Fortune's stroke

otherwise. There were plenty of Greek soldiers in the Roman army who were as illiterate-and as uninterested in literacy-as any Hun. Belisarius suspected that Anastasius' obsession with philosophy was more in the nature of a personal rebellion. The man was so huge, and so strong, and so brutal in his appearance, that Belisarius thought he had turned to reading as a way of assuring himself that he was a man and not an ogre.

The thought of ogres brought his mind back to the moment. Literate they might be, but the Ye-tai were the closest human equivalents to ogres that Belisarius had ever met.

Speaking of which, muttered Aide, you'd better gird your loins, grandpa. The ogres are coming.

Belisarius heard the sound of kettledrums. 'They're coming,' said Maurice. He spoke softly, as he usually did, but his tone was as grim as a glacier. 'Fierce bastards, too. Nobody's got to drive them forward. They're coming on like starving wolves after a crippled antelope.'

Belisarius had recovered enough. With a little grunt of effort, he heaved himself half-erect and looked over the parapet.

He gave the Ye-tai charging up the mountain pass no more than a quick, almost perfunctory, study. He had seen Ye-tai in action before, and was not surprised by anything he saw-neither the vigor of their charge, nor the way they still managed to keep their lines reasonably well dressed even while storming up a rock-strewn slope. It was impressive, to be sure. But there was nothing in the world as sheerly impressive as a charge of Persian heavy cavalry. Belisarius had faced Persian charges, in the past, and broken the armies who made them.

He spent a little more time gauging the kshatriyas who were accompanying the Ye-tai. In the Malwa Empire, unlike other Hindu realms, the warrior caste was devoted almost exclusively to gunpowder weapons and tactics. Except in Damodara's army, in fact, they had a monopoly on such weapons.

There were a number of kshatriyas dispersed through the ranks of the oncoming Ye-tai. All of them were carrying grenades-one in the hand, with several more slung from bandoliers. Their free hands held the strikers to light the fuses.

None of the kshatriyas, of course, were in the first few ranks. As lightly armored as they were, the grenadiers could not hope to match Roman soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. But Belisarius was impressed to see that the kshatriyas were not, as he had observed in other Malwa armies, hanging far back in the rear.

Here, too, Damodara's style of leadership was evident. Over time, Malwa's pampered kshatriyas had lost much of the martial rigor which that warrior caste possessed in other Hindu societies. They were held in open scorn by Rajput kshatriyas. Damodara, it seemed, had reinstituted the old traditions. Those grenadiers storming up the hill alongside the sword-wielding Ye-tai bore no resemblance to the arrogant idlers whom Belisarius had seen while he was in India.

But there were still not many of them, he was relieved to see. Not enough to change the equation in the immediate battle. No more than one in twenty of the enemy soldiers in the oncoming charge were carrying grenades. That was an even smaller percentage than usual. Whatever armaments complex Damodara had succeeded in creating, it was apparently still small. Belisarius suspected that Damodara was doing what he would have done himself-had done, in fact, when Belisarius created his own weapons industry. Concentrate on quality, not quantity. Build a few good cannons, and improve the rocketry, rather than try to churn out simple grenades.

So, the general's eyes were soon drawn to the enemy's flanks, where the Rajput cavalry were massed. That was the real threat. Belisarius was confident that he could handle the Ye-tai charge. He had his own surprise waiting, on the back side of the slope. But, no more than Damodara, had Belisarius been able to produce gunpowder weapons in great quantity. His one thousand musketeers could break the Ye-tai but-

Aide's voice interrupted his train of thought. There was a tinge of annoyance in the crystal's words. A tinge of annoyance-and more than a tinge of worry.

They're not musketeers. Not really. Eighteenth-century musketeers could fire three volleys a minute. But they had flintlocks. You don't even have arquebusses as good as Gustavus Adolphus' soldiers, and they couldn't fire more often than-

Aide broke off, with the mental equivalent of a sigh of exasperation. He and Belisarius had already had this argument. As always, when the dispute involved purely military affairs, Belisarius' opinion had carried the day.

