by Eric Flint
When he finally emerged, his face was bleak. Bleak, but bitterly determined.
Belisarius pointed to the Malwa cargo ship in which, if he was correct, Link was waiting. The ship was not more than a mile distant, now. Already, kshatriyas were erecting rocket troughs on the deck.
"There is something you should know. Aide just explained it to me. There is a reason the new gods choose women as the vessels for Link. Great Lady Holi, today. If she dies, Link will be transferred into the person—the body, I should say—of her niece, Sati. She is probably still in Kausambi. If Sati dies, there will be another girl, in that same line. Somewhere in Kausambi also, in all likelihood."
He paused, groping for a way to translate Aide's concepts. The effort was hopeless. Words like "genetics" and "mitochondrial DNA" would mean nothing to his companions. He barely understood them himself.
He waved his hand. "Never mind the specifics. Link is part machine, part human. The machine part, the core of it, is somewhere in India. Probably in Kausambi also. Its consciousness is passed, upon her death, from one woman to her successor. The new Link, once it's—'activated,' let's call it—has all the memories of the old one, up till the time she last—" Again, he groped for words. "Communicated with the machine."
He paused. Maurice, eagerly, filled the void. "You know what that means?" he demanded. The chiliarch gripped the rail fiercely, glaring at the enemy ship. "What it means," he hissed, "is that if we kill that old bitch, the Malwa will be thrown into complete confusion. The new Link—what's her name? Sati?—won't know what's happened since Holi left. That's been a year and a half, now! It'll take her months—months—to get things reorganized."
He turned from the rail, eager—eager. "God, General, that's perfect! We need that time, ourselves. Sure, we won this battle. But our troops are exhausted, too. We need to refit, and hook back up with Agathius and the Persians, and send another mission to Majarashtra, and—"
He stumbled to a halt. Maurice, finally, saw the other side of the thing.
Antonina had understood at once. Her face was pale.
"You can't board that ship! Link will commit suicide! It has no reason not to. It's not human, it's just a—a vessel. A tool." She almost gasped. "It'll want to! The last thing it can afford is to be captured."
All of them, now, understood the implication. So why not take its enemy with it?
"It'll have that ship rigged," muttered Maurice. "Doing it right now, probably. Ready to blow it up once you're aboard."
Antonina ignored him. She was pale, pale. She knew that expression on Belisarius' face. Knew it all the better because it was so rare.
"I don't give a damn," he snarled. "I've been fighting that monster for four years. I'm tired of tactics and strategy. I'm just going to kill it."
Protest began to erupt, until a new voice spoke.
"Of course we will!" boomed Ousanas. "Nothing to it!"
All eyes fixed upon him. The aqabe tsentsen grinned. "Under other circumstances, of course, the deed would be insane. Foolish, suicidal!" He shrugged. "But you forget—you have me!" He began prancing around, lunging with his spear. "Terrible! A demon!"
Antonina was not amused, this time. She began to snarl a response, until she suddenly realized—
Ousanas was not prancing any longer. He was simply smiling, as serene as an icon.
"No, Antonina," he said softly, "I am not joking with you now. It is a simple fact"—again, he shrugged—"that I am the best hunter I know."
He pointed his finger at Link's ship. Not more than half a mile away, now. "Think clearly and logically. The monster cannot possibly have enough gunpowder to blow up the entire ship. It would only have brought defensive weapons. Rockets, grenades. It will set them to destroy its own cabin, after the boarding party arrives. That will take time."
He hefted his huge spear, as lightly as if were a mere twig. "Underneath, I think. Somewhere in the hold."
He turned to Belisarius. "You are determined, I imagine, to lead the boarding party yourself."
Belisarius' only answer was a snarl. Ousanas nodded. "Do it, Roman. Take your best men. I will see to the rest."
* * *
The argument still raged, but the issue was settled. Between them, Belisarius and Ousanas beat down all protest. Not even Anastasius—not even when ordered by Maurice—was prepared to stop the general. He remembered Valentinian, unyielding, on a mountainside in Persia. And knew that the champion's own general, this day, would do no less.
