Too late. Three soldiers came into sight, racing down the alley. A second or two later, a Mahaveda priest became visible also. The priest was shouting something. When the soldiers reached the wounded woman lying in the alley, one of them paused just long enough to slash her neck with a sword. Arterial blood spurted against the grimy walls of the nearest building.
The other two soldiers kept up their pursuit of the surviving woman and the two children. The refugees were now almost out of the city.
Behind him, Belisarius heard one of his bodyguards snarling a curse. Priscus, that was—his eyesight was superb, and he had no need of a telescope to follow what was happening.
“We could maybe reach—” said the cataphract, uncertainly.
Before Belisarius could shake his head, Aide’s voice was ringing in his mind.
No! No! That city is a death-trap!
Belisarius sighed. He lowered the telescope and turned his head.
“I’m sorry, Priscus. We can’t risk it. The Malwa started those fires, not our cannons. That was deliberate. They always knew they couldn’t hold Barbaricum against a serious assault. Not so long as we control the sea. So they’re starting the scorched earth policy right here. And, as I feared—and expected—that will include slaughtering the populace.”
He turned back, forcing himself to watch the last moments, though he saw no reason to use the telescope. The two soldiers had overtaken the fleeing woman and children just outside the city. Blades flashed in the distance. Then, moving more slowly, the two soldiers jogged back to their fellow and the priest, who were standing at the mouth of the alley. Once the small party was reunited, they began prowling back into the city’s interior. They reminded Belisarius of scavengers, searching rubbage for scraps of food.
“Fucking animals,” snarled Priscus. “But wait till they try to leave themselves.”
The cataphract’s eyes ranged the landscape behind the small command party. The sight seemed to fill his hard face with satisfaction.
Already, columns of Roman troops could be seen marching through the flat terrain. Some of those soldiers were following the path left by Belisarius and his party. Most of them, however, were ranging inland. Within a few hours, Barbaricum would be surrounded by the Roman army. The city was already surrounded by a cavalry screen.
“No prisoners,” Priscus growled. He gave Belisarius a hard, almost angry stare. The Roman commander’s policy of not allowing atrocities had, over the past two years, become firmly established throughout his army. With, as always, his personal household troops—bucellarii, as the Romans called them—ready to enforce the policy. Priscus was one of those bucellarii himself, and normally had no quarrel with the policy. Today, clearly enough, discipline was straining at the leash.
Belisarius returned the stare with one that was just as hard, if not angry. “Don’t be stupid, Priscus,” he said calmly. “Most of those soldiers are just following orders. And after they finish butchering the civilians, we’re going to need them for a labor force.”
His lips quirked for a moment, before he offered the consolation prize. “Mahaveda priests, on the other hand, are unaccustomed to hard labor. So I don’t believe there’s any need to keep them alive. Or any officers, for that matter.”
Priscus scowled, as did Isaac and the rest of Belisarius’ small squad of bodyguards. But none of them made any further argument or protest.
“Cheer up, lads,” said Maurice. The words were accompanied by a burbling laugh so harsh it sounded like stones clashing in a torrent. “Nobody said anything about making their life easy.”
The chiliarch—the term meant, literally, “ruler of a thousand,” though Maurice commanded far more than a thousand men—turned in his saddle and grinned at Priscus and the other cataphracts. The teeth, shining in his rough-hewn, high-cheeked, gray-bearded face, gave the man more than a passing resemblance to an old wolf.
“We may not work the bastards to death,” he continued cheerily. “Not quite. But they’ll be wishing we had, be sure of it.”
His words, beginning with “bastards to death,” were punctuated by a ripple of sharp, cracking explosions.
“They’re destroying the big guns at the harbor,” pronounced Gregory.
No sooner were those words out, than a sudden roar erupted from the city. The sound of a gigantic explosion billowed across the countryside. A large part of Barbaricum—the port area, it seemed—vanished under a huge cloud of smoke and debris.