Fortune's stroke

"It's still a mountain pass, broad and shallow as it is, Maurice," pointed out Belisarius. "It's not a level plain. Sanga won't be able to send more than five thousand at a time. Six at the most."

Peering between the cheekplates of his helmet, Maurice's eyes did not seemed filled with great cheer at this news. He could count just as well as Belisarius. The Thracians were still facing two-to-one odds, against an enemy with plenty of reserves.

"If we didn't have stirrups," said the chiliarch bleakly, "this'd be pure suicide." He frowned. "Now that I think about it-whydon't the Malwa have stirrups? You'd think they would, by now." Maurice glanced at Belisarius' chest plate, below which Aide nestled in a leather pouch. "They've got their own visions of the future, don't they?"

Belisarius shrugged. "Link's mind doesn't work like Aide's. Aide is a-anaide. Link is the Supreme Commander of the Universe. I suspect the thing is so bound up with its great plans for future weapons that it didn't think to build on the little possibilities which are already here. It certainly wouldn't have thought to consult with its human tools-any more than you'd ask a hammer's opinion if you were wielding it properly."

Not likely, remarked Aide.For Link, people barely even qualify as tools. Just so much raw material.

Belisarius began to add something, but broke off. He could see the Greeks were ready to mount. And all of his Thracians were here, and in formation.

"May as well do it," said Maurice, anticipating his general's thought. Belisarius nodded. A moment later, Maurice passed on the command. The cornicens began to wail.

The Greeks surged out of the trenches and began clambering aboard their horses. They were tired, tired, but they found the strength regardless.They were getting out of here, and only had to make it down to the river below.

The Thracians began moving forward, toward the Rajputs. They were slowed a bit, making their way through the narrow spaces between the fieldworks which had been left open for sallies. By the time the bucellarii made it onto the open and relatively flat northern part of the saddle, Sanga had realized the truth. His own horns began blowing. The sound was different, in pitch and timbre, from that made by Roman cornicens. But Belisarius did not mistake their meaning.

Attack! Now! Everyone!

The huge mass of Rajput cavalry surged toward them. Belisarius ordered his own charge. There was no room here for the usual Roman tactic of preceding a lance charge with a murderous volley of arrows. No room-and no time. The Thracians were so badly outnumbered that Belisarius could only try to use their greater weight in a single blow of the hammer. The saddle was wide and shallow, for a mountain pass, but it was still not a level plain. If his cataphracts, with their heavier armor and lances-and stirrups-could smash the front ranks of the Rajputs into a pulp, that would stymie the rest. Long enough, hopefully, for the Thracians to be able to beat their own retreat.

The distance between the two armies vanished in seconds. The hammer fell.

The Rajputs did not break-quite.

Belisarius had shattered a Malwa army once before, with such a charge, on the first day of the battle at Anatha. But that Malwa army had been arrogant, and unfamiliar with Roman heavy cavalry tactics.

For the Rajputs, too, this was their first time facing Roman cataphracts in a lance charge. Butthis Malwa army had fought its way across the entire Persian plateau, against Aryan dehgans. They had faced heavy cavalry before, and won. Every time.

Still… The Persians had not been equipped with stirrups, and that was the deciding difference. A long, heavy lance braced by feet in stirrups is simply a far more effective weapon than the shorter, much lighter spear used by cavalrymen without stirrups. In the relatively narrow confines of the saddle pass, the Rajputs could not avoid those lances. And the lances ripped them apart.

But not completely. Not enough to allow the Romans to simply turn and break away. Hundreds of Rajputs in the front ranks survived the first clash, and were immediately tying up the cataphracts with their swordplay. Within seconds, the saddle pass was filled with the sounds of steel meeting steel.

We can't afford this, thought Belisarius, as he jerked his lance out of the belly of a Rajput cavalryman. For a moment, he was able to survey the battle scene in reasonable safety. Anastasius and Valentinian were keeping most of the enemy in his vicinity from getting near him.

It took less than five seconds for Belisarius to make his decision.Enough. It's more ragged than I would have liked, but-enough.