Fortune's stroke b-4

by Eric Flint

  Valentinian handed Belisarius the end of the fuse cord as he began his own descent into the well. He had nothing to say. Nothing coherent, at least. He was muttering fiercely.

  Belisarius looked up. Maurice and Anastasius were in place. They, too, had already stripped off their armor.

  "Do it," he commanded. Then, remembering an undone task, shouted: "Wait! I need a striker!"

  Maurice scowled, and hastily dug into one of the saddlebags. A moment later, he came up with the device and pitched it to Belisarius. As soon as Anastasius saw that Belisarius had caught the striker, the huge Thracian heaved one of the beams aside. A moment later, the other followed. And then, a moment later, Anastasius kicked open the door. One powerful blow was enough to send the half-splintered thing flying into the farmyard beyond.

  That done, Anastasius lumbered toward the well while Maurice, shouting and cursing, began driving the horses through the door.

  The well was a tight fit for Anastasius, but he took the problem philosophically. "There's much to be said for the Cynic school," he commented, as he began the awkward task of lowering his great form down the narrow stone shaft. "Unfairly maligned, they are."

  An instant later, Maurice practically leapt into the well. "Make it quick, lad," he hissed. "None of your fancy perfect timing crap. The Rajputs are already coming." He began dropping down the shaft. "Just blow it. Now."

  Well said, chimed in Aide.

  Belisarius was not inclined to argue the point. He just waited long enough to be certain that Maurice was far enough ahead that he wouldn't be climbing down onto his head before he struck flame to the fuse. He took a second to make sure the fuse was burning properly before tossing it onto the floor. Then, after climbing into the well and lowering himself a few feet, he reached up and knocked aside the beam. The heavy wooden cover slammed back down over the shaft opening. Belisarius barely managed to jerk his hand out of the way, saving himself from broken fingers.

  The interior of the well was completely dark, now. Hastily, feeling for the wooden pegs, Belisarius began lowering himself.

  He was twenty feet down when the charges went off. The force of the explosion shook the walls of the shaft. For a moment, Belisarius froze, listening intently. He could hear the slamming of stones and heavy beams on the well cover above him, and he feared that it might give way. An avalanche of rubble would sweep him off the peg ladder. He had no idea how far he would fall.

  Far enough, said Aide gloomily. Too far.

  In the event, it would have been forty feet.

  When he finally reached the end of the well-shaft, his feet flailed about for a moment, searching for pegs which weren't there. A hand grabbed his ankle.

  "That's it, General," came Valentinian's voice out of the darkness. "Anastasius, get him down."

  Huge hands seized Belisarius' thighs. The general relinquished his grip on the pegs, and Anastasius lowered him easily onto a floor. A gravel floor, Belisarius thought, from the feel of it.

  He began to stand up straight, then flinched. He couldn't see the roof, and feared crashing his head.

  That brought to mind a new problem. "Damn," he growled. "I forgot it would be pitch-black down here."

  "I didn't," came Maurice's self-satisfied reply. "Neither did Vasudeva. But I hope you had the sense to bring that striker down with you. It's the only one we've got."

  Belisarius dug into his tunic and withdrew the striker. His hand, groping in the darkness, encountered that of Maurice. The Thracian chiliarch took the device and struck it. A moment later, Maurice had a taper burning. It was a short length of tallow-soaked cord, one of the field torches which Roman soldiers carried with them on campaign.

  The smoky, flickering light was enough to illuminate the area. Belisarius began a quick examination, while Maurice lit the taper which Vasudeva was carrying.

  Valentinian, staring around, whistled softly. "Damn! I'm impressed."

  So was Belisarius. The underground aqueduct they found themselves in was splendidly constructed-easily up to the best standards of Roman engineering. The aqueduct-the qanat, as the Persians called it, using the Arabic term-was square in cross section, roughly eight feet wide by eight feet tall. The central area of the tunnel, about four feet in width, was sunk two feet below the ledges on either side. That central area, where the water would normally flow except during the heavy runoff in mid-spring, was covered with gravel. The ledges were crudely paved with stone blocks, and were just wide enough for a man to walk along.

