by Eric Flint
The gruesome sight fell behind. The second Malwa galley came up, also to port. Not enough time had elapsed for the gunners to have reloaded, so Wahsi simply sailed on. A few seconds later, Antonina heard the guns of the next ship. Then, the third; and then, the fourth.
She did not turn her head to watch the results. There was no need. Not when she had Ousanas' and Wahsi's cheerful faces to serve as her mirror.
"More food for the fish," Wahsi pronounced. He turned his eyes back to the front. Beyond the bow, he could see the five great cargo ships, less than a mile away.
"Soon, now." He pointed. "Look. They've already set up their rockets."
As if his pointing finger had been a signal, a volley of rockets soared away from one of the Malwa vessels. Of the six missiles, five skittered half-aimlessly before they plunged into the sea. But one of the rockets held a straight course until it, too, plowed harmlessly into a wave two hundred yards distant.
Antonina was not relieved by the distance of the miss. This first volley had been a mistake, undoubtedly ordered by a nervous and rattled captain. The range was still too great for rockets to have any real hope of success. But the steadiness with which that one rocket had held its course could only mean one thing.
They've fitted them with real venturi. Some of the rockets, anyway. Just as Belisarius predicted.
She took a breath. "I think-"
Wahsi was already shouting the orders. A moment later, the Ethiopian crew was swarming over the ship, erecting the new rocket shields. Each Axumite ship was carrying almost two hundred soldiers. Most of those men, under normal conditions, would have been busy at the oars. But with the ships under sail, they were free for other work. The shields were erected within minutes.
As she watched, Antonina gave herself a silent reproof. Wahsi's determination to fight under sail, she now realized, had not been the decision of a truculent male eager to show his mettle. The commander had foreseen the necessity to erect the shields quickly.
She glanced at Ousanas. The aqabe tsentsen, once again, was grinning at her. She grinned back, accepting the jeer in good humor.
I, too, when it comes to this, am nothing but an amateur. Let the professionals handle it.
She turned her eyes to the shields. Her own professional pride surfaced. She might not know anything about ships, but she did know gunpowder warfare. Better than anyone in the world, she thought. John of Rhodes might have a superior grasp of the theory, but not the practice.
Except my husband. After all these months fighting the Rajputs in Persia, I'm sure he's better than I am.
The thought combined pride and worry. Antonina had no idea if Belisarius was still alive. By now, he should have gotten the message she had sent him, telling Belisarius when she would leave Adulis for their rendezvous at Charax. That message would have been taken by fast horses to the nearest semaphore station, at Aila. From there, flashing up and down the line of semaphore stations which she and Belisarius had constructed the year before, the message would have reached Ctesiphon within a day. Persian couriers would carry it to Belisarius' army in the nearby Zagros, again using the fastest horses available.
But there had been no way for a message to be returned. Belisarius had told Antonina, once, of the almost-magical communication devices of future centuries. "Radio," one was called. Such devices were far beyond the technological capability of her time-and would be, even with Aide to guide them, for decades to come.
She sighed unhappily. To shake off her anxiety concerning Belisarius, she resumed her study of the shields.
Antonina had designed the shields herself, before she left Constantinople the year before. Not, of course, without advice from Belisarius-and plenty of help, when the time came to translate theory into practice, from the Syrians of her Theodoran Cohort. The gunners and their wives, being borderers born and bred, were excellent blacksmiths, carpenters and tanners. And whatever they couldn't handle had been done by the Ethiopian artisans and craftsmen whom King Eon had put at her disposal in Adulis.
Each Axumite ship had been fitted with iron hoops on the rails near the bow. A heavy wooden ridgepole was affixed to the mainmast. The ridgepole ran parallel to the ship's hull, right down the center, its end stabilized in the stem.
As soon as Wahsi gave the order, the Syrian gunners and the Ethiopian sailors began erecting the shield. While Ethiopians furled the sails, the gunners set sturdy wooden braces in the iron hoops along the rails. Each hoop had a bar welded across the bottom to hold the brace butts. The top end of each brace had a hole drilled through it. As the gunners lowered the braces toward the ridgepole, the Ethiopian sailors began threading rope through the holes. Within minutes, the tops of the braces were bound tightly to the mast-and-ridgepole structure. The end result was a sloping A-frame which covered the bow of the ship.
