The tide of victory

Chapter 17

The interior of the bow shield, despite its small apertures, was suddenly filled with the reflected light of the fire cannon's effects. Antonina realized, even before she heard Eusebius' shout of triumph, that the very first blast must have struck the target perfectly.

"Like painting with fire!" shrieked Eusebius gleefully. "Look at it burn!"

Before his last words were even spoken, the sound of screams came through the shield, piercing Antonina's ears.

Mahaveda priests who had been positioned at the bow, she realized. Suddenly turned into so many human torches.

For all the horror in the thought, Antonina felt not even a twinge of remorse. Truth be told, with a few exceptions such as Bishop Anthony Cassian-Patriarch Anthony, he was now-Antonina had never been fond of any kind of priest, even Christian ones. She had been denounced by such too many times, in her reprobate youth.

Mahaveda priests had all the vices of any clerics, and none of their virtues. Their cult was a bastard and barbaric offshoot of Hinduism, more savage than that of any pagan tribe, and with the added evil which the sophistication of civilized India provided.

Burn in hell, then. As far as Antonina was concerned, the Mahaveda priests were finding their just reward.

During the few seconds which had elapsed, Eusebius and his cannon crew had been working feverishly. The cannon's fire-chamber was refilled; the sailor pumping the lever ceased abruptly; the valve was reopened by his mate. In those few seconds, Antonina realized, the Victrix must have carried alongside the Circe's beam.

"Again!" cried Eusebius. Ignition.

Another flare filled the interior of the bow shield, brighter this time. Antonina knew in the instant that the hideous weapon had struck true yet again. More screaming filtered through the shield. Less distant.

She heard Ousanas mutter: "They'll be coming now. No choice." The aqabe tsentsen, still standing in the rear entrance of the shield, hefted his great spear.

Antonina's gaze was torn away from Eusebius and his men working at the cannon. For the first time, through the opening in the rear, she was able to see the destruction wreaked by the fire cannon. The Circe slid into view. The bow of the Greek merchant vessel seized by the Malwa was wreathed in flames. Even as she watched, a Mahaveda priest-she assumed it was a priest; hard to tell, from the way he was burning-stumbled on the railing and plunged into the sea.

"Again!" Ignition. Another flare. Most of the starboard side of the enemy vessel, Antonina realized, was now a raging inferno. More of the Circe slid into her view.

She hissed. Whether through deliberate effort or simply accident, the two ships were almost touching. Not more than five or six feet separated them-close enough to pose the danger of fire spreading.

A slight motion caught her eye. Antonina saw that Ousanas was shifting his stance. Clearly enough, the African was getting ready to fight.

For a moment, Antonina was puzzled. Granted, the deck of the Circe was level with that of the Victrix. Granted, also, the two ships were close enough for boarders to leap across. But-

What enemy could possibly hurl their bodies through that inferno?

The answer came almost as soon as the question.

Mahaveda priests.

Fanatics. This was a suicide mission in the first place.

Antonina scrambled to her knees and began opening the valise. Before she even managed to lay hands on her gun, she caught sight in the corner of her eye of the first priest leaping onto the Victrix.

The sight froze her, for an instant. The Mahaveda was like a demon-screaming and waving a sword-burning from head to foot. His garments were afire, and his face was already blackened and peeling away. She realized he must have been almost blind by now.

The priest managed to land on his feet. He stood for perhaps a second, before Ousanas leapt forward and decapitated him with a great sweep of his spear. The aqabe tsentsen was such a powerful man that he was quite capable of using that spear like a Goth barbarian would use a two-handed sword. The more so since the blade of the spear was a huge leaf, fully eighteen inches in length and as sharp as a razor.

Antonina started to rise, the gun in her hands, but Matthew shoved her back down with a hand on her shoulder.

"Stay here," he hissed. Then, as if realizing the pointlessness of that advice, the cataphract shook his head and added: "Just stay behind us, will you? Back us up if it's needed-but stay behind us."

That said, Matthew surged out of the bow shield. Leo had already charged onto the deck and was swinging his mace at another priest hurling himself through the flames. The heavy weapon, driven by Leo's great strength, swatted the priest back against the hull of the Circe. The Mahaveda seemed to stick there for a moment, before his body dropped into the small gap between the ships. Antonina could hear the simultaneous sound of a splash and a hiss. That priest's clothing had also been afire.

By the time Antonina got to her feet and came out of the bow shield, holding her double-barreled firearm, the battle on the deck was in full fury. What seemed like a horde of priests was pouring over the side, matched only by Ousanas and her two bodyguards.

Only.

Antonina almost burst into laughter. Only.

