The first Malwa assassin appeared in the doorway. Saw Ousanas, squealed his rage. Ousanas tossed the second grenade.
No lob, this toss. Ousanas the spear-hurler had learned his skill as a boy, hunting with rocks. The grenade split the assassin’s forehead wide open. An instant later, the forehead disappeared altogether, along with the head itself and half the man’s body. The explosion blew the doorway into splinters.
The second grenade erupted on the open deck. The damage here was slight. Almost all the force was directed upward, leaving only a small hole in the planking as a memento of its fury.
Other, of course, than the great sound rocketing through the night sky over Kausambi.
Ousanas picked up his spear and raced away. As he entered the mouth of the alley, running like the wind, he heard new sounds of fury behind him. Other Malwa had appeared on the deck and spotted his fleeing figure.
There would be little to see, he knew. A tall shape sprinting down an alley. As tall as a Roman general. True, the color of the shape seemed black. Meaningless. All men would appear black in that dark alley. The Malwa dynasty saw no reason to waste money lighting the alleys of their capital. They did not travel in alleys.
They will tonight, thought Ousanas gleefully. Oh, yes, they will learn many alleys tonight. I will give them a tour.
Then, only: Good luck, Belisarius.
All other thought vanished, beyond the immediacy of the hunt. The hunter was now the prey, true. But he was a great hunter, who had studied many great prey.
Swimming away from the barge, Belisarius heard the sounds of struggle behind him. He did not turn his head. To do so would have interrupted the powerful breast-strokes which sent him quietly surging into the middle of the Jamuna. But he listened, carefully, with experienced ears.
Wail of agony, cut short. Chopped short. Malwa cry of fury. Explosion, muffled; explosion, loud as a thunderclap. Malwa cries of fury. Cries of furious discovery. Cries of furious pursuit.
Belisarius was not certain, of course, but he thought he knew the identity of the man who had caused those sounds. Not certain, no. But he thought he recognized a certain signature in them. Some men, like Valentinian, had an economical signature. Others preferred more flair.
He started to grin, until a small river wave caught his mouth. He could not afford to choke, not now, so he sealed his lips and drove steadily onward through the dark water.
For all the strength of the general’s limbs, his progress was slow. He was encumbered by boots and clothing, heavy with wet saturation. But he did not stop to shed them. Not yet. He had to reach the middle of the river, out of range of shore-carried lanterns. So he simply drove onward, slowly, quietly, steadily, with the patience of a veteran campaigner.
Yes, he thought he knew that man. It had never been part of any plan to have that man ready to intervene as he had. But it had never been part of any plan for Belisarius himself to be trapped. Yet, trapped he had been, and the man had intervened.
Again, he suppressed a grin, remembering something that man had once said. In the dank hold of a ship, as they plotted together against the enemy who owned that great vessel.
“Good plans are like good meat, best cooked rare. Now we can move on to discuss truly important things. Philosophy!”
Outlandish man. Bizarre man.
But never empty. Never nothing.
The sound of the grenade explosions was faint. Not so much due to their distance, as from the hubbub rising from the Malwa soldiers chattering over their evening meal. But, to the men listening for that sound, they were unmistakeable.
“That’s it, then,” Menander heard Valentinian say. The words were spoken softly, calmly, almost serenely.
Much less serene were Valentinian’s next words, hissed:
“Fuck exciting adventures.”
But Menander thought the hiss was more from exertion than annoyance. Valentinian favored a very powerful bow. The arrow which that bow launched flew into the Malwa army camp with a trajectory that was almost perfectly flat. Thirty yards away, a soldier squatting over his mess tin was slammed flat to the ground, as if struck by a stampeding elephant.