  Except for a small trickle of water seeping down the very center, the qanat was dry. It was still too early in the season for most of the snow to begin melting.

  "What do you think the slope is, Maurice?" asked Belisarius. "One in three hundred? That's the Roman standard."

  "Do I look like an engineer?" groused the chiliarch. "I haven't got the faintest-"

  "One in two hundred," interrupted Vasudeva. "Maybe even one in a hundred and fifty."

  The Kushan smiled seraphically. In the flickering torchlight, he looked like a leering gargoyle. "This is mountain country, much like my own homeland. No room here for any leisurely Roman slopes." He pointed with his torch. "That way. The steep slope makes it easy to see the direction of the mountains. But we've a long way to go."

  He set off, pacing along the ledge on the right. Cheerfully, over his back: "Long way. Tiring. Especially for Romans, accustomed to philosopher slopes and poet-type gradients." He barked a laugh. "One in three hundred!" Another laugh. "Ha!"

  An hour later, Valentinian began complaining.

  "There would have been room for the horses," he whined. "Plenty of room."

  "How would you have lowered them down?" demanded Anastasius. "And what good would it have done, anyway?"

  The giant glanced up at the stone ceiling. Unlike his companions, Anastasius had chosen to walk on the gravel in the central trough of the qanat. On the ledges, he would have had to stoop.

  "Eight feet, at the most," he pronounced. "You couldn't possibly ride a horse down here. You'd still be walking, and have to lead the surly brutes by the reins."

  Mutter, mutter, mutter.

  "So stop whining, Valentinian. There's worse things in life than a long, uphill hike."

  "Like what?" snarled Valentinian.

  "Like being dead," came the serene reply.

  They passed a multitude of vertical shafts along the way, identical to the one down which they had lowered themselves. But Belisarius ignored them. He wanted to make sure they had reached the mountains before emerging.

  Three hours after beginning their trek, they reached the first of the sloping entryways which provided easier access to the qanat. Belisarius fought off the temptation. He wanted to be well into the mountains before they emerged, away from any possible discovery or pursuit.

  Onward. Valentinian started muttering again.

  Two hours later-the slope was much steeper now-they reached another entryway. This one was almost level, which indicated how high up into the mountains they had reached.

  Again, Belisarius was tempted. Again, he fought it down.

  Further. Onward.

  Valentinian's muttering was nonstop, now.

  An hour or so later, they reached another entryway, and Belisarius decided it was safe to take it. When they emerged, they found themselves in the very same pass in the mountains from which they had begun their descent to the plateau. Night had fallen, but there was a full moon to illuminate the area.

  It was very cold. And they were very hungry.

  "We'll camp here," announced Belisarius. "Start our march tomorrow at first light. Hopefully, some of Coutzes' cavalry will find us before too long. I told him to keep plenty of reconnaissance platoons out in the field."

  "Which could have done what we just did," grumbled Maurice. "A commanding general's got no business doing this kind of work."

  Quite right, came Aide's vigorous thought.

  "Quite right," came the echo from Valentinian, Anastasius and Vasude
va.

  Seeing the four men glaring at him in the moonlight, and sensing the crystalline glare coming from within his own mind, Belisarius sighed.

  It's going to be a long night. And a longer day tomorrow-if I'm lucky, and Coutzes is on the job. If not-

  Sigh.

  Days! Days of this! Slogging through the mountains is bad enough, without having every footstep dogged by reproaches and "I-told-you-so's."

  "I told you so," came the inevitable words from Maurice.

  Chapter 3

  "I told you so," murmured Rana Sanga. The Rajput king strode over to the well and peered down into the shaft.

  Pratap, the commander of the cavalry troop, suppressed a sigh of relief. Sanga, on occasion, possessed an absolutely ferocious temper. But his words of reproach had been more philosophical than condemnatory.

  He joined the king at the well.

  "You followed?" asked Sanga.

  Pratap hesitated, then squared his shoulders. "I sent several men to investigate. But-it's pitch-black down there, and we had no good torches. Nothing that would have lasted more than a few minutes. By the time we finally cleared away the rubble and figured out what had happened, the Romans had at least an hour's head start. It didn't seem to me-"

  Sanga waved him down. "You don't have to justify yourself, Pratap. As it happens, I agree with you. You almost certainly wouldn't have caught up with them and, even if you had-"

  He straightened, finished with his examination of the well. In truth, there wasn't much to see. Just a stone-lined hole descending into darkness.

