Fortune's Stroke

Ousanas spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Pity the poor Malwa at Charax," he said cheerfully, as he and Antonina listened to the chants. "That stupid death has turned a shrewd maneuver against enemy logistics into a crusade. They would storm the gates of Hell, now."

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Framed

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Chapter 31

CHARAX

Autumn, 532 A.D.

When the captain of the unit guarding Charax's northeastern gate was finally able to discern the exact identity of the oncoming troops, he was not a happy man.

"Shit," he cursed softly. "Kushans."

The face of his lieutenant, standing three feet away, mirrored the captain's own alarm. "Are you sure?"

The captain pulled his eye away from the telescope mounted on the ramparts and gave his lieutenant an irritated look. "See for yourself, if you don't believe me," he snarled, stepping away from the telescope.

The lieutenant made no move to take his place. The question had not been asked seriously. It was impossible to mistake Kushans for anyone else, once they got close enough for the telescope to pick out details. If for no other reason, no one in Persia beyond Kushans bound up their hair in topknots.

The captain marched over to the inner wall of the battlement and leaned over. A dozen of his soldiers were standing on the ground below, their heads craned up, waiting to hear the news.

"Kushans!" he shouted. The soldiers grimaced.

"Summon the commander of the watch!" bellowed the captain. Then, more loudly still: "And hide the women!" The latter command was unneeded. The soldiers were already scurrying about, rounding up the slave women whom the guard battalion had dragooned into their service.

Not that those women needed any chivvying. Except for the cosmopolitan sprinkling typical of a great port, the women were Persian and Arab. Some had been captured during the sack of Charax when the Malwa first took the port. Others had been seized by one or another of the raiding columns which the Malwa had sent ravaging Mesopotamia over the past year and a half. They detested their captors, true. But they had even less desire to be seized by soldiers arriving at Charax after weeks on campaign. The garrison troops were foul and brutal, but at least they were no longer rampant.

Let the poor creatures in the military brothels handle these new arrivals. The women in the guard compound were even more determined than their masters to stay out of sight.

Satisfied that the necessary immediate measures were being taken, the guard captain slouched back to his post. In his absence, the lieutenant had manned the telescope.

"Good news," announced the lieutenant, his eye still at the telescope. "Most of that lot are prisoners. Must be ten thousand of them."

The captain grunted with satisfaction. That was good news. Excellent news, actually, and on two counts.

First, it meant that the Malwa had scored a big victory somewhere. The captain was relieved. Ever since the disaster at the Nehar Malka, followed by a year of frustration, the commanders of the Malwa army had been like so many half-lamed tigers, nursing wounded paws and broken teeth, and venting their anger on subordinates. A victory, thought the captain, would help to ease the sullen atmosphere.

Secondly, and more important for the immediate future, it meant that the Kushans would be kept busy. The slave laborers which the Malwa Empire's early victories in Mesopotamia netted had long since been worked to death, except for the women kept for the army's pleasure. Until the new prisoners were securely fitted into slave-labor battalions and set to work expanding the harbor, the Kushans would be needed to guard them. That meant they wouldn't have idle time on their hands, to go looking for the better women and wine which the garritroopers would have stashed away. They would have to be satisfied with the hags in the brothels, and the vinegar which passed for wine in the barracks.

He could see that an advance party of Kushans was cantering toward the gate. The main body of Kushans and their captives was not more than two hundred yards away.

The captain turned, looking for the commander of the watch. The sot should have arrived by now, to order the opening of the gates. In turning, the captain caught a glimpse of the soldiers standing by a siege gun positioned on the great firing platform appended to the wall. As always, the gun was pointed toward the desert. By now, the gun crew would have loaded the weapon with cannister. One of the soldiers was removing the firing rod from the furnace. The bent tip of the rod was glowing red, ready to be inserted into the touchhole.

Angrily, the captain shouted at him. His words were not orders. They were not even particularly coherent. Just a string of profanities. Hastily, the soldier quenched the rod in a nearby bucket.