Destiny's Shield

Belisarius stuck his thumb over his shoulder, pointing southwest.

"The ones that Ormazd has been having with the Malwa, these past few days." He reached down and brought a goblet to his lips, sipping from its contents.

Maurice eyed the goblet with disfavor.

"How can you drink that stuff? You're starting to go native on me, I can tell. A Roman—sure as hell a Thracian—should be drinking wine, not that—that—that Persian—"

Belisarius smiled crookedly. "I find fresh water flavored with lemon and pomegranate juice to be quite refreshing, Maurice. I thank Baresmanas for introducing me to it."

He levered himself into an upright position. "Besides," he added, "if I drank wine all day—day after day, stuck on this misbegotten dam—I'd be a complete sot by now."

"Anastasius and Valentinian drink wine," came the immediate riposte. "Haven't noticed them stumbling about."

Belisarius cast a cold eye on his two bodyguards, not four yards away. Like Belisarius, Anastasius and Valentinian were lounging in the shade provided by the artillery tower.

"With his body weight," growled the general, "Anastasius could drink a tun of wine a day and never notice." Anastasius, hearing, looked down at his immense frame with philosophical serenity. "And as for Valentinian—ha! The man not only looks like a weasel, he can eat and drink like one, too." Valen-tinian, hearing, looked down at his whipcord body with his own version of philosophical serenity. Which, more than anything, resembled a weasel after gorging itself in a chickencoop.

Suddenly, Belisarius thrust himself to his feet. The motion was pointless, really. It simply expressed the general's frustration at the past week of immobility. Stuck on a dam with his army while they fought it out, day after day, with an endless series of Malwa probes and attacks.

For all practical purposes, the battle had become a siege. Belisarius was a master of siegecraft—whether on offense or defense—but it was a type of warfare that he personally detested. His temperament led him to favor maneuver rather than simple mayhem.

He had not even had the—so to speak—relief of personal combat. On the first day after joining his army on the dam itself, Belisarius had started to participate directly in repelling one of the Malwa attacks. Even before Anastasius and Valentinian had corraled him and dragged him away, the Syrian soldiers manning that section of the wall had fiercely driven him off. Liberius and Maurice, riding up with their cataphracts to bolster the Syrians, had even cursed him for a damned fool.

The general's cold and calculating brain recognized the phenomenon, of course, and took satisfaction in it. Only commanders who were genuinely treasured by an army had their personal safety so jealously guarded by their own soldiers. But the man inside the general had chafed, and cursed, and stormed, and railed.

The general bridled the man. And so, for a week, Belisarius had reconciled himself to the inevitable. He had never again attempted to directly participate in the fight at the wall, but he had spent each and every day riding up and down the Roman line of fortifications. Encouraging his soldiers, consulting with his officers, organizing the logistics, and—especially—spending time with the wounded.

Valentinian and Anastasius had grumbled, Aide had chafed—rockets! very dangerous!—but Belisarius had been adamant. His soldiers, he knew, might take conscious satisfaction in the knowledge that their commander was out of the direct fray. But they would—at a much, much deeper human level—take heart and courage from his immediate presence.

In that, he had been proven right. As the week wore on, his army's battle cry underwent a transformation.

Rome! Rome! it had been, in the first two days.

By the third day, as he rode up and down the fortifications, his own name had been cheered. That was still true, even more so, a week after the battle started. But his name was no longer being used as a simple cheer. It had become a taunt of defiance hurled at the enemy. The entire Roman army using that single word to let the Malwa know:

You sorry bastards are fucked. Fucked.

Belisarius! Belisarius!

Belisarius drained his goblet and set it down on the wall with enough force to crack the crude pottery.

He ignored the sound, swiveling his head to the west.

His eyes glared. It being late afternoon, the sun promptly glared back. He raised a hand to shield his face.

"Come on, Ormazd," he growled. "Make up your mind. Not even a God-be-damned Aryan prince should need a week to decide on treason."

Maurice turned his own head to follow Belisarius' gaze.

"You think that's what's been going on?"

"Count on it, Maurice," said Belisarius softly. "I can guarantee you that every night, for the past week, Malwa emissaries have been shuttling back and forth between Ormazd's pavilion and—"