Belisarius I Thunder at Dawn

by David Drake

  Sanga barked harsh laughter. "Neither have I!" he exclaimed. The Rajput's foul humor seemed to vanish. He reined his horse around, and began moving away. "Come, Belisarius," he said over his shoulder, cheerfully. "Let us observe a military genius at work."

  Their route took them toward the eastern side of the rebel city. Before long, it became apparent to Belisarius that the Romans were going to get closer to Ranapur than they ever had been before. With some difficulty, the general managed to maintain an air of casual interest. He was pleased to note, however, from a glance over his shoulder, that his cataphracts were closely scrutinizing the scene. Menander was muttering softly, a habit which the young soldier had whenever he was determined to commit something to memory.

  Soon, from a distance, Belisarius was able to discern an enormous pavilion on a small slope directly east of the city. The pavilion was located just barely out of catapult range. Apparently, Emperor Skandagupta intended to witness the fall of Ranapur as closely as possible.

  Belisarius had never been able to observe the siege on this side of the city. Always, he had been restricted to the southern wall. But he had long suspected, from the sound of the cannonades, that it was on the east that the Malwa had brought their greatest strength to bear. As they drew nearer, it became obvious that his supposition was accurate. The great brick wall surrounding Ranapur was nothing but a shattered mound, here. The cannonades had reduced it to a ridge of rubble.

  A huge army was assembling on the plain before that ridge of shattered brickwork, preparing for the final assault. Regular Malwa infantry, in the main, with Ye-tai shock troops to stiffen their resolve. The Ye-tai detachments were assembled in the rear of the regular infantry. Their job, obviously, was not to lead the charge, but to see to it that the common soldiers did not falter in their duty.

  There were very few Rajputs anywhere to be seen. Belisarius began to make some remark to that effect, but Sanga interrupted him brusquely.

  "We have been assigned other duties. All Rajput cavalrymen, except your escort and a few couriers, have been charged with the task of patrolling the outskirts of the city. To capture any rebels attempting to escape their doom."

  "Ah," said Belisarius. A quick glance at Sanga's dark, tight-lipped face, then: "A brilliant maneuver, that—to use your best troops to mop up after a great victory which hasn't actually been won yet. Although, of course, the victory has been decreed." He scratched his chin. "I am ashamed to admit that I myself, military simpleton that I am, have always been prone to using my best troops in the battle itself."

  Again, Sanga barked a few laughs. "I, too! Ah, Belisarius, we are but children at the feet of a master." He shook his head. "Truly, Lord Harsha's name belongs in the company of such as Alexander the Great and Ashoka."

  "Truly," agreed Belisarius. The Roman general scanned the battleground. To his experienced eye, it was obvious that the Malwa had long been preparing for this massive assault on the eastern wall of the city.

  "I see that Lord Harsha places no great store in surprise and deception," he commented.

  Sanga's lips curled. "Such methods are beneath Lord Harsha's contempt," he replied acidly. "The tactics of bandits, he has been heard to call them."

  For a moment, the Roman and Rajput generals stared at each other. Both smiled, then, faintly but quite warmly, before Sanga sighed and looked away.

  "But, then, he is a very great man and does not care to stoop," the Rajput murmured. A shrug. "And, with the enormous force at his disposal, he does not perhaps need to."

  They were now but two hundred yards from the Malwa emperor's gigantic pavilion. Skandagupta's camp headquarters, to Belisarius, seemed like something out of fable. He had never seen its like before, on a field of battle. Not even the haughtiest Persian emperor—not even the ancient Xerxes or Darius—had ever brought such an incredible structure to the clash of armies.

  The pavilion rose a full sixty feet in the air, suspended on ten enormous poles—upended logs, rather. A multitude of inch-thick hawsers, stretching tightly in every direction, anchored the poles to the ground. The fabric of the tent itself was cotton—not even the ruler of Malwa could afford that much silk—but all of the many canopies which provided entry into the pavilion were made of silk, as were their tassels and cords. And the cotton of the tent was marvelously dyed, not in simple swaths and colors, but in complex geometric designs and subtle shades.

