Destiny's Shield

The men with him did not recognize the poem. There was no way they could have. Aide had just given it to him, from the future. That future which Belisarius would shield, from men who thought themselves gods.

Those masterful images because complete

Grew in pure mind but out of what began?

I must lie down where all the ladders start

In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

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Framed

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Chapter 38

The moment the signal rocket exploded, Link knew.

Its four top officers, standing nearby on the platform of the command tower overlooking the river, were simply puzzled. The rocket, after bursting, continued to burn like a flare as it sailed down onto the mass of soldiers struggling their way across the bed of the Euphrates. Ye-tai, in the main, swearing softly as they tried to guide their horses in the darkness through a morass of streamlets and mucky sinkholes. But there were at least five thousand Malwa regulars, also, including a train of rocket-carts and the kshatriya to man them.

The flare burned. The officers stared, and puzzled.

But Link knew at once. Understood how completely it had been outwitted, although it did not—then or ever—understand how Belisarius had done it.

But the being from the future was not given to cursing or useless self-reproach. It recognized only necessity. It did not even wait for the first thundering sound of the explosions to give the order to its assassins.

Across the entire length of the dam blocking the Euphrates, the charges erupted. Almost in slow motion, the boulder-laden ships which formed the base of the dam heaved up. The sound of the eruption was huge, but muffled. And there was almost no flash given off. The charges, for all their immensity, had been deeply buried. Even Link, with its superhuman vision, could barely see the disaster, in the faint light still thrown off by the signal flare.

The officers saw nothing. Then, or ever. The first assassin's knife plunged into the back of the first officer, severing his spinal cord. A split second later, the other three died with him. Still staring at the rocket. Still puzzled.

Link had failed, but its failure would remain hidden. Its reputation was essential to the Malwa cause, and the cause of the new gods who had created Malwa. The officers would take the blame.

The mass of soldiers in the bed of the Euphrates—perhaps fourteen thousand, in all—froze at the sound. Turned, stared into the darkness. Puzzled. The night was dark, and the dam was a mile away. They, too, could see nothing. But the noise was ominous.

Then the first breeze came, and the smartest of the trapped soldiers understood. Shrieking, cursing—even sabring the slower-witted men who barred their way—they made a desperate attempt to scramble their horses out of the riverbed.

The rest—

The wall of water which smote the Malwa army came like a mace, wielded by a god. Untold tons of hurtling water, carrying great boulders as if they were chips of wood. Smashing in the sides of the old riverbed, gouging channels as it came, ripping new stones to join the old.

By the time the torrent struck, all of the doomed men in that riverbed understood. The sound was no longer a distant thunder. It was a howling banshee. Shiva's shriek. Kali's scream of triumph.

All of them, now, were fighting to get out. Their horses, panicked as much by the terror in their riders' voices as the thunder coming from the north, were scuttling through the mud, skittering past the reeds, falling into sinkholes, trampling each other under.

But it was hopeless. Some of the Malwa soldiers—less than a thousand—were far enough from the riverbed's center to reach the banks. Others, caught by the edges of the tidal wave, were able to save their lives by clinging to reeds, or boulders, or ropes thrown by their comrades ashore.

A few—a very, very small few—even survived the flood. A gigantic, turbulent mass of water such as the one which hammered its way down the riverbed is an odd thing. Fickle, at times. Weird, in its workings.

The Euphrates, restored to its rightful place, raged and raged and raged. But, here and there, it took pity. One soldier, to his everlasting amazement, found himself carried—gently, gently—to the riverbank. Another, too terrified to be amazed, was simply tossed ashore.

And one Malwa soldier, hours later and fifty miles downriver, waded out of the reeds. The Euphrates had nestled him in a bizarre and permanent little eddy—like a chick cupped in a man's hand—and carried him through the night. A simple man, he was—simple-minded, his unkind former comrades had often called him—but no fool. It was noted, thereafter, that the previously profane fellow had become deeply religious. Particularly devoted, it seemed, to river gods.