By then, the Ethiopian warships were already engaging the Malwa escort galleys. The battle was not quite as swift as that in the delta. Not quite. The Malwa had seen the diekplous, and tried to avoid it. But, while their caution prolonged the outcome, it did not change it. It simply made it the more certain. In less than ten minutes, the five galleys had been boarded and their crews slaughtered. The Ethiopians lost only one of their craft to ramming. Even then, they were able to rescue the entire crew before the ship finally foundered.
Belisarius, however, observed none of it. He had been engaged, throughout, in a new argument. Which he lost, just as surely and inevitably as he had won the first.
* * *
"All right!" he growled, glaring at his wife. Then, heaving a great sigh: "But you stay behind, Antonina—d'you hear? I won't have you in the front line!"
Her stubborn look faded, replaced by an insouciant smile. "Well, of course! I had no intention of leading the charge." A very delicate snort. "The whole idea's ridiculous. Unladylike."
Chapter 43
The monster waited. Patiently, with the sureness of eternal life. Not its own—that was meaningless—but that of its masters.
Everything was finished, now, except revenge. The deck of the ship was a carrion-eater's paradise. Firing from the height of their own huge craft, with those powerful bows, the cataphracts had swept all life away. The kshatriyas at the rocket troughs, and their Ye-tai guards, were nothing but ripped meat.
No loss. The rocket volleys, in the short time they lasted, had been futile. The enormous vessel upon which the monster's great enemy came had simply shrugged off the missiles. There had not been many to shrug off, in any event. Most of the rockets had been taken into the hold. They would soon be put to better use.
The monster waited, satisfied. Next to it, squatting by the throne, an assassin held the gong which would give the signal to the priests waiting below. The creature, like the priests and the special guards, was a devotee of the monster's cult. The assassin, when the monster gave the order, would do his duty without fail.
The monster waited. Cold, cold. But, perhaps, somewhere in those depths, glowed an ember of hot glee.
The monster had been fighting its great enemy—its tormentor—for four years. Today, finally, it was going to kill it.
The monster idled away the time in memory. It remembered the trickery at Gwalior, and the cunning which crushed Nika. It remembered an army broken at Anatha, and another destroyed at the Nehar Malka. It remembered the catastrophe at Charax.
Come to me, Belisarius. Come to me.
Chapter 44
Silently, Ousanas crept through the hold, watching for the guards. Listening for the guards, more precisely. The hold was as dark as a rain forest on a moonless night.
Ousanas had waited for the sun to go down before he entered the hatch leading into the hold from the ship's bow. The horizon was still aglow with sunset colors, but none of that faint illumination reached into the ship's interior.
There had been guards waiting by the entrance, of course. Two, hidden among the grain-carrying amphorae lashed against the hull. Excellent assassins, both of them. Ousanas had been impressed. Before the feet of the Ye-tai corpse even touched the deck of the hold the assassins had been there, knives flashing. The blades had penetrated the gaps in the corpse's Roman armor with sure precision.
Excellent assassins. They had realized the truth with their first stabs, from feel alone. They were already withdrawing the wet blades by the time Ousa
nas dropped the rope holding the corpse upright and leapt through the hatch. But that was too late. Much too late. Ousanas crushed the first assassin's skull with a straight thrust of his spearbutt's iron ferrule. The blade did for the other.
He left the spear with them, still plunged into an assassin's chest. It would be knifework from here on. The hold was cramped, full of amphorae and sacks of provisions. No room there for Ousanas' huge spear.
He waited for a few minutes, crouched in the darkness, listening. There should have been a third guard somewhere nearby, to support the two at the entrance if need be.
Nothing. Ousanas was a bit surprised, but only a bit. The finest military mind in the world had predicted as much.
