Fortune's stroke

Chapter 43

The monster waited. Patiently, with the sureness of eternal life. Not its own-that was meaningless-but that of its masters.

Everything was finished, now, except revenge. The deck of the ship was a carrion-eater's paradise. Firing from the height of their own huge craft, with those powerful bows, the cataphracts had swept all life away. The kshatriyas at the rocket troughs, and their Ye-tai guards, were nothing but ripped meat.

No loss. The rocket volleys, in the short time they lasted, had been futile. The enormous vessel upon which the monster's great enemy came had simply shrugged off the missiles. There had not been many to shrug off, in any event. Most of the rockets had been taken into the hold. They would soon be put to better use.

The monster waited, satisfied. Next to it, squatting by the throne, an assassin held the gong which would give the signal to the priests waiting below. The creature, like the priests and the special guards, was a devotee of the monster's cult. The assassin, when the monster gave the order, would do his duty without fail.

The monster waited. Cold, cold. But, perhaps, somewhere in those depths, glowed an ember of hot glee.

The monster had been fighting its great enemy-its tormentor-for four years. Today, finally, it was going to kill it.

The monster idled away the time in memory. It remembered the trickery at Gwalior, and the cunning which crushed Nika. It remembered an army broken at Anatha, and another destroyed at the Nehar Malka. It remembered the catastrophe at Charax.

Come to me, Belisarius. Come to me.