With a fierce glower: “Make sure your galleys do not fire their rockets until the enemy’s lead elements are almost across. I want to make sure we catch as many of them as possible on their pitiful pontoons. Do you understand?”
Jayanaga nodded, and immediately left.
Lord Jivita turned back to his examination of the enemy. Again, he clapped his hands with satisfaction.
“We will butcher them! Butcher them!”
The Malwa flotilla—forty-two galleys, in all—was almost within rocket range of the pontoon bridge when the captain of the lead ship realized that something was wrong.
His first assumption, however, was far off the mark. He turned to the oarmaster.
“Why have you slowed the tempo?” he demanded.
The oarmaster immediately shook his head, pointing to the two men pounding on kettledrums.
“I didn’t! Listen! They’re beating the right tempo!”
The captain’s scowl deepened. Before the oarmaster had even finished speaking, the captain realized that he was right. Still—
The ship was slowing.
No! It was going backward!
“Look!” cried one of the other officers, pointing to the near bank. “The river’s dropping!”
“What? Impossible! Not that fast!”
The captain leaned over the railing, studying the shore. Within seconds, his face paled.
“They’ve diverted the river upstream,” he whispered. “It must be. Nothing else could—”
He broke off, his attention drawn by the sound of hooves pounding on wooden planks. Lots of hooves. Upstream, he could see Persian cavalry racing across the pontoon bridge. Dozens—hundreds—thousands—of Persian lancers and armored archers were streaming over to the west bank of the Euphrates.
Like his commander, Lord Jivita, the galley captain had been puzzled by the Persian sally. There had seemed no purpose for the enemy to cross the Euphrates, especially when the crossing itself would expose the Persians to withering rocket fire from the Malwa galleys. Who was there to fight, on that side of the river? The great mass of the Malwa army was concentrated on the east bank, south of Babylon’s fortifications.
Now he understood. The captain was a quick-thinking man.
“They knew about it ahead of time,” he hissed. “They’re going to burn the supply ships.”
He twisted, staring back at the huge mass of supply barges some half mile south. Already, he could see the unwieldy craft yawing out of control, driven by the rapidly ebbing waters of the river. Within a minute, he knew, they would start grounding. Helpless targets.
Especially helpless when there would be no war galleys to protect them. His own flotilla would be grounded also—not as quickly, for they had a much shallower draft—unless—
“Row toward the center of the river!” he roared. “Signal the other ships to do likewise!”
Immediately, the drums began beating a new rhythm. The Malwa had no sophisticated signaling system for controlling their fleet. But the captain of the lead galley also served as the commodore of the flotilla. The message of the drums was simple:
Do as I do.
But it was already too late. The drums had barely begun beating when the flotilla commander saw the first of his warships ground. There was no dramatic splintering of wood—the bed of the Euphrates was mud, not rock—just the sudden halting of the galley’s motion, a slight tilt as it adjusted to the angle of the riverbed.
Nothing dramatic, nothing spectacular. But the result was still deadly.
Helpless targets.
The captain felt his own galley lurch, heard the slight hissing of mud and sand against the wooden hull. His craft jerked loose. Another hiss, another lurch. Jerked loose. Stopped.
A quick-thinking man. He wasted no time trying to pry the vessel out. The muddy soil of the riverbed would hold the hull like glue. Instead, he turned his attention to preparing his defenses.
“Move the rocket troughs around!” he bellowed. “Set them to repel boarders!”
His rocket handlers scurried to obey. One of them cried out, clutching his arm. An arrow was suddenly protruding from his elbow. The cry was cut short by another arrow penetrating his throat.
The captain spun around. To his despair, he saw that the enemy charging down the west bank had drawn parallel to his craft. Already, the first Persian lancers were guiding their mounts into the riverbed. Their pace was slow, due to the thick mud and reeds, but the powerful Persian warhorses were still driving forward relentlessly. They would cover the distance quickly enough.