Three giants, great warriors one and all, matched against a tribe of troglodytes-all of whose experience at "combat" had been practiced in a torture chamber.

For a few seconds, she was mesmerized by the sight. Ousanas was in the middle, flanked by Leo and Matthew. His weapon flicked and stabbed like lightning, spearing one priest after another-half of them while still in midair. The aqabe tsentsen's skill was as great as his strength, too. Somehow he managed to land each strike without jamming the blade in bone or flesh. Most of the spear thrusts took the enemy in their throats, upending them into the sea while it spilled their lifeblood.

Matthew, with his spatha, and Leo, with his mace, made no attempt to match that precision. Nor had they any need to do so. Matthew's blade hacked bodies into pieces and Leo's warclub smashed them aside entirely.

Several of the Victrix's sailors were now rushing up, swords in hand, prepared to support the three men fending off the boarders. Antonina shouted-"Stay back! Stay back!"-and fiercely waved them away. The sailors would be more of a hindrance than a help, she knew. In those close quarters, they would simply be an obstruction to the fighting room needed by Ousanas and Leo and Matthew.

The urgency of that task brought home to Antonina that she, also, was not thinking clearly. The three men fighting off the boarders did not need her help so much as they needed her to take charge of the situation.

Quickly, she scanned the scene. The Malwa ship was now engulfed in flames. Clearly enough, the few priests she could see frantically trying to quell the fires would not succeed. The Circe was doomed. No chance that the Malwa could reach the harbor and blow it up.

The danger which did remain was that the flames would reach the powderkegs which Antonina was certain filled every inch of the Malwa ship's hold. Unless the Victrix was well away by that time, she and everyone on her would join the Malwa in the ensuing destruction.

True, that would take some time. Most of the now-roaring inferno came from burning sails and rigging, not the Circe's hull. By the time the fire burned through enough of the hull to reach the powderkegs, the Victrix could be a mile off.

Unless some priest realizes.

A vivid image flashed through her mind of a Mahaveda fanatic in the hold, bringing a torch to the powder. Fanatics. And it was a suicide mission, anyway.

She turned her head. Eusebius was no longer working at the fire cannon, but was staring at her. His face was as pale as Antonina suspected her own to be.

"Get us out of here!" she shouted.

Eusebius' face seemed to pale still further. He spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

Antonina cursed herself silently. She had forgotten that, taking charge of the fire cannon, Eusebius was no longer in control of the ship.

She turned back, facing the stern, her eyes seeking the helmsman. By now, the stern had drawn even with that of the Circe. Ousanas and the two cataphracts had kept moving aft down the side of the Victrix, fighting off the boarders doing the same on their own as the two ships passed each other. She saw two last boarders jump from stern to stern at the same instant that she spotted the helmsman of the Victrix.

The two priests went for the helmsman, but Ousanas intercepted them. A sweep and a thrust, and both Mahaveda were down. One dying on the deck, the other in the sea.

Antonina took no comfort at all from the sight. The fact that the priests had tried to kill the helmsman, while ignoring the onrushing Ousanas, suggested that the Mahaveda had already come to the same conclusion she had. No hope of accomplishing their original mission remained. That left. simply taking as many enemies with them as possible.

She started shouting at the helmsman, but broke off before uttering more than a few words. Clearly enough, the man understood the danger as well as she did. Nor, for that matter, was there much he could do that he wasn't doing already. The Victrix had been running before the wind as it was. No point in changing directions now.

She stared at the receding enemy ship. The Circe was no longer anything but a floating bonfire. There was not a chance that any man on her deck would still be alive within a minute or two. Nor, she thought-hoped-was there much chance that any of them would be able to fight their way across the deck to the hatchways leading to the hold.

That still left the possibility that at least one priest had stayed in the hold throughout the short battle, ready to ignite the powder if necessary.

Possibility?

Antonina winced. She was absolutely certain that a priest had been stationed there. Several of them, in fact-each one charged to make sure his fellows would not flinch at the very end when the time came to commit suicide. That had been the Mahaveda plan all along, after all. The only thing that had changed was that Antonina's intervention had prevented the Circe from reaching the harbor before they did so.

Ousanas trotted up to her, his spear trailing blood across the deck. "Only thing we can hope for is that they're still confused down there." Clearly enough, he had reached the same conclusion she had.

"One of the few times I've ever been glad those Mahaveda bastards are such fanatics," he said, grimly. "They'll be reluctant to blow it, not having reached their target. So until they're certain. "

She stared at him. Then, in a half-whisper: "They're bound to know that by now."

Ousanas shook his head. "Don't be too sure of that, Antonina. I got a better look at the conditions on the Circe than you did." He glanced at Eusebius, who had emerged from the bow shield and was charging back to the stern. The glance was very approving.

