Fortune's stroke

Chapter 34

Charax

Autumn, 532 A.D.

Belisarius peered between the shields which Anastasius and Gregory were holding up to shelter him. They themselves were crouching far enough below the battlements to be protected from the swarm of incoming arrows, but Belisarius had insisted on observing the siege personally. That meant sticking his head up, despite the unanimous disapproval of his officers.

"You were right, Gregory," he murmured. "They'll have their siege guns ready by tomorrow evening. But no sooner. As it is, they'll have to work through the night. If they try to fire them now, before they've laid stone platforms, the recoil will probably spill the guns."

Gregory refrained from any comment. Maurice, in his place, would have already been uttering sarcastic phrases. I told you so would have had been cheerfully tossed with What? I am blind? and A commanding general has to risk his neck to play scout?

But Maurice had a unique relationship with Belisarius. Gregory did not feel himself in a position to reprove his general. Even if the damned fool did insist on taking needless risks.

Belisarius ducked below the ramparts. Gregory and Anastasius lowered their shields, sighing with relief.

"We could sally," said Gregory. "Try to spike the guns. Probably couldn't get close enough, but we might be able to fire the carriages."

Belisarius shook his head. "It'd be pure suicide. The main body of the Malwa army hasn't arrived yet, but there are at least thirty thousand men out there. Ye-tai and Kushans, most of them, along with a few Rajput cavalry contingents."

Belisarius shook his head again. The gesture was almost idle, however. Most of the general's mind seemed to be concentrated elsewhere.

"Not a chance, Gregory. Not even if we sallied with every man we've got. The Malwa know as well as we do that those guns are the key to smashing their way into Charax quickly. That's why they cannibalized most of their supply ships in order to get them down here as quickly as they could. They probably hope they might retake the city before we destroy it completely."

Belisarius fell silent. His eyes were now turned completely away from the enemy beyond the walls. He was studying the interior of Charax. The city, like most great ports, was a labyrinth. Other than the docks themselves and the small imperial quarter where, in times past, the Persian viceroys had held court, Charax was a jumbled maze of narrow streets. At one time, from what he could tell, the city had been blessed with a few small squares and plazas. But over the years, the necessities and realities of commerce had made themselves felt. Charax was a city of tenements, warehouses, bazaars, entrepots, hostels, inns, brothels, and a multitude of other buildings designed for handling sailors and their cargoes. The construction, throughout, was either mud brick or simple fill, plastered with gypsum.

Rubble, in short, just waiting to happen.

"If we can keep it from burning. ." he mused. His thoughts ranged wide, traversing the centuries which Aide had shown him.

You are thinking of Stalingrad.

Belisarius scratched his chin. Yes, Aide. How long did Chuikov's men hold out, in the ruins? Before the counteroffensive was finally launched?

Longer than we will need. Fighting street by street is the most difficult combat imaginable, if you are not concerned with saving the city.

Belisarius grinned. The feral expression would have been worthy of Valentinian.

I'm planning to wreck it anyway. I was going to do it all at once, when we left. But there's no reason not to make a gala affair out of the business. Why settle for an evening ball, when you can hold dances every night? For weeks, if need be.

He made his decision, and turned to Gregory.

"How long would it take you to turn the siege guns around? Our siege guns, I mean-the ones facing the sea from the south wall. I want them facing into the city."

Gregory started. "What about-?" The cataphract paused. His eyes went to the south. From his elevation, on the ramparts of the northern wall, Gregory could see all the way across the city to the harbor beyond. The twenty Malwa galleys patrolling just outside the range of the seaward siege guns were clearly visible.

Gregory answered his own question. "Guess we don't really need them, against the galleys." He frowned for a moment or two, thinking.

"I'd need at least three days, general. Probably four, maybe five." Apologetically: "The things are huge. The only reason we could do it at all, in less than two weeks, is because I can use the dockside cranes-"

Belisarius patted his arm. "Five days is fine, Gregory. Take a week. You'll need to build new ramparts, don't forget. Protecting them from fire coming from inside the city."

Gregory's eyes widened. "You're going to let them in!"

Belisarius nodded. "They'll breach the walls, anyway, once the siege guns start firing. Rather than waste men trying to hold the wall against impossible odds, we'll just let them come in. Then-" He pointed to the rabbit warren of the city. "The more walls and buildings they shatter, the worse it'll get for them. We can set mines and booby traps everywhere. We'll retreat through the city, day after day, destroying it as we go. The Malwa will have to charge cataphracts and musketeers across the worst terrain I can think of. By the time they pin us on the docks, they'll have lost thousands of men. Tens of thousands, more like."

