Belisarius I Thunder at Dawn

by David Drake

  "Is because Arabs so stupid. Cowardice mankind's only useful vice. Naturally Arabs know nothing of it."

  "I heard a story years ago," mused Anastasius, "that there was a cowardly Arab living somewhere in the Empty Quarter." He spit into the sea. "I didn't believe it, myself."

  "They're coming," announced Valentinian. "I can't see them, but I can hear them."

  Belisarius glanced at Valentinian. As so often before on the verge of battle, the cataphract reminded the general of nothing so much as a weasel. The sharp features; the long, lean whipcord body; the poised stillness, like a coiled spring; and, most of all, the utter intensity of the killer's concentration. At these moments, Valentinian's senses were almost superhuman.

  Belisarius sighed. The choice was now upon him and could no longer be postponed.

  Secrecy be damned, he decided. These men—all of them—are my comrades. I cannot betray them.

  The general stepped to the very prow of the ship.

  "There are two ships approaching us," he announced. He pointed, and pointed again. "There, and there. The one on the right is closer."

  He heard a slight cough behind him.

  "Trust me, Garmat. I can see them almost as well as if it were daytime. They are there, just as I have described."

  He looked over his shoulder and smiled crookedly.

  "The steersman you pointed out earlier is on that closer ship, Ousanas. Make good your boast."

  For once, the dawazz was not grinning. Ousanas stared into the darkness for a moment, then looked back at the general.

  "You are witch," he announced.

  Belisarius made a face.

  The grin made its inevitable appearance. Ousanas' skin was so black that he was almost invisible except as a shape. Against that darkness, the grin was like a beacon of good cheer.

  "Is not problem," said the dawazz. Ousanas gestured toward the other warriors.

  "These other men be civilized folk, Axumites and Romans. Hence filled with silly superstitions. Think witchcraft evil. I savage from far south, too ignorant to be confused. I know witchcraft like everything else in this world. Some good. Some bad."

  A great laugh suddenly rang out, startling in its loudness.

  "Most excellent!" pronounced the dawazz. "Never had good witch before, on my side."

  "Can you truly see that well, in the night?" asked the prince shakily. "How is that possible?"

  "Yes, Eon, I can. How is it possible?" Belisarius hesitated, but only for an instant. The die was cast.

  "There is no time now. But after the battle, I will explain." A glance at Garmat. "I will explain everything." A glance at his cataphracts and the sarwen. "To all of you."

  Ousanas lounged forward, hefting his javelin.

  "Where is steersman?" he asked idly. Belisarius pointed again. Ousanas squinted.

  "Still too dark," he muttered.

  At that moment, Venandakatra's voice cried out a command. A volley of rockets was fired in all directions. Several kshatriyas squealed with pain, caught by the back-blasts which flared over the hide mounds.

  "Fucking idiot," growled Anastasius. "The cowardly bastard, he's just panicking."

  It was true enough. The volley was completely unaimed. The six rockets snaked their fiery path into nothingness. A total waste.

  To all, that is, save Ousanas. For the rockets' glare had, whatever else, bathed the sea with a sudden flare of red illumination. The pirate ships were clearly visible, and even, with difficulty, individual members of their crews.

  "I see him steersman!" cried the dawazz gleefully. He hurled the javelin like a tiger pouncing on its prey. The weapon vanished into the fading red glare. Almost at once it was invisible, to all save Belisarius.

  The general watched the javelin rise, and rise, and rise. He had never seen such a tremendous cast. Then, the general watched it sail downward. Downward, and truer than Euclidean dreams.

  A terrible, brief cry filled the night.

  Anastasius hunched his shoulders, staring grimly out to sea.

  "I can't bear to look, Valentinian. Is that damned black bastard grinning at me?"

  Valentinian chuckled. "It looks like the Pharos at Alexandria. A blinding beacon in the night."

  A sudden little flight of arrows came out of the darkness. None of them came close, however. The pirates were simply reacting out of rage.

  "It won't be long now," announced Belisarius. He smiled. "By the way, you might want to shift over to the other side, Anastasius. The ship on your side isn't the closest, anymore. In fact, it's wallowing in the waves. No steersman."

  Anastasius grunted his disgust. Ousanas took up another javelin.

  "Maybe fucking idiot cowardly bastard Indian lord fire another useless volley," he said cheerfully. "Then I make other pirate galley wallow in waves."

  "I'll kill him," muttered Anastasius.

  "I doubt it," retorted Valentinian. Suddenly, he too was grinning. "And don't be a spiteful idiot. You're like some petty boy in a playground. Would you rather he was chucking those spears the other way?"

  Anastasius winced. "No, but—"

  He got no further. A pirate ship loomed out of the darkness, like a dragon rising from the sea. A medley of war cries erupted from it. A moment later, another volley of rockets flared.

  Now all was bright glare, redness and fury, and the ancient battle clangor. Anastasius drew his great bow and slew a pirate, and then another, and another, and another, and another. At that range, his arrows split chests like a butcher splits a chicken. Even had the pirates been wearing full armor, it would have made no difference. At that range, the arrows of Anastasius drove through shields.

