by Eric Flint
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 is 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—"
He broke off, his attention drawn by the sound of hooves pounding on wooden planks. Lots of hooves. Upstream, he could see Persian cavalry racing across the pontoon bridge. Dozens—hundreds—thousands—of Persian lancers and armored archers were streaming over to the west bank of the Euphrates.
Like his commander, Lord Jivita, the galley captain had been puzzled by the Persian sally. There had seemed no purpose for the enemy to cross the Euphrates, especially when the crossing itself would expose the Persians to withering rocket fire from the Malwa galleys. Who was there to fight, on that side of the river? The great mass of the Malwa army was concentrated on the east bank, south of Babylon's fortifications.
Now he understood. The captain was a quick-thinking man.
"They knew about it ahead of time," he hissed. "They're going to burn the supply ships."
He twisted, staring back at the huge mass of supply barges some half mile south. Already, he could see the unwieldy craft yawing out of control, driven by the rapidly ebbing waters of the river. Within a minute, he knew, they would start grounding. Helpless targets.
Especially helpless when there would be no war galleys to protect them. His own flotilla would be grounded also—not as quickly, for they had a much shallower draft—unless—
"Row toward the center of the river!" he roared. "Signal the other ships to do likewise!"
Immediately, the drums began beating a new rhythm. The Malwa had no sophisticated signaling system for controlling their fleet. But the captain of the lead galley also served as the commodore of the flotilla. The message of the drums was simple:
Do as I do.
But it was already too late. The drums had barely begun beating when the flotilla commander saw the first of his warships ground. There was no dramatic splintering of wood—the bed of the Euphrates was mud, not rock—just the sudden halting of the galley's motion, a slight tilt as it adjusted to the angle of the riverbed.
Nothing dramatic, nothing spectacular. But the result was still deadly.
Helpless targets.
The captain felt his own galley lurch, heard the slight hissing of mud and sand against the wooden hull. His craft jerked loose. Another hiss, another lurch. Jerked loose. Stopped.
A quick-thinking man. He wasted no time trying to pry the vessel out. The muddy soil of the riverbed would hold the hull like glue. Instead, he turned his attention to preparing his defenses.
"Move the rocket troughs around!" he bellowed. "Set them to repel boarders!"
His rocket handlers scurried to obey. One of them cried out, clutching his arm. An arrow was suddenly protruding from his elbow. The cry was cut short by another arrow penetrating his throat.
The captain spun around. To his despair, he saw that the enemy charging down the west bank had drawn parallel to his craft. Already, the first Persian lancers were guiding their mounts into the riverbed. Their pace was slow, due to the thick mud and reeds, but the powerful Persian warhorses were still driving forward relentlessly. They would cover the distance quickly enough.
There would be no time to bring the rockets to bear, he knew. And there was no chance—no chance—that his lightly armored sailors could withstand Persian dehgans in hand-to-hand combat.
A quick-thinking man. He began to shout his surrender. But fell instantly silent, hearing the warcry of the oncoming Persians.
Charax! Charax! Charax!
He understood at once that there would be no surrender. No chance.
He died eight seconds later, struck down by an arrow which tore through his heart. He made no attempt to evade the missile. There would have been no point. The enemy arrows were like a flock of geese. Instead, he simply stood there, silent, unmoving, presenting his chest to the enemy.
When all was said and done, the quick-thinking man was kshatriya. He would die so.
The Persians who saw were impressed. Hours later, they retrieved his body—the charred remnants of it—from the burned hulk of his galley. They carried the corpse back into Babylon, and gave it an honored resting place along with their own dead. Perched, in the Aryan way, atop a stone tower called a dakhma. There, exposed to carrion eaters, the unclean flesh would be stripped away, leaving the soul pure and intact.
But that act of grace was yet to come. For now, the Persian cavalrymen thought only of slaughter and destruction. The dehgans and their archers rampaged down the west bank of the river for miles, destroying every ship within their reach. The huge Malwa army on the opposite shore could only watch in helpless fury.
Malwa officers drove many of their soldiers into the riverbed in an attempt to rescue th
e stranded ships. But the mud and reeds impeded those troops at least as much as they had the Persian lancers on the west bank—and the Malwa were far more distant. By the time the soldiers struggling through the muck could reach them, the ships would be nothing but burning wreckage.
