Fortune's stroke

"Speak of the devil," he murmured. Gregory himself was arriving. He and Mark had become good friends, and had shown they could work together well in combat. That was one of the reasons that Belisarius had put Gregory in command of another new unit, the pikemen who served as a bulwark for the handcannon soldiers.

Call them "musketeers," came Aide's thought. Technically, it would be more accurate to call them arquebusiers, but "Arquebusiers" is ridiculous.Musketeers it is!

Belisarius broke into a smile. The new name was a minor triumph, true. Picayune, perhaps. But he was a firm believer in the axiom that large victories grow out of a multitude of small ones.

Gregory had arrived, now. He and Mark were eyeing their general quizzically, wondering why he was smiling. Almost grinning, in fact.

"I've got a new name for your men, Mark," he announced. "From now on, we'll call you musketeers."

Mark and Gregory looked at each other. It was almost comical the way each began mouthing the word.

"I like it," pronounced Gregory, after a moment's experimentation. Mark nodded his head. "So do I!"

The third man came up, and now Belisarius did break into a grin.

"And what have we here?" he asked. "The three musketeers?"

Oh, that's gross! There followed a mental, crystalline version of a raspberry.Low, low.

Gregory gave the new man, whose name was Felix Chalcenterus, an unkind look. The same little glare was transferred to Mark of Edessa.

"Give me a break, general," he growled. "You won't find me fighting with these new-fangled gadgets. Cold steel, that's still my business."

Mark and Felix matched Belisarius' grin. "He's hopeless, General," stated Mark. "Set in his ways, like an old village woman."

Belisarius chuckled at the quip, even though it was quite unfair. For the past year, Gregory had served as Belisarius' chief artillery officer. In this campaign of fluid maneuver, Belisarius had left his cumbersome artillery behind, so Gregory had been free to take on another assignment. The mainreason Belisarius had put the man in charge of the new unit of pikemen was that Gregory was one of those officers who seemed almost infinitely flexible. He was one of the very few Thracian cataphracts who didn't squeal like a stuck pig when asked to fight on foot, with a pike instead of a lance. The pikemen were an elite unit, true, but Gregory had still been hard-pressed to find enough Thracians to volunteer. In the end, he had relied heavily on the new Isaurians who were enlisting into the general's corps of bucellarii.

Belisarius got down to business. "Areyou ready?" he asked. The question was directed at all three men simultaneously. Felix Chalcenterus served Mark as his executive officer.

"We're set, general," came Mark's reply. Gregory and Felix nodded their agreement.

"Good. Remember-don't start up the slope until I signal for you." Belisarius made a little head toss toward the east. "You can be damned sure that Sanga will have some of his Pathan scouts perched on the nearby hilltops, watching everything we do. They'll have some means of signaling Damodara-mirrors, if the sun's right. If not, they'll have something else. Banners, maybe smoke. It's essential that they can't see you until the time comes for your countercharge."

Belisarius gave the three men a quick scrutiny. Satisfied that they understood the point, he added: "You'll have to come up the hill in a hurry, mind. I won't give the signal until the last minute. In a hurry-andin good formation. Can you do it?"

There was no verbal reply. Just three self-confident smiles and nodding heads.

"All right," said Belisarius. He gave out a little sigh. "The moment's come, then. It's my turn to climb that damned hill."

He turned and set off, slogging his way. Every step forward was marked by half a step backward, sliding in the loose soil. Progress was marked by the soft, crunching sounds of semifutility. Within a few yards, his armor and weapons felt like the burden of Atlas.

"Some day," he muttered. "If this war goes on long enough. I'll be skipping through the meadows with nothing but a helmet and a linen uniform. Not a care in the world."

Except frying in napalm, or being shredded by high explosive shells, came Aide's unkind thought.Not to mention being picked off at five hundred yards by a sniper armed with a high-velocity rifle. And while we're at it, let's not forget Not a care in the world! insisted Belisarius. His thought was perhaps a bit surly.Death is a feather. Cataphract gear is the torment of Prometheus.

Then, very surly:Spoilsport.

By the time he reached the trench at the crest of the pass, Belisarius was exhausted. He half-collapsed next to Maurice. Valentinian and Anastasius were still in the trench, a few feet to his right.