Destiny's shield b-3

by Eric Flint

  The Roman troops had the worst of it, since they were doing the most dangerous part of the job, but those were not happy days for the Kushans either. Behind the Roman engineers extending the pontoons, the Kushans were set to work building the dam higher. Using their own barges, the captives hauled baskets full of stones and dropped them onto the submerged pontoons. The current piled the heavy baskets up against the wicker "sails." The strain on those sunken masts and spars would probably have broken some of them, except that the Romans had lashed the masts together as they extended the line of pontoons.

  Most of the Kushans, however, were engaged elsewhere. The stones used to bolster the dam had to be hauled out of the surrounding landscape. Fortunately, there were many stones to be found within a mile of the river. Mesopotamia had been farmed for millennia, but the topsoil was constantly being blown away and annual plowing brought up another layer of stones. These stones, as the centuries passed, were piled at the center or edges of fields. So there was no lack of stones, and none of them had to be dug up out of the soil. But it was still hard work for the Kushans, loading sledges and dragging them to the river.

  At first, the Kushans were disgruntled.

  Crazy Roman!

  Why doesn't the stupid bastard use the stones we already dug out of the Nehar Malka? Look! There's a giant pile of the things-not three hundred yards away!

  Who ever made this idiot a general, anyway?

  As the days passed, however, the Kushans began to realize that the cretin Roman general apparently had other plans for those stones. What those plans were, the Kushans did not know. They were no longer permitted in the vicinity of the Nehar Malka. But, from a distance, they could catch glimpses of Roman engineers working around the enormous mound of rocks which the Kushans had piled on the north bank of the Nehar Malka. Digging tunnels, so it appeared. And they noted that the men involved in that work were the same Romans who manned the rocket chariots. Gunpowder experts.

  The betting among the Kushan captives intensified.

  Kurush and his Persian soldiers were not involved in any of this work. Theirs was the task of ensuring the work-site's security. Every day, Kurush and his ten thousand Persian cavalrymen patrolled the region, extending their skirmishers to a distance of thirty miles in every direction. Abbu and the Arab scouts accompanied them in this work, as did a small number of the Roman troops. On a rotating basis, two battalions of Belisarius' soldiers-one cavalry, one infantry-were assigned each day to assist the Persians. In truth, the assignment was more in the way of a relief than anything else. After the back-breaking and risky work of building the dam, every Roman soldier looked forward to a day spent in a leisurely march.

  Finally, on the nineteenth day, the last pontoon was maneuvered into place and scuttled. The Romans took four days well-deserved rest, while the Kushans finished the job of bolstering the pontoons with baskets of stones.

  It was done. Twenty-three days' work had turned that strip of the Euphrates into a waterfall. A low waterfall, to be sure. But it was impressive, nonetheless.

  The Roman troops and the Kushan captives spent the twenty-fourth day in a cheerful celebration, lining the banks and getting drunk while they admired the raging cataract which they had built. At Belisarius' order, the wine ration was very generous-as much for the Kushans as the Romans. A Malwa officer, had there been one present to notice, would have been outraged at the free and easy fraternization between captives and captors.

  Belisarius and his top officers, however, did not join in the revelry. They spent that entire day in the general's command tent. The first two hours of that day were taken up with Belisarius' immediate plans.

  The rest was given to awe, and mystery, and wonder.

  As he had promised Basil, Belisarius brought his entire command into the secret. He told them the secret, first, using his own words. Then, when he was done, brought forth the Talisman of God.

  Aide was prepared. The coruscating colors which filled the command tent were so dazzling that they caused the leather walls to glow.

  Roman soldiers who saw, from outside the tent, whispered among themselves. Witchcraft, muttered a few. But most simply shrugged the thing off. Belisarius was-unique. A blessed man. Hadn't Michael of Macedonia himself said so?

  So why shouldn't his tent glow in daylight?

  Kushans also noticed, and discussed the matter. Here, the opinion was unanimous.

