The grenades had a simple “potato-masher” design. A strip of cloth was attached to the butt of the wooden handle. Like the cloth strips often attached to javelins, it would stabilize the grenade in flight and ensure that the weapon would strike in the proper orientation to set off the fuse. There was no need to fumble with a striker, or cut a fuse to proper length. Each pikeman simply yanked out the pin which armed the device, and sent it sailing down the slope.
The grenades disappeared into the clouds of smoke which were wafting down the pass. Before they hit, Felix had ordered another round of gunfire. Not more than a second after that roaring lightning, Belisarius heard the sharp claps of the grenades exploding down the slope. The sounds harmonized like music composed by a maniac. A homicidal maniac. Those Ye-tai at the rear, trying to retreat, were being savaged by the grenades even while their comrades at the front were being hammered into pulp by the guns.
For an instant, Belisarius was seized by a savage urge to order a countercharge. That had been his plan from the beginning. The Ye-tai were already broken—as badly as any army could be, driven back from an assault. A rush of pikemen now would complete their destruction. The fierce army which had charged up the slope not minutes earlier would be as thoroughly beaten as any army in human history.
Mark and Gregory were at his side now, awaiting the order. Their faces were tense and eager. They knew as well as Belisarius that they were on the verge of total victory.
Fiercely, Belisarius restrained himself. Yes, the enemy was beaten here. But—
Distantly, he could hear wails from another direction. To his left. Wails of pain, and the steel clash of weapons. He couldn’t see anything through the wafting clouds of gunsmoke, but he knew the Rajputs were already hammering his left flank.
All ferocity and sense of satisfaction fled. His counterstroke at the saddle had worked, just as it had worked in another future for a man named Arthur Wellesley. But battles are rarely neat and tidy affairs which go according to plan. Not against well-led enemies, at least.
This battle could still wind up a disaster, came Aide’s forceful thought.
Belisarius had won the struggle at the center, true. But if he didn’t withdraw his army quickly, and in good order—which was the most difficult maneuver of all, in the face of the enemy—Sanga and the Rajputs would roll up his flank.
“No,” he commanded, pointing toward the slope of the saddle to their left. Only the crest of the pass was still visible, due to the gunsmoke, but they could see hundreds of Rajput cavalry pouring across the terrain. Ten times that number would be hidden in the clouds below, on the lower part of the slope. Twenty times, more likely. There had been at least ten thousand Rajputs massed on the Malwa right, under Sanga’s command.
Mark began to argue—respectfully, but still vehemently, but Gregory restrained him with a firm shake of the shoulder. The Thracian cataphract was older than the Syrian, more of a veteran—and more familiar with Belisarius.
“Shut up, youngster,” he growled. “The general’s right. If we charge down that slope, we’ll be completely out of position when the Rajputs hit us. They’ll turn us into sausage.”
Belisarius didn’t pick his officers for reticence and timidity. The young Syrian flushed, a bit, from Gregory’s rebuke, but plowed on. “The Greeks’ll hold them! Those are Cyril’s men—and Agathius’, before him. The same cataphracts who broke the Malwa at Anatha, and then at—”
“There are only three thousand of them, Mark,” said Belisarius mildly. He wasn’t going to spend more than a few seconds, arguing with a subordinate in the middle of a battle. But he was prepared to spend those seconds. There was no other way to train good officers.
“They’re facing four times their number—probably five,” he continued. “They’re splendid troops, yes. But they don’t have as good a position as we did here in the center. There’s no one protecting their flank. Sanga will just send enough men to keep them pinned while he sweeps around them. He won’t even try to crush the Greeks, not now. He’ll bypass them and fall on us.”