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Khusrau's chuckle was a louder thing. "Say better, how will the devils?"
He gave her a little bow. "And now, Queen of the Kushans, I must be off."
Belisarius drove the march south even more ruthlessly than he'd driven the one north.
"I want to catch them strung out in marching order," he explained to the Rajput kings, after sending out a host of Arab and Pathan scouts to find his target.
"Good plan," said Dasal.
"It's so hot," half-complained his brother.
"Stop whining, youngster. Hot for the Malwa, too. Still hotter, when we catch them."
Kungas studied the scene on the opposite side of the Ganges. As dry and hot as it was, the fires that had been started over there were burned out by now, although plumes of smoke were rising here and there from still-smoldering ashes.
"How far?" he asked.
"As far down the river as we've gotten reports," Kujulo replied, "from the scouts that have come back."
"It must have been Belisarius," said Vima. "But I don't understand why he burned here. I'd have thought he'd be burning in front of her."
"Who's to say he isn't?" Kungas left off his examination of the opposite bank and studied the river itself. As big as it was, the Ganges had already swept downriver whatever traces of the burning had fallen into it.
"I think he wants to pin the bitch here, at the river. That's why he burned behind her. To trick her into coming back."
Vima frowned. "But why? If she's here, she's got water. It'd be better to burn her out when she's stranded between the rivers."
Kujulo shrugged. "If it worked, yes. But it's not that easy to 'strand' an army that big. She'd probably have enough supplies with her to make it to the Yamuna."
"She could get stored food from the garrisoned towns, too," said Kungas. "Belisarius is probably bypassing them, just burning everything else. I don't think he can have so big an army that he'd want to suffer casualties in a lot of little sieges and assaults. Especially if he's trying to move quickly."
Finally, he spotted what he was looking for, far down the river. A small cluster of little fishing boats.
"No, it makes sense. If he tricks her into coming back here, he can pin her against the river. Especially with us on the other side to keep her from crossing-which we will."
He pointed at the boats. "We'll use those to ferry a party across the river. Then we'll send cavalry up and down both banks of the river. Seize any boats we find, and wreck or burn any bridges, any timber-anything; ropes, whatever-that could be used to build new bridges or boats. We'll keep the bitch from crossing, while Belisarius lets her army starve to death. They'll have water, but that's all they'll have."
"She'll try to march down the Ganges," Vima pointed out.
"Yes, she will. With Belisarius burning everything before her on that side, and us doing the same on this side. And killing any foraging parties she tries to send out. I don't think she'll make it to a big enough garrisoned city-it'd have to be Kangora-before her army starts to fall apart."
He turned away from the river. "It's as good a plan as any-and I'm not going to try to second-guess Belisarius."
"But there have been no communications from the Great Lady since she reached the headwaters of the Sutlej!" protested the chief priest.
Lord Samudra was no longer even trying to be polite to the man-or any of the other pestiferous priests Sati had left behind in the Punjab to "oversee" him. He rarely even let them into his command bunker.
"Of course we haven't!" he snarled. "Until I can get an army up there to bottle them back up in the Vale of Peshawar, the Kushans will have raiding parties all over the area. For sure and certain, they'll have cut the telegraph lines. And they'll ambush any couriers she might have sent."
"You should-"
"You should! You should!" He clenched his fist and held it just under the priest's nose. "I've got eighty thousand Romans just to the south-"
"That's nonsense! There can't be more than-"
"-and fifty thousand Persians threatening to penetrate our lines in the north. In the middle of this, you want me to-"
"-can't be more than thirty thousand-I"
" Be silent! " Samudra shrieked. It was all he could do not to strike the priest with his fist.
With a great effort, he reined in his temper. "Who is the expert at gauging the size of armies, priest? Me or you? If I say I'm facing enemy forces numbering one hundred and thirty thousand men-barely smaller than my own-then that's what I'm facing!"
He lowered his fist by the expedient of throwing his whole hand to the side. The fist opened, and the forefinger indicated the door to the bunker.
"Get. Out. Out! The Great Lady instructed me to hold our lines, no matter what, and that is what I shall do. The Kushans are a distraction. We will deal with them when the time comes."
"He's panicking," mused Maurice, peeking over the fortified wall and looking to the north. "He's hunkering down everywhere, barely moving at all."
"Except for getting those ironclads into the Indus," Menander said grumpily. "The latest spy reports say that canal he's having dug is within two miles of the river."
Maurice thought about it. "Better leave off any more forays upriver with the Justinian, then. We'll need to get those minefields laid again."
"Eusebius is already working on it. He's got the mines mostly assembled and says he can start laying them in three days. That leaves me enough time-"
"Forget it. What's the point, Menander? We've already panicked them enough. From here on in, all we have to do is squat here."
He lowered his head and pointed over the wall with an upraised finger. "Belisarius asked us to keep that huge army locked up, and by God we've done so. The last thing I want is to take the risk that some mishap to the Justinian might boost their confidence."
"But-"
"Forget it, I said."
"We accept!" A
Her husband gri
He hesitated a moment. Then:
"We'd have to live there ourselves, you understand."
"Yes, of course. Perhaps it would be best if we asked Antonina to find us a villa…"
"Yes." He instructed the operator to send that message.
A few minutes later, listening to the reply, Calopodius started laughing softly.
"What's so fu
"Wait. You'll see in a moment, when you can read it yourself."
The radio operator finished recording the message and handed it to A
"Well, that's that."