  Sorcery. The Roman general was a witch. It was obvious. Obvious.

  The wagering became feverish.

  When evening fell, Belisarius' officers filed quietly out of his tent. None of them said a word, except Agathias. As the commander of the Greek cataphracts passed by Belisarius, he whispered: "We will not fail you, general. This I swear."

  Belisarius inclined his head. A moment later, only Maurice was left in the tent.

  "When?" asked the Thracian chiliarch.

  "How soon can you reach Babylon? A week?"

  "Be serious," growled Maurice. "Do I look like a pewling babe?"

  Belisarius smiled.

  "Four days," grunted Maurice. "Three to get there, and a day for Khusrau to make ready."

  "Five days," countered Belisarius. "Khusrau should be ready, but an extra day may help. Besides, you never know-you might fall off your horse."

  Maurice disdained any reply.

  Early the next morning, Maurice left. He was accompanied by a hundred of his Thracian cataphracts as well as a squad of Arab scouts.

  At the same time, one of Kurush's top officers-Merena himself, in fact-led a similar expedition to Ctesiphon. Their purpose was to bring warning to the residents of the capital.

  The next four days, Belisarius spent overseeing the final preparations at the Nehar Malka. None of the Roman troops except Basil and his men were engaged in this work, however, so they spent those days resting.

  By late afternoon of the fifth day, the entire allied force was thronging the banks of the Euphrates. Over twenty thousand men-Romans, Persians, Kushan captives-were jostling each other for a vantage point. Belisarius had to use his bucellarii to keep the onlookers from piling too close to the Nehar Malka.

  The general himself was standing atop the command tower. He was joined there by Baresmanas and Kurush.

  "You should not have made the announcement," fretted Kurush. "It was impossible to keep the security patrols out beyond noon."

  Belisarius shrugged.

  "And so? By the time a spy reaches the Malwa with the news, they will know already."

  He leaned over the rail. Below him, standing at the base of the tower, Basil looked up. The katyusha commander held a burning slowmatch in his hand.

  Belisarius began to give the order to light the fuse. Then, hesitated.

  "New times," he murmured. "New times need new traditions. 'Light the fuse' just won't do."

  He sent a thought inward.

  Aide?

  The reply came instantly.

  Fire in the hole.

  Belisarius grinned. Leaned over.

  "Fire in the hole!"

  Basil needed no translation. A moment later, the fuse was burning. As it hissed its furious way toward the last barrier across the Nehar Malka, Basil began capering like a child.

  "I like that! I like that!" he cried. "Fire in the hole!"

  The cry was taken up by others. Within three minutes, the entire army was chanting the words. Even the Kushans, in their newly-learned and broken Greek.

  "FIRE IN THE HOLE! FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

  The fuse reached its destination.

  There was fire in the hole.

  Chapter 27

  The demolition had been well-planned. So much was immediately obvious. Guided by Aide, Belisarius and Basil had emplaced the charges in the optimum locations to do the job.

  Across most of its width, the lower bank of the dam blew sidewise, clearing an instant path for the pent-up energy of the Euphrates. The great river, now released, literally burst into the new channel opened for it. Ragin
g like a bull, the torrent charged down the long-dry Nehar Malka, scouring it deeper and wider as it went.

  But Belisarius was unable to appreciate the sight. As so often happens in life, practice subverted theory. The charges had been perfectly placed, true. And then, doubled beyond Aide's instructions; and then, doubled again.

  Aide had complained, of course. Had warned, cautioned, chastened, chastised; been driven, in fact, into its own crystalline version of a gibbering fit.

  To no avail. With the simple logic of men whose familiarity with gunpowder was still primitive, Belisarius and Basil had both insisted that more was vastly preferable than enough. Better to make sure the job was done, after all, than to risk a feeble half-result through cringing niggardliness.