Other sailors were already tossing ropes over the ridgepole and braces. Quickly, with the speed of experienced seamen, the ropes were drawn tight. The A-frame was now lashed down. The ropes provided further strength, along with a filled-in framework.
The wives of the gunners, meanwhile, had finished hauling the special armor out of the hold. The spans of boiled leather, already precut and punched with holes, were stitched onto the pole-and-rope framework with thinner cord. The sailors began dowsing the leather armor with buckets of seawater.
Antonina moved to the bow along with Ousanas and Wahsi, admiring the handiwork. Wahsi did not share her enthusiasm. "Ugly," he groused. Through a viewing slit in the shield, the commander glared down at the bow-waves, which were noticeably smaller. "Slow. Clumsy."
"Ignore him, Antonina," said Ousanas serenely. The aqabe tsentsen pointed to the nearest Malwa vessel. The huge cargo ship was less than four hundred yards away. Kshatriyas could be seen scurrying about their rocket troughs. "Soon enough, he will be glad to have that shield."
Seconds later, the Malwa vessel was shrouded in rocket smoke. Six missiles came streaking across the water.
Five missed, most of them widely. But, again, the sixth missile sped straight and true. Antonina held her breath. She was about to discover if her inventor's pride was warranted.
It was. The rocket struck the sloping side of the shield and glanced off. The shield boomed like a giant kettledrum. The missile soared into the sky, exploding fifty yards overhead.
She blew out her breath, as a second relief came to reinforce the first.
No impact fuses, thank God. Belisarius didn't think they'd have them yet. Not for cargo vessels, anyway.
Theoretically, she knew, the shield should protect the ship even from rockets armed with impact fuses. Partially, at least. If the Malwa fuses were anything like the Roman ones, they were crude devices. A glancing impact might very well not be enough to trigger them-and, even if it did, most of the force would be spilled across the shield instead of punching through. The design would have been well-nigh useless, of course, against heavy cannon balls. But the Malwa had not yet equipped their ships with cannons. Not these ships, anyway.
"Good," grunted Wahsi. "It works." Grudgingly: "I didn't really think it would."
And why not? thought Antonina merrily. It worked at Hampton Roads, didn't it?
But she kept the thought to herself. Both Wahsi and Ousanas knew of Aide. Ousanas, in fact, was one of the few people in the world who had entered Aide's world of future vision. But they were not really comfortable with the knowledge. At the moment, in the midst of battle, they needed surety and solid ground. It was not the best time to launch into a discussion of visions.
Besides, I've got a reputation as a genius to maintain. Won't help that any, if I admit I got my design from a future ship called the Merrimac.
Another volley erupted from the Malwa ship. Then, seconds later, a flight of missiles soared off the deck of another enemy vessel.
Wahsi ignored the oncoming rockets. He stooped, sticking his head into the entrance of the shield, and bellowed orders. The orders were passed down to the steersman at the rear.
/> The Ethiopian ship began pulling toward the nearest enemy. Progress was slow, of course. The shield was not especially heavy, but it caught the wind like a giant drag. The oarsmen strained, grunting with every sweep of the oars, forcing the craft forward.
Fortunately, neither the seas nor the wind were heavy. Antonina had been told they wouldn't be, as a rule, this time of year. She was relieved to find the information accurate.
Slow progress is still progress. The Malwa convoy-all merchantmen, now that their escorts had been destroyed-were simply seeking to escape the Ethiopians. But the Malwa ships paid a price for their huge and ungainly design. They, too, crept along like snails.
Ousanas verbalized her own assessment. "We'll overtake them," he pronounced. "Soon, I think."
Chapter 30
"Soon" proved to be half an hour.
Half an hour after that, "soon" became "never."
Antonina, once again, discovered the First Law of Battle. Nothing ever works the way it should.
"Pull out, Wahsi!" she shouted, trying to make herself heard over the roar of the cannons and the shrieks of the rockets. "We can't sink them!"
