrugged, smiling whimsically.
"We got separated, it seems. They must be lost in the crowd."
The Greek chiliarch"s frown deepened.
"I"m not sure I like that, general. The idea of you leading a sally without your bodyguards, I mean."
Belisarius scowled.
"I a.s.sure you, Agathius, I was taking care of myself long before-"
"Still-"
"Enough."
Agathius opened his mouth, closed it. "Yes, sir. It"ll be as you say."
Belisarius nodded and strode back toward the gardens. This time, as he made his way through the building, he ordered the men inside to clear a lane for him.
"I"ll be coming through here, soon enough, running as fast as I can. I warn you, boys-I"ll trample right over the man standing in my way. And I"m wearing spurs, I hope you notice."
The soldiers grinned, pressed aside, cheered.
Belisarius! Belisarius!
His only acknowledgement: That sorry b.a.s.t.a.r.d will be f.u.c.ked.
Ten minutes later, Felix called out the news across the gardens. "The Kushans are lining up! They"ll be leading the attack!"
Five minutes after he shouted, "They"re coming!"
Then: "Now! Now! Now!"
For a man wearing full cataphract armor, Belisarius thought he did quite well, racing-so to speak-through the building. The men who formed the flesh-and-steel walls on both sides certainly thought so, judging from their encouragement.
Belisarius! Belisarius!
Go, general! Go! Go!
And, one enthusiast: "G.o.ddam, that man can waddle!"
As soon as he burst out of the doorway onto the grounds, the cornicens started blowing. From the corner of his eye, Belisarius caught the red and green bursts of the signal rockets. But the sole focus of his eyes was the saddled and readied horse ahead of him.
Belisarius almost stumbled, then, from sheer surprise. Standing by the horse, ready to hoist the general aboard, was Anastasius. The giant"s own charger was not far away, with a mounting stool at its side.
"How"d you get here?" demanded the general.
"Don"t ask," grunted Anastasius, heaving Belisarius onto the horse by sheer brute strength. The huge cataphract headed for his own horse.
Belisarius gathered up the reins. He could see the ma.s.s of Greek cataphracts and Syrian light cavalry starting their sally. The hors.e.m.e.n were already dividing into columns, splitting around the villa, heading for the portals in the opposite walls.
A part of his mind noticed that their formations were good-reasonably orderly, and, best of all, well organized. The rest of his mind, briefly, wrestled with a mystery.
"How did you get here?" he asked again. This time, to the man already mounted and ready at his side.
"Don"t ask," hissed Valentinian. The cataphract gave Anastasius a weasel glare. "His doing. "Impossible," I told him. "Even Moses couldn"t part that mob." "
Anastasius, trotting up on his horse, caught the last words. A grin split his rock-hewn face.
"Moses wasn"t as big as I am," he said. He extended his enormous hand, like an usher.
"After you, sir. Victory is waiting."
"So it is!" cried Belisarius. "So it is!"
He spurred his mount into a gallop. He was not worried about exhausting his horse, now. They didn"t have far to go. He was only concerned with getting to the front of the charge, and leading it to victory.
By the time he pounded around the villa, and saw the nearest portal, he had achieved that immediate goal. The Syrian infantrymen who were hastily opening the gates-tossing aside the splintered wreckage of the gates, more precisely-barely had time to dodge aside before Belisarius drove past. Valentinian and Anastasius came right behind, followed by droves of cataphracts.
The infantrymen were cheering wildly; the cata-phracts were bellowing their battle cries. But Belisarius only had ears for an expected mutter.
It never came. He glanced over his shoulder, c.o.c.king a quizzical eye.
A weasel"s glare met his gaze. A weasel"s hiss: "Ah, what"s the f.u.c.king use?"
Chapter 20.
The general"s first thought, as he came around the villa onto its eastern grounds, was to make a quick a.s.sessment of the tactical situation. He had seen nothing of the battle directly, since his return to the villa after the first cavalry charge.
That urgent purpose almost led him to an immediate and humiliating downfall.
Downfall, in the literal sense. Dead, dying and badly wounded Malwa soldiers were scattered all across the grounds in front of the villa. In places, the bodies were piled two and three deep. Belisarius was concentrating so intently on the live Malwa troops that he was oblivious to the obstacles posed by the dead ones. His mount stumbled on a corpse and almost spilled his rider. Only the superhuman reflexes which Aide gave him enabled Belisarius to keep himself in the saddle and his horse on its feet.
First things first! he snarled at himself. For the next few seconds, until he was through the carnage on the villa"s eastern grounds, he ignored everything but leading his horse forward. Only a cold, distant, and detached part of his mind took note of the terrible losses the enemy had suffered in their first a.s.sault. Arrow wounds, in the main, although a number of the Malwa casualties had apparently been caused by their own grenades, bouncing off the screens.
Finally, he was through the mounded bodies and could concentrate on the active enemy.