  Applied to the task of splitting a log with an axe, such logic simply results in unnecessary exertion. Applied to the task of demolishing a dam with gunpowder, however-

  I told you so, groused Aide, as Belisarius watched the top layers of the dam sailing into the sky. Hundreds upon hundreds of rocks and boulders-tons and tons of stony projectiles-soaring every which way.

  Not all of those missiles, of course, were heading for the tower where Belisarius stood. It just seemed that way.

  Baresmanas and Kurush scrambled down the ladder first. The Roman general was halfway down-

  Stupid humans.

  — when the first rocks began pelting into the tower. By the time he was three-fourths down-

  Protoplasmic idiots.

  — covered, now, with wood splinters-

  Glorified monkeys.

  — the tower collapsed completely.

  That probably saved his life, as well as those of Baresmanas and Kurush-and Basil, who had also instinctively sought shelter beneath the tower. The half-shattered platform hammered Belisarius and the other three men into the ground, battering them almost senseless. Thereafter, however, it acted as a sort of huge shield, sheltering them-in a manner of speaking-from the hail of rocks which would otherwise have turned two Roman officers and two Persian noblemen into so much undifferentiated pulp.

  At the time, Belisarius found little comfort in the fact. The platform lying on him did not deflect the blows, in the manner of a true shield, so much as it simply spread the shock across his entire body. He was not pulped, therefore. Amazingly, none of his bones were even broken. But he did undergo a version of being pounded into flatcake, except that flatcakes do not suffer the added indignity of being lectured throughout the experience.

  Crazy fucking Thracian.

  Whoever made you a general, anyway?

  It's amazing you even made it out of the womb, as stupid as you are. I'm surprised you didn't insist on finding your own way out. God forbid you should listen to your mother.

  Crazy fucking Thracian.

  Whoever-

  And so on, and so forth.

  It took his soldiers an hour to dig Belisarius and the others out, after the rocks stopped falling. The digging itself, actually, took only a few minutes. The delay was caused by the fact that his men had fled a full half mile away after the barrage started.

  His first, semiconscious, croaking words:

  "Did it work? I couldn't see."

  His ensuing croaks, after being assured of full success in the project:

  "Next time. Smaller charges."

  "Much smaller," croaked Basil.

  "Crazy fucking Romans," croaked Baresmanas.

  "Whoever put him in charge?" croaked Kurush.

  Others, also, failed to heed warnings. When Merena arrived at Ctesiphon to warn the governor of the oncoming tidal wave, the man responded with derision. Partly, that was due to his personality. Arrogant by nature, his recent naming to the post of shahrab of the Persian Empire's capital city had swelled his head even further. In the main, however, his attitude was determined by politics. The shahrab of Ctesiphon-Shiroe was his name-was allied with Ormazd's faction. The appearance before him of an officer of Emperor Khusrau's most ferociously-loyal follower, Baresmanas, seemed to him a perfect opportunity to score a political point. So, Shiroe responded to Merena's warning with jocular remarks on lunacy, embellished with denunciations of Romans and those Persians besotted with them, and concluding with a not-so-veiled thrust on the subject of miscegenation.

  Merena's men had to restrain him.

  After the unfortunate session, once Merena had calmed down enough to think clearly, he ordered his men to take informal and unofficial warnings to the boatmen plying their trade on the Tigris. As best they could, given their relatively small numbers, his soldiers tried to warn the city's fishermen and boat captains.

  Approximately half of the men they were able to speak to heeded their warnings. The other half-as well as all the men they were unable to reach in time-did not.

  When the tidal wave arrived, two days later, the destruction of property was immense. Few lives were lost, however. By the time the newly-released waters of the Euphrates reached Ctesiphon, they took the form of a sudden five-foot high surge in elevation rather than an actual wall of water. Most of the men caught in the river had time to scramble or swim to safety. But their boats, as well as a multitude of shore-lining structures, were pounded into splinters.