"That devil cannon of his must have hit them like a flood of fury. A tidal wave of fire and destruction. As confusing as it was horrible. I doubt the Malwa command structure survived more than a few seconds."

Again, he shook his head. "So. who knows? The priests in the hold may have been isolated from the beginning. And still don't know what's happening-and have no way of getting on deck to find out for themselves. Even Mahaveda fanatics will hesitate to kill themselves, when they're not sure what they'd be accomplishing by doing so."

Eusebius was shouting shrill orders. Some of the Victrix's sailors started dousing the stern of the ship with water kept in barrels. Others began dousing the rigging. That should have been done before the battle even started, Antonina realized. But everything had happened too quickly.

It was getting harder to see anything. The Circe was now two hundred yards away, and the fierce light cast by the burning ship was no longer enough to do more than vaguely illuminate the deck of her own ship. But there was still enough light for her to see that several of the sailors, apparently at Eusebius' command, were standing ready with hatchets and axes to cut away the Victrix's rigging.

"What are they doing?" she demanded. "The last thing we want is to lose our own sails."

Ousanas did not share her opinion. Instead, he growled satisfaction. "Smart man, Eusebius. He's figured out already that most of the explosives on board the Circe will be incendiaries." For a moment, he studied the ever more distant enemy ship. "We're far enough away, by now, that we can probably survive the actual shock of the explosion. But we'll soon be engulfed in fire ourselves. If we can cut away the rigging fast enough-that's what'll burn the worst-we might be able to keep the Victrix afloat. Maybe."

Something of Antonina's confusion must have shown in her face. Ousanas chuckled.

"Strange, really. You're normally so intelligent. Think, Antonina."

He pointed back at the Circe. The Malwa ship was no more than a bonfire in the distance, now. "Their plan was to blow it up in the harbor, right? In order to do what?"

She was still confused. Ousanas chuckled again.

"Think, woman! The Malwa aren't crazy, after all. Insanely fanatic, yes, but that's not the same thing as actual lunacy. The harbor itself-even the buildings surrounding it-is built far too solidly to be destroyed by any amount of gunpowder which could be stowed on a single ship. Which means that their real target was not the harbor but the ships in it. And the best way to destroy shipping is with flame."

Finally understanding his point, she heaved a small sigh of relief. She had been imagining the Malwa ship as a giant powderkeg, which, when it exploded, would produce a large enough concussion to shatter everything within half a mile at least. But if most of the explosives were designed as incendiaries.

Matthew and Leo came up, looming above her in the darkness. Ousanas placed his hands on Antonina's shoulders, turned her around-gently, but she could no more have resisted him than she could have a titan-and propelled her back into the bow shield.

"So you," he murmured cheerfully, "will ride out the coming firestorm in the safest place available."

Once they were inside the shelter, with Matthew and Leo crowding behind, he added even more cheerfully: "Me, too. The thought of losing Africa's future because of a damned Malwa plot is unbearable, don't you think?"

Antonina put her gun back in the valise and closed it. Then, still kneeling, she looked up at the aqabe tsentsen. As she expected, Ousanas was grinning from ear to ear.

She started to make some quip in response. Then Ousanas' figure was backlit by what seemed to be the end of the universe. Armageddon's fire and fury.

Fortunately, Ousanas was quick-thinking enough to kneel next to her and shelter her in his arms before the shock wave arrived. Matthew was quick-witted enough to start to do the same.

Leo, alas, had never been accused of quick-wittedness of any kind, save his animal reflexes in battle. So the concussion caught him standing, and sent him sprawling atop Ousanas and Matthew, with Antonina at the bottom of the pile.

But perhaps it was just as well. Antonina was too busy trying not to suffocate under the weight of three enormous men to feel any of the terror caused by the firestorm which followed.

* * *

The next morning, at daybreak, Roman galleys found the Victrix. The vessel was still afloat, but drifting helplessly in the sea. It had proved necessary to cut away all the rigging before the fire was finally brought under control. Most of the sailors had suffered bad burns-which two of them might not survive-but were otherwise unharmed.

The ship itself.

"It'll take us weeks to refit her," complained Eusebius, as he watched his sailors attach the tow rope thrown from one of the galleys.

"You don't have 'weeks,' " snarled Antonina. "Two weeks, the most."

Eusebius' eyes widened with surprise. "Two weeks? But our campaign's not supposed to start until-"

"Change of plans," snarled Antonina. She glared to the east. The direction of the Malwa enemy, of course. Also, the direction in which Belisarius' army was to be found, marching slowly toward the Indus.

"Assuming my husband listens to the voice of sweet wifely reason," she added. Still snarling.