Lest Darkness Fall (23 page)

            It was getting too dark for
his telescope to be useful. He could make out the general's standard in front
of a big tent. Perhaps Belisarius was one of those little figures around it. If
he had a machine-gun — but he didn't have, and never would. You needed machines
to make a machine-gun, and machines to make those machines, and so on. If he
ever got a workable muzzle-loading musket he'd be doing well.

            The standard no doubt bore
the letters S. P. Q. R. — the Senate and the People of Rome. An army of
Hunnish, Moorish, and Anatolian mercenaries, commanded by a Thracian Slav who
worked for a Dalmatian autocrat who reigned in Constantinople and didn't even
rule the city of Rome, called itself the Army of the Roman Republic and saw
nothing funny in the act.

            Padway got up, grunting at
the weight of his shirt of scale mail. He wished a lot of things, such as that
he'd had time to train some mounted archers. They were the only troops who
could really deal on even terms with the deadly Byzantine cuirassiers. But he'd
have to hope that darkness would nullify the Imperialists' advantage in missile
fire.

            He superintended the driving
of a stake into the ground and paced off the base of a triangle. With a little
geometry he figured the quarter-mile distance that was Brunhilde's range, and
ordered the big catapult set up. The thing required eleven wagon-loads of
lumber, even though it was not of record size. Padway hovered around his
engineers nervously, jumping and hissing reprimands when somebody dropped a
piece of wood.

            Snatches of song came from
the camp. Apparently Padway's scheme of leaving a wagon-load of brandy where
foragers would be sure to find it had had results, despite Belisarius'
well-known strictness with drunken soldiers.

            The bags of sulphur paste
were brought out. Padway looked at his watch, which he had recovered from the
hole in the wall. It was nearly midnight, though he'd have sworn the job hadn't
taken over an hour.

            "All ready?" he
asked. "Light the first bag." The oil-soaked rags were lit. The bag
was placed in the sling. Padway himself pulled the lanyard.
Wht-bam!
said Brunhilde. The bag did a fiery parabola. Padway raced up the little knoll
that masked his position. He missed seeing the bag land in the camp. But the
drunken songs ended, instead there was a growing buzz as of a nest of irritated
hornets. Behind him whips cracked and ropes creaked in the dark, as the horses
heaved on the block-and-tackle he'd rigged up for quick re-cocking.
Wht-bam!
The fuse came out of the second bag in midair, so that it continued its course
to the camp unseen and harmless. Never mind, another would follow in a few
seconds. Another did. The buzz was louder, and broken by clear, high-pitched
commands.
Wht-bam!

            "Liuderis!" Padway
called. "Give your signal!"

            Over in the camp the horse
lines began to scream. The horses didn't like the sulphur dioxide. Good; maybe
the Imperialist cavalry would be immobilized. Under the other noises Padway
heard the clank and shuffle of the Goths, getting under way. Something in the
camp was burning brightly. Its light showed a company of Goths on Padway's
right picking their way over the broken, weed-covered ground. Their big round
shields were painted white for recognition, and every man had a wet rag tied
over his nose. Padway thought they ought to be able to frighten the
Imperialists if they couldn't do anything else. On all sides the night was
alive with the little orange twinkle of firelight on helmets, scale shirts, and
sword blades.

            As the Goths closed in, the
noise increased tenfold, with the addition of organized battle yells, the flat
snap of bowstrings, and finally the blacksmith's symphony of metal on metal.
Padway could see "his" men, black against the fires, grow smaller and
then drop out of sight into the camp ditch. Then there was only a confused blur
of movement and a great din as the attackers scrambled up the other side — invisible
until they popped up into the firelight again-and mixed it with the defenders.

            One of the engineers called
to say that that was all the sulphur bags, and what should they do now?
"Stand by for further orders," replied Padway.

            "But, captain, can't we
go fight? We're missing all the fun!"

            "
Ni
, you can't!
You're the only engineer corps west of the Adriatic that's worth a damn, and I
won't have you getting yourselves killed off!"

            "Huh!" said a
voice in the dark. "This is a cowardly way of doing, standing back here.
Let's go, boys. To hell with Mysterious Martinus!" And before Padway could
do anything, the twenty-odd catapult men trotted off toward the fires.

            Padway angrily called for
his horse and rode off to find Liuderis. The commander was sitting his horse in
front of a solid mass of lancers. The firelight picked out their helms and
faces and shoulders, and the forest of vertical lances. They looked like
something out of a Wagnerian opera.

            Padway asked: "Has
there been any sign of a sortie yet?"

            "No."

            "There will be, if I
know Belisarius. Who's going to lead this troop?"

            "I am."

            "Oh, lord! I thought I
explained why the commander should —"

            "I know,
Martinus," said Liuderis firmly. "You have lots of ideas. But you're
young. I'm an old soldier, you know. Honor requires that I lead my men. Look,
isn't something doing in the camp?"

-

            True enough, the Imperial
cavalry was coming out. Belisarius had, despite his difficulties, managed to
collect a body of manageable horses and cuirassiers to ride them. As they
watched, this group thundered out the main gate, the Gothic infantry scattering
in all directions before them. Liuderis shouted, and the mass of Gothic knights
clattered off, picking up speed as they went. Padway saw the Imperialists swing
widely to take the attacking foe in the rear, and then Liuderis' men hid them.
He heard the crash as the forces met, and then everything was dark confusion
for a few minutes.

