Belisarius II-Storm at Noontide

by Eric Flint

  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 assessed the new situation and was doing the best thing he could under the circumstances—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 mass 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 mass. 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 shore 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 mass 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 horsemen 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! God damn 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 assumed 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 fucking jackass! 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.

  Their courage had been useless, of course. Not even the best troops, in Belisarius' experience, could put up an effective defense against a surprise mass attack coming on their flank. Not on an open field of battle, at any rate, with no place to shelter and regroup. Such troops could fight—fight bravely—but they would fight as confused individuals against a well-organized, steady and determined attacker. The conclusion was foregone.

  It was equally obvious that the Malwa regulars had not come to the assistance of the barbarians. The Malwa regulars clustered with the main force had still been mounted, unlike their luckless comrades who had been advancing on foot behind the Kushan attack. They had seen no reason to abandon that good fortune, and had immediately taken flight away from the Roman flank attack.

  Good fortune—fleeting fortune. In their natural desire to make the quickest escape from that frightening mass of oncoming Thracians, Illyrians and Persians—heavy cavalry, all of them, shaking the very earth in their charge out of the northeast woods—the Malwa regulars had broken to the south.

  A mass rout, thousands of horsemen galloping frantically around the edge of the forest—into the Euphrates. As soon as they realized their error, of course, the fleeing Malwa began racing east down the riverbank, toward the far-distant refuge of the Malwa forces besieging Babylon.

  Few of those men would ever find that refuge, two hundred miles away. Very few.

  The men pursuing them were veterans, led by experienced and capable commanders. Maurice and Kurush, seeing the direction of the Malwa retreat, had sent their cataphracts and dehgans angling southeast. They would cut off the Malwa escape, trap them against the river.

  Belisarius watched his katyusha rocket-chariots wheel into a line, some three hundred yards away. A small figure—their commander Basil, he assumed, although he could not recognize any faces at the distance—was prancing back and forth on his horse issuing commands. A moment later, a volley of hissing rockets sailed toward the Euphrates.

  Belisarius watched their flight. It was his first opportunity to observe the rockets without the distraction of immediate battle. The missiles flew in a shallow trajectory, with little of the erratic serpentine motion of Malwa rockets. Seconds later, the general saw the warheads erupt, scattering shrapnel through the milling mob of Malwa packed on the riverbank.

  The carnage was impressive. Belisarius had seen to it that Roman rockets carried well-designed shrapnel in their warheads. Lead drop-shot, rather than the pebbles and other odds-and-ends which Malwa rockets used.

  Belisarius now looked toward the villa. Here too, he saw, the situation was progressing nicely. Those Malwa infantrymen who had managed to escape the sally were also pouring toward the river. The Syrian cavalry had peeled off from the captured powder wagons and were driving the Malwa toward the north bank of the Euphrates.

  Behind them, the Syrian infantry had taken formations opposite the Kushans. The Kushans were already withdrawing toward the corrals. The Syrians followed, at a respectful distance, content to let them go.

  He heard Agathius' voice, raised in a cheerful hail. Turning, Belisarius saw Agathius and several of his cataphracts trotting toward him. "I sent most of my men to help the Syrians," he announced, "after I saw you doing the same."

  Belisarius had not actually given that order. There had been no need, since Cyril had done so without any prompting, and the general had wanted to concentrate his attention on watching Maurice's half of the battle. But now, looking around, he saw that there were only a hundred or so cataphracts left, guarding the wagons.

  Belisarius was immensely pleased. Immensely. There were few things the general treasured more than quick-thinking and self-reliant subordinates. He was firmly convinced that at least half his success as a commander was due to his ability to gather such men around him. Men like Maurice, Ashot, Hermogenes, John of Rhodes—even Bouzes and Coutzes, once he'd knocked the crap out of them.

  And now, men like Agathius and Cyril.

  Something of his delight must have shown. A moment later, he and his two new Greek officers were beaming at each other. There was nothing at all crooked in the general's grin, now; and not a trace of veteran sardonicism, in those of Agathius and Cyril.

  "Jesus, general," exclaimed Agathius, "this is the sweetest damn battle I ever saw!"

  "Beautiful, beautiful," agreed Cyril. "Only fuck-up was that one rocket volley."

  Belisarius grimaced. "My fault, that. I should have remembered the damn things still aren't that accurate. And I wasn't expecting we'd get so close this quickly."

  Cyril did not seem in the slightest aggrieved, even though it was his men who had suffered from that friendly fire. The Greek cataphract simply shrugged and pronounced the oldest of all veteran wisdom:

  "Shit happens."

