The Dance of Time

Malwa armies were always notorious for their rough habits with local populations. The huge Malwa army dug in to the north of the Triangle was behaving especially badly, as packed in as those soldiers were and suffering all the miseries and frustrations of siege warfare. The Iron Triangle had become a refuge for untold thousands of Punjabis in the area. They came across the rivers, on small skiffs or even swimming through the minefields.

By now, the population density of the Triangle was almost that of a huge city. Worse, really, since most of the land area had to be left available for farming. The Triangle got much of its supplies from the Sind, brought up by the river boats, but it still had to provide the bulk of its own food. Controlling the raw sewage produced by such a population was enough to make Hercules' legendary cleaning of the Augean Stables look like an afternoon's easy chore.

"You'll see," said A

"There'll be enough, General," said Ashot. "Just barely."

Belisarius nodded, after he finished wiping his face with a cloth. That was to clean off the dust, mostly. Despite the heat, the Thar was so dry that sweat didn't have time to really accumulate.

He was careful not to let his worry show. This was the third well they'd reached, and all of them had had just enough water-just barely-for his expedition. They had almost no reserve left at all. If even one of the wells was empty, or near-empty…

But there was no point in fretting over the matter. The long war with the Malwa was nearing its end, and there remained only to drive home the lance-or die in the attempt. It was in the hands of Fate, now.

"Let's be off," he said. He glanced at the horizon, where the dawn was begi

"I feel like a bat," complained Ashot. "Live by night, sleep by day."

He said it fairly cheerily, though. Ashot had plenty of experience with desert campaigns, and knew perfectly well that no sane man traveled through an area like the Thar when the sun was up. Like all the cataphracts on the expedition, he was wearing loose-fitting Arab-style robes instead of armor-the only difference being that Ashot knew how to put them on without help from one of Abbu's men.

"Something's happening," Kujulo stated. Slowly, he swept the telescope across the terrain below the pass. "I'm not sure what, but there's too much movement down there."

"Are they preparing another attack?" asked one of the other Kushans.

"After the way we butchered the last one? Doubt it," grunted Kujulo. "No, I think they're pulling out some of their forces. And I think-not sure about this at all-that there's some sort of troop movement in the far distance. But it doesn't seem to be reinforcements."

He lowered the telescope. Awkwardly, since it was big and clumsy; one of the eyeglasses newly-made in Begram's fledgling optical industry, not one of the sleek Roman devices.

"Let the King know," he commanded. "This may be what he's expecting."

Miles away, a squad of Ye-tai had a much better view of what was happening. They were serving as sentries for the Malwa army positioned against the Kushans-and none too happy about it, either. In times past, it would have been Kushans themselves who'd be detached for this rigorous duty. But Kushans could no longer be relied upon, what few of them were still left in the Malwa forces. Their army's commander hadn't dared used common troops for the purpose. Kushans were much too good at mountain warfare to depend on levied infantry to serve as outlying sentries.

"Tell me again," said the squad leader.

The new member of the squad shrugged. He'd only arrived the day before. "Don't believe me, then. Great Lady Sati is on her way to the capital. With forty thousand troops. Seems there's a big rebellion."

"Why were you traveling with them?"

"I wasn't. I was just part of a troop sent by Samudra up here. We only marched with the Great Lady's expedition for a short distance. She's headed up the Sutlej, of course."

"I wish we were too," muttered one of the other squad members.

Again, the newcomer shrugged. "So do I. But they're leaving some of the Ye-tai they brought with them here-me among them, worse luck-while they take back to the Punjab almost ten thousand regular troops."

"Why do the two of you wish you were going back to the plain?" demanded the squad leader. "So we could get lost in a whirlpool in the Ganges? Don't be stupid."

Their camp was perched on a rise that looked directly onto Margalla Pass, which divided the Vale of Peshawar from the Punjab proper. From the distance, the squad leader couldn't see any of the Kushan troops who were holding the pass. But he imagined he could almost see the blood the Malwa army had left on those slopes, in the course of four defeated assaults.

They were being ground up here. On level ground, the Ye-tai squad leader would have faced Kushans without worrying too much. Up here, in the hills and mountains, fighting them was like fighting crocodiles in a river.

"I'm half-Sarmatian," he murmured. "Mother's side."

None of his mates so much as curled a lip, despite the absurdity of the statement. There hadn't been any Sarmatians in centuries.

It didn't matter, since that wasn't the point of the statement. Within a few seconds, all of the squad members were eyeing the new arrival.

Fortunately for him, he wasn't stupid. "The war's lost," he said, softly but clearly. "That's what I think, anyway."

The squad leader gri

The new man gri

At that, the whole squad laughed. "Welcome, brother," said one of them. "Would you believe that all of us are half-Sarmatian?"

That brought another little laugh. When it died down, Prabhak asked: "When? And which way?"

The squad leader glanced at the sun, which was now setting. "As soon as dark falls. There'll be a half moon. Good enough. And we'll head for the Kushans."

Prabhak winced, as did most of the squad members.

"Don't be stupid," growled the squad leader. "You want to spend the rest of your lives living like goats?"

Put that way…

"They say King Kungas isn't a bad sort," mused one of the squad members.

The squad leader chuckled humorlessly. "Nobody says anything of the sort. He's a demon and his witch wife is even worse. Which is fine with me. Just the sort of rulers who can keep us alive, in what's coming."

The first fortress in the Vindhyas that Damodara's army reached was deserted. Its garrison had fled two days before, they were told by some of the natives.

So was the second, and the third.

The fourth fortress, far down from the crest, was still ma

They were stalwart enough to last for exactly eight minutes, once Sanga launched the assault, before they tried to surrender.

Tried, and failed. Sanga was giving no quarter.

Even if he'd been inclined to, which he wasn't-not with his wife and children in Kausambi-Lord Damodara had commanded a massacre.

Emperor Damodara, rather. As a mere Lord, Damodara had always been noted for his comparative leniency toward defeated enemies, by Malwa standards. But the garrison of the fortress which had dared to resist him were no longer simply "enemies." They were traitors and rebels.