Destiny's Shield

A half mile, now. Syrian cavalrymen were still swirling in the ground between Belisarius and the oncoming Malwa. "A Hunnish kind of sally," the general had asked for—and Huns couldn't have done it better. Advance. Volley. Retreat—but with the "Parthian shot," firing arrows over the shoulder. Counter-attack. Volley. Retreat. Swirl forward; swirl away. Kill; cripple; wound—and evade retaliation.

Belisarius could finally see a few of the advancing Malwa. He could sense their frenzied rage at the Syrian tactics. Full of their own arrogance, the Malwa thought only of closing with this infuriating army of skirmishers. Their lead units were pushing ahead, maintaining no battle order. The Ye-tai "enforcers" scattered among them were not driving the troopers forward. There was no need. The Ye-tai themselves were seized up in that same heedless fury.

The Malwa troops knew little of Mesopotamia, and the Ye-tai even less. Knew nothing of the crumbled bones which littered that soil—the bones of Roman soldiers, often enough, who had made their same mistake. Crassus and his legions had been slaughtered by the Parthians, half a millennium before, not so very far away.

Belisarius' main concern had been that the Malwa might precede their troops with rocket volleys. He had not been particularly worried about casualties, as such. The Malwa rockets were much too erratic and inaccurate to fire genuine barrages. But he had been worried that the noise might panic some of his garrison troopers' horses. The mounts which his Constantinople soldiers rode were the steadiest available, true. But they had little of the training with gunpowder weapons which his Syrian and Thracian cavalry had enjoyed.

It was obvious, however, that there would be no barrages. As he had hoped, the Syrians' light cavalry tactics had been too agile and confusing to give the Malwa kshatriya a clear target. Now, it was too late. The dust thrown up by thousands of horsemen—friend and foe alike—had completely obscured the front of the battlefield from the Malwa commanders in the center. They would not even be able to see the charge of his Constantinople heavy cavalry. They would hear it, certainly. Even in the din of battle, a full charge by two thousand cataphracts would shake the very earth. But the sound of thunder is not a suitable target for rockets, and the sound would be short-lived in any event. Once the cataphracts closed, rockets would kill more Malwa troops than Roman.

Belisarius spurred his horse forward. No gallop, simply an easy canter. To either side, the garrison troopers matched the pace. There was no need, any longer, for the hecatontarchs and decarchs to maintain a steady formation. The cataphracts' lines were as steady as if they had been drawn in ink. Battle was very near, and these were the same Greeks whose forefathers had marched in step at Marathon.

Five hundred yards. Though they were closer, the enemy had disappeared completely—swallowed by the dust which hovered over the battlefield, unstirred by even a gentle breeze.

Four hundred yards.

Out of the dust galloped a small body of Arab cavalrymen. They headed straight for the oncoming Greeks. As they approached, Belisarius recognized the figure of Abbu.

The scout leader swept past the general, ululating fiercely. Blood dripped from a small gash on his cheek, but the old warrior seemed otherwise unharmed.

A moment later, Abbu drew his horse alongside Belisarius. His mount's flanks were heaving and sheened with sweat, but the horse seemed not in the least exhausted.

Abbu certainly wasn't.

"The Lakhmids are done!" he cried gaily. "Beaten like dogs! We whipped the curs into the river!"

Belisarius met that savage grin with his own smile.

"All of them?"

Abbu sneered.

"Lakhmids. Stinking Lakhmids are not bedouin, general Belisarius. River-rats. Oasis-huddlers. Die of fright in the good desert. I'm sure most of them are scurrying down this bank of the Euphrates. Doesn't matter. You won't see them again. Not for days, if ever. Nothing else, they'll get lost."

An exquisite sneer.

"Camel-fuckers, the lot. Don't even have the excuse of being perverts. Lakhmids are just too stupid to know the difference between a woman and a camel."

A royal sneer.

"Hard to blame them, of course. Lakhmid women are uglier than camels. Meaner, too."

Three hundred yards. There was a sudden rush of Syrians—the last die-hards, finally breaking off with the enemy. Then, a second or two later, the first ranks of the Malwa cavalry appeared in the dust. Galloping forward in a full and furious charge.

Belisarius caught a glimpse of Abbu's gleaming eyes. At that moment, the old man truly seemed a pirate, ogling a chest of gold.