Fortune's stroke

Chapter 27

The Tigris

Autumn, 532 A.D.

"You seem unhappy, Sanga," commented Damodara. "Why is that?"

The Malwa lord had drawn up his horse next to the Rajput king, on a slope of the foothills. Damodara gestured at the floodplain below them. A large river was clearly visible, a few miles in the distance, wending its slow way to the sea. "I should think you'd be delighted at the sight of the Tigris. Finally."

Rana Sanga rubbed the scar on his left cheek. Then, realizing what he was doing, drew away the hand. He was a king of Rajputana. Battle scars should be ignored with dignity.

Still frowning, Sanga twisted in his saddle and stared back at the mountains. The peaks of the Zagros front range loomed behind them, like unhappy giants. They, too, seemed creased with worry.

"Something's wrong," he muttered. Sanga brought his gaze back, staring down at the slope before them. The rolling ground was sprinkled with Rajput cavalrymen. Each cavalry platoon was accompanied by a Pathan tracker, but the presence of the trackers was redundant. The huge trail left by the Roman army would have been obvious-quite literally-to a blind man. Ten thousand horses, and as many pack mules, tear up soil like a Titan's plow.

"Why do you say that?" asked Damodara. "Are you still concerned that our advance scouts haven't made contact with Belisarius?" The Malwa lord shrugged. "I don't find that odd. Once Belisarius made the decision to retreat into Mesopotamia, he had every reason to move as quickly as possible. We, on the other hand, have been moving cautiously and slowly. He might have been laying an ambush."

Damodara pointed to the floodplain, sweeping his hand in a wide arc. "There's no way to set an ambush there, Rana Sanga. That land is as flat as a board. You can see for miles."

The Malwa commander eased back in his saddle. "We don't know where he is, that is true. Ctesiphon. More likely Peroz-Shapur. Somewhere else, perhaps. But that he is in the floodplain cannot be doubted. You could hardly ask for a clearer trail."

Sanga's lips twisted. "No, you couldn't. And that's exactly what bothers me." Again, he twisted in the saddle, staring back at the mountains. "In my experience, Lord Damodara, Belisarius is most to be feared when he seems most obvious."

Damodara felt a moment's irritation at Sanga's stubborn gloom, but he squelched it. He had learned not to dismiss Sanga's presentiments. The Rajput king, for all his aristocratic trappings, had the combat instincts of a wild animal. The man was as fearless as a tiger, but without a tiger's assumption of supremacy.

Damodara almost laughed at the image which came to him. A mouse the size of a tiger, with a tiger's fangs and claws, wearing Sanga's frowning face. Furious worry; fretting courage.

Sanga was still staring at the mountains. "I cannot help remembering," he said slowly, "another trail left by Belisarius." He jerked his head slightly, motioning to the floodplain below. "Just as obvious as that one."

He settled himself firmly in the saddle. Then, turning to Damodara, he said: "I would like your permission to retrace our steps. I would need several of my Pathan trackers and my own clansmen. You can spare five hundred cavalrymen for two weeks."

For the first time, a little smile came to Sanga's face. "For what it's worth, I don't think you need fear an ambush." The smile vanished. "I have a feeling that Belisarius is hunting larger game than us."

Frowning with puzzlement, Damodara cocked his head southward. "The only bigger game is Great Lady Holi's army." The Malwa lord, in Sanga's presence, did not bother with the fiction that Great Lady Holi was simply accompanying the Malwa Empire's main force in Mesopotamia. Sanga knew as well as Damodara that "Great Lady Holi" was a human shell. Within the exterior of an old woman rested the divine creature from the future named Link. Link, and Link alone, commanded that huge army.

"There are more than a hundred and fifty thousand men in that army, Rana Sanga," protested Damodara. "Even now that they have left the fortifications of Charax, and are marching north along the Euphrates, they can have nothing to fear from Belisarius. Military genius or not, the man's army is simply too small to threaten them."

Sanga shrugged. "I do not claim to have any answers, Lord Damodara. But I am almost certain that that"-he pointed to the trail left by the Roman army-"is a knife-cut on a horse's hoof."

Damodara did not understand the last remark, but he did not press Sanga for an explanation. Nor did he withhold his permission. Why should he? On the open plain, Belisarius posed no real threat to his army either. He could afford, for two weeks, to lose the services of Rana Sanga and five hundred Rajput cavalrymen.

"Very well," he said. Damodara paused, rubbing his lower back. "Probably just as well. The army is weary. While you're gone, we'll make camp by the Tigris. After six months of campaigning, the soldiers could use some rest."