Ousanas smiled. It was a cold smile but, in the darkness, there was no one to see that murderous expression. Link's assassins were the ultimate elite in Malwa's military forces. And therefore—just as Belisarius had estimated—suffered from the inevitable syndrome of all Praetorian Guards. Deadly, yes. But, also—arrogant; too sure of themselves; scornful of their opponents. Well-trained, yes—but training is not the same thing as combat experience. Those assassins had not fought a real opponent in years. As Praetorian Guards have done throughout history, they had slipped from being killers to murderers.
Ousanas started moving again. Slowly, very slowly. He was in no hurry. Belisarius would wait until Ousanas gave the signal. The Roman general and his companions were perched on the stern, far from the cabin amidships. If the explosive charges went off, they should be able to escape unharmed. Even wearing armor, they could stay afloat long enough for the Axumite warships surrounding Link's vessel to rescue them.
For Ousanas himself, of course, things would be worse. Fatal, probably. The once and former hunter, now lieutenant to the King of Kings, cared not in the least. He had become a philosophical man, over the years. But he had always been a killer. He had walked alongside death's shadow since he was a boy.
Ousanas had his own scores to settle. He had admired King Kaleb, for all that he never spoke the words. Eon's father had possessed none of his son's quick wit. Still, he had been a good king. And Ousanas had been very fond of Tarabai and Zaia, and many of the people crushed in the stones of the Ta'akha Maryam.
Your turn, Malwa.
Black death crept through the hold. Two more murderers died by a killer's blade.
* * *
"I'll go first, General," stated Anastasius. The giant's heavy jaws were tight, as if he were expecting an argument.
Belisarius smiled. "By all means! I'm bold, but I'm not crazy. Link's guards are about the size of small hippos."
Anastasius sneered. "So am I." He hefted his mace. Huge muscles flexed under armor. "But I haven't spent the last few years wallowing in the lap of luxury."
"You will now," came Antonina's cheerful rejoinder. "Of course, given your philosophical bent, I'm sure you're planning to give it all away."
Anastasius grinned. When the Roman army seized Charax, they had also seized the Malwa paychests—not to mention the small mountain of gold, silver and jewelry which that huge army's officers had collected. The riches had been left behind in Charax when Link's army marched out of the city. Needless to say, it had not been left behind when the Romans sailed out.
Every soldier in Belisarius' army was now a wealthy man. Not measured by the standards of Roman senators, of course. But by the standards of Thracian, Greek and Syrian commoners—not to mention Kushan war prisoners—they were filthy, stinking, slobbering rich. Belisarius was a bit concerned about it, in fact. He would lose some of those veterans, now. But he wasn't too concerned. Most of the veterans would stay, eager to share in the booty from future campaigns. And for every man who left, seeking a comfortable retirement, there would be ten men stepping forward to take his place. Other Roman armies might have difficulty finding recruits. Once the news spread, Belisarius' army would be turning them away.
But that was a problem for the future. For now—
There came a sound, from below their feet. A faint, clapping noise, resounding through the hull. Like a firecracker, perhaps.
"That's it!" bellowed Anastasius. A moment later, the huge cataphract was charging toward the cabin. Right behind him came Leo and Isaac, Priscus and Matthew. Belisarius and Antonina brought up the rear.
Your turn, monster.
* * *
When Ousanas finally reached his goal, he waited in the darkness only long enough to make sure he had a correct count of the opposition.
The area of the hold amidships, directly under Link's cabin, had been hastily cleared of amphorae and grain sacks. In the small open area created—perhaps ten feet square—two priests and an assassin were crouching. The area was lit by two small lamps. One of the priests was holding a cluster of fuses in his hands. The other, a striker. The assassin's head was cocked, waiting for the signal to come from his master in the cabin above.
For a moment, Ousanas admired Malwa ingenuity. He, like Belisarius, had thought they would disassemble the rockets and jury-rig explosive charges under the cabin. Link's minions had chosen pristine simplicity, instead. True, there were grenades attached to the wooden underdeck. The fuses had been cut so short they were almost flush. But the rockets had simply been erected, like so many small trees, pointing directly upward. As soon as the fuses were lit, the cabin above would be riddled by two dozen missiles. The backblast from the rockets would ignite the grenades.