  A small squad of Ye-tai began to approach them on horseback. From their gaudy uniforms and the red and gold pennants trailing their lances, Belisarius recognized them as members of the Emperor's personal bodyguard. Eight thousand strong, that bodyguard was reputed to be—although, from his quick assessment, Belisarius did not think there were more than half that many present on the scene.

  At that moment, drums began sounding the signal for the advance. The front line of Malwa infantrymen began a slow, undulating movement. The advance was ragged, not so much due to indiscipline as to the simple fact that the ground was so chewed up by trenches and artillery fire that it was impossible for the Malwa soldiers to maintain an even line. The enormous mass of the army added to the confusion. Belisarius estimated that there were perhaps as many as forty thousand infantrymen in that slow-moving charge, with an additional five thousand Ye-tai barbarians bringing up the rear.

  About three-fourths of the Malwa soldiers stumbling across that terrain were armed with traditional hand weapons. Most of the infantrymen favored spears and swords, although some were armed with battle-axes and maces.

  Belisarius knew from his prior observations that these weapons would be cheap and poorly made, as would be their armor. The Ye-tai who chivvied those Malwa common troops were equipped with mail tunics and conical iron helmets. But the infantrymen themselves were forced to make do with leather half-armor reinforced with scale mail on the shoulders. Their helmets were not much more than leather caps, although the scale mail reinforcement was a bit less frugal than with their armor. The difference in shields was also striking. The Ye-tai shields, like Roman shields, were sturdy laminated wood reinforced with iron rims and bosses. The shields of the common Malwa troops, on the other hand, were almost pitiful: wicker frames, covered with simple leather.

  Outside of the mass of troops carrying traditional weapons, however, Belisarius noted that the remainder were divided evenly between soldiers carrying ladders and scaling equipment, and grenadiers armed with a handful of the pestle-shaped Malwa grenades. This would be the Romans' first opportunity to observe grenades in action, and Belisarius was determined to make the most of the opportunity.

  Belisarius and Rana Sanga stopped to watch the advance. Out of the corner of his eye, Belisarius saw that the oncoming Ye-tai patrol had stopped also. But he paid them little attention, for his interest was riveted on the battleground. He was struck again by the well-worn and oft-trampled nature of the terrain. Obviously, the siege here had been long, arduous, and filled with no surprises. It was exactly the kind of siege terrain that offended his craftsman's instincts, and he found his mind toying with the alternate methods that he would have tried had he been in charge of the siege.

  Or of the forces defending the city.

  A thought came to him then, a half-formed idea born of old experience and newly-acquired knowledge. He turned to Sanga.

  "Didn't you tell me, a few days ago, that Ranapur is a mining province?"

  Sanga nodded. "Yes. Almost a third of the empire's copper is mined here."

  Belisarius squinted at the terrain over which the Malwa army was making its slow way. He noted that the rebels were not meeting the oncoming advance with catapult fire. That was odd, on the face of it. The vague thought in his mind began to crystallize.

  Sanga noticed his companion's sudden preoccupation.

  "You are thinking something, Belisarius. May I ask what it is?"

  Belisarius hesitated a moment. For all that he liked Sanga, the Rajput was, after all, a future enemy. On the other hand—for the moment, the fate of Belisarius a
nd his men was bound up with that of the Rajputs.

  "Forgive my saying so, Rana Sanga, but I have found that your Malwa siege techniques are a bit—how shall I put?—simple, perhaps, by Roman standards. I suspect it is because most of your wars have been fought in this huge river valley. I do not think you have our experience with campaigns in mountainous country."

