Another akatos began burning furiously.
“Ready!” called his loader.
Belisarius scanned the ship-crowded sea hastily, looking for one of the two remaining akatoi.
He saw none. Hidden, probably, behind the close-packed corbita. Their swift charge had placed them in the middle of the enemy armada.
There was no time to waste. One of those corbita was within two hundred yards. Common soldiers could shoot arrows also. Not as well as cataphracts, true, but—at close range—good enough. Already, arrows from that approaching corbita were plunging into the sea within yards of their ship.
He aimed his scorpion. Missed. Fired again. By luck—he had been aiming at the rigging—his shot struck the rail and poured fury across the enemy’s deck.
Valentinian struck another corbita. Then, cursed. His shot had been low. The firebomb had erupted almost at the waterline. The enemy’s hull was starting to burn, but very slowly.
Hurriedly, Valentinian fired again. This time, cursed bitterly. He had missed completely—his shot sailing ten feet over the enemy’s deck.
Meantime, Belisarius set another corbita’s rigging aflame. Then, after two misses, set another aflame.
They were surrounded by enemy ships, now, several of them within bow range. Arrows were pouring down on them like a hail storm. The rowers’ shelter sprouted arrows like a porcupine. In his own little cabin at the stern of the ship, the steering officer was crouched low. The thin walls of his shelter had been penetrated by several arrow-heads. But he kept calling out his orders, calmly and loudly.
Arrows thunked into the walls of the wood-castle. Fortunately, due to the height of the fighting platform, the men on it were sheltered from arrows fired on a flat trajectory from the low-hulled corbita. But some of those arrows, fired by better or simply luckier archers, were coming in on an arched trajectory.
One of the windlass-crankers suddenly cried out in pain. An arrow had looped over the walls and plunged into his shoulder. He fell—partly from pain, and partly from a desire to find shelter beneath the low wall. His relief immediately stepped forward and began frantically cranking the windlass.
As he waited—and to give himself something to think about other than oncoming missiles—Belisarius watched Valentinian fire a third firebomb at the same misbegotten corbita.
Belisarius had never seen Valentinian miss anything, three times in a row. He didn’t now, either. The shot was perfect. The firebomb hit the rail right before the mast, spewing death over the deck and destruction into the rigging.
His loader:
“Ready!”
Belisarius turned, aimed—
Nothing. Empty sea.
They had sailed right through the enemy fleet.
A movement in the corner of his eye. He swiveled the scorpion hurriedly, aimed—
A dromon, scudding across the waves, right toward them. John of Rhodes, standing in the bow, hands on hips, scowling fiercely.
His first words, in the powerful carrying voice of an experienced naval officer:
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
His next:
“You could have wrecked my ship!”
A minute later, after the galley was drawn alongside, the Rhodesman scampered aboard and stalked across the deck. Before he even reached Belisarius, he was gesturing with his hands. Making an odd sort of motion, as if cutting one hand with the other.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded hotly. “What were you thinking?” In full stump now, back and forth, back and forth: “Imbecile! This is a fucking artillery ship!” One hand sawing across the other: “In the name of God! Even a fucking general should have been able to figure it out! Even a fucking landsman! You stay away from the fucking enemy! You try to bring your artillery to bear without getting close! You—you—”
Hands sawing, hands sawing.
Belisarius, smiling crookedly: “Like ‘crossing a T,’ you mean to say?”
John’s eyes widened. His hands paused in their sawing. Fury faded, replaced by interest.
“Hey. That’s a good way of putting it. I like that. ‘Crossing the T.’ Got a nice ring to it.”
Another voice. Sulky. Self-satisfied:
I told you so.
Belisarius chuckled.
“I suppose my naval tactics were a bit primitive,” he admitted.
Image:
A man. Stooped, filthy, clad in rough-cured animal skins. In his hand he clutches an axe. The blade of the weapon is a crudely shaped piece of stone, lashed to the handle with rawhide.