Destiny's shield

through all those little gates.'

Belisarius waved the matter off. 'I don't care if the sally's ragged. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that while Maurice and Kurush are breaking the Malwa in half from the flank, the front lines of their army see a new threat coming at them straight ahead. The Ye-tai'll go berserk, trying to force the regulars to stand and fight. But the Kushans-'

'Sweet Jesus, yes,' whispered Bouzes. He strode to the window and stared through it at a sharp angle. 'They'll break for the corrals, and the barns and horse pens. Only place around where infantry could fort up and have a chance against heavy cavalry.'

He stared back at Belisarius. 'They'll have to react instantly, general. Are they really that good?'

'I'm counting on it,' came the firm reply. 'It's a gamble, I know. If they don't-if they stand their ground-then we'll be in one bloody mess of a brawl. It'll last all day.'

He shrugged. 'We'll still win, but half the Malwa army will make their escape.'

Cyril and Agathius looked at each other. Then, at Belisarius.

'Glad I'm not a general,' muttered Cyril. 'I'd die from headache.'

Agathius tugged at his beard. 'If I understand correctly, general, you're planning to wreck the Malwa by isolating their best troops while we concentrate on chewing the rest of them to pieces.'

Belisarius nodded. Agathius' beard-tugging grew intense.

'What's to stop the Kushans from sallying themselves? Coming to the aid of-'

Bouzes grinned. 'Of what? The same stupid fucking Malwa jackasses who got them treed in the first place?'

Belisarius shook his head. 'They won't, Agathius. The Malwa don't trust the Kushans for the good and simple reason that they can't. The Kushans will fight, in a battle. But they've got no love for their overlords. When the hammer falls, the Kushans will look out for themselves.'

He turned to Bouzes. 'After the initial sally-after we break them-move your Syrian troops to cover the Kushans. The infantry can't play any useful role, anyway, in a pursuit. But don't attack the Kushans-be a bloodbath if you do-just hold them there.'

He grinned himself, now.

'Until tomorrow morning.'

'We'll finish the Kushans then?' asked Coutzes.

Belisarius' grin faded to a crooked smile. He made a little fluttering motion with his hands.

'We'll see,' he said. 'Maybe. Maybe not. They're tough, Kushans. But I saw a girl work wonders with them, once, using the right words.'

Half an hour later, the attack began. With a rocket barrage, as Belisarius had predicted.

As he watched the rockets soaring all over the sky, exploding haphazardly and landing hither and yon, Belisarius realized that the Malwa were actually doing him a large favor. Although his troops had always maintained a soldierly sangfroid on the subject, he knew that they had been quite apprehensive about the enemy's mysterious gunpowder weapons. Except for Valentinian and Anastasius, who had accompanied him to India, none of Belisarius' men had any real experience with gunpowder weapons. True, most of the soldiers had seen grenades used-some of them had even practiced with the devices. But even his katyusha rocket-men had never seen gunpowder weapons used in the fury and chaos of an actual battle.

Now, the men were getting their first taste of Malwa gunpowder weapons. And the main result, after the first five minutes of that barrage, was-

'They'd do better to use scorpions and onagers,' commented a Syrian infantryman, crouched behind a plaque-strengthened window not far from the general.

A Greek cataphract pressed against a nearby wall barked a laugh. 'They'd do better to build an assault tower and piss on us,' he sneered.

The Syrian watched a skittering rocket sail overhead and burst in midair. The man, Belisarius noted, did not even flinch. In the first moments of the barrage, the Roman soldiers had been shaken by the sound and fury which the rockets produced. But now, with experience, they were taking the matter in stride.

The same Syrian, catching a glimpse of Belisarius, cocked his head and asked:

'What's the point of this, sir, if you don't mind my asking?' The infantryman made a little gesture toward the window. 'I don't think more than a dozen of these things have exploded anywhere in the compound. And only a few of them's done any real damage-the ones that blew up over the gardens.'

'Don't get too overconfident, men,' said Belisarius. He spoke loudly, knowing that all the soldiers crammed into the large room were listening.

'In the proper circumstances, these rockets can be effective. But you're right, in this situation they'd do a lot better to use old-style catapults. Rockets are an area-effect weapon-especially their rockets, which aren't anywhere near as accurate as ours.'

He paused, allowing the happy thought of Roman rockets to boost morale, before continuing:

'They're almost useless used against a protected fixed position like this one. The reason the Malwa are using them'-he grinned-'is because the arrogant bastards are so sure of themselves that they didn't bother to bring any catapults. Like we did.'

The general's grin was answered by a little cheer. When the cheer died down, the Syrian who had spoken up earlier asked another question.

'How would they be doing if they had those siege guns you've talked about?'

Belisarius grimaced. It was more of a whimsical expression than a rueful one, however.

'If they'd had siege guns, I never would have forted us up here in the first place.' He waved his hand, casually. 'Big siege guns would flatten a place like this inside of five minutes. In ten minutes, there'd be nothing but rubble.'

Carefully-gauging-he watched the cheer fade from his soldiers' faces. Then, just before solemnity turned grim, he boomed:

'On the other hand, siege guns are so big and awkward that they're sitting ducks on a battleground.'

Again, he waved his hand. The gesture, this time, was not casual in the least. It was the motion of a master craftsman, demonstrating an aspect of his skill.

'If they'd brought siege guns, we'd have ripped them with open-field maneuvers.'

The grin returned.

'Either way, either way-it doesn't matter, men. We'll thrash the Malwa anyway it takes!'

Outside, two rockets burst in unison. But the sound, loud as it was, completely failed to drown the cheers which erupted through the crowded room.

Belisarius! Belisarius!

One soldier only, in that festive outburst, did not participate in the acclaim-the same Syrian, still crouched by the window, still watching everything outside with a keen and vigilant gaze.

'I think that's it, general,' he remarked. 'I'm pretty sure they're getting ready to charge.'

Belisarius moved to the window, and crouched down next to the soldier. He drew out his telescope and peered through it. For a few seconds, no longer.

'You're right,' he announced. The general leaned over and placed a hand on the Syrian's shoulder.

'What's your name?' he asked softly.

The man looked a bit startled. 'Felix, sir. Felix Chalcenterus.'

Belisarius nodded, rose, and strode out of the room. In the hallway beyond, he turned right and headed toward the villa's central gardens. The Greek cataphracts massed in the hallway squeezed to the sides, allowing him a narrow passageway through which to move. A very narrow passageway-crooked, cramped, and lined with scale armor.

By the time he emerged into the gardens-a bit the way a seed bursts out of a crushed grape-he felt like he had been through a grape-press himself. For all its imperial size, the villa was far too small a structure to hold thousands of troops packed within its walls. Still, Belisarius had insisted on crowding as many men as possible into the buildings. The villa was not a fortress. But its solidly-built walls and roofs provided far more protection from rockets and arrows than the leather screens and canopies which provided the only missile shelter for the troops resting in the villa's open grounds.