The general did not bother with a reply. He was too preoccupied with studying the Rajputs.

Not to his surprise, Belisarius saw that most of the Rajput cavalry-two out of three, he gauged-were now concentrated on the enemy's right flank, under Sanga's command. The pass in which Belisarius was making a stand was saddle-shaped. The flanks of the pass were not sheer cliffs, but rounded slopes. The slope on Belisarius' left was almost gentle. If the Ye-tai could pin the Roman center, Sanga would have no real difficulty leading a mass cavalry charge against the Roman left.

Belisarius, of course, had read the terrain the same way as Damodara and Sanga. And so he had positioned his heaviest troops, the Greek cataphracts under Cyril's command, on his left. He would hold the center and the right with the lighter Syrian forces, and the new units of musketeers and pikemen.

The fact remained that he was badly outnumbered, and the ground was open enough that the Malwa could bring all their forces to bear. Not easily; not quickly-but surely, for all that.

Belisarius shook his head a little, reminding himself that he was not trying to win this battle. He just needed to put up enough of a fight so that his retreat to the south, when the time came, would not seem too puzzling to his opponents. Belisarius could afford the tactical setback involved in giving up this battlefield, as long as his troops weren't badly mauled. He could not afford the strategic defeat which would be certain, if Damodara or Sanga-or Narses, if the canny eunuch was with them-ever figured out what Belisarius was planning for, months from now.

Maurice verbalized Belisarius' own thoughts.

'It's going to be a bit touch-and-go,' growled the chiliarch. 'More than a bit, if your little surprise doesn't work as well as you think it will. Which it probably won't,' he added sourly. 'Nothing ever works the way it's supposed to, on a battlefield.'

Belisarius started to respond, but fell silent. The Ye-tai were almost close enough-

Time. Belisarius gave the hand signal, and the small group of cornicenes just a few yards away immediately began blowing on their horns.

The peal of the cornicens immediately brought thousands of Greek cataphracts and Syrian archers to their feet, standing hip-high in their trenches with bows already nocked. A volley of arrows swept down the slope.

Like a scythe, came the simile to Belisarius' mind, but he knew it was inappropriate. Plunging fire was difficult. He was not surprised to see many of the arrows sail right over the approaching mass of Ye-tai. And it was often ineffective even when it struck, against experienced troops.

The Ye-tai were veterans, and had been expecting the volley. As soon as they saw the cataphracts rearing up, the Ye-tai crouched and sheltered behind their shields. The shouted orders of their officers were quite unnecessary. Because of the angle, they presented smaller targets to begin with, and each Ye-tai was experienced enough to keep his shield properly slanted.

Those were good shields, as good as Roman ones. Laminated wood reinforced with iron-nothing like the flimsy wicker shields with which the Malwa Empire armed its common soldiers. Most of the Roman arrows which hit their targets glanced off harmlessly.

The Ye-tai immediately resumed their charge, bellowing their battle cries. Another volley; another shielded crouch; another upward surge. They lost men, of course-plenty of them-but not enough. Not for those warriors. Ye-tai had many vices; cowardice was not one of them.

'Not a chance,' grunted Maurice. There was no amazement in those words. Not even a trace of surprise. Maurice sounded like a man remarking that there was no way a sand castle was going to hold back the tide.

The chiliarch glanced at Belisarius. 'You'd better see to your gunmen. We're going to need them.'

Belisarius was already turning. As he began giving the new signal, he heard Maurice mutter: 'Oh, marvelous. The Rajputs are already starting their charge. God, I hate competent enemies.' A few seconds later, hissing: 'Shit. I can't believe it!'

Belisarius had been watching the musketeers climbing up the slope. Hearing the alarm in Maurice's voice, he immediately turned around.