  "From your description of the giant Roman, I'm sure that was one of Belisarius' two personal bodyguards. I've forgotten his name. But the other one is called Valentinian, and-"

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Udai wince. Udai was one of his chief lieutenants. Like Sanga himself, Udai had been present at the Malwa emperor's pavilion after the capture of Ranapur. The emperor, testing Belisarius' pretense at treason, had ordered him to execute Ranapur's lord and his family. The Roman general had not hesitated, ordering Valentinian to do the work.

  For a moment, remembering, Sanga almost winced himself. Valentinian had drawn his sword and decapitated six people in less time than it would have taken most soldiers to gather their wits. Sanga was himself accounted one of India's greatest swordsmen. Valentinian was one of the few men he had ever encountered-the very few men-who he thought might be his equal. To meet such a man down there-

  "Just as well," he stated firmly. "In the qanat, with no way to surround them, the advantage would have been all theirs." He turned away from the well, and began picking his way across the mound of rubble.

  "The ambush failed, that's all. It happens-especially against an opponent as quick and shrewd as Belisarius."

  Seeing Ajatasutra standing before him, at the edge of the stone pile which had once been a farmhouse, Sanga stopped and drew himself up.

  "I will not have my men criticized." The Rajput's statement was flat, hard, unyielding. His brows lowered over glaring eyes.

  Ajatasutra smiled, and spread his hands in a placating gesture. "I didn't say a word." The assassin chuckled dryly. "As it happens, I agree with you. The only thing that surprises me is that you came as close as you did. I didn't really think this scheme of yours was more than a half-baked fancy. Generals, in my experience, don't conduct their own advance reconnaissance."

  "I do," rasped Sanga.

  "So you do," mused Ajatasutra. The assassin eyed the Rajput king. His lips twisted humorously. "You were right, and Narses was wrong," he stated. "You assessed Belisarius better than he did."

  Again, Ajatasutra spread his hands. "I will simply report the facts, Sanga, that's all. The ambush was well laid, and almost succeeded. But it failed, as ambushes often do. There is no fault or failure imputed."

  Sanga nodded. For a moment, he studied the man standing before him. Despite himself, and his normal fierce dislike for Malwa spies, Sanga found it impossible not to be impressed by Ajatasutra. Ajatasutra was one of the Malwa Empire's most accomplished assassins. A year earlier, he had been second in command of the mission to Rome which had engineered the attempted insurrection against the Roman Empire. Narses had been the Malwa's principal co-conspirator in that plot. The insurrection-the Nika revolt, as the Romans called it-had failed, in the end, due to Belisarius. But it had been a very close thing, and the Malwa Empire had not blamed Ajatasutra or Narses for its failure. The two men had warned Balban, the head of the Malwa mission, that Belisarius and his wife, Antonina, were playing a duplicitous game. That, at least, had been their claim-and the evidence seemed to support them.

  So, held faultless for the defeat, Narses had been assigned by Emperor Skandagupta to serve Lord Damodara as an adviser. The eunuch, from his long experience as one of the Roman Empire's chief officials, possessed a wide knowledge of the intricate politics of the steppe barbarians and the semibarbarian feudal lords who ruled Persia's easternmost provinces. He had been a great help to the campaign, as Damodara and Sanga fought their way into the Persian plateau.

  Ajatasutra had accompanied Narses. He served the Roman traitor as his chief lieutenant-and as his legs and eyes. The old eunuch was still spry and active-amazingly so, given his years. But for things like this sudden twenty-mile ride to investigate a failed ambush, Ajatasutra usually served in his stead. The assassin would observe, and assess, and report.

  Sanga relaxed. In truth, he had found Ajatasutra guiltless of the self-serving "reports" for which Malwa spies were notorious among their Rajput vassals. He would never be fond of Ajatasutra-he had no more liking for assassins than he did for traitors, even ones on his side-but he could not honestly find any other fault in the man.

