And, as Belisarius had expected, it was there that the pirates concentrated their efforts.
To little avail. The heavy shields and armor of the cataphracts were all but impenetrable to the light weapons being wielded by the pirates-the more so, as the weapons were wielded awkwardly and one-handed. Each pirate’s other hand was needed to retain his hold on the rail. Belisarius learned, then, his first lesson in sea-fighting: despite Eon’s sneers, and whatever its clumsiness, there was a great advantage to the size of the Indian ship. The pirates could not simply leap from ship to ship. Boarding the great Malwa craft presented much the same obstacle to the low galleys as scaling a wall presented to besiegers of a land fortress.
The contest was absurdly one-sided. Each pirate got, at the most, one swing of his weapon. Thereafter, if he faced Anastasius, he died immediately; his skull crushed by a mace. If he faced the more subtle Valentinian, his death might be postponed a moment or so. Valentinian, also new to ship-fighting, soon discovered that the most economical way to deal with his opponents was to strike at their defenseless hands gripping the rail. Valentinian did not possess the sheer brute power of Anastasius, but he was quite strong. It hardly mattered. His sword, like all his blades, was sharp as a razor. Within two minutes, a little mound of severed hands was piling up at his feet. Their former owners had plunged into the sea, where they died soon enough from shock, blood loss, and drowning.
Menander, though not a complete novice by any means, lacked his two comrades’ long experience. Nor, for that matter, did he now or would he ever possess their awesome skill in combat. But he was a Thracian cataphract, one of that elite company pledged to their lord Belisarius, and none could ever say afterward that he shamed them.
As uneven as the contest was, however, it proved to be the Axumites who made the final difference. Alone, the four Romans would eventually have been overwhelmed by sheer numbers. As fast as the cataphracts wielded their weapons, the Arabs poured up even faster. But the Ethiopian spears were quicker still.
The cataphracts slew a great number themselves, but, in the main, their contribution was to serve as a living wall which delayed the pirates that one extra moment. A moment was all the sarwen needed, or Eon. And Ousanas needed even less. Standing a few feet behind the cataphracts, the Axumite spears flicked out like viper strikes. Each stroke was swift, accurate, and almost invariably deadly. On occasion, the sarwen and Eon required a second spear-thrust to dispatch an enemy.
Ousanas, never. The dawazz’s aim was absolutely uncanny. Watching, Belisarius decided he had never seen a man wield a weapon so unerringly. Certainly not in an actual battle. The precision was almost wasted, though. The dawazz lacked Anastasius’ bearlike bulk, and Eon’s flamboyant musculature. But Belisarius suspected that Ousanas was actually stronger than either of them. His great spear blade literally ruptured human bodies.
The general had placed himself and Garmat as the final reserve. Each of them stood a few feet behind the Axumites, Garmat to starboard, Belisarius to port. The general had expected, within seconds of the assault, to be in a life-and-death struggle.
As before, in the battle against the Persians, the jewel was working its way with him. Belisarius’ senses were superhumanly keen, and his reflexes were like quicksilver. But-he almost laughed-it proved another waste. Neither he nor Garmat was ever required to strike a blow-although the old adviser did so, once, skewering a pirate over a sarwen’s shoulder. Belisarius thought the effort was superfluous, simply the ingrained habit of an old warrior. So, apparently, did the sarwen. The Ethiopian soldier immediately denounced Garmat for an interfering busybody and suggested, none too politely, that the doddering fool stick to his trade. Thereafter, Garmat satisfied himself with a reservist’s role.
Once it became clear to Belisarius that the situation in the bow was well under control, the general felt it possible to concentrate elsewhere. While keeping an eye on the fight at hand, most of his attention was riveted on the battle raging amidships, and in the stern.
Partly, his concern was with the overall progress of the struggle. Regardless of how well the Romans and Axumites fought in the bow, the final outcome of the battle would be largely determined by the success of the Ye-tai in repelling the boarders everywhere else.
But, mostly, his concern lay in the future. He had witnessed the Malwa dragon-weapons, and learned much from his observations. Now, for the first time, he would be able to examine Ye-tai war skills. And examine them from the most perfect vantage point imaginable: nearby, from a slightly elevated position, and-best of all-from the Ye-tai side of the line.
Their skills were-not bad, he decided. Not bad at all.
Strength: The Ye-tai were as fearless and aggressive as any general could ask for.
Weakness: The same. They were too aggressive. That was especially true of the younger men who stood in the second rank. In their eagerness to join the fray and prove their mettle, they tended to continually disrupt the maintenance of an orderly battle line.
Strength: There was a battle line. Very unusual for barbarian warriors.
Weakness: It was not a well-dressed line. Some of that, of course, was due to the conditions of the battle: a fight aboard a cramped ship, lit only by the flames of the burning galleys. Some of it was due to the disruptions produced by young fighters from the second rank pushing their way forward. But much of it, the general suspected, was inherent in the Ye-tai mentality. The Malwa gloss of semi-civilization was just that: a gloss, a thin veneer, over warriors whose basic nature was still utterly barbaric.
Strength: Their sword-play was excellent, although it was obvious to Belisarius that the sweeping, cutting style which the Ye-tai favored was more suited to cavalry tactics than combat afoot.
Weakness: Their shield work was indifferent. And here, knew the general, was another legacy of the Ye-tai military tradition. The barbarians were, first and foremost, horsemen.
Belisarius was delighted.
He had not had time, as yet, to think through all of the military implications of the new, strange Malwa weapons. But one fact was already blindingly obvious: as he had told his cataphracts, the infantry was about to make a great historical comeback. There would be a place for cavalry, of course-and a large one-but the core of future armies would be infantry.
And there were no infantry in the world as good as Roman infantry. There never had been. Never. Not anywhere. In the modern age, only the Hellenes had been able to give the Romans a real contest, infantry to infantry. And the historical verdict had been pronounced at places immortalized in history: Cynoscephalae, Magnesia, Pydna, Chaeronea. In the ancient world, only the Assyrians could even be considered as possible equals. The Assyrians had vanished long ago, of course, so it would never be known how they might have fared against Roman legions. But-Belisarius smiled, then, from an old memory. He and Sittas had once spent a pleasant afternoon speculating on the question. The theoretical discussion had degenerated into a drunken, intemperate quarrel. Sittas, vaingloriously, had argued that the Assyrian army would have been crushed within fifteen minutes. Belisarius-calm, cool, and professional (as always)-had felt they might have lasted a full hour. Maybe.
He shook off the memory, and the smile vanished.
There was no time, any longer, for dispassionate examination. The Ye-tai were the future foes of the Roman Empire, but they were the current allies of the handful of Romans on the ship. And those Roman allies were going down to defeat.