Fortune's stroke

Another volley of unaimed rockets shrieked overhead. The Malwa were simply venting their own frustration. The missiles plunged into the sea hundreds of yards past the two Axumite vessels drawn alongside.

Wahsi ducked back under the shield. The leather was ragged now, where a few Malwa rockets had struck early in the battle. But that, at least, had worked as Antonina hoped. Even the one rocket which exploded when it hit the shield had spent most of its fury harmlessly. Only five rowers had been injured, none seriously.

'We'll do it the old-fashioned way!' shouted Wahsi. He seized his spear and began bellowing new orders. The rowers drove the ship against the Malwa vessel. Grappling hooks were being dug out, and scaling equipment readied.

Antonina started to protest. This battle with the convoy had turned into an absurd distraction. They could break off now and still make it into Charax long before the convoy could bring the alarm. The last thing she wanted was to see the Ethiopian forces suffer heavy casualties in a boarding operation.

But the protest died on her lips. One look at Wahsi's face was enough. The Dakuen commander was in pure battle fury. He would have that convoy, by God-no matter what.

She glanced at Ousanas. The aqabe tsentsen shrugged.

The cannons, after firing a last volley of cannister to clear the rail, were being hastily drawn aside. With Wahsi in the lead, dozens of Axumite soldiers tossed their grappling hooks and began swarming up the side of the Malwa ship. Their battle cry-Ta'akha Maryam! Ta'akha Maryam! — rang with pure bloodlust.

'Forget it, Antonina,' said Ousanas. 'If Ezana were here-'

Ousanas glanced at the other Malwa ships. Already he could see other Ethiopian soldiers starting their own boarding operations. And, faintly, he could hear the same merciless words: Ta'akha Maryam! Ta'akha Maryam!

He turned back to Antonina. 'Ezana was always the more cool-headed of the two. But I'm not sure even he would be able to restrain the sarwen. Not this far into the battle. Axum has the most ferocious navy in the Erythrean Sea. They didn't get that way by being timid.'

Antonina sighed, and leaned against one of the poles bracing the shield. Her face was covered with sweat and the streaks left by gunsmoke. The interior of the shielded bow, under the heat of a mid-autumn afternoon, was a sweltering pit.

'Let's just hope, then,' she muttered.

'Relax.' Ousanas studied her with his intelligent eyes. 'You're thinking about that other boarding operation, aren't you? Where we-Belisarius and his companions-slaughtered the Arab pirates who tried to storm our ship.'

She nodded wearily. Ousanas gave her a reassuring little pat on the shoulder. 'Relax, I say.'

He paused for a moment, listening to the sounds of combat coming from the deck above. Then, very calmly: 'Four things are different, here. First, the Arabs were facing a large force of Ye-tai escorting Lord Venandakatra. These cargo ships only have a handful of the murderous bastards. Second, the Arabs didn't have cannister to clear their way to the deck. Half of them died before they made it over the rail. Third, they were pirates, not Axumite marines. Finally-'

His great grin erupted. In the gloom of the shield's interior, it seemed to Antonina like a beacon. 'And finally- fool woman! — these sorry Malwa bastards don't have your husband to save their hides.'

'Or me,' he added modestly, caressing the shaft of his spear. 'Especially me, now that I think about it.' He seized the great spear and began prancing about, feigning lunges and thrusts. 'I was terrible! A fury! A demon from below!'

Antonina managed her own grin. Despite herself, Ousanas' antics were cheering her up. It was impossible to wallow in misery for very long around Ousanas.

There was a sudden surge in the battle clangor. Hurriedly, Antonina stuck her head out of the shield and peered up at the rail.

A moment later, a small flood of Malwa sailors and kshatriyas began diving overboard. Their own shouts of fear were pursued by the sounds of murder. Ta'akha Maryam! Ta'akha Maryam! One of the leaping Malwa, misjudging in his terror, landed on the rail of her ship. His body seemed to snap in half, not ten feet from her. The sound of the impact combined breakage and rupture-like sticks in a bag of offal, slammed against stone.

Antonina thought his back was broken. It was a moot point. Even before her bodyguards, Matthew and Leo, unlimbered their weapons, Ousanas pushed past her and stabbed the fallen sailor with his spear. The great leaf blade opened his chest and drove him over the side.

She craned her head up. Another-a Ye-tai warrior-had his back pressed to the rail, fighting an unseen opponent. Not two seconds after she spotted him, she saw a spear drive through his chest. The bloodied blade was sticking four inches out of his back.

The Ye-tai was driven half over the rail by the power of the blow. He toppled over, falling into the sea, the spear still sticking into his body.

Wahsi appeared at the rail, grabbing for the haft of the spear. Too late.

The Dakuen commander's face was contorted with rage. He shook his fist at the plunging body of the Ye- tai.

'That was my best spear!' he roared. 'You stinking-'

Then, everything seemed to happen at once-and yet, to Antonina, as slowly as anything she had ever seen.

Wahsi's face was suddenly a mask of-not shock, so much as simple surprise. Then, he was flying through the air, soaring over the waves as if he were a bird. The Malwa rocket which had struck him right in the spine was carrying him out to sea like a gull. For a moment, his arms even seemed to be flapping. But Antonina, seeing the burning fury pouring out of his back, knew that the man was already dead.

The burning gunpowder reached the warhead. The rocket exploded thirty yards from the ship and half as many above the waves. The largest piece of Wahsi which struck the water was his right leg. The rest of the Dakuen commander was simply a cloud of blood and shreds of flesh and bone.

'God in Heaven,' she whispered. She turned a shocked face to Ousanas.

The aqabe tsentsen clenched his teeth. Then, without a word, he took his spear and raced toward the grappling ropes amidships. Within seconds, Antonina saw him swarming onto the ship.

At first, she assumed that Ousanas was just venting his own fury and battle lust. But then, hearing his bellowing roars, she realized that he was doing the opposite. The aqabe tsentsen was taking command, and dragging the sarwen away from their pointless revenge.

Literally dragging, in some cases. She saw Ousanas personally pitch three Ethiopian marines onto the rail. He had to rap one of them on the skull with the haft of his spear before the man started climbing down the ropes.

Blood was beginning to drip over the sides of the Malwa ship above her. Antonina didn't want to think about the carnage up there. At the best of times, Axumite sarwen were murderous in battle. Now, with their regimental commander slain, they were fury incarnate.

'What a waste,' she whispered. 'What a pointless, stupid waste.'

She stared out at the patch of ocean where Wahsi had disappeared-what was left of him. There would be no point, she knew, in searching for the pieces of his body. The fish would get them long before they could be retrieved.

She wiped her face, smearing sweat and smoke and more than a few tears.

'What a waste,' she whispered again. 'What a stupid, stupid, stupid waste.'

It took Ousanas fifteen minutes to get the Ethiopian soldiers off the Malwa vessel. By then, any Malwa was long dead except for the few who might have found a hiding place in the hold below. Ousanas had to bully a dozen sarwen from wasting time searching the cargo.

At his order, the Ethiopian ships cast off and began rowing toward the other ships being boarded. Soon enough, the aqabe tsentsen was repeating his actions, bringing the battle to a halt.

That did not prove difficult. All five Malwa vessels had been stormed. As Ousanas had predicted, Malwa cargo