The Dance of Time b-6

by Eric Flint

  "You're not going yourself?"

  "No. I'll stay here with the men."

  "But-"

  "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 understand. Still-

  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 seem so confident.

  They're not, really. But since I stayed with them, they have a barrier to fear.

  Yes. I understand. I always wondered.

  Wondered what?

  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.

  I understand now.

  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 had once washed your flayed skin?

  Nice to finally meet you?

  That seemed. . idiotic.

  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.

  She clasped them, warmly.

  "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.

  "I know. Use all of them."

  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."

  "What 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."

  "Kushans love to gamble."

  "True."

  * * *

  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 shadowed by the setting sun. "They'll be out there."

  "Ye-tai only?"

  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.

  "You see?" he demanded.

  * * *

  When the Emperor of Malwa reached the door leading into the inner sanctum of the imperial palace-the ultimate inner san
ctum; 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, whenever 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.

  "What may I do for you?"

  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 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."

  "Yes. Well."

  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 and 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.

  Chapter 31

  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, but simply in. .

  Disbelief?

  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 tha
t 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 resupplied 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 think?" asked Menander.

  "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.