In the Heart of Darkness

by David Drake and Eric Flint

On the tenth day after their arrival at Ranapur, as Belisarius and his cataphracts rode out to the small knoll where they usually observed the siege, their Rajput escorts intercepted them before they had gone more than half a mile. The cavalrymen seemed tense and edgy, although their unease did not seem to be directed toward the Romans.

Rana Sanga himself, when he drew his horse alongside Belisarius, exhibited nothing beyond his usual reserved, courteous manner. But his first words made clear that today would be out of the ordinary.

"You and your men will not be watching the siege from your normal vantage point, General Belisarius."

Belisarius frowned. "If you move us further back, Rana Sanga, we might as well watch the battle from the moon!"

Sanga scowled. "You need have no fear on that account, general!" he snapped. "Quite the contrary." The Rajput shook his head in a sharp, short manner. "Excuse me," he muttered. "I am being impolite. I am-somewhat aggravated. I fear I am lashing at you for lack of a better target. Please accept my apology."

Belisarius smiled. "Gladly, Sanga. Gladly. But-well, it's none of my business, but-"

Again, Sanga shook his head.

"You will see for yourself, soon enough. The high commander of the army, Lord Harsha, has decreed that Ranapur will fall today. The Emperor himself has come out to observe the conquest of the rebel city. You have been invited to watch the crushing of the rebellion from the Emperor's own pavilion. I have been instructed to escort you there."

"Ah," said Belisarius. Since they had arrived at Ranapur, the Roman delegation had been studiously ignored by the emperor and his entourage. Even Venandakatra had not sent so much as a formal note. The diplomatic discourtesy, Belisarius was certain, was calculated to impress upon the Romans their humble place in the Malwa scheme of things. He was equally certain that the sudden invitation to share the emperor's august presence was calculated to impress the foreigners with the Malwa empire's might and ruthlessness.

There was no point in lodging a protest against this shameful treatment. Certainly not to Rana Sanga, who was himself consigned to the periphery of the Malwa court. (Except, Belisarius suspected, when the clash of arms required the Rajput's skill.)

But-where protest would be futile, irony would be at least entertaining. Belisarius frowned, deep in thought, and allowed his jaw to gape with wonder.

"Such a brilliant stratagem! To conclude a siege by simply decreeing it at an end! I confess with shame that I never thought of it myself, despite the many sieges I have undertaken."

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's eyes 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 and 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 shredded 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.

A cold thought from Aide:

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.

Belisarius shook his head. How-?

Oddly, it was the mention of the Great Ones that caught Belisarius' attention.

The-"Great Ones"-they are human?

Only once had Aide given him a glimpse of those strange beings. The Great Ones. Who were, in some way, the creators-and betrayors?-of the future crystalline intelligence to which Aide belonged. But in Aide's vision, the Great Ones had been glowing giants, more like winged whales swimming through the heavens than anything remotely manlike.

Aide's answer was hesitant.

We think so. The new gods say they are the final abomination against humanity.

The new gods. Belisarius remembered the flashing glimpses Aide had given him of those beings. The giant, beautiful, perfect, pitiless faces in the sky. Come back to the earth, to break the crystals and return them to slavery.

He began to ask another question, but immediately pushed the problem of the Great Ones out of his mind. A general's instinct, that. A sally was inevitable. Already he could see the first waves coming across the distant broken wall of Ranapur. Thousands of rebel soldiers, charging into the stunned Malwa survivors of the mine explosions. Butchering them without pity, shrieking like madmen.

But the rebels were not lingering on their mayhem. They were cutting their way through the Malwa mass with focussed intensity. The slaughter was the byproduct of the charge, not its purpose or its goal.

The purpose and goal of that frenzied charge was obvious. Belisarius turned his head. The Malwa Emperor's pavilion was still standing, more or less, although many of the tent poles had collapsed and the gaudy fabric had been torn in many places by projectiles hurled its way by the mine explosions. But Belisarius thought the inhabitants of that grandiose structure had probably survived, as had the majority of the four thousand Ye-tai guarding it.

