Belisarius was still breathing heavily from the exertion of his climb up the narrow stairs. He had arrived at the top of the tower just seconds earlier. Maurice had flatly refused to allow him up until the siege guns had ceased firing. The chiliarch hadn't wanted to risk a stray round killing the Roman commander.
Belisarius had tried to argue the point with his nominal subordinate, but Maurice had refused to budge. More to the point, Anastasius had refused to budge. The giant had made clear, in simple terms, that he was quite prepared to enforce Maurice's wishes by the crude expedient of picking Belisarius up and holding him off the ground.
"What's happening?" demanded Belisarius. The general put his eye to another window. For a moment, he was disoriented by the narrow field of vision. The slit window had been designed for archers. At one time, until Charax expanded, the tower he was perched in had been part of the city's original defensive walls.
"They've finally learned," repeated Maurice. He poked a stubby finger into the window slit. "Look at them, lad. The Ye-tai are leading the charge now, instead of driving regulars forward. And they're using Kushans as light infantry to cover the grenadiers." After a moment, he grunted: "Good formation. Same way I'd do it, without musketeers."
He turned and grinned at the general. "I'll bet that monster Link is kicking itself in its old woman's ass. Wishing it hadn't screwed up with the muskets."
Belisarius returned the grin. Three days before, in one of the warehouses by the docks, the Roman soldiers had found two hundred crates full of muskets. The weapons were still covered with grease, protecting them from the salt air of their sea voyage.
The Malwa Empire had finally produced handcannons, clear enough. And, just as clearly, hadn't gotten them to Mesopotamia in time to do Link any good. Belisarius suspected that Link had intended to start training a force of musketeers. Three of the crates had been opened, and the weapons cleaned. But the gunpowder hadn't arrived in Charax yet. At least, the Roman soldiers investigating the warehouses and preparing them for demolition hadn't discovered any.
The best laid plans of mice and men, said Aide. I guess it applies to gods, too.
Belisarius smiled. The muskets were all lying underwater, now, in Charax's harbor. The Roman musketeers had taken one look at the things and pronounced them unfit for use. Too crude. Too poorly made. Most of all-not our stuff. Furrin' junk.
In truth, Belisarius hadn't thought the Malwa devices were much inferior to Roman muskets. But he had allowed the musketeers their pleasant hour, pitching "furrin' junk" into the sea. He had as many muskets as he needed, anyway, and the escape ships would be crowded enough already. There were at least six thousand Persian civilians to be evacuated, along with the Roman troops.
The first wave of Ye-tai was already clambering over the rubbled wall. Volleys of grenades were sailing over their heads, clearing the way.
There was no way to be cleared, however. As soon as the siege guns began firing, Maurice had pulled back the troops on the wall. Those soldiers had long since taken up new positions.
"When?" asked Maurice.
Belisarius studied the assault through the slit window. What had been the northern wall was now an ant heap, swarming with Ye-tai. The soldiers were making slow progress, stumbling over the broken stones, but at least five hundred were now into the level ground inside the city.
If the Ye-tai hadn't been seized by the fury of their charge, they might have wondered about that level ground. An area fifty yards wide, just within the northern wall, had been cleared by Belisarius' troops. "Cleared," in the sense that the buildings had been hastily knocked apart. The sun-dried bricks hadn't been hauled away, simply spread around. The end result was a field of stones and wall stumps, interspersed with small mounds of mud brick.
They might have wondered about those mounds, too. But they would have no time to do so.
There were now at least a thousand Ye-tai packed into the level ground, along with perhaps two hundred Kushans and kshatriyas. The Malwa soldiers were advancing toward the first line of still-intact buildings. They were moving more slowly now, alert for ambush. Kshatriya grenadiers began tossing grenades into the first buildings.
"Now," said Belisarius. Maurice whistled. A moment later, the small squad of cornicenes in a lower level of the tower began blowing their horns. The sound, confined within the stone walls of the tower, had an odd timbre. But the soldiers waiting understood the signal.
Dozens of fuses were lit. Fast-burning fuses, these. Three seconds later, the holocaust began.
The mud brick mounds scattered everywhere erupted, as the huge amphorae buried within them were shattered by explosive charges. The amphorae-great two-handled jugs-had been designed to haul grain. But they held naphtha just as nicely.
Some of the jugs were set afire by the explosions. Mud brick mounds became blooming balls of flame and fury, incinerating the soldiers crowded around them.
Most of the jugs did nothing more than shatter, spilling their contents. The naphtha they contained was crude stuff. Undistilled, and thick with impurities. Explosive charges alone were not usually enough to set it aflame. But the charges did send clouds of vapor and streams of smelly naphtha spewing in all directions. Within seconds, most of the Malwa soldiers packing the level ground were coated with the substance.
The next round of charges went off. Mines, disguised with rubble, had been laid against the walls of the nearest tenement buildings. They had been manufactured over the past few days by Roman troops working in the harbor's warehouses, smithies and repair shops.
The mines, too, were crude. Not much more than buckets, really, packed with explosives and laid on their sides. Some were copper kettles, but most were simply amphorae reinforced with iron hoops. Wooden lids held the charges from spilling out.
These mines were designed for incendiary purposes. As soon as the charges in the bases of the buckets were fired, combustible materials saturated with distilled naphtha spewed forth. Hundreds-thousands-of burning objects rained all over the ground before them, igniting the crude naphtha which already saturated the area.
Within seconds, hundreds of Malwa troops had been turned into human torches. All other sounds were submerged under a giant's scream.
"Jesus," whispered Maurice, peering through the slit. "Jesus, forgive us our sins."
Belisarius, after a few seconds, turned away. His face seemed set in stone.
"That should stop the charge," he said. "From now on, they'll advance like snails."
Maurice's gaze was still fixed on the human conflagration below. It could not be said that he turned pale, but his cheeks were drawn. He hissed a slow breath between clenched teeth.
Then, with a quick, harsh shake of the head, he too turned away.
He glanced at Belisarius. "Snails? They'll advance like trees growing roots, more like." Again, hissing: "Jesus."
* * *
Musketeers began to clamber onto the tower platform and take their places at the arrow slits. Belisarius and Maurice edged through the soldiers and started descending the stairs. Both men were silent.
Vocally, at least. Trying to shake off the horror, Belisarius spoke to Aide.
That was what you meant, isn't it?
Aide understood the question. His mind and Belisarius', over the years, had entwined their own roots.
Yes. Wars of the future will not really be civilized, even when the Geneva Convention is followed. More antiseptic, perhaps, in the sense that men can murder each other at a distance, where they can't see the face of the enemy. But, if anything, I think that makes war even more inhumane.