Destiny's shield

'Move the rocket troughs around!' he bellowed. 'Set them to repel boarders!'

His rocket handlers scurried to obey. One of them cried out, clutching his arm. An arrow was suddenly protruding from his elbow. The cry was cut short by another arrow penetrating his throat.

The captain spun around. To his despair, he saw that the enemy charging down the west bank had drawn parallel to his craft. Already, the first Persian lancers were guiding their mounts into the riverbed. Their pace was slow, due to the thick mud and reeds, but the powerful Persian warhorses were still driving forward relentlessly. They would cover the distance quickly enough.

There would be no time to bring the rockets to bear, he knew. And there was no chance-no chance-that his lightly armored sailors could withstand Persian dehgans in hand-to-hand combat.

A quick-thinking man. He began to shout his surrender. But fell instantly silent, hearing the warcry of the oncoming Persians.

Charax! Charax! Charax!

He understood at once that there would be no surrender. No chance.

He died eight seconds later, struck down by an arrow which tore through his heart. He made no attempt to evade the missile. There would have been no point. The enemy arrows were like a flock of geese. Instead, he simply stood there, silent, unmoving, presenting his chest to the enemy.

When all was said and done, the quick-thinking man was kshatriya. He would die so.

The Persians who saw were impressed. Hours later, they retrieved his body-the charred remnants of it-from the burned hulk of his galley. They carried the corpse back into Babylon, and gave it an honored resting place along with their own dead. Perched, in the Aryan way, atop a stone tower called a dakhma. There, exposed to carrion eaters, the unclean flesh would be stripped away, leaving the soul pure and intact.

But that act of grace was yet to come. For now, the Persian cavalrymen thought only of slaughter and destruction. The dehgans and their archers rampaged down the west bank of the river for miles, destroying every ship within their reach. The huge Malwa army on the opposite shore could only watch in helpless fury.

Malwa officers drove many of their soldiers into the riverbed in an attempt to rescue the stranded ships. But the mud and reeds impeded those troops at least as much as they had the Persian lancers on the west bank-and the Malwa were far more distant. By the time the soldiers struggling through the muck could reach them, the ships would be nothing but burning wreckage.

The Persians were not able to destroy the entire fleet, of course. Many of the Malwa galleys and supply ships-whether through their own effort, or good luck, or both-wound up stranded on the east bank of the river. Those ships, protected by the nearby Malwa troops, were quite safe. They did not even suffer much damage from the grounding itself, due to the soft nature of the riverbed.

But all of the ships which grounded within bow range of the Persians were doomed. Those close enough for the Persians to storm were burned by hand, after their crews were massacred. Those too far into the center of the river to be stormed were simply burned with fire-arrows. Those sailors who could swim survived. Those who could not, died.

At sunset, the Persians broke off their sally and retreated back into Babylon. By the time the last dehgan trotted back across the pontoon bridge, almost a third of the Malwa fleet had been destroyed, along with most of the sailors who had manned those ships.

Those sailors were only the least of the casualties which the Malwa suffered, that day. An hour into the Persian sally, Lord Jivita ordered a mass assault against the walls of Babylon. The assault began almost immediately-his officers were terrified by his temper-and was carried on throughout the rest of the afternoon.

It is possible that Lord Jivita ordered the assault because he thought the Persian sally had emptied Babylon of most of its defenders. Possible, but unlikely. The Malwa espionage service had kept Jivita well-informed of the enemy's strength throughout the siege. A simple count of the Persians across the river should have led the Malwa commander to the conclusion that Emperor Khusrau had kept the big majority of his troops behind the city's walls.

No, Lord Jivita's action was almost certainly the product of nothing more sophisticated than blind fury. The petulant, squawling rage of a thwarted child. A very spoiled child.

The price was paid by his troops. Khusrau had read his opponent's mentality quite accurately. The Emperor had expected just such a mindless attack, and had prepared his defenses accordingly. The Malwa soldiers crossing the no-man's land were ravaged by his catapults and his archers, stymied by the moats and walls, butchered at the walls themselves by heavily armored dehgans for whom they were no match in close-quarter combat. The casualties were horrendous, especially among the Kushans who spearheaded most of the assaults. By the end of day, when the attack was finally called off, six thousand Malwa soldiers lay dead or dying on the field of battle. Thirteen thousand had suffered injuries-from which, within a week, another five thousand would die.

In all, in that one day, the Malwa suffered over twenty thousand casualties. Any other army in the world would have been broken by such losses. And even the Malwa army reeled.

Lord Jivita himself did not reel. His fury grew and grew as the hours passed. By sundown, his despairing officers realized, Jivita was still determined to press the attack through the night.

The abyss of total disaster yawned before them. They were pulled back from that pit by an old woman.

When Great Lady Holi clambered painfully up the ladder onto the command tower, silence immediately fell over the small crowd of top officers packed there. Even Lord Jivita broke off his bellowing.

The Great Lady cast only a glance at Jivita.

'You are relieved,' she announced. Her empty eyes moved to a figure standing next to Jivita.

'Lord Achyuta, you are now in command of the army.'

Jivita's eyes bulged. 'You can't do that!' he screeched. 'Only the Emperor has the authority-'

'Kill him,' said Great Lady Holi.

The two guards stationed on the platform stiffened. Hesitated, their eyes flashing back and forth between Holi and Jivita. He was their commander, after all. She was-officially- nothing but-

Nothing-but. They had heard tales. All Malwa soldiers had heard tales.

The Great Lady's eyes were now utterly barren. When she spoke again, her voice was inhuman. Empty of all life.

'Kill him.'

The guards had only heard tales. But the officers on that platform were all members of the Malwa dynastic clan. They knew the truth behind the tales.

Lord Achyuta's sword was the first to slice into Jivita's belly, but only because he was standing the closest. Before Jivita slumped to the ground, five other swords had cut and sliced the life from his body.

The two guards were still standing stiff and rigid. Great Lady Holi's vacant eyes fell upon them. If she hesitated at all, it was for less than a second.

'Kill them also. There must be no tales.'

Pudgy, middle-aged generals fell upon vigorous young soldiers. If the two guards had not been mentally paralyzed, they would undoubtedly have held their own against those unathletic officers. As it was, they were butchered within seconds.

Great Lady Holi lowered herself into Jivita's chair. She ignored the three bodies and the pools of blood spreading across the platform.

'Call off this insane attack,' she commanded.

'At once, Great Lady Holi!' cried Achyuta. He glanced at one of his subordinates. An instant later, the man was scrambling down the ladder.

Reluctantly, Achyuta came to stand before the old woman. Reluctantly, for he knew that the aged figure hunched on that chair was only an old woman in form. Within that crone's body dwelt the spirit called Link. He feared that spirit as much as he was awed by it.

'Describe the damage.'

Achyuta did not even try to calculate the casualty figures. Link, he knew, would be utterly indifferent. Instead, he went straight to the heart of the problem.