  And now, when he saw the other pirate galley suddenly wallow in the waves, bereft of its steersman, there was no emotion in his heart beyond a fierce surge of comradeship. For the cataphract Anastasius was not, in truth, a spiteful schoolboy filled with petty pride. He was a soldier plying his trade.

  And he was very, very good at it.

  Chapter 16

  Even though it was a moonless night, the battle itself was fully illuminated, in a hideous, flashing way. Belisarius had time, even in the press and fury of the fray, to marvel at the scene.

  If one could be said to marvel at a scene from Hell.

  By the time the first pirate ships came alongside the Indian vessel, attaching themselves with grappling hooks, all but four of the Arab craft were burning infernos. The erratic trajectories of the rockets was now irrelevant. At point-blank range, the rockets did not explode upon impact. Instead, they continued to burn from their tails, with the same fierce dragon-hiss that sent them skittering through the air. Fascinated, Belisarius saw one rocket punch through the hull of a ship, glance off a rower's bench, carom off another bench on the opposite side, and then roar its way down the length of the pirate craft until it embedded itself in the bow. Its trail was marked by a horde of screaming Arabs, frantically trying to beat out the flames in their garments, which had been set afire by the rocket in its passage. Once brought to a halt by the thicker planking at the bow, the rocket continued to burn as brightly as ever. To all appearances, the mindless device seemed like a stubborn animal trying to force its way through a hedge. It was several seconds before it finally exploded, shattering the bow into splinters. But, by that time, the tail-fire burning down the length of the pirate craft had done as much damage as the explosion itself.

  I don't think these rockets have any way of knowing when to explode, mused Belisarius.

  aim hurled the serried facets at the same breach in the barrier, much like a human general might launch his troops at a shattered section of a fortified wall. Another crude thought was forced through.

  no fuses.

  Sensing the puzzlement in Belisarius' mind, the facets retreated. But aim rallied them immediately. With success, crude though it was, confidence was growing. aim sent the facets through the breach anew, and now, filled with the fanatic purpose of explanation.

  Finally—fina
lly!—true success. The facets flashed their exultation. aim itself broke into kaleidoscopic joy.

  The knowledge which now erupted in the mind of the general Belisarius was no crude, simple thought. Instead, it was like a living diagram, a moving reality. He saw, as clearly as anything in his life, the way of the rockets. He saw the strange powder [gunpowder, he now knew] packed in the length of the rocket; the same powder, in greater quantities, which was packed in the front tip [warhead] of the device. He saw the gunpowder ignited by a long match held by a kshatriya warrior. He saw the powder erupt into flame, and saw how the flame burned. (And knew that the vision was moving at an inhuman pace, slowed by the jewel that he might follow the course of it.)

  He saw the flame burn its way up, inside the length of the bamboo tube [fuselage]. He saw the raging gasses which were expelled from the rocket's rear [exhaust], and knew the fury of the gasses was the force which drove the device into motion.

  (A concept—action/reaction—flashed through his mind. He almost understood it, but was not concerned; soon, soon, he would.)

  Watching, in his mind's eye, the course of the flame burning its way through the gunpowder, Belisarius now understood the reason for the rocket's erratic trajectory.

  Part of it, he saw, was that the gunpowder was poorly mixed. (And he knew, now, that gunpowder was not a substance itself, but a combination of substances.) The powder was uneven and lumpy, like poorly threshed grain. Different pockets and sections of the powder burned unevenly, which produced a ragged and unpredictable exhaust.

  Most of the problem, though, was that the rear opening through which the exhaust poured [venturi—but the thought was saturated with scorn] was itself poorly made. In fact, it wasn't "made" at all. The venturi was nothing more than a ring of wood. The Indians simply cut the bamboo after one of the joints in the wood, and used the joint itself as the nozzle which concentrated and aimed the exhaust gasses. But the hole was ragged to begin with, no better than a crude carving; Belisarius could actually see in his mind the way in which the hot exhaust burned out the wood in its expulsion.

  The companions of Belisarius feared for his sanity, then. The first pirates were even now clambering their way aboard the ship—and here was their general, their leader, cavorting about like a madman and raving lunatic nonsense about Greek and Armenian metalsmiths and the cunning of their craft. He was even cackling about the Emperor's throne, and his roaring lions, and his birds!

  But, they were relieved to see, the madness passed as soon as the first Arab head appeared above the rail. Belisarius removed the head with a sweep of his sword which was so quick, and so sure, and so certain, and so graceful, that none who saw doubted he was a man possessed.

  " 'Deadly with a blade, is Belisarius,' " muttered Valentinian. "But that's ridiculous."

  "Stop bitching," growled Anastasius. He brought his mace down upon another pirate head. And if there was little grace in the act, and not much in the way of quickness, the result was no less sure and certain.

  Arabs now began pouring over the rails, port and starboard, all along the ship. There was a frenzied determination in that surge, far beyond battle-lust and greed. The surge was born of pure desperation. There were far too few galleys left intact, now, to bear the pirates safely back to shore. They must either conquer the great Indian vessel, or die.

