Fortune's stroke

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 ofleading 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 Ousanas 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.