For a moment, Belisarius' normally calm face was set in lines of savage iron. "Even if Antonina never arrives, and we die here, I intend to gut this Malwa beast. One way or the other."

He rose up, in a half-crouch. "Let's do it," he commanded. "I'll have Felix replace you in command of the pikemen. He's due for another promotion, anyway. You concentrate on the siege guns. Once we get them turned around, it'll be the Malwa facing cannister. They'll never be able to get their own siege guns into the rubble."

Gregory studied the far-distant southern walls of the city, facing the sea. "They'll still have the range-"

Belisarius snorted. "With what kind of accuracy? Sure, a few rounds will hit the harbor. But most of them will miss, and those guns take forever to reload. Whereas the farther back they push us, the closer they get to our own artillery."

Gregory's grin became feral. "Yeah, they will. And before they get into cannister range-you know that idea you had, about chain shot?"

Belisarius had intended to leave immediately. But the enthusiasm on the gunnery officer's face was irresistible. And so, for a few pleasant minutes, a general and his subordinate discussed murder and mayhem. With great relish, if the truth be told.

Aide kept out of the discussion, more or less, other than the occasional remark.

Unwanted remarks, so far as Belisarius was concerned. He thought: How did we crystals ever emerge from such protoplasmic thugs? was snide. And Can't we just learn to get along? positively grotesque.

By the morning of the tenth day, the Malwa siege guns had completed their work of destruction. A stretch of Charax's northern wall two hundred yards wide was nothing but rubble. Twenty thousand Ye-tai stormed out of their trenches a quarter of a mile away and charged the breach. Squads of Kushans were intermingled with the Ye-tai battalions, guarding other squads of kshatriya grenadiers.

"They've finally learned," commented Maurice, studying the oncoming horde through a slit window. He was squatting next to Belisarius in a tower, less than two hundred yards from what had been Charax's northern wall. The elevated position gave both men a clear view of the battleground.

Belisarius was still breathing heavily from the exertion of his climb up the narrow stairs. He had arrived at the top of the tower just seconds earlier. Maurice had flatly refused to allow him up until the siege guns had ceased firing. The chiliarch hadn't wanted to risk a stray round killing the Roman commander.

Belisarius had tried to argue the point with his nominal subordinate, but Maurice had refused to budge. More to the point, Anastasius had refused to budge. The giant had made clear, in simple terms, that he was quite prepared to enforce Maurice's wishes by the crude expedient of picking Belisarius up and holding him off the ground.

"What's happening?" demanded Belisarius. The general put his eye to another window. For a moment, he was disoriented by the narrow field of vision. The slit window had been designed for archers. At one time, until Charax expanded, the tower he was perched in had been part of the city's original defensive walls.

"They've finally learned," repeated Maurice. He poked a stubby finger into the window slit. "Look at them, lad. The Ye-tai are leading the charge now, instead of driving regulars forward. And they're using Kushans as light infantry to cover the grenadiers." After a moment, he grunted: "Good formation. Same way I'd do it, without musketeers."

He turned and grinned at the general. "I'll bet that monster Link is kicking itself in its old woman's ass. Wishing it hadn't screwed up with the muskets."

Belisarius returned the grin. Three days before, in one of the warehouses by the docks, the Roman soldiers had found two hundred crates full of muskets. The weapons were still covered with grease, protecting them from the salt air of their sea voyage.

The Malwa Empire had finally produced handcannons, clear enough. And, just as clearly, hadn't gotten them to Mesopotamia in time to do Link any good. Belisarius suspected that Link had intended to start training a force of musketeers. Three of the crates had been opened, and the weapons cleaned. But the gunpowder hadn't arrived in Charax yet. At least, the Roman soldiers investigating the warehouses and preparing them for demolition hadn't discovered any.

The best laid plans of mice and men, said Aide. I guess it applies to gods, too.

Belisarius smiled. The muskets were all lying underwater, now, in Charax's harbor. The Roman musketeers had taken one look at the things and pronounced them unfit for use. Too crude. Too poorly made. Most of all-not our stuff. Furrin' junk.

In truth, Belisarius hadn't thought the Malwa devices were much inferior to Roman muskets. But he had allowed the musketeers their pleasant hour, pitching "furrin' junk" into the sea. He had as many muskets as he needed, anyway, and the escape ships would be crowded enough already. There were at least six thousand Persian civilians to be evacuated, along with the Roman troops.

The first wave of Ye-tai was already clambering over the rubbled wall. Volleys of grenades were sailing over their heads, clearing the way.

There was no way to be cleared, however. As soon as the siege guns began firing, Maurice had pulled back the troops on the wall. Those soldiers had long since taken up new positions.