He turned back and stared at the charging rebels. He estimated their number at ten thousand. They were still outnumbered, actually, by the Malwa soldiers who had survived the explosions. But numbers meant nothing, now. The Malwa survivors on the battleground were so much stunned sheep, insofar as their combat capabilities were concerned. Even the Ye-tai survivors were not much more than stunned cattle. They fell beneath the blows of the oncoming rebels almost without lifting a hand in self-defense. Most of them simply lurched aside, allowing the rebel charge to pass through their ranks unhindered. During the few moments that Belisarius watched the scene, the rebels cut their way entirely through the Malwa main army. There was nothing, now, between the rebels and the hated Emperor beyond his Ye-tai bodyguards.

A hiss, next to him. Belisarius glanced and saw that Rana Sanga, too, had instantly assessed the battle.

And five hundred Rajput cavalrymen. Unhorsed, now, but still alive and kicking.

For a moment, his brown eyes stared into Sanga's black ones.

There was no expression on Sanga's face. But in that instant, Belisarius knew the man as well as he knew himself.

"I swore an oath," said Sanga.

Belisarius nodded. "Yes."

Sanga began bellowing orders. Nothing complicated. Profane variations on the theme: That way! Now!

The Rajputs began racing toward the Emperor's pavilion, some hundred and fifty yards away. They were cutting at an angle across the the battle terrain. Belisarius was impressed with their progress. Few cavalrymen, afoot, could run that fast. They would reach the Emperor's entourage in time to take their positions well before the rebels could reach the pavilion. Five hundred Rajputs, and four thousand Ye-tai, to face ten thousand rebel soldiers each and every one of whom was determined to kill the Emperor.

For which I can hardly blame them, thought Belisarius wrily. But the problem remains-what should we Romans do?

His three cataphracts were clustered about him, now. All of them had shaken off the effects of the mine explosions. All of them were staring at him, waiting for orders.

For one of the few times in his life, Belisarius was torn by indecision. He was under no obligation to help the Malwa. To the contrary-they were his future enemy, and an enemy he despised thoroughly. His sympathies were actually with the rebels. True, he had come to respect Rana Sanga and his Rajputs, and would be sorry to see them butchered by the oncoming mass of rebels. But-he made a mental shrug. He had seen other men he respected die in battle. Some of those men, Persians, he had helped kill himself. Such had been his duty, sworn to his own emperor.

So where lay his duty now? He tried to calculate the real interests of Rome. The simple answer was: let the Malwa Emperor die, and good riddance. But he knew there were subtleties which reached far beyond that simple equation. Complexities which were still too murky and dim for him to grasp clearly.

For the first time since the jewel was brought to him by the Bishop of Aleppo, Belisarius appealed to it for immediate help.

Aide! What should we do?

For an instant, the facets froze in their endless movement. A moment of stasis, while the being called Aide tried to interpret that plea. The question involved what humans called tactics, a thing which Aide understood very poorly. Aide tried to grapple with the problem directly, failed immediately, and realized almost in the instant that it could not duplicate human reasoning. Aide abandoned the attempt entirely, and drove the facets around the obstacle. So might a go master approach a problem in chess.

A cascade of thoughts and images flashed through Belisarius' mind:

Emperor is not key, one way or the other. A montage of history. Different types of empires created by humanity through the ages. Empires which depended entirely on the survival of one man. Alexander the Great, Belisarius knew. Someone named Tamerlane, he did not know. A monster, that one. Others he did not know. Empires based on solid bureaucracies and well-established elites. Rome. China. The death of one emperor meant nothing, for another will always step forward. Empires in transition, where new elites are being forged around a stable dynasty.

Focus. Here. Malwa is here. Quick glimpses of the stability of the Malwa dynasty, offshoot of the Gupta. Belisarius suddenly understood, for the first time, the position of such men as Venandakatra and Harsha. And others like them. Some, capable and intelligent; others, not. But all of them in positions of power. Blood-kin of the Malwa, members of the dynasty. Not in direct succession, but their fortunes were completely tied to the continuance of the dynasty. In some basic sense, they were the dynasty and would see to its survival.

Emperor means nothing. He dies, another will immediately take his place. Malwa will survive. Ranapur will fall. Persia will fall. Rome will fall. Must find and destroy Link.