  "You're lucky, in fact," remarked Ajatasutra, "that you didn't suffer worse casualties."

  "Four of my men were killed!" snarled Pratap. "Two others wounded, and yet another half-crushed when the farmhouse blew up. He will lose both his legs."

  Ajatasutra shrugged. The gesture was not callous so much as one of philosophical resignation. "Could have been a lot worse. Most of the stonework collapsed inward, when Belisarius blew the walls. Fortunately, he was just trying to cover his escape. If he'd been forced to make a last stand, I guarantee that half your men would be dead. And precious few of the survivors uninjured."

  Pratap's eyes smoldered resentfully. "I didn't realize you were well acquainted with the man." Then, with a sneer: "Other than suffering a defeat at his hands in Constantinople."

  Ajatasutra studied Pratap's angry face. His own expression was relaxed, almost bland.

  "Actually, I'm not. My own contact with Belisarius came at a distance. But I am quite well-acquainted with his wife, Antonina. Balban set a trap for her, too, you know-in Constantinople, right at the end."

  The anger faded from Pratap's features, replaced by curiosity.

  "I never heard about that," he stated.

  "Neither did I!" snapped Sanga. The Rajput king glared at the Malwa assassin. "You tried to take revenge on Belisarius by murdering his wife?"

  Sanga's famous temper was surfacing, now. Again, Ajatasutra made the placating gesture with his hands. "Please, Rana Sanga! It was Balban's doing, not mine. And you can't even blame him-the orders came directly from Nanda Lal."

  Far from placating Sanga, mention of Nanda Lal brought his outrage to the surface. But at least, Ajatasutra saw, the tall and fearsome Rajput's fury was no longer directed at him. There was no love lost, he knew, between Rana Sanga and the Malwa Empire's spymaster.

  The assassin spread his hands wide. "I thought it was a bad idea, myself. And I warned Balban that he was underestimating the woman."

  The hot glare in Sanga's eyes faded, as the implication registered. "The ambush failed," he stated. "Belisarius' wife survived."

  Ajatasutra laughed harshly. " `Survived'? That's one way of putting it. It'd be more accurate to say that she set her own ambush and butchered most of Balban's thugs."

  By now, all of the Ra
jputs at the scene were clustering about-Sanga's own contingent as well as Pratap's cavalry troop. Like warriors everywhere, they enjoyed a good tale. Ajatasutra, seeing his audience-and the easing fury in Sanga's face-relaxed. He held out his hand, perhaps five feet above the ground.

  "She's quite small, you know. This tall, no more. Gorgeous woman. Beautiful, voluptuous-" He paused dramatically.

  "But-" He grinned. "Her father was a charioteer. He was reputed to have taught her how to use a blade. And I'm quite certain her husband trained her also. Probably had that man of his-that killer Valentinian-polish her skills."

  Ajatasutra paused, to make sure he had his audience's rapt attention. Then: "When she realized Balban had set a pack of street thugs after her, she forted herself up in the kitchen of a pastry shop. I wasn't there, myself-I watched from outside-but she apparently poured meat broth over the lot and began hacking them with a cleaver. Killed several herself, before one of Belisarius' cataphracts came to her rescue. After that-"

  He shrugged. "One cataphract-against a handful of street toughs."

  The Rajput cavalrymen surrounding him, veterans all, grunted deep satisfaction. Roman cataphracts were their enemy, of course, but-

  Street toughs-against a soldier?

  "A woman did all that?" queried one of the Rajputs. The air of satisfaction was absent, now. He seemed almost aggrieved. "A woman?"

  Ajatasutra smiled. Nodded. Held out his hand again. "A little bitty woman," he said cheerfully. "No taller than this."

  The assassin glanced at Rana Sanga. He saw that the anger in the Rajput king's face had completely faded. Replaced by something which almost seemed sadness, thought Ajatasutra.

  Odd.

  Abruptly, Sanga turned away and began striding toward his horse. "Let's go," he commanded. "There's nothing more to be done here. I want to make it back to the army by nightfall."

  Once astride his horse, he gave the scene a last quick survey. "The ambush failed," he announced. "That's all."