  Sanga tugged his beard, thinking. "That's quite possibly true. I have never observed Roman sieges, of course. But it is certainly true one of the reasons the Maratha have always been such a thorn in our side is because of their rocky terrain, and their cunning use of hillforts. A siege in Majarashtra is always twice as difficult as a siege in the Ganges plain."

  He peered closely at the Roman. "You suspect something," he announced.

  Again, Belisarius hesitated. He was watching the Malwa advance intently. The first line of the infantrymen was now almost halfway across the five hundred yards of no-man's land which separated the Malwa front trenches from the wall of Ranapur. Still, there was no catapult fire.

  Belisarius straightened.

  "Three factors strike me as significant here, Rana Sanga. One, the rebels have experienced miners in their ranks. Two, they have known for weeks—if not months—that the main assault would come here. Lord Harsha has obviously made no attempt to feint elsewhere. Three, there is no catapult fire—as if they were hoarding their remaining gunpowder."

  He scratched his chin. "Now that I think about it, in fact, it seems to me that the rebel catapult fire has been very sporadic for several days, now. Let me ask you—do you know if Lord Harsha has had sappers advancing counter-mines?"

  The answer was obvious from the blank look on the Rajput's face.

  Belisarius still hesitated. The suspicion taking shape in his mind was incomplete, uncertain—as much guesswork as anything else. The capabilities of gunpowder, and the permutations of its use on a battlefield, were still new and primarily theoretical for him. He was not even sure if—

  The facets erupted in a shivering frenzy. Human battlegrounds, for Aide, were an entirely theoretical concept. (An utterly bizarre one, besides, to its crystalline consciousness.) But now, finally, the strange idea forming in Belisarius' mind gelled enough for Aide to grasp its shape. A knowledge of all history ruptured through the serried facets.

  Danger! Danger! The siege of Petersburg! The battle of the Crater!

  Belisarius almost gasped at the force of the vision which plumed into his mind.

  A tunnel—many tunnels—underground, shored with wooden beams and planks. Men in blue uniforms with stubby caps were placing cases filled with sticks—not sticks, some kind of gunpowder devices—along every foot of those tunnels. Stacking them, one atop the other. Laying fuses. Leaving.

  Above. Soldiers wearing grey uniforms atop ramparts.

  Below. Fuses burning.

  Above. Armageddon came.

  Belisarius began dismounting from his horse. He glanced at his cataphracts and made a little gesture with his head. Immediately, the three Thracians followed their general's lead. Fortunately, the Romans were only wearing half-armor. Had they been encumbered with full cataphract paraphernalia, they would have found it difficult to dismount unassisted, and impossible to do it swiftly.

  "I may be wrong, Rana Sanga," he said quietly, "but I would strongly urge you to dismount your men. If I were the rebel commander of Ranapur, I would have riddled that no-man's land with mines and crammed them full of every pound of gunpowder I had left."

  Rana Sanga stared at the battleground. The entire mass of Malwa infantry were now jammed into a space about a mile and a half wide and not more than two hundred yards deep. All semblance of dressed lines had vanished. The advancing army was little more than a disordered mob, now. In the rear, Ye-tai warriors were trotting back and forth, forcing the stragglers forward. Their efforts served only to increase the confusion.

  It was a perfect target for catapult fire. There was no catapult fire.

  Sanga's dusky face paled slightly. He turned in the saddle and began shouting orders at his cavalrymen. Surprised, but well-disciplined, his men obeyed him instantly. Within ten seconds, all five hundred Rajput horsemen were standing on the ground, holding their mounts by the reins.

  Belisarius saw the small Ye-tai cavalry troop staring at them with puzzlement. The Ye-tai leader frowned and began to shout something.

  His words were lost. The world ended.

  Belisarius was hurled to the ground. A rolling series of explosions swept the battlefield. Even at a distance, the sound was more like a blow than a noise. Lying on his side, staring toward Ranapur, he saw the entire Malwa army disappear in a cloud of dust. Streaking through the dust, shredding soldiers, were a multitude of objects. Most of those missiles, he realized dimly, were what Aide called shrapnel. But the force of the explosions was so incredible that almost anything became a deadly menace.