The Persians were not able to destroy the entire fleet, of course. Many of the Malwa galleys and supply ships—whether through their own effort, or good luck, or both—wound up stranded on the east bank of the river. Those ships, protected by the nearby Malwa troops, were quite safe. They did not even suffer much damage from the grounding itself, due to the soft nature of the riverbed.
But all of the ships which grounded within bow range of the Persians were doomed. Those close enough for the Persians to storm were burned by hand, after their crews were massacred. Those too far into the center of the river to be stormed were simply burned with fire-arrows. Those sailors who could swim survived. Those who could not, died.
At sunset, the Persians broke off their sally and retreated back into Babylon. By the time the last dehgan trotted back across the pontoon bridge, almost a third of the Malwa fleet had been destroyed, along with most of the sailors who had manned those ships.
* * *
Those sailors were only the least of the casualties which the Malwa suffered, that day. An hour into the Persian sally, Lord Jivita ordered a mass assault against the walls of Babylon. The assault began almost immediately—his officers were terrified by his temper—and was carried on throughout the rest of the afternoon.
It is possible that Lord Jivita ordered the assault because he thought the Persian sally had emptied Babylon of most of its defenders. Possible, but unlikely. The Malwa espionage service had kept Jivita well-informed of the enemy's strength throughout the siege. A simple count of the Persians across the river should have led the Malwa commander to the conclusion that Emperor Khusrau had kept the big majority of his troops behind the city's walls.
No, Lord Jivita's action was almost certainly the product of nothing more sophisticated than blind fury. The petulant, squawling rage of a thwarted child. A very spoiled child.
The price was paid by his troops. Khusrau had read his opponent's mentality quite accurately. The Emperor had expected just such a mindless attack, and had prepared his defenses accordingly. The Malwa soldiers crossing the no-man's land were ravaged by his catapults and his archers, stymied by the moats and walls, butchered at the walls themselves by heavily armored dehgans for whom they were no match in close-quarter combat. The casualties were horrendous, especially among the Kushans who spearheaded most of the assaults. By the end of day, when the attack was finally called off, six thousand Malwa soldiers lay dead or dying on the field of battle. Thirteen thousand had suffered injuries—from which, within a week, another five thousand would die.
In all, in that one day, the Malwa suffered over twenty thousand casualties. Any other army in the world would have been broken by such losses. And even the Malwa army reeled.
Lord Jivita himself did not reel. His fury grew and grew as the hours passed. By sundown, his despairing officers realized, Jivita was still determined to press the attack through the night.
The abyss of total disaster yawned before them. They were pulled back from that pit by an old woman.
* * *
When Great Lady Holi clambered painfully up the ladder onto the command tower, silence immediately fell over the small crowd of top officers packed there. Even Lord Jivita broke off his bellowing.
The Great Lady cast only a glance at Jivita.
"You are relieved," she announced. Her empty eyes moved to a figure standing next to Jivita.
"Lord Achyuta, you are now in command of the army."
Jivita's eyes bulged. "You can't do that!" he screeched. "Only the Emperor has the authority—"
"Kill him," said Great Lady Holi.
The two guards stationed on the platform stiffened. Hesitated, their eyes flashing back and forth between Holi and Jivita. He was their commander, after all. She was—officially—nothing but—
Nothing—but. They had heard tales. All Malwa soldiers had heard tales.
The Great Lady's eyes were now utterly barren. When she spoke again, her voice was inhuman. Empty of all life.
"KILL HIM."
The guards had only heard tales. But the officers on that platform were all members of the Malwa dynastic clan. They knew the truth behind the tales.
Lord Achyuta's sword was the first to slice into Jivita's belly, but only because he was standing the closest. Before Jivita slumped to the ground, five other swords had cut and sliced the life from his body.
The two guards were still standing stiff and rigid. Great Lady Holi's vacant eyes fell upon them. If she hesitated at all, it was for less than a second.
"KILL THEM ALSO. THERE MUST BE NO TALES."
Pudgy, middle-aged generals fell upon vigorous young soldiers. If the two guards had not been mentally paralyzed, they would undoubtedly have held their own against those unathletic officers. As it was, they were butchered within seconds.
Great Lady Holi lowered herself into Jivita's chair. She ignored the three bodies and the pools of blood spreading across the platform.
"CALL OFF THIS INSANE ATTACK," she commanded.
"At once, Great Lady Holi!" cried Achyuta. He glanced at one of his subordinates. An instant later, the man was scrambling down the ladder.