"When?" asked Maurice.

Belisarius studied the assault through the slit window. What had been the northern wall was now an ant heap, swarming with Ye-tai. The soldiers were making slow progress, stumbling over the broken stones, but at least five hundred were now into the level ground inside the city.

If the Ye-tai hadn't been seized by the fury of their charge, they might have wondered about that level ground. An area fifty yards wide, just within the northern wall, had been cleared by Belisarius' troops. "Cleared," in the sense that the buildings had been hastily knocked apart. The sun-dried bricks hadn't been hauled away, simply spread around. The end result was a field of stones and wall stumps, interspersed with small mounds of mud brick.

They might have wondered about those mounds, too. But they would have no time to do so.

There were now at least a thousand Ye-tai packed into the level ground, along with perhaps two hundred Kushans and kshatriyas. The Malwa soldiers were advancing toward the first line of still-intact buildings. They were moving more slowly now, alert for ambush. Kshatriya grenadiers began tossing grenades into the first buildings.

"Now," said Belisarius. Maurice whistled. A moment later, the small squad of cornicenes in a lower level of the tower began blowing their horns. The sound, confined within the stone walls of the tower, had an odd timbre. But the soldiers waiting understood the signal.

Dozens of fuses were lit. Fast-burning fuses, these. Three seconds later, the holocaust began.

The mud brick mounds scattered everywhere erupted, as the huge amphorae buried within them were shattered by explosive charges. The amphorae-great two-handled jugs-had been designed to haul grain. But they held naphtha just as nicely.

Some of the jugs were set afire by the explosions. Mud brick mounds became blooming balls of flame and fury, incinerating the soldiers crowded around them.

Most of the jugs did nothing more than shatter, spilling their contents. The naphtha they contained was crude stuff. Undistilled, and thick with impurities. Explosive charges alone were not usually enough to set it aflame. But the charges did send clouds of vapor and streams of smelly naphtha spewing in all directions. Within seconds, most of the Malwa soldiers packing the level ground were coated with the substance.

The next round of charges went off. Mines, disguised with rubble, had been laid against the walls of the nearest tenement buildings. They had been manufactured over the past few days by Roman troops working in the harbor's warehouses, smithies and repair shops.

The mines, too, were crude. Not much more than buckets, really, packed with explosives and laid on their sides. Some were copper kettles, but most were simply amphorae reinforced with iron hoops. Wooden lids held the charges from spilling out.

These mines were designed for incendiary purposes. As soon as the charges in the bases of the buckets were fired, combustible materials saturated with distilled naphtha spewed forth. Hundreds-thousands-of burning objects rained all over the ground before them, igniting the crude naphtha which already saturated the area.

Within seconds, hundreds of Malwa troops had been turned into human torches. All other sounds were submerged under a giant's scream.

"Jesus," whispered Maurice, peering through the slit. "Jesus, forgive us our sins."

Belisarius, after a few seconds, turned away. His face seemed set in stone.

"That should stop the charge," he said. "From now on, they'll advance like snails."

Maurice's gaze was still fixed on the human conflagration below. It could not be said that he turned pale, but his cheeks were drawn. He hissed a slow breath between clenched teeth.

Then, with a quick, harsh shake of the head, he too turned away.

He glanced at Belisarius. "Snails? They'll advance like trees growing roots, more like." Again, hissing: "Jesus."

* * *

Musketeers began to clamber onto the tower platform and take their places at the arrow slits. Belisarius and Maurice edged through the soldiers and started descending the stairs. Both men were silent.

Vocally, at least. Trying to shake off the horror, Belisarius spoke to Aide.

That was what you meant, isn't it?

Aide understood the question. His mind and Belisarius', over the years, had entwined their own roots.

Yes. Wars of the future will not really be civilized, even when the Geneva Convention is followed. More antiseptic, perhaps, in the sense that men can murder each other at a distance, where they can't see the face of the enemy. But, if anything, I think that makes war even more inhumane.

It did not seem strange-neither to the man nor the crystal-that Aide should use the word "inhumane" as he did. From the "inside," so to speak. Nor did it seem strange that, having used the word, Aide should also accept the consequence. If there had been any accusation in the word, it had been aimed as much at himself as the men who fired the naphtha. Had it not been Aide, after all, who showed Belisarius the claymore mines of the future?

The question of Aide's own humanity had been settled. The Great Ones had created Aide and his folk, and given them the name of "people." But, as always, that was a name which had to be established in struggle. Aide had claimed his humanity, and that of his crystal clan in the human tribe, in the surest and most ancient manner.

He had fought for it.