Stubbornly, the Axumite commander shook his head. The headshake turned into a duck, as another flight of rockets soared overhead. But there was no damage. The Syrian gunners, after a few minutes of battle, had switched to cannister. The solid shot had proven ineffective, but the cannister kept the Malwa kshatriyas from the rail. They were not able to lower their rocket troughs far enough to bring the missiles to bear on the Ethiopian ships alongside.
"There's no point!" she shouted. "We could punch holes in that damned thing for a week, and it wouldn't make a difference. We can't sink it!"
Wahsi ignored her. He was leaning out of the shield, studying the rest of the battle. The huge Malwa cargo ships were like buffaloes being torn at by a dozen lean wolves. The roar of cannon fire, mingled with the shriek of rocketry, rippled over the waves. Each Axumite ship was wreathed in gunsmoke; every Malwa ship had holes punched in its hull-and none of them, plain as day, was in any danger of sinking. The battle was a pure and simple stalemate.
While she waited for Wahsi to make a decision, Antonina snarled her own frustration at the Malwa ship looming above her, not twenty yards off.
It was an incredible sight, in its way. The hull of the Malwa ship looked like a sieve. At least a dozen five-inch marble cannonballs had punched holes through the thin planks. But-
I was afraid this might happen. Belisarius warned me that wooden ships, in the days of sail, were almost never sunk by cannon fire. The Spanish Armada was wrecked by a storm, not English guns. The only ship at the battle of Trafalgar actually destroyed by gunfire was the Achille, after fire spread to its magazines. The rest were captured by boarders or lost during the storm which followed. Still, I had hoped-those ships, after all, were heavily built northern European craft. Not these cockleshells. But it doesn't matter. Wood doesn't sink. It's as simple as that.
Another volley of unaimed rockets shrieked overhead. The Malwa were simply venting their own frustration. The missiles plunged into the sea hundreds of yards past the two Axumite vessels drawn alongside.
Wahsi ducked back under the shield. The leather was ragged now, where a few Malwa rockets had struck early in the battle. But that, at least, had worked as Antonina hoped. Even the one rocket which exploded when it hit the shield had spent most of its fury harmlessly. Only five rowers had been injured, none seriously.
"We'll do it the old-fashioned way!" shouted Wahsi. He seized his spear and began bellowing new orders. The rowers drove the ship against the Malwa vessel. Grappling hooks were being dug out, and scaling equipment readied.
Antonina started to protest. This battle with the convoy had turned into an absurd distraction. They could break off now and still make it into Charax long before the convoy could bring the alarm. The last thing she wanted was to see the Ethiopian forces suffer heavy casualties in a boarding operation.
But the protest died on her lips. One look at Wahsi's face was enough. The Dakuen commander was in pure battle fury. He would have that convoy, by God-no matter what.
She glanced at Ousanas. The aqabe tsentsen shrugged.
The cannons, after firing a last volley of cannister to clear the rail, were being hastily drawn aside. With Wahsi in the lead, dozens of Axumite soldiers tossed their grappling hooks and began swarming up the side of the Malwa ship. Their battle cry-Ta'akha Maryam! Ta'akha Maryam! — rang with pure bloodlust.
"Forget it, Antonina," said Ousanas. "If Ezana were here-"
Ousanas glanced at the other Malwa ships. Already he could see other Ethiopian soldiers starting their own boarding operations. And, faintly, he could hear the same merciless words: Ta'akha Maryam! Ta'akha Maryam!
He turned back to Antonina. "Ezana was always the more cool-headed of the two. But I'm not sure even he would be able to restrain the sarwen. Not this far into the battle. Axum has the most ferocious navy in the Erythrean Sea. They didn't get that way by being timid."
Antonina sighed, and leaned against one of the poles bracing the shield. Her face was covered with sweat and the streaks left by gunsmoke. The interior of the shielded bow, under the heat of a mid-autumn afternoon, was a sweltering pit.
"Let's just hope, then," she muttered.
"Relax." Ousanas studied her with his intelligent eyes. "You're thinking about that other boarding operation, aren't you? Where we-Belisarius and his companions-slaughtered the Arab pirates who tried to storm our ship."
