As Belisarius had expected, the pirates concentrated their efforts at the stern and the bow, where their ships could avoid the rockets. Indeed, the only two Arab craft which were still seaworthy were the ones attached to the bow and stern of the huge Indian vessel.
At the stern, the battle went quite well for the pirates, and did so quickly. At the bow, they found nothing but death and destruction.
Belisarius had lied to Venandakatra when he told him that Romans and Axumites were long accustomed to fighting alongside each other. But now, as they did so for the first time in history, under the command of the greatest Roman general in centuries, they seemed to be a perfect fighting machine.
Belisarius had positioned his small band of soldiers as Garmat had recommended. The very front line was made up of his three heavily armored cataphracts. The inexperienced Menander was placed in the point of the bow. Valentinian and Anastasius flanked the youth on either side. Although Belisarius was himself inexperienced in sea battles, it had been obvious that few pirates would try to clamber directly over the arching curve of the bow itself. The points of greatest danger lay a few feet behind the bow, and it was there that the general positioned his two veterans: Anastasius to port, Valentinian to starboard.
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.