The commander of the Malwa inner squadron seemed to be torn by indecision. Or perhaps, as Ousanas said, he was simply caught between two monsters. At first, the five galleys headed toward the oncoming Ethiopians. Then, seeing the Roman ships casting loose from the docks, they headed back. The principal assignment of those galleys, after all, was to keep Belisarius and his men from escaping.
Then, seeing the first of the gigantic explosions which began to destroy what was left of Charax, the little Malwa fleet simply drifted aimlessly.
What to do? What to do? The harbor area was as yet untouched by either flame or gunpowder fury. The Malwa flotilla’s commander knew that Belisarius would not set off the final round of explosions until he saw his way clear. With the rest of Charax a raging inferno—there had been naphtha mixed with the demolition charges—there was no possibility the oncoming Malwa army could reach the docks before the Roman ships were well into the delta. Where—
The Ethiopian warships were within a mile of the inner squadron. They would reach the Malwa galleys in less than ten minutes, long before the Roman troopships would be within effective rocket range.
Eight against five, now—and the flotilla commander had seen the carnage when the odds had favored Malwa.
Suddenly, from the eastern bank of the delta, signal rockets flared into the sky. Green, green, white. Within thirty seconds, all five Malwa galleys were pulling for the shore. Taking the only sensible course, when caught between monsters. Get out of the way.
* * *
“Will you look at them go?” chortled Antonina a few minutes later, watching the Malwa galleys scuttling eastward. “Jason and his Argonauts couldn’t have made better speed.”
Ousanas grinned. “Well, of course! What else can they do?”
He pointed straight ahead. The view was open, now. Already, the shields were being removed and the pole framework dismantled. The fleet of Roman troop vessels was completely clear of the harbor, which was beginning to burn fiercely. A rippling series of explosions shattered the docks themselves.
“To one side,” Ousanas announced, “they have the famous general Belisarius, leading his fearsome men. To the other—worse yet!”
He began prancing about, lunging with his spear. “They face me! I was terrible, terrible—a demon!”
Antonina burst into laughter. “You spent the entire battle sitting on your ass! Fraud! Impostor!”
Ousanas shook his head. “That’s because I understand the proper place of a commander in battle, woman.” Scowling: “And what does that have to do with anything, anyway? It’s the soul that matters, not the paltry flesh. Everybody knows that!”
He bared his teeth at the fleeing galleys. “The soul of Ousanas, that’s what terrified them!” A majestic, condescending wave of the hand. “The sarwen helped, of course. A bit.”
Antonina began to make a bantering rejoinder when something caught her eye.
Someone, rather. The nearest Roman troopship was less than two hundred yards away. A soldier was perched on the very tip of its bow. A tall man, he seemed to be. And he was waving wildly.
* * *
A moment later, Antonina was teetering on the very bow of her own ship, waving frantically, screaming incoherent phrases.
Jumping up and down, now. Ousanas barely managed to grab her before she fell over the side.
“Antonina! Be careful! In that cuirass, you’ll drown in two minutes.”
Antonina paid him no attention at all. She was weeping now, from sheer joy. Still waving her arms and screaming. And still jumping up and down. Small as she was, and for all his great strength, Ousanas had some difficulty in his newfound task.
“Marvelous,” he growled. “Once again, I have to save a fool Roman woman from destruction.”
Chapter 39
In the event, Ousanas wound up saving the fool Roman general. When the troopship was almost alongside Antonina’s craft, Belisarius—he was leaping about himself, hollering his own ecstasy—slipped and fell over the side.
Antonina shrieked. Ousanas, by main force, hurled her back into Matthew’s arms.
“Keep her here!” he bellowed. An instant later, Ousanas split the water in a clean dive.
He found Belisarius in less than fifteen seconds, floundering about, gulping for breath as he tried to unlace his armor. Fortunately, the general was an excellent swimmer and—more fortunately still—was not wearing full cataphract gear. Had he been, Belisarius would already have been dragged under. But the half-armor was heavy enough, and awkward to remove.