She nodded wearily. Ousanas gave her a reassuring little pat on the shoulder. "Relax, I say."
He paused for a moment, listening to the sounds of combat coming from the deck above. Then, very calmly: "Four things are different, here. First, the Arabs were facing a large force of Ye-tai escorting Lord Venandakatra. These cargo ships only have a handful of the murderous bastards. Second, the Arabs didn't have cannister to clear their way to the deck. Half of them died before they made it over the rail. Third, they were pirates, not Axumite marines. Finally-"
His great grin erupted. In the gloom of the shield's interior, it seemed to Antonina like a beacon. "And finally-fool woman! — these sorry Malwa bastards don't have your husband to save their hides."
"Or me," he added modestly, caressing the shaft of his spear. "Especially me, now that I think about it." He seized the great spear and began prancing about, feigning lunges and thrusts. "I was terrible! A fury! A demon from below!"
Antonina managed her own grin. Despite herself, Ousanas' antics were cheering her up. It was impossible to wallow in misery for very long around Ousanas.
There was a sudden surge in the battle clangor. Hurriedly, Antonina stuck her head out of the shield and peered up at the rail.
A moment later, a small flood of Malwa sailors and kshatriyas began diving overboard. Their own shouts of fear were pursued by the sounds of murder. Ta'akha Maryam! Ta'akha Maryam! One of the leaping Malwa, misjudging in his terror, landed on the rail of her ship. His body seemed to snap in half, not ten feet from her. The sound of the impact combined breakage and rupture-like sticks in a bag of offal, slammed against stone.
Antonina thought his back was broken. It was a moot point. Even before her bodyguards, Matthew and Leo, unlimbered their weapons, Ousanas pushed past her and stabbed the fallen sailor with his spear. The great leaf blade opened his chest and drove him over the side.
She craned her head up. Another-a Ye-tai warrior-had his back pressed to the rail, fighting an unseen opponent. Not two seconds after she spotted him, she saw a spear drive through his chest. The bloodied blade was sticking four inches out of his back.
The Ye-tai was driven half over the rail by the power of the blow. He toppled over, falling into the sea, the spear still sticking into his body.
Wahsi appeared at the rail, grabbing for the haft of the spear. Too late.
The Dakuen commander's face was contorted with rage. He shook his fist at the plunging body of the Ye-tai.
<
br /> "That was my best spear!" he roared. "You stinking-"
Then, everything seemed to happen at once-and yet, to Antonina, as slowly as anything she had ever seen.
Wahsi's face was suddenly a mask of-not shock, so much as simple surprise. Then, he was flying through the air, soaring over the waves as if he were a bird. The Malwa rocket which had struck him right in the spine was carrying him out to sea like a gull. For a moment, his arms even seemed to be flapping. But Antonina, seeing the burning fury pouring out of his back, knew that the man was already dead.
The burning gunpowder reached the warhead. The rocket exploded thirty yards from the ship and half as many above the waves. The largest piece of Wahsi which struck the water was his right leg. The rest of the Dakuen commander was simply a cloud of blood and shreds of flesh and bone.
"God in Heaven," she whispered. She turned a shocked face to Ousanas.
The aqabe tsentsen clenched his teeth. Then, without a word, he took his spear and raced toward the grappling ropes amidships. Within seconds, Antonina saw him swarming onto the ship.
At first, she assumed that Ousanas was just venting his own fury and battle lust. But then, hearing his bellowing roars, she realized that he was doing the opposite. The aqabe tsentsen was taking command, and dragging the sarwen away from their pointless revenge.
Literally dragging, in some cases. She saw Ousanas personally pitch three Ethiopian marines onto the rail. He had to rap one of them on the skull with the haft of his spear before the man started climbing down the ropes.
Blood was beginning to drip over the sides of the Malwa ship above her. Antonina didn't want to think about the carnage up there. At the best of times, Axumite sarwen were murderous in battle. Now, with their regimental commander slain, they were fury incarnate.
"What a waste," she whispered. "What a pointless, stupid waste."
She stared out at the patch of ocean where Wahsi had disappeared-what was left of him. There would be no point, she knew, in searching for the pieces of his body. The fish would get them long before they could be retrieved.