His first concern was with the katyushas. He could already hear the hissing shriek of the rockets-unmistakably different from the sound produced by Malwa rockets. The Roman missiles, following Belisarius" instructions, had been fitted with machined bronze venturi. The evenly-distributed thrust provided by those exhaust nozzles made his katyusha rockets far more accurate than their Malwa counterparts. They also made a distinctively different noise.
He could not see the rocket-chariots themselves. The katyushas would be charging at the Malwa from their hiding place in the northeast woods, followed by the Thracian and Illyrian cataphracts. A screen of trees blocked Belisarius" view in that direction. But he could see the rockets themselves. The first volley was even now impacting on the enemy. He watched a line of explosions st.i.tching its way across the Malwa army"s right flank, knocking cavalrymen out of saddles and their horses to the ground.
He held his breath. That first volley had come perilously close to landing in the very center of the enemy formation, where the Mahaveda priests were perched atop the gunpowder wagons. It was no part of his plan to have that ammunition- His held-in breath exploded. The second and third volleys did land in the center of the enemy-several of them right among the wagons. Many of the priests standing on those wagons were swept off as if by a broom. One of the wagons was tipped over by a rocket exploding almost directly beneath it. The ammunition cart teetered on two wheels. Teetered, teetered, before finally slamming back down. One of the wheels collapsed under the shock.
Belisarius hunched low, waiting for the whole ammunition supply to blow up. He turned his head and began yelling at the men behind him to brace themselves for the eruption.
Then, abruptly, stopped. There had been no explo-sion.
Astonished, he turned his head back and saw that, for all the destruction strewn by the katyushas, the Malwa ammunition had not caught fire.
An arrow sailing past his head reminded him that there were other dangers. The first ranks of dismounted Malwa regulars were less than a hundred and fifty yards away. The enemy soldiers were obviously confused by the sudden and unexpected attack on their flank. But many of them still had enough presence of mind to fire arrows at the Romans sallying from the villa.
Their arrows were neither well-aimed nor fired in coordination, however. Belisarius was about to congratulate himself for surprising his enemy-again-when another flight of arrows erased all sense of self-satisfaction.
Those arrows were well-aimed, and had been fired in a coordinated volley from a hundred yards away. The volley looked like a flight of homing pigeons, coming toward him unerringly from his right front. The general raised his shield, crouching in the saddle as best he could.
No less than three glanced off his shield; another, off the armor guarding his mount"s withers; and a fifth, painfully, on his heavily armored right arm. Fortunately, the bow which had launched that arrow lacked the power of a cataphract bow. The arrowhead failed to penetrate the scale armor, although Belisarius was quite sure he would be sporting a bad bruise by morning.
The rest of the volley landed amidst the cataphracts following him. From the cries of pain and surprise, he knew that many had hit their targets.
When the general peeked over the rim of his shield, looking forward and to his right, he saw what he expected to see. The Kushans were already forming a square-shields interlocked, spears bristling, with a line of archers standing right behind the shield wall. The Kushan commander had instantly a.s.sessed the new situation and was doing the best thing he could under the circ.u.mstances-hunker down, snarl, and bristle like a porcupine surrounded by wolves.
Smart wolves hunt easier prey. So did Belisarius. He angled his horse to the left, guiding his men away from the Kushan formation. He would ride in a shallow arc around the Kushans and fall on the disorganized ma.s.s of Malwa regulars who had been following the Kushan vanguard.
His cataphracts-no fools, themselves-immediately followed his lead. None of them, in Belisarius" column, even fired back at the Kushans. The general had led the sally erupting from the northern portals and gates of the villa. The Kushans, therefore, were to their right as they galloped past-the worst location for a mounted archer to fire at without exposing his whole body.
So Belisarius and his men simply grit their teeth, sheltered as best they could behind angled shields, and endured the Kushans" raking fire.
The other Roman sally, on the other hand-the one which Agathius was leading from the southern portals-was in the ideal position for mounted archers. As they came charging out, the Kushans were on their left front. Every one of those thousand cataphracts who pounded past the Kushan hedgehog, fired at least one arrow into the enemy ma.s.s. At a range of fifty yards, full-drawn cataphract bows could send arrows through any kind of armor-even through iron-reinforced laminated wood shields, unless the shields were properly angled.
The Kushan shield wall crumpled under that withering missile fire. Belisarius and his men on the opposite side were the immediate beneficiaries. The Kushans on the north left off their raking fire and hastened to sh.o.r.e up their bleeding ranks on the south.
Now, the Kushan vanguard was behind the Roman cavalry sally. Belisarius and his cataphracts were within fifty yards of the Malwa regulars who had been advancing behind the Kushans.
Those troops-thousands of dismounted cavalrymen-suddenly broke into headlong flight. Caught between a completely unexpected flank attack and the ma.s.s sally of the Romans in the villa, their nerve collapsed. The still-mounted Ye-tai security squads tried to rally the fleeing soldiers-viciously sabring dozens of them as they ran past-but to no avail.
