Before Sittas had finished, Belisarius was issuing new orders. “Gregory, set up the artillery on that rise. But don’t use the mitrailleuse or the mortars unless I give the command. In fact, keep them covered with tarpaulins. I want to keep those weapons a secret as long as possible, and they require special ammunition anyway. Which we need to use sparingly, this early in the campaign. Abbu, guide them there—or have one of your men do it.”
As Gregory and Abbu peeled off to set their troops into new motion, Belisarius continued to issue orders. They were obeyed instantly, with one exception.
“No, Mark,” said Belisarius forcefully. “I know you want to give your sharpshooters their first real taste of battle, but this is not the time and place. We can’t replenish your ammunition from the general stock, and we’ll need it later.”
He eased any sting out of the rebuke with a slight smile. “You’ll have plenty of combat, soon enough. At Sukkur and elsewhere. For today, I just need you to guard the guns. They’ll do the killing.”
Mark, as always, was stubborn. It was a trait Belisarius had managed to wear down some, over the years. But not much, because in truth he had never really made much of an effort to do so. If there was any single word which captured the spirit of Mark of Edessa, it was pugnacious—a characteristic which Belisarius prized in his officers.
At the Battle of the Pass, that pugnacity had broken a Ye-tai charge like so much kindling. That it would do so again, and again—or die in the trying—was one of the lynchpins of Belisarius’ entire campaign.
“The damn artillery doesn’t have much ammunition either,” grumbled Mark. “And they chew it up like a wolf chews meat.”
“They can also chew up enemy troops like a wolf,” pointed out Belisarius. “Especially at close range, with canister. And I can keep them restocked from any kind of gunpowder. Even that cruddy Malwa stuff, if I have to. I can’t replace your special cartridges easily.”
Mark of Edessa knew he had pushed the general as far as he could. Stubborn he was, yes, but not insubordinate. So, still scowling, he trotted off on his horse, venting his resentment by barking his commands to the sharpshooters. He sounded like a wolf himself.
“God help the Malwa if they try to overrun the batteries,” said Maurice, smiling grimly. “Mark’s been wanting to test the bayonets, too. And don’t think he won’t, if he gets half a chance.”
Maurice too, it seemed, had caught the general bloodlust. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy watching it, mind you. But, you’re right—this is not the time and place.” He sighed with happy satisfaction. “This is just a time and place for butcher’s work.”
* * *
By the time the real butchery began, the Malwa were already badly blooded. Sittas, if he had not violated the letter of his orders, had obviously stretched the spirit of them as far as he could. Watching the Malwa soldiers pouring down the river bed in complete disorder, Belisarius knew that Sittas and his Greek cataphracts had “rolled them up” the way a blacksmith rolls a gun barrel—with hammer and flame.
Belisarius had chosen to take his own position with the artillery and the sharpshooters. These were his least experienced troops—in the use of these weapons, at any rate—and he wanted to observe them in action.
The slant of the terrain gave him a view of at least half a mile of the riverbed. The first Malwa units had almost reached the slight bend where he intended to hold them. Behind, moving more like fluid water than solid men, came enough enemy soldiers to fill the riverbed from bank to bank.
“How many, do you think?”
Maurice shook his head. “Hard to say, exactly, with a mob like that. At a guess, we’ll wind up facing maybe twelve thousand.”
That was a little higher than Belisarius’ own estimate, but not by much. He nodded, continuing to study the oncoming enemy. Some of the Malwa soldiers, perhaps instinctively sensing a trap, were trying to clamber out of the riverbed over the shallow southwestern bank. But Sittas—who, for all the fury with which he could drive home a charge, was as shrewd as any cataphract commander in the Roman army—had foreseen that likelihood. So he had peeled off Cyril’s men to flank the enemy yet again. The Greek cataphracts were already on the southwestern bank, ready and eager to drive the Malwa back with lance and saber.