The tide of victory

murmured.

Maurice turned back to Leo. 'Would you like a break from your normal duties?'

Leo nodded heavily.

For a moment, Maurice hesitated. Outside of battle, where his strength and trained reflexes were quite sufficient, Leo was so dull-witted he was often mistaken for a deafmute.

'You sure you understand what-'

Leo interrupted. 'Not hard to understand. Do what the general says or I will hit you.'

Leo hefted the huge mace which was his favored weapon. True, the thing was simply-made; no fancy bull- headed carving here. But perhaps not even the Rustam of Aryan legend could have hefted it so lightly.

'Hit you very hard. Two, three, maybe ten times. General burns his name into what's left. Not much.'

Everyone standing on the deck of the ship who was close enough to hear burst into laughter. Even Abbu laughed heartily, despite the fact that maintaining discipline over his own scouts during the days to come would tax him greatly. For the most part those scouts were bedouin, who considered pillaging a conquered village an act as natural as eating. Nothing outrageous, of course, unless the village had done something to aggravate them. But- goats?

Before Leo and the couriers had even begun lowering themselves over the rail into the galley tied up alongside, Belisarius was issuing new orders. For one of the few times in his life, Belisarius' normally relaxed and calm demeanor had vanished. He was pacing back and forth on the deck like a tiger in a cage.

'This breaks it wide open!' he exclaimed. He slapped both hands together like a gunshot. Once, twice, thrice. Then, come to a decision, he abruptly halted his pacing and spun around to face his officers.

'Separate the army, Maurice. I want the sharpshooters and the engineers in the galleys. As many field guns as you can manage also, along with their crews, as long as you leave room for Felix's musketeers to defend the counter-siege. The galleys can get there faster than the sailing ships, with this damn erratic wind.'

Belisarius now turned to Ashot, the Armenian cataphract whom Belisarius considered the best independent commander among his subordinates, save Maurice himself. 'You're in charge of pinning the Malwa at Sukkur, from the south. You'll have to hold them, Ashot. It won't be easy. You'll be heavily outnumbered. But unless I miss my guess, the Malwa are still fumbling at the new situation. They'll be so preoccupied with trying to storm into Sukkur that if they're building lines of circumvallation at all they'll be doing so only fitfully. Probably haven't even started yet.'

Ashot nodded, immediately grasping the implication of the general's words. 'Lines of circumvallation' meant the fortifications which a besieging army built to protect itself from other armies while, using their 'lines of countervallation,' they tried to reduce the fortress or city. The terms came from a future history, but did not confuse him in the least. Over the past year, as they prepared for this campaign, Belisarius had spent countless hours training his top subordinates in the complex methods of siege warfare he expected to witness in the Indus. Aide had taught Belisarius those methods, from the experience of future wars. The Roman general had no doubt at all that Link had done as much for its own Malwa subordinates.

'Without good lines of circumvallation,' Ashot elaborated, 'the sudden appearance of Roman soldiers relieving the siege-seeming to, anyway-will pose an immediate threat. They'll have to attack us. No choice.'

He cocked his head. 'Which, I assume, is exactly what you want. We're not really a relief column. We're a decoy.'

'Exactly,' replied Belisarius. He paced back and forth again, just for a few steps. Stopped, jabbed a finger to the north, then swept it to the east. 'If we can get you planted just south of the Malwa besieging Khusrau in Sukkur-'

He broke off and looked to Abbu. 'Two questions: Are all of the Persians forted up in Sukkur? And is there any suitable terrain to the south where Ashot can set his lines?'

'Not all the Persians, General. After he broke the Malwa in the open field-maybe thirty miles northwest of Sukkur-and then heard the city had risen in rebellion, Khusrau sent a good part of his army back to Quetta. Almost all his infantry, except the gunners.'

For a moment, Belisarius' face registered confusion. Then: 'Of course. He was thinking ahead. His dehgans could hold the walls of Sukkur, with the populace in support. The biggest danger would be starvation, so the fewer soldiers the better. And his infantry can stabilize the supply lines back to Quetta-and Quetta itself, for that matter, which controls the pass into Persia.'

For the first time since he got the news of Khusrau's seizure of Sukkur, Belisarius seemed to relax. He scratched his chin, chuckling softly. 'Bold move, though. And he's counting on me a lot. Because if we don't relieve that siege. '

'And relieve it pretty soon!' barked Maurice. 'Fewer soldiers be damned. He's still got thousands of dehgans in that city, and dehgans mean warhorses. Each one of those great brutes will eat six to seven times as much as a man.'

Belisarius nodded, and cocked an eye at Abbu. 'And the other question?'

The old Arab glowered. 'Am I a be-damned gun-man?' The last term was almost spit out. Abbu was a ferocious traditionalist. He transferred the glare to Gregory. 'Who knows what those newfangled devices need in the way of terrain?'

Gregory laughed. 'Nothing special, Abbu. Something flat, with soft soil my gun crews and the engineers can mound up into berms.' He glanced at Felix Chalcenterus. The Syrian officer was the youngest member of the staff of superb officers which Belisarius had forged around him since the war began. Although Felix was primarily a commander of musketeers, both Belisarius and Gregory thought his knowledge of artillery tactics was good enough for this purpose. Which Felix immediately proved by chiming in confidently:

'Trees would be useful, for bracing. Beyond that, anything which allows the guns to control the approaches, at least a bit. And lets me station musketeers and pikemen to protect the guns from Malwa sallies. Rivers would be ideal, or canals. Marshes will do.'

'Bad for horses,' muttered Abbu, who was reputed to sleep with his own.

'That's more or less the idea,' retorted Gregory. 'The Malwa will have the cavalry, not Ashot. The more they have to slog to get at him-in the face of Felix's guns-the better.'

Abbu ran fingers through his thick beard. 'Yes. I will leave you the men who went with me to Sukkur, and many of my other scouts. They can find you such ground. There is a great bend in the Indus, just below Sukkur. Little creeks and rivers and loops-like Mesopotamia. Somewhere in there will be a place where your be-damned guns can strike at Malwa. While they-'

Good cheer returned. 'While they feed themselves against your gunfire. Nowhere wide enough to extend their lines. No way to flank you without boats. Many boats.'

The fingers stroking the beard turned into a fist, tugging it. 'Malwa don't have so many boats.' Now he was practically bearding himself. 'My Arabs-true bedouin! — will burn those boats they have. You watch.'

He turned to Belisarius and gave the general a little bow. 'Your plan will work, General. So long as you get there in time.' Abbu's eyes ranged the northeast like a hawk's. Beyond those grasslands lay the edge of the great Thar desert. 'It will be a difficult march. But if you can circle to the east-especially if you keep the Malwa from seeing you-'

Belisarius shrugged. 'We'll get spotted, sooner or later. But by then-if all goes well-it will be too late for the Malwa to extricate themselves from their entanglement with Ashot and Felix. Thousands of their soldiers will be mired in flood river terrain. They simply can't maneuver them quickly. And they also can't release too many of their troops from the lines around Sukkur. Not with Khusrau and his dehgans inside, ready to sally. They'll be trapped between Ashot to the south and Khusrau to the north-and me hitting them from the east. With every cataphract Sittas can bring along. And once Bouzes and Coutzes get the mass of our infantry up to Sukkur, the Malwa there will be finished. They'll have to retreat back to the Punjab, with all the losses that kind of forced march always brings.'

As always, Abbu was unmoved by the subtlety of a Belisarius maneuver. 'Fancy, fancy. Maybe. But it will work. Provided you get there in time.'