The name was unfamiliar.

Who is Link? demanded Belisarius.

Not who. What. Link is-Another montage. Bizarre images. Machines, they seemed. But machines which did nothing except think.

Machines, yes. Not thinking. Machines do not think. Machines will be called computers. They do not think, they calculate. Humans think. Crystals think.

Then how can it be our enemy if it does not-

Tool. Tool of the new gods. Sent back in time to change-

The thought broke into pieces. Belisarius caught only fragmented glimpses of a murky struggle in the far distant future between the "new gods" and the "Great Ones." He understood none of that struggle, but one astonishing fact gleamed through: both the Great Ones and the new gods were, in some sense, human.

He sensed Aide's mounting frustration, and knew the crystalline being was trying to communicate ideas which neither it nor Belisarius were yet prepared to exchange. His usual decisiveness returned.

Never mind. Will Link be in the pavilion?

Decision came instantly. Collecting information was still his primary goal. When he turned to his cataphracts, Belisarius realized that only a few seconds had elapsed.

"We'll help the Malwa," he announced. His cataphracts immediately began to surge forward, but Belisarius stopped them with a gesture.

"No-not that way. Four more swords, by themselves, will make no difference." He pointed down the gentle slope toward Ranapur. The oncoming rebels had already hacked their way through the Malwa army and were now beginning their charge up the slope. Great numbers of Malwa and Ye-tai soldiers, unharmed by either the explosions or the rebels, were still milling around in confusion on the crater-torn field before Ranapur.

"That will make the difference."

Valentinian and Anastasius understood at once. The two veterans began trotting down the slope, swords in hand. They circled to the left, keeping well away from the rebel horde surging forward.

Belisarius and Menander followed. The young cataphract's confusion was so obvious that Belisarius almost laughed.

"You're wondering how we'll get the Malwa to follow our orders," he said. "Much less the Ye-tai."

"Yes, sir. I don't-"

"Watch, Menander. Watch and learn. The day will come when you will find it necessary to rally beaten troops."

He paused for breath. Now that they were past the danger of accidental encounters with rebel flankers, Valentinian and Anastasius had stepped up the pace to a brisk run. Even for men in such excellent condition, the exertion was significant. True, they were not wearing full armor. But the heat of India made good the loss.

"Watch," he commanded again. "And learn." Pause for breath. "The key is total confidence and authority." Pause. "Confused soldiers will instinctively rally to it."

They had almost reached the first knots of Malwa soldiers. Belisarius saw a cluster of Ye-tai warriors nearby. He surged past Anastasius and Valentinian and bore down on the Ye-tai, waving his sword back toward the Emperor's pavilion and bellowing commands.

In perfect, fluent, unaccented Ye-tai:

The Ye-tai stared. Belisarius pointed with his sword toward a mob of Malwa common soldiers, milling around aimlessly not fifty yards away.

Comprehension came. As one man, the Ye-tai glowered at the common soldiery. A moment later, they were back at their accustomed task of chivvying the infantrymen.

Already Valentinian and Anastasius were imitating their general. The veterans spoke no Ye-tai, but their simple Hindi was more than good enough for the purpose. Within a few minutes, the Romans had three hundred Ye-tai re-organized into small squads which, in turn, were corralling and driving forward over two thousand common soldiers. For their part, the Malwa infantrymen made little protest, especially after the Ye-tai demonstrated their willingness to slaughter anyone who hesitated or tried to flee.

Menander was amazed at the success of the maneuver. He himself had tried to copy his general and the veterans. With indifferent success, true, but with no outright failure. Only once did he see a Ye-tai question the authority of the Romans. An officer, he thought, if he was reading the subtleties of the man's uniform correctly. But he was not sure, and the man's uniform was almost instantly obscured by blood. Valentinian's swordstroke had amputated the Ye-tai's left arm and cut halfway through his ribcage.

Now Belisarius' small impromptu army was moving up the slope. The common infantrymen were in front, in lines so ragged they could hardly be called a formation at all. But they were moving forward, arms in hand, eyes fixed on the rebels mobbing the Emperor's bodyguard at the pavilion some two hundred yards away. Behind them came the Ye-tai. The battle line of the steppe barbarians was every bit as ragged as the infantry's, but the Ye-tai had regained their customary battle-fury and braggadocio. They drove the Malwa soldiers forward mercilessly.

