The priest was just drawing a lighting device out of his tunic when Belisarius' saber cut the legs out from under him. The priest sprawled across the barrels, still holding the striker. Belisarius' next slash removed that hand; his next, the Mahaveda's head.
The general reined in his horse and clambered onto the wagon. From that perch, he began bellowing orders in his thunderous battlefield voice.
The orders were pungent, profane, simple—and quite unnecessary. Anastasius and Valentinian had already secured the two closest wagons. The Greek cataphracts, within ten seconds, had done the same with the rest.
All of the kshatriya still on the wagons—perhaps fifty—tried to surrender, along with the remaining two dozen priests. The cataphracts would have none of it. Many of those men had seen the first priest's suicidal attempt to blow up the ammunition cart. The Greeks slaughtered any Malwa among the wagons without mercy.
Belisarius left off his bellowing. The deed was done. The Malwa wagons, with their great load of gunpowder, were safely in Roman hands.
He clambered onto the highest-placed barrel. From that precarious perch, he strained to see what he could of the battle.
Battle, no longer. The rout was complete.
Maurice's hammer blow had completely shattered the Malwa right. The Ye-tai who had guarded that flank had taken frightful casualties before breaking. Whatever their other characteristics, no one had ever accused Ye-tai of cowardice. So they had stood their ground—almost to a man, Belisarius judged, estimating the mound of corpses.
Their courage had been useless, of course. Not even the best troops, in Belisarius' experience, could put up an effective defense against a surprise mass attack coming on their flank. Not on an open field of battle, at any rate, with no place to shelter and regroup. Such troops could fight—fight bravely—but they would fight as confused individuals against a well-organized, steady and determined attacker. The conclusion was foregone.
It was equally obvious that the Malwa regulars had not come to the assistance of the barbarians. The Malwa regulars clustered with the main force had still been mounted, unlike their luckless comrades who had been advancing on foot behind the Kushan attack. They had seen no reason to abandon that good fortune, and had immediately taken flight away from the Roman flank attack.
Good fortune—fleeting fortune. In their natural desire to make the quickest escape from that frightening mass of oncoming Thracians, Illyrians and Persians—heavy cavalry, all of them, shaking the very earth in their charge out of the northeast woods—the Malwa regulars had broken to the south.
A mass rout, thousands of horsemen galloping frantically around the edge of the forest—into the Euphrates. As soon as they realized their error, of course, the fleeing Malwa began racing east down the riverbank, toward the far-distant refuge of the Malwa forces besieging Babylon.
Few of those men would ever find that refuge, two hundred miles away. Very few.
The men pursuing them were veterans, led by experienced and capable commanders. Maurice and Kurush, seeing the direction of the Malwa retreat, had sent their cataphracts and dehgans angling southeast. They would cut off the Malwa escape, trap them against the river.
Belisarius watched his katyusha rocket-chariots wheel into a line, some three hundred yards away. A small figure—their commander Basil, he assumed, although he could not recognize any faces at the distance—was prancing back and forth on his horse issuing commands. A moment later, a volley of hissing rockets sailed toward the Euphrates.
Belisarius watched their flight. It was his first opportunity to observe the rockets without the distraction of immediate battle. The missiles flew in a shallow trajectory, with little of the erratic serpentine motion of Malwa rockets. Seconds later, the general saw the warheads erupt, scattering shrapnel through the milling mob of Malwa packed on the riverbank.
The carnage was impressive. Belisarius had seen to it that Roman rockets carried well-designed shrapnel in their warheads. Lead drop-shot, rather than the pebbles and other odds-and-ends which Malwa rockets used.
Belisarius now looked toward the villa. Here too, he saw, the situation was progressing nicely. Those Malwa infantrymen who had managed to escape the sally were also pouring toward the river. The Syrian cavalry had peeled off from the captured powder wagons and were driving the Malwa toward the north bank of the Euphrates.
Behind them, the Syrian infantry had taken formations opposite the Kushans. The Kushans were already withdrawing toward the corrals. The Syrians followed, at a respectful distance, content to let them go.
He heard Agathius' voice, raised in a cheerful hail. Turning, Belisarius saw Agathius and several of his cataphracts trotting toward him. "I sent most of my men to help the Syrians," he announced, "after I saw you doing the same."
Belisarius had not actually given that order. There had been no need, since Cyril had done so without any prompting, and the general had wanted to concentrate his attention on watching Maurice's half of the battle. But now, looking around, he saw that there were only a hundred or so cataphracts left, guarding the wagons.
Belisarius was immensely pleased. Immensely. There were few things the general treasured more than quick-thinking and self-reliant subordinates. He was firmly convinced that at least half his success as a commander was due to his ability to gather such men around him. Men like Maurice, Ashot, Hermogenes, John of Rhodes—even Bouzes and Coutzes, once he'd knocked the crap out of them.
And now, men like Agathius and Cyril.
Something of his delight must have shown. A moment later, he and his two new Greek officers were beaming at each other. There was nothing at all crooked in the general's grin, now; and not a trace of veteran sardonicism, in those of Agathius and Cyril.
"Jesus, general," exclaimed Agathius, "this is the sweetest damn battle I ever saw!"
"Beautiful, beautiful," agreed Cyril. "Only fuck-up was that one rocket volley."
Belisarius grimaced. "My fault, that. I should have remembered the damn things still aren't that accurate. And I wasn't expecting we'd get so close this quickly."
Cyril did not seem in the slightest aggrieved, even though it was his men who had suffered from that friendly fire. The Greek cataphract simply shrugged and pronounced the oldest of all veteran wisdom:
"Shit happens."
Agathius nodded his agreement. "Live and learn, that's all you can do. Besides—" He twisted in his saddle, studying the effect of the current rocket volleys on the Malwa massed by the river.
"—they're doing fine work now. Save a lot of Roman boys, the katyushas will, by the time they're done. Those Malwa shits'll be like stunned sheep."
Belisarius heard another hail. Turning, he saw that Maurice was approaching from the north. The chil-iarch was accompanied by one of his hecantontarchs, Gregory, and a half-dozen cataphracts.
When Maurice drew up alongside the wagon, his first words were to Cyril and Agathius.
"Sorry about the rockets," he stated. His voice was firm and level. Very courteous in tone, although the expression on his face seemed more one of embar-assment than remorse.
Maurice now looked to Belisarius.
"Don't even bother asking," he growled. "The answer's no. My boys'd probably be willing enough, even if those raggedy-ass Malwa fucks couldn't come up with two solidus ransom amongst them. But the Persians are completely berserk and there's no way to stop them without—"
Belisarius shook his head. "I know. I can hear their battle cries."
He cocked his ear, listening. Even at the distance, the Persian voices were quite distinct.
Charax! Charax!
Death to Malwa!
No quarter!
Seeing the look of confusion on the faces of Agathius and Cyril, Maurice chuckled.
"The young general here"—he pointed a thumb at Belisarius—"has a soft and tender heart. Likes to avoid atrocities, when he can."