Belisarius smiled crookedly. 'I can't take credit for it, I'm afraid. I stole the idea from Nebuchadrezzar.'
Inspired by the design of Babylon's fortifications, Belisarius had ordered a road built just behind the crest of the dam. A stone wall had then been hastily erected on the very crest. The road and the wall were jury-rigged, to be sure. The road was just wide enough and sturdy enough to allow the Thracian and Illyrian cataphracts to rush to any part of the dam which was under heavy attack. The wall was just thick enough, and just high enough, to shelter them from most missile fire. At the same time, it allowed the mounted archers to shoot their own bows over the wall at the Malwa soldiers trying to slog their way forward.
Combined with the torsion artillery mounted all along the dam, and the dismounted Syrians' archery and grenades, the result had been murderous. Most of the enemy troops had been forced to charge the dam up the riverbed of the Euphrates. Not only did that muddy terrain slow them down, but it also broke up the cohesion of their formations. The Euphrates had not dried up completely. The dam had diverted most of its water into the Nehar Malka, but there was still enough seeping through to produce a network of small streams and pools. Eventually, those streams converged and produced a small river-but not for several miles. Below the dam itself, the riverbed was an attacker's nightmare-mud, reeds, sinkholes, pools, creeks.
As far as possible, the Malwa had concentrated their efforts against the eastern end of the dam. There, the enemy troops could advance along the dry land which had once been the left bank of the Euphrates. But Belisarius had expected that, which was why he'd positioned the Constantinople troops on that end of the dam, backed up by the katyusha rockets. He had spent the night before the battle with Agathius and his men, exhorting them to stand fast. The Greeks, he explained, were the anchor of the entire defensive line. They would take the heaviest blows, but-so long as they held-the enemy could not prevail. When Belisarius finished, they gave him a cheer and vowed to hold the line.
Hold it they had, through four savage assaults. But they had driven back each charge, and added their own heavy charges onto the enemy's butcher bill.
The sounds of battle were fading rapidly now. It was obvious that the Malwa were retreating. Within a minute, Belisarius could see streams of enemy soldiers retreating from the dam. They were bearing large numbers of wounded with them, chased on their way by rocket volleys fired from the katyushas.
Belisarius glanced up at the sky. The sun was beginning to set.
'There'll be a night attack,' he predicted. 'A mass assault all across the line.' He pointed to the eastern anchor. 'The crunch will come there. Count on it.'
'Agathius'll hold them,' said Anastasius confidently. 'Come what may, Agathius will hold.'
Valentinian grunted his agreement.
Belisarius glared at the distant enemy. Then, glared at his bodyguards. If he could have turned his eyes inside out, he would have glared at Aide.
'I'm too far away!' he roared.
The attack began two hours after dusk, and it lasted halfway through the night. The worst of it, as Belisarius had predicted, came on the eastern anchor of the dam.
Hour after hour, the general spent, perched on his cursed observation platform. Leaning over the wall, straining to hear what he could.
Cursing Khusrau. Cursing Valentinian and Anas-tasius. Cursing Aide.
He got a little sleep in the early hours of the dawn, after the enemy assault had been clearly beaten off. At daybreak, Valentinian awakened him.
'A courier's coming,' announced the cataphract.
Belisarius scrambled to his feet and went over to the side of the platform where the path came up from below. Peering down, he could see an armored man making his laborious way up that narrow, twisting trail through the rocks.
'I think that's Maurice,' said Anastasius.
Startled, Belisarius looked closer. He had been expecting one of the young cataphracts whom Maurice had been using to keep the general informed of the battle's progress-not the chiliarch himself.
But it was Maurice, sure enough. Belisarius stiffened, feeling a chill in his heart.
Valentinian verbalized his thought. 'Bad news,' he announced. 'Sure as taxes. Only reason Maurice would come himself.'
As soon as Maurice made his way to the crest, Belisarius reached down and hauled him over the wall.
'What's wrong?' he asked immediately. 'From the sound, I thought they'd been beaten off again.'
'They were,' grunted Maurice. He took off his heavy helmet and heaved a sigh of relief.
'God, it's like being in a furnace. Forgotten what fresh air tastes like.'
'God damn it, Maurice!
The chiliarch's gray eyes met Belisarius' brown ones. Squarely, unflinchingly. Sternly.
'The same thing that's usually wrong in a battle, whether it's going well or not. We're hammering the bloody shit out of them, sure, but they get to hammer back. We've taken heavy casualties-especially the Greeks.'
Maurice drew in a long, deep breath.
'Timasius is dead. He led the Illyrians in a charge against some Malwa-Kushans, worse luck-who made it over the wall. Horse got hamstrung and gutted, and-' Maurice shrugged, not bothering to elaborate. There were few things in a battle as certain as the fate of an armored cavalryman brought down by infantry. Timasius wouldn't have survived ten seconds after hitting the ground.
'Liberius?' asked Belisarius.
'He's taken command of the Illyrians,' replied Maurice. 'He's doing a good job, too. He organized the counter-attack that drove the Kushans back down the dam.'
Belisarius studied Maurice's grim face. He felt his chill deepen. Maurice hadn't climbed all the way up that hill just to tell him that a dull, dimwitted commander had been succeeded by a more capable subordinate.
'I'm sorry about Timasius,' he said softly. 'He was a reliable man, if nothing else. His family'll get his full pension-I'll see to it. But that's not what you came here to tell me. So spit it out.'
The grizzled Thracian wiped his face wearily. 'It's Agathius.'
'Damn,' he repeated, very softly.
Maurice shook his head. 'He's not dead, general.' Grimacing: 'Not quite, anyway. But he's lost one leg, for sure, and I don't know as how he'll still be alive tomorrow.'
'What happened?'
Maurice swiveled, staring back at the dam. 'They really pushed hard this time, especially at the eastern anchor. Solid Ye-tai, that was-fighting on their own, not just chivvying Malwa regulars.'
Still looking to the southwest, the chiliarch muttered an incoherent curse. 'They're mean, tough, gutsy bastards-I'll give 'em that. I don't even want to think how many casualties they took before they finally broke through.'
He turned back to Belisarius. 'The Syrian dragoons couldn't hold them, so Agathius led a lance charge. In pitch dark, can you believe it? Man's got brass balls, I swear he does. That broke the Ye-tai-crushed 'em-but he got hit by a grenade blast. Took off his right leg, clean, just above the knee. Mangled his left foot, too. It'll have to be amputated, I think. Beyond that-' He shrugged. 'Shrapnel tore him up pretty fierce. He's lost a lot of blood.'
'Get him off the dam,' commanded Belisarius. He turned and pointed to the small fleet of barges anchored in the middle of the Euphrates about a mile to the north.
'Get him to one of the ambulance barges.'
Maurice rubbed his face. 'That's not going to be easy. He's still conscious, believe it or not.' A half-wondering, half-admiring chuckle. 'Still wants to fight, even! When I left the dam, he was yelling at the doctor to tie up the one leg and cut off the fucking useless foot on the other so he could get back on a horse.'
Valentinian and Anastasius laughed. Belisarius couldn't help smiling himself.
'Hit him over the head, if you have to, Maurice. But I want him out of there.'
Again, he pointed to the barges. 'There's better medical care available in the ambulance barges. And his wife's on one of those boats, too. I don't know which one, but I'll find out. She'll probably be more help keeping him alive than anyone else.'