Belisarius gave a quick glance over his shoulder. The Syrian cavalry, following the heavily-armored Greeks, were already spreading wide and beginning to pull ahead of the slower cataphracts. They were staying well away from the Kushans. Their purpose was to ravage the flanks of the rapidly-disintegrating main force of the enemy. Behind them, trotting out of the villa and taking up positions, came the Syrian infantry. They were concentrating in front of the villa itself and to the north-leaving the now-isolated Kushans with a clear line of retreat toward the corrals.
Satisfied, the general turned back. The Malwa soldier nearest to him, racing away, stumbled and fell. Belisarius did not waste a lance thrust. He simply trampled the man under and kept going.
A Ye-tai hors.e.m.e.n came charging, his own lance held high. Belisarius braced in the stirrups and swept the Ye-tai off his saddle with a lance thrust which spilled open his intestines.
Another Malwa regular ran away, his feet flashing like an antelope"s. The general"s lance took him between the shoulder blades.
Belisarius killed three more soldiers in the same manner before he lost his lance, stuck in a Malwa spine. He drew his long cavalry sword and continued the slaughter.
The front ranks of the enemy were completely routed, now. Even the Ye-tai had given up their efforts to rally the troops. The barbarians, still mounted, were outpacing all others in the retreat.
The Malwa regulars had no thought in their minds but to outrun the Roman cavalry. They were not the first men, in a battle, to be seized by that panicky, hopeless notion. And they were not the first to suffer the penalty.
The general never ceased from his ruthless work, leaving a trail of slashed corpses behind him. But the inner man almost flinched away from the horror, until he found refuge-as he had so often before-in the cold workings of his intellect.
It"s the worst mistake infantry ever makes, he thought. If they stood their ground against a cavalry charge, like the Kushans did, they"d have a chance. Now-nothing. Nothing.
A sudden line of explosions nearby-almost directly to his left-broke through his grim thoughts. He saw, out of the corner of an eye, one of his cataphracts clutch his face with both hands and fall off his saddle. Another cataphract"s horse tumbled, spilling his rider.
Those were katyusha rockets! G.o.d d.a.m.n it, hold your fire!
No luck. Belisarius could see another volley of rockets sailing toward them.
The rockets, of course, had been intended for the Malwa-part of the plan to cave in the enemy"s right flank. That was little comfort, when several of those rockets overshot the enemy and wreaked havoc in his own ranks. Loudly and profanely, the general cursed Maurice for a fool-and Basil, the katyusha commander, for a moron sired by an imbecile.
But- Belisarius himself had instructed Maurice to lead the charge with katyushas. Knowing full well that even Roman rockets were not very accurate, the general had given the orders nonetheless. He had simply not expected the Malwa to cave in so quickly. He had a.s.sumed that the rocket volleys would be over and done with by the time the cataphracts arrived.
So he cursed himself, for an idiot.
Rockets are an area-effect weapon, you f.u.c.king jacka.s.s! Don"t ever do this again!
He pushed self-recrimination aside. He had almost reached the center of the Malwa army. Ahead of him, he could see kshatriya and priests frantically trying to turn the wagons around. The mules hauling those wagons, true to their stubborn nature, were obeying their masters" shrieking commands with mute recalcitrance.
The sight almost made him laugh. What did the priests hope to accomplish? Mule-drawn wagons had no more chance of escaping a cavalry pursuit than did men on foot.
One of the Mahaveda standing atop the nearest wagon apparently reached the same conclusion. Belisarius was only twenty yards away when he saw the priest"s face stiffen with resolve. The man stooped, seized a small barrel of gunpowder, and spilled its contents over the barrel-stacks.
The priest was just drawing a lighting device out of his tunic when Belisarius" saber cut the legs out from under him. The priest sprawled across the barrels, still holding the striker. Belisarius" next slash removed that hand; his next, the Mahaveda"s head.
The general reined in his horse and clambered onto the wagon. From that perch, he began bellowing orders in his thunderous battlefield voice.
The orders were pungent, profane, simple-and quite unnecessary. Anastasius and Valentinian had already secured the two closest wagons. The Greek cataphracts, within ten seconds, had done the same with the rest.
All of the kshatriya still on the wagons-perhaps fifty-tried to surrender, along with the remaining two dozen priests. The cataphracts would have none of it. Many of those men had seen the first priest"s suicidal attempt to blow up the ammunition cart. The Greeks slaughtered any Malwa among the wagons without mercy.
Belisarius left off his bellowing. The deed was done. The Malwa wagons, with their great load of gunpowder, were safely in Roman hands.
He clambered onto the highest-placed barrel. From that precarious perch, he strained to see what he could of the battle.
Battle, no longer. The rout was complete.
Maurice"s hammer blow had completely shattered the Malwa right. The Ye-tai who had guarded that flank had taken frightful casualties before breaking. Whatever their other characteristics, no one had ever accused Ye-tai of cowardice. So they had stood their ground-almost to a man, Belisarius judged, estimating the mound of corpses.