The Tide of Victory

"The damn artillery doesn't have much ammunition either," grumbled Mark. "And they chew it up like a wolf chews meat."

"They can also chew up enemy troops like a wolf," pointed out Belisarius. "Especially at close range, with canister. And I can keep them restocked from any kind of gunpowder. Even that cruddy Malwa stuff, if I have to. I can't replace your special cartridges easily."

Mark of Edessa knew he had pushed the general as far as he could. Stubborn he was, yes, but not insubordinate. So, still scowling, he trotted off on his horse, venting his resentment by barking his commands to the sharpshooters. He sounded like a wolf himself.

"God help the Malwa if they try to overrun the batteries," said Maurice, smiling grimly. "Mark's been wanting to test the bayonets, too. And don't think he won't, if he gets half a chance."

Maurice too, it seemed, had caught the general bloodlust. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy watching it, mind you. But, you're right—this is not the time and place." He sighed with happy satisfaction. "This is just a time and place for butcher's work."

* * *

By the time the real butchery began, the Malwa were already badly blooded. Sittas, if he had not violated the letter of his orders, had obviously stretched the spirit of them as far as he could. Watching the Malwa soldiers pouring down the river bed in complete disorder, Belisarius knew that Sittas and his Greek cataphracts had "rolled them up" the way a blacksmith rolls a gun barrel—with hammer and flame.

Belisarius had chosen to take his own position with the artillery and the sharpshooters. These were his least experienced troops—in the use of these weapons, at any rate—and he wanted to observe them in action.

The slant of the terrain gave him a view of at least half a mile of the riverbed. The first Malwa units had almost reached the slight bend where he intended to hold them. Behind, moving more like fluid water than solid men, came enough enemy soldiers to fill the riverbed from bank to bank.

"How many, do you think?"

Maurice shook his head. "Hard to say, exactly, with a mob like that. At a guess, we'll wind up facing maybe twelve thousand."

That was a little higher than Belisarius' own estimate, but not by much. He nodded, continuing to study the oncoming enemy. Some of the Malwa soldiers, perhaps instinctively sensing a trap, were trying to clamber out of the riverbed over the shallow southwestern bank. But Sittas—who, for all the fury with which he could drive home a charge, was as shrewd as any cataphract commander in the Roman army—had foreseen that likelihood. So he had peeled off Cyril's men to flank the enemy yet again. The Greek cataphracts were already on the southwestern bank, ready and eager to drive the Malwa back with lance and saber.

A few Malwa tried to clamber over the opposite bank. But, as Abbu had said, that far bank was steep if not especially high. Close to vertical, in many places; and, nowhere that Belisarius could see, shallow enough to allow a man to scamper rather than climb.

The opposite bank ranged in height from eight to twelve feet. Not much of a climb, perhaps—except for a man laden with armor and weapons, being driven in a packed crowd of confused and frightened soldiers. Not many of the Malwa even attempted to make that climb, and most of them were swept off the bank by their fellows pouring past in a rout. And for the few who made it, the ground beyond proved no refuge in any event. Abbu and his Arabs had crossed the riverbed and taken up positions on the opposite bank half an hour earlier. Their lances and sabers were just as eager as those of the cataphracts.

"It's working," said Maurice. "Damned if it's not."

Belisarius nodded. His tactics for this battle were proving themselves in action. Sittas and the main body of cataphracts had caught the Malwa infantry spread out, in the open. And the forces were evenly matched—twelve thousand against twelve thousand. The heavily armed and armored cavalry might be "obsolete" in this new age of gunpowder weapons, but obsolescence does not happen overnight.

A cataphract charge struck like a mailed fist. Well-organized and prepared troops could withstand such a charge, even bloody and break it, with pikemen shielding musketeers and volleys coming like clockwork thunder. But an army caught off-guard, driven off balance and never allowed to regain it, was like grain in a thresher.

Routed soldiers, like water, will follow the path of least resistance. Especially with Sittas and his cataphracts pouring into the riverbed themselves and driving the Malwa before them. With Cyril and his men guarding the shallow bank and Abbu guarding the other, almost the entire Malwa army was being herded toward the guns. Penned into a perfect killing ground.

The rise where Gregory had stationed the field guns had a clear line of fire into the river bed, and at enough of an angle to enfilade the coming troops. There remained only to place the "stopper" in the bottle.

"Now, I think," said Maurice.