The tide of victory

fierce satisfaction, and arguing among themselves over what proper name to use to label yet another battlefield triumph.

In the end, although the town itself was no longer within Belisarius' line of outer fortifications, they settled on the name of Sitpur. Perhaps because the name was short, and had a nice little ring to it. More likely, because the cataphracts had become rather fond of the chowpatti which had been baked there, and which gave them their strength. Even Maurice was now claiming to have developed a taste for the foreign bread.

'The Battle of Sitpur!' roared Sittas triumphantly, as he strode into Belisarius' new command post many miles to the south. 'You can add that one to your list, O mighty Belisarius!'

Belisarius smiled. Then, so infectious was Sittas' enthusiasm, grinned outright. 'Has a nice sound, doesn't it?'

'Yes, it does,' proclaimed Sittas. The words came out in a bit of a mumble, because the cataphract general was already stuffing himself from the pile of chowpatti on a small table just inside the bunker entrance. 'Great stuff,' he mumbled.

'Any problems?' asked Maurice. Like Belisarius himself, Maurice had retreated to the inner line of fortifications as soon as the charge began. Neither one of them had expected Sittas to fail, and they had the next stage of the siege to plan.

'Not much,' mumbled Sittas, waving what was left of the chowpatti. An instant later, that fragment joined its fellows in his maw. Once he finished swallowing, Sittas was able to speak more coherently.

'Only real problem was the organ guns. A few places, here and there, they managed to put together a little line of them. Firing at once, that makes for a pretty ferocious volley. Killed and injured probably more of my men than everything else put together.'

Despite the grim words, Sittas was still exuding good cheer. Which became still cheerier with the next words, which were downright savage:

'Of course, that ended soon enough. Once my cataphracts made clear that there'd be no quarter given to organ gun crews, the rest of them left the damned gadgets lying where they were and scampered off with all the others. Tried to, at least.'

Belisarius started to speak, but Sittas waved him silent. 'Oh, do be still! Yes, we took as many prisoners as possible. We're already starting to shepherd the sorry bastards to the south. Tame as sheep, they are. You'll have plenty more men to add to your labor gangs. At least five thousand, I'd say.'

Belisarius nodded. Then, resuming his study of the map which depicted the complex details of his inner line of fortifications, he said: 'We'll need them. The civilians need a rest, as hard as they've been working. So do the prisoners we took earlier.'

Sittas laughed. 'From what I've been told, those civilians of yours will need as many guards to keep them from working as you need to keep the prisoners at it.'

Maurice echoed the laugh. 'Not far from the truth, that. Once they sized up the new situation, the Malwa civilians-'

'Punjabis,' interrupted Belisarius forcefully. 'It's a war of liberation now, Maurice. Those people are Punjabi-not Malwa.'

Maurice nodded cheerfully, accepting the correction without quarrel. 'Punjabis, right. Anyway, once they saw what was happening, they became the fiercest Belisarius loyalists you could ask for. Their necks are on the chopping block along with ours, and they know it perfectly well-and know the Malwa ax better than we do.'

'What about the prisoners?' asked Sittas. The casual way in which he reached for another chowpatti suggested he was not too concerned with the answer. 'Any trouble there?'

Gregory shrugged. 'Since Abbu and his scouts aren't much use in the siege warfare we're starting, the general put them to work guarding the Malwa prisoners.'

Sittas choked humor, spitting pieces of chowpatti across the table. 'Ha! Not much chance of any prisoner rebellion, then. Not with bedouin watching them!'

For all the cruel truth which lurked beneath those words, Belisarius couldn't help but smile. Abbu and his Arabs had made as clear as possible to the Malwa under their guard that the penalty for rebellion-even insubordination-would be swift and sure. As much as anything, Abbu had explained to their officers, because bedouin hated to do any work beyond fighting and trading.

Far easier to behead a man than to do his work for him, after all. A point which the old man had demonstrated by beheading, on the spot, the one Malwa officer who had raised a protest.

Thereafter, the Malwa prisoners had set to work with a will-and none more so than the officers who commanded them. Abbu had also explained that he was a firm believer in the chain of command. Far easier to behead a single officer, after all, than twenty men in his charge. A point which the old man had demonstrated by beheading, the next day, the Malwa officer whose unit had done a pitiful day's work.

Under other circumstances, Belisarius might have restrained Abbu's ferocious methods. But siege warfare was the grimmest and cruelest sort of war, and now that he had put the arch stone of his entire daring campaign into place, he would take no chances of seeing it slip. So long as Belisarius could hold the area within the fork of the Indus and the Chenab-the 'Iron Triangle,' as his men were beginning to call it-the Malwa would have no choice but to retreat from the Sind entirely. Belisarius would be in the best possible position to launch another war of maneuver once his forces recuperated and were refitted. He would have bypassed the Sukkur bottleneck entirely and opened the Punjab for the next campaign. The Punjab, the 'land of five rivers,' where all the advantages of terrain would lie with him and not his enemy. And he would have saved untold Roman lives in the process-even Malwa lives, when all was said and done.

If he could hold the Iron Triangle long enough to relieve the pressure on Khusrau and Ashot at Sukkur and allow a reliable supply route to become established on the Indus, using Menander's little fleet of steam-powered warships to clear the way.

One challenge to him having been beaten off, another immediately came to fore. One of the telegraphs in a corner of the large bunker began chattering. Seconds later, as he leaned over the telegraph operator's shoulder and read the message the man was jotting down, Belisarius began issuing new orders.

'The Malwa are trying to land troops in that little neck of land at the very tip of the Triangle,' he announced. 'Eight boats, carrying thousands of men.'

Then, straightening and turning around: 'We'll use the Thracians for this, Maurice. Give the Greeks a rest. See to it.'

Maurice snatched his helmet from a peg and hustled toward the bunker's entrance, shouting over his shoulder at Sittas: 'You Greeks won't get all the glory this day! Ha! Watch how Thracians do it, you sorry excuses for cataphracts! You'll be crying in your wine before nightfall, watch and see if. ' The rest trailed off as the chiliarch passed through the entrance into the covered trench beyond.

Sittas smirked. 'Poor bastard. I guess he doesn't know yet that the wine's all gone. My Greeks finished the last of it yesterday. Come nightfall, when they're wanting to celebrate, his precious Thracians will be drinking that homemade beer the Malwa civilians-I mean, Punjabi civilians-are starting to brew up.' He stuck out his tongue. 'I tried some. Horrible stuff.'

Belisarius gave no more than one ear to Sittas' cheerful rambling. Most of his attention was concentrated on the map, gauging the other forces he could bring to bear if Maurice ran into difficulty. His principal reserve, with the Thracians thrown into action, were the two thousand cataphracts which Cyril had under his command. Those 'old Greeks' hadn't participated in Sittas' charge. Belisarius trusted their discipline far more than he did those of Sittas' men, and so he had put them in charge of the small city which was being erected in the very center of the Iron Triangle. A city, not so much in the sense of construction-its 'edifices' were the most primitive huts and tents imaginable-but in population. Over twenty-five thousand Punjabi civilians were huddled there, along with Cyril's men and half of Abbu's Arabs. Already, Belisarius' combat engineers were working frantically to design and oversee the construction of a crude sanitation system to forestall-hopefully-the danger of epidemic which siege warfare always entailed.

That worry led to another. Supplies. They were starting to get low again. Not so much in terms of food as gunpowder. Even with the Malwa gunpowder which Sittas' men would have captured in their sally this day.