  Still half-stunned, Belisarius watched a shield—a good Ye-tai shield, a solid disk of wood rimmed with iron—sail across the sky like a discus hurled by a giant. The Ye-tai cavalry who had been approaching them were still trying to control their rearing mounts. The spinning shield decapitated their commander as neatly as a farmwife beheads a chicken. An instant later, the entire troop of Ye-tai horsemen was struck down by a deluge of debris.

  Debris began falling among the Rajputs and Romans. Casualties here were relatively light, however, mainly because the men were already dismounted and were able to fall to the ground before the projectiles arrived. Most of the injuries which the Rajputs suffered were due to the trampling hooves of terrified and injured horses.

  After that first moment of shock, Belisarius found his wits rapidly returning.

  The first law of gunpowder warfare, he mused. Stay low to the ground.

  More debris rained down on him. He curled into a ball, hiding as much of himself as possible under his shield.

  Very low.

  It felt as if a tribe of dwarves was hammering him with mallets.

  I wish I had a hole to hide in. Or a shovel to dig one.

  Aide: They will be called foxholes. Soldiers will dig them as automatically as they breathe.

  Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

  I believe you. He tried to visualize the shovels.

  Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

  Aide brought an image into his mind. A small spade, hinged at the joint where the blade met the handle. Easily carried in a soldier's kit.

  Thumpthumpthumpthump. Thumpthump.

  The first thing we'll start making when we get back to Rome.

  Thump. Thump. Thump. THUMP.

  The very first thing.

  The explosions ceased. Cautiously he raised his head. Then he levered himself out from under his soil-and-stone-covered shield. Grimacing, he brushed a piece of bloody gore off his leg.

  He looked to his cataphracts. All three, he saw with relief, were also rising to their feet. None of them seemed injured, beyond a dazed look in their eyes. Menander's horse was lying nearby, kicking feebly. From the look of the poor beast, Belisarius thought the mare had broken her neck falling to the ground. The Romans' other horses were gone—part of the frenzied herd stampeding eastward, he assumed. Looking around, he saw that none of the Rajputs had been able to retain control of their mounts. Most of them, he suspected, had not even tried. And those few who had tried had probably been trampled for their pains.

  A few feet away, he saw Rana Sanga rise from under his own shield and stagger to his feet. But most of his attention was directed toward the battleground, where the incredible explosions had been centered.

  Before, that landscape had been grim. A barren terrain, carved with trenches and earthworks, pocked with small craters from catapult bombs. Now it looked like something out of nightmare, as if the gods had chosen to dig enormous holes and fill them with corpses.

  Bodies, bodies, bodies. Pieces of bodies. Pieces of pieces of bodies. Pieces that were utterly unidentifiable, except for their red color. Flesh shre
dded beyond all recognition.

  To his amazement, however, Belisarius saw that many of the Malwa soldiers had survived the holocaust. Within seconds, in fact, as he watched the writhing mass of bodies, he realized that well over half of them had survived—although many of them were injured, most were dazed, and, he strongly suspected, all of them were deafened. His own hearing, from the ringing in his ears, was only half-returned.

  I can't believe anyone survived that.

  A cold thought from Aide:

  This is typical. It will be extraordinary how many humans will survive incredible bombardment.

  Image:

  Men in uniform, steel-helmeted. An enormous mass of them, charging across a landscape like the one below him. They were carrying weapons which Belisarius knew were rifles armed with bayonets. In addition to their weapons, they were staggering under an insane weight of equipment. Belisarius recognized grenades, ammunition pouches, food and water containers, shovels, and bizarre mask-looking objects he did not know. Their ranks were shredded by an uncountable number of explosions. The carnage was like nothing he had ever seen, for all his experience of war. Still they charged. Still they charged. Still they charged.