  The kshatriyas fled the rocket troughs and sheltered behind the Ye-tai. There, the kshatriyas formed a defensive ring around Venandakatra and the cluster of priests standing at the foot of the mainmast. But it was obvious that the lightly armed Malwa warriors, their rockets out of action, were nothing but a feeble last guard. The real defense of the ship now lay in the hands of the Ye-tai. The barbarians were not slow to deride the kshatriyas for their unmanliness.

  But the derision was short-lived. Within seconds, the Ye-tai were too hard-pressed by the wave of pirates swarming aboard the ship to concern themselves with anything but survival.

  As Belisarius had expected, the pirates concentrated their efforts at the stern and the bow, where their ships could avoid the rockets. Indeed, the only two Arab craft which were still seaworthy were the ones attached to the bow and stern of the huge Indian vessel.

  At the stern, the battle went quite well for the pirates, and did so quickly. At the bow, they found nothing but death and destruction.

  Belisarius had lied to Venandakatra when he told him that Romans and Axumites were long accustomed to fighting alongside each other. But now, as they did so for the first time in history, under the command of the greatest Roman general in centuries, they seemed to be a perfect fighting machine.

  Belisarius had positioned his small band of soldiers as Garmat had recommended. The very front line was made up of his three heavily armored cataphracts. The inexperienced Menander was placed in the point of the bow. Valentinian and Anastasius flanked the youth on either side. Although Belisarius was himself inexperienced in sea battles, it had been obvious that few pirates would try to clamber directly over the arching curve of the bow itself. The points of greatest danger lay a few feet behind the bow, and it was there that the general positioned his two veterans: Anastasius to port, Valentinian to starboard.

  And, as Belisarius had expected, it was there that the pirates concentrated their efforts.

  To little avail. The heavy shields and armor of the cataphracts were all but impenetrable to the light weapons being wielded by the pirates—the more so, as the weapons were wielded awkwardly and one-handed. Each pirate's other hand was needed to retain his hold on the rail. Belisarius learned, then, his first lesson in sea-fighting: despite Eon's sneers, and whatever its clumsiness, there was a great advantage to the size of the Indian ship. The pirates could not simply leap from ship to ship. Boarding the great Malwa craft presented much the same obstacle to the low galleys as scaling a wall presented to besiegers of a land fortress.

  The contest was absurdly one-sided. Each pirate got, at the most, one swing of his weapon. Thereafter, if he faced Anastasius, he died immediately; his skull crushed by a mace. If he faced the more subtle Valentinian, his death might be postponed a moment or so. Valentinian, also new to ship-fighting, soon discovered that the most economical way to deal with his opponents was to strike at their defenseless hands gripping the rail. Valentinian did not possess the sheer brute power of Anastasius, but he was quite strong. It hardly mattered. His sword, like all his blades, was sharp as a razor. Within two minutes, a little mound of severed hands was piling up at his feet. Their former owners had plunged into the sea, where they died soon enough from shock, blood loss, and drowning.

  Menander, though not a complete novice by any means, lacked his two comrades' long experience. Nor, for that matter, did he now or would he ever possess their awesome skill in combat. But he was a Thracian cataphract, one of that elite company pledged to their lord Belisarius, and none could ever say afterward that he shamed them.

  As uneven as the contest was, however, it proved to be the Axumites who made the final difference. Alone, the four Romans would eventually have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers. As fast as the cataphracts wielded their weapons, the Arabs poured up even faster. But the Ethiopian spears were quicker still.

  The cataphracts slew a great number themselves, but, in the main, their contribution was to serve as a living wall which delayed the pirates that one extra moment. A moment was all the sarwen needed, or Eon. And Ousanas needed even less. Standing a few feet behind the cataphracts, the Axumite spears flicked out like viper strikes. Each stroke was swift, accurate, and almost invariably deadly. On occasion, the sarwen and Eon required a second spear-thrust to dispatch an enemy.

  Ousanas, never. The dawazz's aim was absolutely uncanny. Watching, Belisarius decided he had never seen a man wield a weapon so unerringly. Certainly not in an actual battle. The precision was almost wasted, though. The dawazz lacked Anastasius' bearlike bulk, and Eon's flamboyant musculature. But Belisarius suspected that Ousanas was actually stronger than either of them. His gre
at spear blade literally ruptured human bodies.

  The general had placed himself and Garmat as the final reserve. Each of them stood a few feet behind the Axumites, Garmat to starboard, Belisarius to port. The general had expected, within seconds of the assault, to be in a life-and-death struggle.

  As before, in the battle against the Persians, the jewel was working its way with him. Belisarius' senses were superhumanly keen, and his reflexes were like quicksilver. But—he almost laughed—it proved another waste. Neither he nor Garmat was ever required to strike a blow—although the old adviser did so, once, skewering a pirate over a sarwen's shoulder. Belisarius thought the effort was superfluous, simply the ingrained habit of an old warrior. So, apparently, did the sarwen. The Ethiopian soldier immediately denounced Garmat for an interfering busybody and suggested, none too politely, that the doddering fool stick to his trade. Thereafter, Garmat satisfied himself with a reservist's role.