“The negusa nagast is leading the charge!” came the hissing response. “Damned idiot!”
The captain’s jaws tightened. So did his squint, as he tried to force slightly nearsighted vision to his will.
“Idiot,” he echoed. Then, with a small sigh: “Always the danger, with a young king. Especially one who never fought enough battles while still a prince.”
Yet, for all the condemnation in the words, the tone in which they were spoken—as had been true of the lieutenant’s—echoed a dim but profound contentment. A mighty empire, Axum had become over the centuries. Its King of Kings might rule over half of Arabia and have a navy whose power could stretch across an ocean. But at the heart of that power still lay the fierce highland warriors whose sarwen, as Axumites called their regiments, were the spine and sinew of Ethiopian might.
Today’s negusa nagast might carry, as had all those before him, a long list of grandiose and splendid titles. “He who brings the dawn” being not the least of them. But he had begun his life simply as Eon bisi Dakuen—Eon, man of the Dakuen regiment.
That was his most important name, the one that captured his true soul. Today, did any man doubt it, he would prove it true. Even without good eyesight, the captain knew full well that the first Axumite marine who had hurled his lightly armored body onto that shield wall had been the king who commanded his loyalty.
And so, despite the disapproval of his brain, the man’s heart erupted. And, like every Ethiopian soldier in that fleet now pouring its strength against the Malwa bastion at Chowpatty, he spent the remaining time in that battle—even while he oversaw the cannonade which began shredding Malwa galleys on the beach and turning them into kindling for the torching squads—shouting the name of his emperor.
The name, not the titles. Eon bisi Dakuen!
* * *
From beginning to end, the battle lasted slightly longer than three hours. Throughout, the captain kept shouting that name.
The battle was ferocious enough, once the Malwa commander was able to organize the resistance. “Garritroopers,” the Ethiopian captain had called his men, but the term was quite unfair. Most of the Malwa stationed at the port had been seamen, accustomed to the hardships of naval life and no stranger to savage boarding actions. Nor were they strangers to Axumite tactics, for they had clashed many times over the past year with Ethiopian ships running the blockade. And the soldiers, because Chowpatty was an isolated bastion surrounded by the Maratha rebellion, were no strangers to bitter fighting.
Still, the contest was uneven. The Ethiopians had been prepared, ready, on edge. The Malwa caught off guard, even if their commander rallied them before they were completely routed. Most of all, the difference in leadership was simply too great to withstand.
Not military leadership, as such. The Malwa commander was a capable and courageous officer, experienced in both land and naval combat. As an infantry officer, one of the Malwa kshatriya who fought with grenades in the front lines, not cannons in the rear, he had been one of the first to pour through the breach of Amaravati’s walls which brought down the Andhran empire ruled by Shakuntala’s father. Later, transferred into the navy, he had shown the same aptitude with maritime warfare. Promotions had come quickly enough, and not one of those promotions had come from bribes or favoritism.
If truth be told, he was not only more experienced than the king who led his enemies, but a more capable commander as well. In that battle, the negusa nagast could hardly have been said to “command” at all. He simply led, cutting his way through the Malwa defenders like any one of the marines at his side. Like Alexander the Great before him—though with little if any of Alexander’s strategic and tactical genius—Eon bisi Dakuen would lead a battle in the front ranks, wielding a sword himself.
Indeed, in the course of that battle, Eon even managed to restage one of Alexander’s most famous exploits. The negusa nagast was among the first marines who reached the walls of the fortress and began erecting their siege ladders. And then—despite the vehement protests of the soldiers surrounding him—insisted on being the first to scale the wall.