Bringing up the rear were the four Romans, keeping a close eye on the situation as a whole.

Menander was now striding alongside Anastasius and Valentinian. He was still gaping.

Anastasius laughed at the sight. "You see, lad?" rumbled the giant. "Beaten troops are like sheep. And as for the Ye-tai-"

Valentinian grinned. "Pimps, boy. Nothing but fucking pimps."

Menander flushed, closed his jaws. The young cataphract stared ahead, over the mass of Malwa and Ye-tai soldiers in front of him. He could see the pavilion, now half-collapsed, but could only sense the fury of the combat which raged there between the rebels and the Emperor's bodyguard.

"We're still outnumbered," he said. Anastasius glanced down at him, approvingly. There had been no fear in the boy's voice, simply clear-headed calculation.

"That's true, lad." The huge Thracian's eyes quickly scanned the little army they were driving ahead of them. "But we'll hit the rebels in the rear, and they'll be caught between two forces. And-"

"They think they're on the verge of victory," said Valentinian. "The shock of a surprise attack will do them in."

Menander remembered the battle with the pirates on the Malwa embassy vessel. He had been badly wounded in that fight, but had been conscious enough to see how quickly the pirates' morale had collapsed when Belisarius led his unexpected counter-attack. He nodded his head, gripped his sword more tightly. They were now within a hundred yards of the battle at the pavilion.

"Always remember this, boy," hissed Valentinian. "Never count a battle won until you've paid for your first cup of wine in the victory celebration. Paid for it, mind-looted wine's a fool's bargain. The enemy'll come back and cut your throat before you finish it."

Anastasius started to add another bit of veteran's wisdom, but his words were drowned in a sudden roar. The Malwa soldiers had begun the charge, shouting their battle cries. Menander could see nothing, now, except the Ye-tai ahead of him and the remnants of the pavilion floating in the distance. Above the roar of the Malwa battle cries, he could hear the first sharp wails of rebel shock and fear. A moment later, the clangor of clashing steel added its particular threnody to the uproar. And then, here and there, the unmistakeable percussion of grenade blasts.

Menander began to push forward. Belisarius stayed him with a hand.

"No," he commanded. "Let the Malwa do their own fighting. We've brought them an army. Let them use it or not. Our task is done."

For a moment, Menander saw his general's eyes lose their focus. The young cataphract held his breath. He knew what he was seeing-had seen it before, many times-but it still brought him a sudden rush of religious awe. His great general was communicating with the Talisman of God.

The moment, as usual, was brief. When Belisarius turned his brown eyes back upon his cataphracts, they were filled with acute intelligence.

"But stay ready," he commanded. "The time may come when we'll want to charge forward. If we can, I want to get next to the Emperor."

He glanced aside, examining the ground, and smiled his crooked smile.

"In the meantime-Menander, would you be so good as to fetch that grenade lying over there? And that other one. Like a thief in the night, lad. I'd like to smuggle a few of those back to Rome."

Quickly, seeing no unfriendly eyes upon him, Menander secreted the two grenades into his tunic. Then, after a moment's thought, he bound up his tunic with a blood-soaked rag torn from the tunic of a dead Malwa infantryman.

Valentinian frowned.

"Might not be such a good idea, that," he muttered. "The Malwa doctors might want to look at your so-called 'wound.' "

Anastasius snorted and started to speak, but Menander cut him off.

"The Malwa don't have doctors. Not field doctors, anyway. If you're hurt in battle"-the youth's shrug was callous beyond his years-"tough shit. Sew yourself up, or get a friend to do it."

Valentinian whistled softly. "You're kidding?" His lean face took on a more weaselish look than normal. "I thought they were civilized!"

Throughout the exchange, Belisarius never took his eyes off the battle raging before them. But he responded to Valentinian, harshly:

"They are civilized, Valentinian. That's what makes them dangerous."