            Little by little the noise
died. Padway wondered just what had happened. He felt silly, sitting alone on
his horse a quarter mile from all the action. Theoretically, he was where the
staff, the reserves, and the artillery ought to be. But there were no reserves,
their one catapult stood deserted off in the dark somewhere, and the
artillerists and staff were exchanging sword strokes with the Imperialists up
front.

            With a few mental
disparagements of sixth-century ideas of warfare, Padway trotted toward the
camp. He came across a Goth quite peacefully tying up his shin with a piece
torn from his tunic, another who clutched his stomach and moaned, and a corpse.
Then he found a considerable body of dismounted Imperial cuirassiers standing
weaponless.

            "What are you
doing?" he asked.

            One replied: "We're
prisoners. There were some Goths supposed to be guarding us, but they were
angry at missing the looting, so they went off to the camp."

            "What became of
Belisarius?"

            "Here he is." The
prisoner indicated a man sitting on the ground with his head in his hands.
"A Goth hit him on the head and stunned him. He's just coming to. Do you
know what will be done with us, noble sir?"

            "Nothing very drastic,
I imagine. You fellows wait here until I send somebody for you." Padway
rode on toward the camp. Soldiers were strange people, he thought. With
Belisarius to lead them and a fair chance to use their famous bow-plus-lance
tactics, the
cataphracti
could lick thrice their number of any other
troops. Now, because their leader had been conked on the head, they were as
meek as lambs.

            There were more corpses and
wounded near the camp, and a few riderless horses calmly grazing. In the camp
itself were Imperial soldiers, Isaurians and Moors and Huns, standing around in
little clumps, holding bits of clothing to their noses against the reek of
sulphur fumes. Goths ran hither and thither among them looking for movable
property worth stealing.

            Padway dismounted and asked
a couple of the looters where Liuderis was. They said they didn't know, and
went on about their business. He found an officer he knew, Gaina by name. Gaina
was squatting by a corpse and weeping. He turned a streaked, bearded face up to
Padway.

            "Liuderis is
dead," he said between sobs. "He was killed in the mêlée when we
struck the Greek cavalry."

            "Who's that?"
Padway indicated the corpse.

            "My younger
brother."

            "I'm sorry. But won't
you come with me and get things organized? There are a hundred cuirassiers out
there with nobody guarding them. If they come to their senses they'll make a
break —"

            "No, I will stay with
my little brother. You go on, Martinus. You can take care of things."
Gaina dissolved in fresh tears.

            Padway hunted until he found
another officer, Gudareths, who seemed to have some sort of wits about him. At
least, he was making frantic efforts to round up a few troopers to guard the
surrendered Imperialists. The minute he turned his back on his men, they melted
off into the general confusion of the camp.

            Padway grabbed him.
"Forget them," he snapped. "Liuderis is dead, I hear, but
Belisarius is alive. If we don't nab him —"

            So they took a handful of
Goths in tow and walked back to where the Imperial general still sat among his
men. They moved the lesser prisoners away, and set several men to guard
Belisarius. Then they put in a solid hour rounding up troopers and prisoners
and getting them into some sort of order.

            Gudareths, a small, cheerful
man, talked continually: "That was some charge, some charge. Never saw a
better, even in the battle against the Gepids on the Danube. We took them in
flank, neatest thing you ever saw. The Greek general fought like a wild man,
until I hit him over the head. Broke my sword, it did. Best stroke I ever made,
by God. Even harder than the time I cut off that Bulgarian Hun's head, five
years ago. Oh, yes, I've killed hundreds of enemies in my time. Thousands,
even. I'm sorry for the poor devils. I'm not really a bloodthirsty fellow, but
they will try to stand up against me. Say, where were you during the
charge?" He looked sharply at Padway, like an accusatory chipmunk.

            "I was supposed to be
running the artillery. But my men ran off to join the fight. And by the time I
arrived it was all over."

            "
Aiw
, no doubt,
no doubt. Like one time when I was in a battle with the Burgunds. My orders
kept me out of the thick until it was nearly over. Of course, when I arrived I
must have killed at least twenty —"

-

            The train of troops and
prisoners headed north on the Latin Way. Padway, still a little bewildered to
find himself in command of the Gothic army, simply by virtue of having taken
over Liuderis' responsibilities on the night of confusion, rode near the front.
The best are always the first to go, he thought sadly, remembering the simple,
honest old Santa Claus who lay dead in one of the wagons in the rear, and
thinking of the mean and treacherous little king whom he had to manage when he
got back to Rome.

            Belisarius, jogging along
beside him, was even less cheerful. The Imperial general was a surprisingly
young man, in his middle thirties, tall and a bit stout, with gray eyes and
curly brown beard. His Slavic ancestry showed in his wide cheek bones.

            He said gravely:
"Excellent Martinus, I ought to thank you for the consideration you showed
my wife. You went out of your way to make her comfortable on this sad
journey."

            "Quite all right,
illustrious Belisarius. Maybe you'll capture me some day."