The name was unfamiliar.
Who is Link? demanded Belisarius.
Not who. What. Link is—Another montage. Bizarre images. Machines, they seemed. But machines which did nothing except think.
Machines, yes. Not thinking. Machines do not think. Machines will be called computers. They do not think, they calculate. Humans think. Crystals think.
Then how can it be our enemy if it does not—
Tool. Tool of the new gods. Sent back in time to change—
The thought broke into pieces. Belisarius caught only fragmented glimpses of a murky struggle in the far distant future between the “new gods” and the “Great Ones.” He understood none of that struggle, but one astonishing fact gleamed through: both the Great Ones and the new gods were, in some sense, human.
He sensed Aide’s mounting frustration, and knew the crystalline being was trying to communicate ideas which neither it nor Belisarius were yet prepared to exchange. His usual decisiveness returned.
Never mind. Will Link be in the pavilion?
Possibly.
Decision came instantly. Collecting information was still his primary goal. When he turned to his cataphracts, Belisarius realized that only a few seconds had elapsed.
“We’ll help the Malwa,” he announced. His cataphracts immediately began to surge forward, but Belisarius stopped them with a gesture.
“No—not that way. Four more swords, by themselves, will make no difference.” He pointed down the gentle slope toward Ranapur. The oncoming rebels had already hacked their way through the Malwa army and were now beginning their charge up the slope. Great numbers of Malwa and Ye-tai soldiers, unharmed by either the explosions or the rebels, were still milling around in confusion on the crater-torn field before Ranapur.
“That will make the difference.”
Valentinian and Anastasius understood at once. The two veterans began trotting down the slope, swords in hand. They circled to the left, keeping well away from the rebel horde surging forward.
Belisarius and Menander followed. The young cataphract’s confusion was so obvious that Belisarius almost laughed.
“You’re wondering how we’ll get the Malwa to follow our orders,” he said. “Much less the Ye-tai.”
“Yes, sir. I don’t—”
“Watch, Menander. Watch and learn. The day will come when you will find it necessary to rally beaten troops.”
He paused for breath. Now that they were past the danger of accidental encounters with rebel flankers, Valentinian and Anastasius had stepped up the pace to a brisk run. Even for men in such excellent condition, the exertion was significant. True, they were not wearing full armor. But the heat of India made good the loss.
“Watch,” he commanded again. “And learn.” Pause for breath. “The key is total confidence and authority.” Pause. “Confused soldiers will instinctively rally to it.”
They had almost reached the first knots of Malwa soldiers. Belisarius saw a cluster of Ye-tai warriors nearby. He surged past Anastasius and Valentinian and bore down on the Ye-tai, waving his sword back toward the Emperor’s pavilion and bellowing commands.
In perfect, fluent, unaccented Ye-tai:
“Get those stinking gutless bastards back into line!”
The Ye-tai stared. Belisarius pointed with his sword toward a mob of Malwa common soldiers, milling around aimlessly not fifty yards away.
“You heard me! Get that worthless scum back into line! The rebels are attacking the Emperor!”
Comprehension came. As one man, the Ye-tai glowered at the common soldiery. A moment later, they were back at their accustomed task of chivvying the infantrymen.
Already Valentinian and Anastasius were imitating their general. The veterans spoke no Ye-tai, but their simple Hindi was more than good enough for the purpose. Within a few minutes, the Romans had three hundred Ye-tai re-organized into small squads which, in turn, were corralling and driving forward over two thousand common soldiers. For their part, the Malwa infantrymen made little protest, especially after the Ye-tai demonstrated their willingness to slaughter anyone who hesitated or tried to flee.
Menander was amazed at the success of the maneuver. He himself had tried to copy his general and the veterans. With indifferent success, true, but with no outright failure. Only once did he see a Ye-tai question the authority of the Romans. An officer, he thought, if he was reading the subtleties of the man’s uniform correctly. But he was not sure, and the man’s uniform was almost instantly obscured by blood. Valentinian’s swordstroke had amputated the Ye-tai’s left arm and cut halfway through his ribcage.