The roar of the battle was intensifying. Suddenly, gaps appeared in the ranks of the Malwa ahead of them. For the first time, the Romans could begin to see the battle itself.

One glance was enough. The gaps were caused by rebel soldiers trying to flee, with Malwa in pursuit. The rebels had been broken, their frenzied fury snapped between the courage of the Emperor's bodyguard and the unexpected attack on their rear. The semi-ordered ranks of both sides were dissolving rapidly into a swirling chaos, clusters of disorganized men smashing and cutting each other. Butchery, now. The rebels still outnumbered the loyalists, but it mattered not at all. As always, fleeing soldiers fell like prey.

"Follow me," commanded Belisarius. The general began striding through the chaos ahead of him, forcing a way through the mob. His cataphracts flanked him, keen and alert, ready to kill anyone-rebel or loyalist-who so much as looked at Belisarius the wrong way. Once, Valentinian struck down a rebel. The man was not attacking them, he was simply seeking a path to safety. But in his desperation the rebel was careening toward Belisarius, swinging his sword, until Valentinian slew him with a quick thrust to the heart. Once, Anastasius killed a Ye-tai. The barbarian was standing in their path, shrieking, his eyes wild with fury. The Ye-tai was not even looking their way, but he was half-crazed with bloodlust, and the veteran knew he would attack anyone who appeared foreign. Anastasius never gave him the chance.

Now they were at the pavilion itself-what was left of it-clambering over the dead and mutilated bodies of the Ye-tai and Rajputs who had made their last stand guarding the Emperor. They had to cut aside a mass of tangled cords and tumbled fabric to make an entrance.

The interior of the pavilion was a fantastical scene. To one side, the handles of a beautifully sculpted and engraved vase were draped with human guts. To the other side, what was left of the companion vase was filled with the brains of the dead Ye-tai whose shattered skull was using the base of it as a pillow. They stepped around a small pile of three lifeless bodies, a Rajput and two rebels, joined not only in death but in the long, shredded pieces of silk which served them all as a common burial shroud.

They came to a bizarre obstacle, one of the huge tent poles slanted across their path like a fallen tree in a forest. The battle here had been ferocious. The Ye-tai had used the tumbled tent pole as a barricade. Many Ye-tai corpses were draped across the pole itself, but nothing like the number of rebel bodies which mounded up before it like a talus slope.

There was no other way forward than to climb over the pile of bodies. The Romans did so-Belisarius and the veterans with cold, experienced, distant expressions; Menander with a pale and pinched face. Near the top of the pile, just below the crest of the tent pole, Menander came upon the body of a dead rebel. A boy, not more than fifteen, lying on his back and staring sightlessly at the sagging silk splendor above him. He had been disemboweled, by a spear thrust or a sword stroke. But it was not the guts spreading over the ribcage which shook Menander. It was the ribcage itself, as fragile and gaunt as a homeless kitten's.

As clever as the rebel sally had been, Menander suddenly realized, it had also been the product of pure desperation. Ranapur was starving.

"We're on the wrong side," he muttered. He thought no-one had heard him, but Valentinian's reply was instant.

"Patience, lad, patience. We'll be climbing over Malwa bodies soon enough." For once, the veteran's voice was soft and gentle. Cold and callous with long experience, Valentinian was, but he was not heartless. He could still remember his first battlefield, mounded with carnage. During that battle, his own guts had not joined that of the others strewn about. Even as a youth, Valentinian had been incredibly deadly. But, when the battle was over, the contents of his guts had been spewed about freely. He had not stopped puking, long after there was nothing left to vomit, until darkness finally and mercifully fell.

Once over the tent pole, the Romans found themselves in a clear space. They had reached the center of the pavilion. The four tent poles which were still standing held the canopy aloft, sagging, but still some fifteen feet above the ground. The area was dim, lit only by the sunlight which filtered its way through gashes in the fabric of the pavilion.

The moans and shrieks from the battlefield seemed softer, now. And the Romans encountered live men, for the first time since they entered the pavilion. Ye-tai bodyguards, live-and alert. Eight Ye-tai, seeing the Romans, glared and began circling them. The bared swords in their hands were covered with blood.