  Agathius nodded his agreement. "Live and learn, that's all you can do. Besides—" He twisted in his saddle, studying the effect of the current rocket volleys on the Malwa massed by the river.

  "—they're doing fine work now. Save a lot of Roman boys, the katyushas will, by the time they're done. Those Malwa shits'll be like stunned sheep."

  Belisarius heard another hail. Turning, he saw that Maurice was approaching from the north. The chil-iarch was accompanied by one of his hecantontarchs, Gregory, and a half-dozen cataphracts.

  When Maurice drew up alongside the wagon, his first words were to Cyril and Agathius.

  "Sorry about the rockets," he stated. His voice was firm and level. Very courteous in tone, although the expression on his face seemed more one of embar-assment than remorse.

  Maurice now looked to Belisarius.

  "Don't even bother asking," he growled. "The answer's no. My boys'd probably be willing enough, even if those raggedy-ass Malwa fucks couldn't come up with two solidus ransom amongst them. But the Persians are completely berserk and there's no way to stop them without—"

  Belisarius shook his head. "I know. I can hear their battle cries."

  He cocked his ear, listening. Even at the distance, the Persian voices were quite distinct.

  Charax! Charax!

  Death to Malwa!

  No quarter!

  Seeing the look of confusion on the faces of Agathius and Cyril, Maurice chuckled.

  "The young general here"—he pointed a thumb at Belisarius—"has a soft and tender heart. Likes to avoid atrocities, when he can."

  The two Greek officers eyed the general uncertainly, much as men gaze upon someone pronounced to be a living saint. Possible, possible—but, more likely, just a babbling madman.

  Then, remembering his savage punishment of the eight cataphracts at Callinicum, uncertainty fled.

  Agathius winced. "Mother of God, general, Maurice is right. There's no way—"

  Again, Belisarius shook his head, smiling crookedly. "I'm not asking, Agathius. The Persians won't be stopped, not after Charax. I'm quite aware of that."

  The smile faded, replaced by a look of scrutiny. "But I'll ask you to remember this day, in the future. The very near future, in fact. When the Persians demand the heads of two thousand Kushans, and I refuse."

  He pointed toward the river.

  "Atrocities produce this kind of massacre. That's one of the reasons I try to avoid them. You might be on the other end, the next time. Pleading for mercy, and not getting it, because you showed none yourself."

  "Wouldn't get it from the Malwa, anyway," pointed out Maurice. He spoke mildly—as usual, when he was contradicting Belisarius in public—but firmly.

  "From Malwa, no," replied the general. "But what is Malw
a, Maurice?"

  He nodded toward the river. "You think those men are all Malwa? Or Ye-tai? Precious few of them, in truth. The priests and kshatriyas, most of the officers. Perhaps a thousand of the regulars. The rest? Biharis, Bengalis, Orissans—every subject nation of India is spilling its life blood into that river."

  He transferred his scrutiny to Agathius and Cyril. "In the end," Belisarius told them, his voice as hard as steel, "we will not defeat Malwa on a great field of battle, somewhere here in Persia. Or in Anatolia, or Bactria, or the Indus plain. We will shatter them in the heart of India itself, when their subjects finally throw off the yoke."

  Uncertainty returned to the faces of the two Greeks. Now, however, it was not the bemused skepticism of men regarding a proclaimed saint. It was the simple doubt—the veteran questioning—of fighting men who were beginning to wonder if their commander might, after all, be that rarest of generals. A supreme strategist, as well as a wizard on the battlefield.

  "I would spare all of them who tried to surrender, if I could," mused Belisarius. "All, at least, except the Mahaveda priests. For the sake of the future, if nothing else."

  He shrugged heavily. "But—I can't risk an idiot brawl with the Persians. Not today, when their blood's a-boil."

  He clambered off the barrel. A moment later, he was back astride his horse. "Today, I can only deal with the Kushans."

  He pointed to the river. "Agathius—Cyril—I want you to give full support to the Persians. Back them to the hilt. As maddened as they are, they won't be thinking clearly. There are still thousands of live and armed enemy troops packed against the river. They'll fight like cornered rats, once they realize surrender's not being offered. The Persians are likely to wade into them without thinking, get surrounded."

  Agathius and Cyril nodded.

  "Take all your men," Belisarius added, "except a hundred or so to guard over the wagons. Have those men bring the wagons back to the villa. But be careful—in fact, better wait until you have some of the katyusha men to help. They're more familiar with handling gunpowder."