  Shiroe's prestige plummeted, and, with it, the allegiance of most of his military retainers. The huge mob of enraged and impoverished boatmen whom Merena and his soldiers led to the shahrab's palace poured over the few guards still willing to defend their lord. Shiroe was dragged out, weighted down with chains, and pitched into the newly-risen Tigris. In those changed and raging waters, he vanished without a trace.

  In Babylon, on the other hand, everything went smoothly and according to plan. Khusrau had been preparing for this moment for weeks. The two days' warning which Maurice gave him were almost unnecessary.

  Belisarius had deliberately blown the dam in the late afternoon, calculating that the effects of the river's diversion would thereby strike Babylon the following morning. That would give Emperor Khus-rau a full day in which to take advantage of the new situation.

  His calculations, of course, were extremely crude-simply an estimate of the river's current divided into an estimate of the distance between the Nehar Malka and Babylon. In the event, Belisarius' guess was off by several hours. He had failed to make sufficient allowance for the fact that the current would ebb once the built-up pressure of the backwater dropped. So it was not until noon of the next day that the effects of his work made themselves felt.

  The difference was moot. The Persian Emperor's confidence in the Roman general was so great that he had decided to launch the attack at daybreak, whether or not the river level had dropped. It was a wise decision. As always, getting a major assault underway took more time than planned. Much more time, in this instance. The Persian troops, lacking the Roman expertise in engineering fieldcraft, required several hours to bring into position and ready the improvised pontoons which they would use to cross the Euphrates.

  By then, alerted by the slowly-unfolding work of Khusrau's engineers, the Malwa had realized that the Persians were planning a sally across the Euphrates. But the foreknowledge did them no good at all.

  Quite the contrary. Lord Jivita, the Malwa high commander, thought the Persian project was absurd.

  "What is the point of this?" he demanded, watching the Persian preparations from his own command tower.

  None of the half-dozen officers standing there with him made any reply. The question was clearly rhetorical-as were most of Jivita's queries. The high commander's aides had long since learned that Jivita did not look kindly upon subordinates who provided their own answers to his questions.

  Jivita pointed to the Persian troops massing on the left bank of the river, just below the great western wall of Babylon.

  "Madness," he decreed. "Even if they succeed in crossing, what is there for them to do? On the western side of the Euphrates?"

  He swept his arm. The gesture was simultaneously grandiose and dismissive.

  "There i
s nothing on that side, except marshes and desert."

  He slapped his hands together.

  "No matter! They will not cross in any event. I see the opportunity here for a great victory."

  He turned to one of his officers, the subordinate encharged with the Malwa's fleet of war galleys.

  "Jayanaga! Send the entire flotilla forward! We will butcher the Persians as they try to cross!"

  With a fierce glower: "Make sure your galleys do not fire their rockets until the enemy's lead elements are almost across. I want to make sure we catch as many of them as possible on their pitiful pontoons. Do you understand?"

  Jayanaga nodded, and immediately left.

  Lord Jivita turned back to his examination of the enemy. Again, he clapped his hands with satisfaction.

  "We will butcher them! Butcher them!"

  The Malwa flotilla-forty-two galleys, in all-was almost within rocket range of the pontoon bridge when the captain of the lead ship realized that something was wrong.

  His first assumption, however, was far off the mark. He turned to the oarmaster.

  "Why have you slowed the tempo?" he demanded.

  The oarmaster immediately shook his head, pointing to the two men pounding on kettledrums.

  "I didn't! Listen! They're beating the right tempo!"

  The captain's scowl deepened. Before the oarmaster had even finished speaking, the captain realized that he was right. Still-

  The ship was slowing.

  No! It was going backward!

  "Look!" cried one of the other officers, pointing to the near bank. "The river's dropping!"

  "What? Impossible! Not that fast!"

  The captain leaned over the railing, studying the shore. Within seconds, his face paled.

  "They've diverted the river upstream," he whispered. "It must be. Nothing else could-"