Reluctantly, Achyuta came to stand before the old woman. Reluctantly, for he knew that the aged figure hunched on that chair was only an old woman in form. Within that crone's body dwelt the spirit called Link. He feared that spirit as much as he was awed by it.
"DESCRIBE THE DAMAGE."
Achyuta did not even try to calculate the casualty figures. Link, he knew, would be utterly indifferent. Instead, he went straight to the heart of the problem.
"Without the supply fleet, we cannot take Babylon."
He glanced toward the Euphrates. The sunset was almost gone, but the river was still well-illuminated by the multitude of burning ships.
"Under the best of circumstances, we have been set back—"
He hesitated, quailing, before summoning his courage. Link, he knew, would punish dishonesty faster than anything. In this, at least, the divine spirit was utterly unlike Jivita. Mindless rages were not Link's way. Simply—cold, cold, cold.
He cleared his throat.
"Until next year," he concluded.
A human would have cocked an eye, or—something. Link simply stared at Achyuta through those empty, old woman's eyes.
"SO LONG?"
Again, he cleared his throat.
"Yes, Great Lady Holi. Until we can replace the destroyed ships, we will only have sufficient supplies to maintain the siege. There will be no chance of pressing home any attacks. And we have—"
He waved his hand helplessly, gesturing toward the invisible barrenness of the region.
"—we have no way to build ships here. They will have to be built in India, and brought here during the monsoon next year."
Great Lady Holi—Link—was silent. The old woman's eyes were still empty, but Achyuta could sense the lightning-quick calculations behind those orbs.
"YES. YOU ARE CORRECT. BUT THAT IS NOT THE WORST OF IT."
The last sentence had something of the sense of a question about it. Achyuta nodded vigorously.
"No, Great Lady Holi, it isn't. There will be no point in bringing a new fleet of supply ships if the river—"
Again, that helpless gesture. Great Lady Holi filled the silence.
"WE MUST RESTORE THE RIVER. THEY HAVE DAMMED IT UPSTREAM. AN EXPEDI-TION MUST BE SENT—AT ONCE—TO DESTROY THE DAM AND THE FORCE WHICH BUILT IT."
"At once!" agreed Achyuta. "I will assemble the force tomorrow! I will lead it myself!"
Great Lady Holi levered herself upright.
"NO, LORD ACHYUTA, YOU WILL NOT LEAD IT. YOU WILL REMAIN HERE, IN CHARGE OF THE SIEGE. APPOINT ONE OF YOUR SUBORDINATES TO COMMAND THE EXPEDITION."
"Which one, Great Lady Holi? Do you have a preference?"
The divine spirit glanced around the platform, estimating the officers standing there rigidly. It was a quick, quick glance.
"IT DOES NOT MATTER. I WILL ACCOMPANY THE EXPEDITION PERSONALLY. WHOEVER IT IS WILL OBEY ME."
Achyuta's eyes widened.
"You? You yourself? But—"
He fell silent under the inhuman stare.
"I CAN TRUST NO ONE ELSE, ACHYUTA. THIS WAS BELISARIUS' WORK. HIS—AND THE ONE WHO GOES WITH HIM."
She turned away.
"I KNOW MY ENEMY NOW. I WILL DESTROY IT MYSELF."
Moments later, assisted by the hands of several officers, the figure of the old woman disappeared down the ladder. Achyuta was relieved to see her go. So relieved, in fact, that he did not wonder for more than an instant why Great Lady Holi had referred to the man Belisarius as "it."
Personal peeve, he assumed. Not thinking that the divine spirit named Link was never motivated by such petty concerns.
* * *
The next morning, from his perch atop the hill which had once been the Tower of Babel, Emperor Khusrau watched the Malwa expeditionary force begin their march to Peroz-Shapur and the Nehar Malka.
The sight was impressive. There were at least sixty thousand soldiers in that army across the Euphrates. At the moment, from what he could see, Khusrau thought the enemy force was infantry-heavy. But he had no doubt that they would be joined along the march by the mounted raiding parties which the Malwa had kept in the field, ravaging Mesopotamia. By the time that army reached its destination, he estimated, its numbers would have swelled by at least another ten thousand.
Most of the Malwa army's supplies were being carried on camelback, but the expedition was also accompanied by small oared warships which were being laboriously portaged past Babylon. Those vessels would have a shallow enough draft to negotiate the Euphrates upstream. The water level of the river had dropped drastically, but it was still a respectable stream.
