The Dance of Time

Chapter 36

The Ganges plain, north of Mathura

As he'd hoped he would, Belisarius caught the Mathura garrison while it was still strung out in marching order.

"They're trying to form up squares," Abbu reported, "but if you move fast you'll get there before they can finish. They're coming up three roads and having trouble finding each other. The artillery's too far back, too." The old bedouin spat on the ground. "They're sorry soldiers."

"Garrison duty always makes soldiers sluggish, unless they train constantly." Ashot commented. "Even good ones."

The Armenian officer looked at Belisarius. "Your orders?"

"Our cataphracts are the only troops we've got who are really trained as mounted archers. Take all five hundred of them-use Abbu's bedouin as a screen-and charge them immediately. Bows only, you understand? Don't even think about lances and swords. Pass down the columns and rake them-but don't take any great risks. Stay away from the artillery. If they're already too far back, they'll never get up in position past a mass of milling infantrymen."

Ashot nodded. "You just want me to keep them confused, as long as I can."

"Exactly." Belisarius turned and looked at the huge column of Rajput cavalry following them. Using the term "column" loosely. Most of the cavalry were young men, eager for glory now that a real battle finally looked to be in the offing. Their ranks, never too precise at the best of times, were getting more ragged by the minute as the more eager ones pressed forward.

"I'm not going to be able to hold them, Ashot," Belisarius said. "That's all right- provided you can keep that Malwa army from forming solid musket-and-pike squares before I get there."

Seconds later, Ashot was mounted and leading his cataphracts forward.

Belisarius turned to the Rajput kings and top officers, who had gathered around him.

"You heard," he stated. "Just try to keep the charge from getting completely out of control."

Dasal gri

Belisarius winced, a little. Young, indeed. At a guess, close to a third of the twenty thousand cavalrymen he had under his command were still teenagers. Being Rajputs, they were proficient with lances and swords, even at that age. But, for many of them, this would be their first real battle.

If the Malwa had solid infantry squares, it'd be a slaughter before Belisarius could extricate his soldiers. Hopefully, the speed of his approach and Ashot's spoiling charge would keep the enemy off-balance just long enough. As impetuous as the Rajputs were certain to be, they'd roll right over that Malwa army if it wasn't prepared for them, even though it outnumbered Belisarius' army by something close to a three-to-two margin.

"We'll just have to hope for the best," he said, trying not to make the lame expression sound completely crippled. "Let's go."

Kungas and his men had no difficulty at all driving back the first Malwa attempt to force the river. It was a desperate undertaking, as few boats as the enemy had managed to scrounge up. Kungas was a little surprised they'd made the attempt at all. Not a single one of the enemy boats got within thirty yards of the north bank of the Ganges.

"What's that bitch thinking?" wondered Vima. "I thought she was supposed to be smarter than any human alive."

Kujulo shrugged. "How smart can you be, when you've run out of options? Trap a genius in a pit, and he'll try to claw his way out just like a rat. What else can he do?"

By the time Ashot reached the vanguard of the Malwa army, its commander had managed to get the columns on two of the roads to join forces. But he hadn't had time to get them into anything resembling a fighting formation.

Even moving at the moderate canter needed for accurate bow fire, Ashot needed no more than a few minutes to shred what little cohesion the forward units had. It was becoming obvious that the officers were either inexperienced or incompetent. Perhaps both.

That was not surprising, of course. After years of war, the Malwa army like any other would have gone through a selection process. The most capable and energetic officers, sent to the front; the sluggards and dull-wits, assigned to garrison duty.

Ashot even considered disobeying Belisarius' order and passing onward to find the artillery. The odds were that he'd be able to rip them up badly, also.

But he decided to forego the temptation. The scattered musket fire being directed at his men didn't pose much of a danger, but if he had the bad luck of catching even a few guns ready to fire and loaded with canister, he'd suffer some casualties-and he only had five hundred men to begin with.

"Back!" he bellowed. "We'll hit the forward units again!"

All he had to do, really, was keep the advanced regiments of enemy infantry in a state of turmoil. When the Rajputs struck them, they'd scatter them to the winds-and the fleeing infantrymen would transmit their panic all the way back through the long columns.

Belisarius didn't have to crush this army. All he had to do was send them into a panicky retreat to Mathura. The Malwa officers wouldn't be able to rally their army until it was all the way back into the city. And then, getting them to march out again would take several days.

Long enough, Ashot thought, to enable Belisarius to return to the Ganges and crush the army that really mattered. Link's army.

The raking fire of the Roman cataphracts on their return did exactly what Ashot thought it would. By the time the last cataphract passed out of musket range, the enemy's front lines were a shambles. Not a single one of the squares the Malwa officers had tried to form was anything more than a mass of confused and frightened men.

The Romans suffered only twenty casualties in the whole affair, and only seven of those were fatalities.

Just blind, bad luck, that Ashot was one of them. As he was almost out of range, a random musket ball fired by a panicked Malwa soldier passed under the flange of his helmet and broke his neck.

Belisarius didn't find out until later. At the time, he was cursing ferociously, trying to keep the Rajput charge from dissolving into a chaos even worse than that of the enemy's formations.

He failed, utterly, but it didn't matter. The young Rajputs suffered much worse casualties than they needed to have suffered, but their charge was so headlong that they simply shattered the front of the Malwa army. Twenty thousand cavalrymen charging at a gallop would have been terrifying for any army. Experienced soldiers, in solid formations and with steady officers, would have broken the charge anyway. But the Mathura garrison hadn't been in a real battle since many of its units had participated in the assault in Ranapur, years earlier.

They broke like rotten wood. Broke, and then-as Ashot had foreseen-began shredding the rest of the army in their panicked rout.

Belisarius and the kings tried to stop the Rajputs from pursuing the fleeing enemy. There was no need to destroy this army in a prolonged and ruthless pursuit. But it was hopeless. Their blood was up. The glorious great victory those young men eagerly wanted after the wretched business of being simple arsonists was finally at hand-and they wanted all of it.

After a time, Belisarius gave up the effort. The old kings could be relied upon to bring the Rajputs back, when they were finally done, and he'd just gotten word of Ashot.