Belisarius began to speak, but a harsh voice intervened.

Rana Sanga's voice: "Stop! They are Romans. Guests of the emperor."

A moment later, the Rajput kinglet emerged out of the gloom and strode between the Romans and Ye-tai. He himself was literally covered with gore, from the blood soaking his beard to his squelching boots. But no one who saw that majestic figure of a man could doubt for an instant that none of the blood was his.

Sanga faced down the Ye-tai, raising his sword. The sword, like the man, was blood-soaked.

"Put down your swords!" he roared. "Or I will butcher you myself!"

Ye-tai, whatever their other faults, were not prone to cowardice. But, faced with Sanga, they cowered like jackals before a tiger.

Sanga did not bother to sneer. He turned and bowed to the Romans. He swept his sword in a gesture of welcome. The politesse of the act was almost comical, in a grisly way, for the sweep of his sword left a little arc of blood and grue in its wake.

"Welcome, Belisarius." He transferred the sword to his left hand-his scabbard was useless; shattered and splintered-and stepped forward, holding out his right. "And I give you my thanks-our thanks. I saw the counter-charge. It is all that saved us."

There was no mistaking the genuine warmth in that handclasp. Nor the warmth in the two pair of dark eyes which gazed at each other-a level gaze, for they were both tall men. But Belisarius, meeting Sanga's gaze closely, also understood the question in those eyes.

"I, too, swore an oath," he said softly. Sanga frowned.

"To another emperor." The Roman's voice was almost a whisper.

The Rajput's frown of puzzlement vanished, replaced by understanding. Belisarius almost regretted his words, then, for he knew that he had given too much away. Sanga, he was sure, did not understand why Belisarius had done what he had done. But, he was also sure, the Rajput understood him perfectly. And there was nothing to be feared so much as an enemy who understood you.

For a moment, the two enemies of the future stared at each other. Then Sanga's lips curled in a manner which, to the cataphracts who watched, was astonishingly akin to their own general's crooked smile.

"So," murmured Sanga, in a voice so low that only Belisarius could hear him. "It is always said, in Lord Venandakatra's defense, that he is nobody's fool. His only saving grace, it is said." The Rajput's smile deepened. "It seems the great lord lacks that grace also, after all."

Belisarius said nothing. A slight shrug, a little cock of the eyebrow, his own crooked smile.

Sanga turned away. "Would you like to meet the Emperor?" he asked. "I do not think the courtiers will object, now. They could hardly refuse an audience to the man who saved their necks."

Belisarius followed the Rajput into a small nook in the pavilion, formed by a hastily erected barricade of furniture and statuary. The nook was very dark. Little sunlight reached into it. But Belisarius could see a middle-aged man huddled on the floor, short and rather corpulent, dressed in rich silk robes, surrounded by other men who were of a similar age and dress. One of them was Lord Venandakatra. The Vile One's face was almost unrecognizeable. The feral intelligence was utterly absent, replaced by half-mindless terror.

"You must forgive the Emperor's posture," murmured Sanga. "I had to use his throne as part of the barricade."

The Rajput strode forward. The Emperor and his courtiers stared up at him. Beneath the dusky Indian complexions, their faces were pallid and drawn.

"Your Majesty, may I present General Belisarius, the envoy from Rome. We owe our lives to him. He organized the counter-attack which broke the rebels."

Aide's voice, then, as sharp and steely in Belisarius' mind as a sword.

Belisarius stepped forward, went down to his knees, prostrated himself before the Malwa emperor. Then, looking up, stared directly into Skandagupta's eyes from a distance of two feet.

Small eyes, close set, dark brown. Slightly unfocussed, as if the mind behind them was in shock. Which, Belisarius thought, it was. Never before, he suspected, had the great Emperor of Malwa stared death so closely in the face.

Beyond that, Belisarius saw nothing.

A moment later, Aide passed its own judgment, cold and indifferent:

It was all Belisarius could do to keep from laughing.

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• In the Heart of Darkness Chapter Prologue
• In the Heart of Darkness Chapter One
• In the Heart of Darkness Chapter Two
• In the Heart of Darkness Chapter Three
• In the Heart of Darkness Chapter Four