"Maybe tonight," she heard Ashot murmur. "And maybe not. Doesn't matter. We'll break the bastards, whenever they come."
He barked a harsh laugh. "The only thing I know for sure is this, Antonina. A month from now, those bedouin hotheads will be sulking in their tents. Calling you the Iron Dyke."
Chapter 16
The attack came two nights later, long before the moon went down, and from the south. Menander and Euphronius were both exceedingly disgruntled. The tactics of their enemies made no sense at all!
They got over it, quickly enough. Very quickly. Whatever the Arabs lacked in the way of tactical acumen, they made up for in other ways.
Ashot was not surprised-neither by the Arabs' tactics nor by the vigor of their attack. The timing was about what he had guessed, so far as the day was concerned. He had not really expected bedouin irregulars to be patient enough to wait until midnight. South was the direction from which they had come, and they had the advantage of moonlight to guide them. True, the same moonlight made them easier targets, but the desert warriors sneered at such unmanly concerns. There was a hill to the south, moreover, almost next to the Roman camp. The hill would disguise the Arabs' approach, and give them the advantage of charging downhill.
None of it, as Ashot had foreseen, made any difference. The Theodoran Cohort was prepared, as they had been for three days. As soon as the sun went down, the troops were on full alert. The matchlocks were loaded and the matches themselves were lit. The musketeers buckled on their short swords. The wives laid out the grenades, cut the fuses, prepared the cartridges. Sharpened stakes were set in the ground at eighteen-inch intervals, making for additional protection for the musketeers. The Thracian cataphracts, dismounted, took up their pikes.
The smell of smoldering slow match blew across the camp on the ceaseless breeze. The cataphracts and the Cohort waited. Ashot waited. Menander and Euphronius polished their certainties. Antonina mouthed a silent prayer for the soul of a general she had never met and never would, wherever that soul might be.
Two hours after sundown, the attack started. With a sudden whoop, several thousand Arabs on camelback surged over the hilltop and began charging down onto the camp. Most of them were holding swords, but many brandished torches.
"What the hell?" demanded Menander.
"What's wrong with those stupid-" began Euphronius. But the young commander of the Cohort broke off. He had immediate duties to attend to.
"Sling-staffs!" he shouted. "To the south! As soon as the enemy's in range!" He raced off, seeing to the disposition of the musketeers.
Menander stayed behind, standing next to Antonina and Ashot. He was in direct charge of the cataphract pikemen, but he really had nothing to do. The cataphracts, veterans all, were no more surprised by the illogic of the enemy's attack than Ashot. And, unlike the musketeers, they did not have cumbersome supplies and equipment to move around. The units, without waiting for orders, simply shifted their positions slightly.
They didn't have far to go. Ashot had set the camp in such a way that the Roman troops formed a tightly packed square. The musketeers formed the front line, on all four sides, protected by the palisade of sharpened stakes. The pikemen took position just a few yards behind, ready to form an additional bulwark where needed. The grenadiers, along with the hundred cataphracts whom Ashot was keeping as a mounted reserve, were positioned in the center of the camp.
"Range," for grenadiers wielding sling-staffs, meant a hundred and fifty yards. By the time the first wave of Arabs reached that distance, the wives had cut and lit the fuses. The grenades were sent on their way.
Ashot mounted up. He managed the task unassisted, and with relative ease. Like the rest of the cataphracts, he was wearing half-armor instead of full gear. He had felt that would be enough, against lightly armed irregulars. Mobility would be more important than protection and weight of charge, in this battle.
Ashot was not planning any thunderous sallies, in any case. His relative handful of cavalrymen would be swallowed up in a sea of swirling bedouin, if they ever left the safety of the camp. Their role was to provide a sharp, quick counterpunch wherever the enemy might threaten to break through the front lines.
* * *
Menander and Euphronius, of course, had argued with him.
"Can't destroy an enemy without cavalry pursuit," Menander had sagely pointed out. Euphronius nodded firm agreement.
"Don't need to," had been Ashot's sanguine reply. "We're not facing disciplined regulars, who'll regroup after a defeat. The bedouin haven't got any staying power. They'll attack like maniacs, but if they bounce off, good and bloodied, they'll decide the whole business is not favored by the gods. They'll melt into the desert and go back to tending their flocks. That's good enough, for our purposes. Abreha won't have them, at his side, when Eon and Wahsi storm into Sana."
Menander and Euphronius, of course, had not been convinced. But the youngsters had satisfied themselves, in the days thereafter, with lengthy exchanges on the subject of senility.
Antonina did less than anyone, waiting for the charge. She simply followed Ashot's advice-say better, instructions-and stood firmly in her place. Right at the center of the camp, where everyone could see and hear her.
"Your job," Ashot had explained cheerfully, "is simply to give the troops confidence. That's it, Antonina. Just stand there, looking as resolute as Athena, and shout encouragement. And make sure you wear that obscene breastplate."
Antonina donned the cuirass, with the help of her maid, Koutina. Looking down at her immense brass mammaries, she had her usual reaction.
Ashot's good cheer faded. "And try not to giggle," he grumbled. "That looks bad, in a commander, during desperate battle."
Antonina giggled.
Now, as she waited for the charge, Antonina had no trouble restraining her giggle. She maintained her outward composure, but she was quite scared. Terrified, if truth be told.
Ashot could make his veteran pronouncements, and her young officers could decree the certain future. But all Antonina could see, staring at the horde of shrieking nomads coming down the hill like an irresistible force of nature, was a wave of rape and murder.
Cursing at the weight of her awkward firearm, she shifted the strap which held the thing over her shoulder. Her hand groped for the hilt of her "sword." Once her fingers curled around the plain wood of the blade's utilitarian handle, she felt her confidence return. She had used that cleaver before-and used it successfully-to defend herself against rape and murder, when Malwa-paid thugs attacked her in Constantinople. Maurice had purchased the cleaver, afterward, and given it to her for her personal weapon in the battle at the stadium.
Ask any veteran, Antonina, he'd told her at the time. They'll all tell you there's nothing as important in a battle as having a trusty, tested blade.
The cleaver brought confidence. And so, even more, did Ashot's whispered words: "It's just another knife fight in a kitchen, Antonina. Like you've done before."
The grenades began landing among the Arabs. Few of them missed. The Syrian slingers were combat veterans themselves, now. The confidence which that gave them, added to their own skill, made for a murderous volley.
As before, against cavalry, the main effect of the exploding bombs was moral. Not many of the Arabs themselves were killed, or even seriously injured, by the crude devices. Most of the casualties were sustained by their mounts, and even the camels did not suffer greatly. The year before, when used against Ambrose's rebel cataphracts on the paved streets of Alexandria, shrapnel from exploding grenades had wreaked havoc on the unarmored legs of their horses. But here, on desert sand, there were no ricochets to multiply the damage.