Destiny's shield

The commander of the Syrian light cavalry was trotting up the road leading to the villa. With him were all three of the cavalry's tribunes as well as Abbu, his chief scout.

Maurice glanced up at the sky. The sun was just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon. 'If he's got news already, they either did a hell of a good job themselves, last night-or the enemy's breathing down our necks.'

Belisarius chuckled. 'Like I said-morose.' He gestured with his head. 'Look at those insouciant fellows, Maurice! Do those smiling faces look like men running for their lives?'

Maurice scowled. 'Don't call soldiers 'insouciant.' It's ridiculous. Especially when it comes to Abbu.'

The chiliarch studied the approaching figure of the scout leader. His somber mien lightened, somewhat. Maurice approved of Abbu. The Arab had a world-view which closely approximated his own. Every silver lining has a cloud; into each life a deluge must fall.

Abbu's first words, upon reining in his horse: 'The enemy is laying a terrible trap for us, general. I foresee disaster.'

Coutzes laughed. 'The old grouch is just pissed because he had to work so hard last night.'

'No enemy is that stupid!' Abbu snarled. 'We practically had to lead them by the hand!' The Arab's close-set eyes were almost crossed with outrage. Belisarius had to restrain his own laugh.

Abbu's face was long and lean, dominated by heavy brows and a sheer hook of a nose. His hair was salt and pepper, but his beard was pure white. There was no air of the benign grandfather about him, however-the scar running from his temple down into the lush beard gave the man a purely piratical appearance.

Yet, at the moment, the fierce old desert warrior reminded the general of nothing so much as a rustic matron, her proprieties offended beyond measure by the latest escapade of the village idiot.

'No army has skirmishers so incompetent!' Abbu insisted. 'It is not possible. They would have drowned by now, marching all of them into a well.'

With gloomy assurance:

'The only explanation-obvious, obvious! — is that the enemy is perpetrating a cunning ruse upon our trusting, babe-innocent selves. You have finally met your match, general Belisarius. The fox, trapped by the wilier wolf.'

Maurice grunted sourly, much as the Cassandra of legend, seeing all her forebodings realized.

Belisarius, on the other hand, did not seem noticeably chagrined. Rather the contrary, in fact. The general was practically beaming.

'I take it you had to chivvy the Malwa vanguard, to get them to follow you to our camps?'

Abbu snorted. 'For a while, we thought we were going to have to dismount and explain it to them. 'See this, Malwa so-called scout? This is a campfire. That-over there-is known as a tent. These fellows you see lounging about are called Roman troops. Can you say: Ro-man? Can you find your way back in the dark? Do you need us to make the report to your commanders? Or have you already mastered speech?' '

His lips pursed, as if he had eaten a lemon. 'No enemy is so-'

'Yes, they are,' interrupted Belisarius. The humor was still apparent on the general's face, but when he spoke, his tone was utterly serious. He addressed his words not to Abbu alone, but to all the commanders.

'Understand this enemy. They are immensely powerful, because of their weapons and the great weight of forces they can bring to bear on the field of war. But the same methods which created that gigantic empire are also their Achilles heel. They trust no-one but Malwa. Not even the Ye-tai. And with good reason! All other peoples are nothing but their beasts.'

He scanned the faces staring at him, ending with Abbu's.

'They have scouts as good as any in the world, Abbu. The Kushans, for instance, are excellent. And the Pathan trackers who serve the Rajputs are even better. But where are the Kushans? At the rear. Where are the Rajputs?' He gestured to the northeast. 'Being bled dry in the mountains, that's where. Here, in Mesopotamia, they are using common cavalrymen for skirmishers.' He shrugged. 'Without Ye-tai to shepherd them, those soldiers will shirk their duty at every opportunity.'

'They're arrogant bastards, all right,' chimed in Coutzes. 'It's not just that their vanguard elements are sloppy-they've got almost no flankers at all.'

Belisarius glanced at the rising sun. 'How soon?' he asked.

Coutzes' reply was immediate. 'An hour and a half, general. Two, at the most.' The young Thracian gave Abbu an approving look.

'Despite all his grumbling, Abbu and his men did a beautiful job last night. The Malwa are headed directly for us, and they've assumed a new marching order. A battle formation, it looks like to me-although it's like none I've ever seen.'

'Describe it,' commanded Belisarius.

'They've got their regular cavalry massed along the front. It's a deep formation. They're still in columns, but the columns are so wide they might as well be advancing in a line.'

'Slower than honey, they're moving,' chipped in one of Coutzes' tribunes. Coutzes nodded. 'Then, most of their barbarians-Ye-tai-are on the flanks. But they're not moving out like flankers should be. Instead, they're pressed right against-'

'They're not flankers,' interrupted Belisarius, shaking his head. 'The Ye-tai are used mainly as security battalions. The Malwa commander has them on the flanks in order to make sure that his regular troops don't break and run when the battle starts.'

Coutzes snorted. 'I can believe that. They're some tough-looking bastards, that's for sure.'

'Yes, they are,' agreed Belisarius. 'That's their other function. The Malwa commander will be counting on them to beat off any flank attack.'

One of the other tribunes sneered. 'They're not that tough. Not against Thracian and Illyrian cataphracts, when the hammer comes down.'

Belisarius grinned. 'My opinion-exactly.' To Coutzes:

'The Kushans are still in the rear? Pressed up close, I imagine, against the formation in the center-the war wagons with the priests and the kshatriya?'

Coutzes nodded. Belisarius copied the gesture.

'It all makes sense,' he stated. 'The key to that formation-the reason it looks odd to you, Coutzes-is that the Malwa approach battle like a blacksmith approaches an anvil. Their only thought is to use a hammer, which, in this case, is a mass of cavalry backed up by rocket platforms. If the hammer doesn't work'-he shrugged-'get a bigger hammer.'

'What about the Lakhmids?' asked Maurice.

Coutzes and the tribunes burst into laughter. Even Abbu, for the first time, allowed a smile to creep into his face.

'They're no fools,' chuckled the scout leader. Approvingly: 'Proper good Arabs, even if they are a lot of stinking Lakhmites. They're-'

Coutzes interrupted, still laughing.

'They are assuming a true flank position-way out on the flank. The left flank, of course, as near to the desert as they can get without fighting an actual pitched battle with the Ye-tai.'

'Who are not happy with the Lakhmids,' added one of the tribunes. Another chimed in, 'They'll break in a minute, general. It's as obvious as udders on a cow. You know how those Arabs think.'

Abbu snorted. 'Like any sane man thinks! What's the point of riding a horse if you're not going to run the damn beast? Especially with an idiot commander who maneuvers his troops like-' the scout nodded at Belisarius '- just like the general says. Like a musclebound, pot-bellied blacksmith, waddling up to his anvil.'

Belisarius clapped his hands, once.

'Enough,' he said. 'Coutzes, start the attack as soon as you can. By now, the Constantinople men will be up and ready. I'll be with them, when the time comes.'

Coutzes peered at him. The look combined hesitation and concern. 'Are you sure about that, general? The casualties are going to be-'

'I'll be with them,' repeated Belisarius.

Coutzes made a little motion with his shoulders, like an abandoned shrug. He turned his horse and trotted off. His tribunes and Abbu immediately followed.

Once they were gone, Maurice glanced at Belisarius.