There was no reason to wait. Silently, slowly, Ousanas pulled the pin of his grenade. Then, with a quick and powerful flip of the wrist, he tossed the explosive device against the far wall of the hold. The grenade had been disassembled, its charge removed, and then reassembled. But the impact fuse made a very satisfactory noise in the confines of the hold.
Startled, the Malwa looked to the sound. The assassin realized the truth almost immediately. But "almost," facing a hunter like Ousanas, was not quick enough. The assassin's heart was ruptured by a Roman blade before he had his own dagger more than half-raised. He did manage to gash the African's leg before he died. Ousanas was quite impressed.
The priests never managed more than a gasp. Ousanas did not take the time to withdraw the blade from the assassin's back. If Belisarius had been there, watching, he would have seen an old suspicion confirmed. Ousanas was stronger than Anastasius. The aqabe tsentsen simply seized the priests' necks, one in each hand, and crushed the bones along with the windpipes.
Before he even lowered the bodies to the deck, Ousanas could hear the thundering footsteps of the cataphracts charging the cabin. Then, the door splintering, as Anastasius went through it like a hurricane. Then—
The hunter was grinning now. As always, in darkness and gloom, those gleaming teeth seemed like a beacon.
Good-bye, monster.
* * *
Anastasius was off balance when the first guard swung his tulwar. For that reason, he was unable to deflect the huge blade properly. Instead, his shield broke in half.
The guard gaped. That blow should have flattened his opponent, if nothing else. The guard was still gaping when Anastasius' mace crushed his skull.
Another guard swung a tulwar. Anastasius side-stepped the blow. Not as nimbly as Valentinian would have done, of course, but far more quickly than the guard would have ever imagined a man of Anastasius' size could move.
Anastasius might have slain that guard, easily, with another stroke of the mace. But he wanted to create some fighting room in the confines of the cabin. He could see four more guards crowding behind. So, instead, he dropped his mace and seized the guard in a half-nelson. Then, rolling his hip, he flung the man into his oncoming fellows.
Quickly, Anastasius lunged aside, pressing himself against the wall of the cabin. He would retrieve his mace later. For now, he simply needed to let his companions pass.
Leo came next, through the shattered door, roaring like an ogre. Truth be told, Leo was almost as dimwitted as the nickname "Ox" implied. So, as always in battle, he eschewed complic
ated tactics. And why not? He'd never needed them before.
He didn't need them this time, either. By the time Isaac and Priscus and Matthew forced their own immense and murderous bodies into the cabin, Leo had already killed one guard and disabled another.
The rest died within half a minute. The battle, for all its fury—eleven huge men hacking and hammering each other in a room the size of a small salon—was as one-sided as any Belisarius had ever seen.
He was not surprised. Watching from the doorway, Antonina peeking around his arm, Belisarius witnessed one of the few battles which went exactly according to plan.
He had known it would. Anastasius was the only Roman who matched the size of Link's special guards. But the others matched them in strength, if not in sheer bulk. And they, unlike the guards, were not a pampered "elite." They were the real thing. Swords and maces, wielded on battlefields and the cruel streets of Charax, went through the tulwars like fangs through soft flesh.
Silence, except for the ringing gong held in an assassin's hands. Then, silence, as Matthew's sword decapitated the gong holder.
Belisarius stepped into the room, staring at Link.
The monster was dying, now. With its inhuman intelligence, Link had already assessed the new reality. There would be no rockets coming through the floor, killing its great enemy. No grenades, to obliterate what might be left.
Link had been prepared for that possibility. So it had taken its last, pitiful revenge.
A jeweled cup slid out of the monster's hand. The body of an old woman—the monster's sheath—was already slumping in the ornate, bejeweled chair. An old woman's head lolled to the side.
It was a quick-acting poison. But there was still a gleam in those wizened eyes. A small gleam of triumph, perhaps. If nothing else, the monster's great enemy would not take its life.
