Eric Flint - An Oblique Approach

A moment later, the front line of the Romans and Axumites burst through to the small open space between the fleeing Ye-tai and the advancing Arabs. They were now aft of the mainmast and its surrounding cabin, to Belisarius' relief. There was no way the enemy could get around them by clambering over the cabin. It was fight and die across a space of forty feet.

Seeing the sudden appearance of a disciplined and determined line before them, the pirates hesitated in their advance. The pause lasted long enough for Ousanas, Eon, and Garmat to force their own way through the milling Ye-tai and take their place just behind the line of cataphracts and sarwen.

From within the Arab crowd in the stern a man shoved his way to the fore. Unlike most of the pirates, he was equipped with a mail tunic and a helmet. His sword was long, slightly curved, and very finely made.

The man was middle-aged, but other than the grey in his beard there was not the slightest sign of any lack of vigor in his body. He was tall, well-built, and possessed both of an air of authority and a very loud voice. The air of authority steadied the pirates; the stentorian voice began to command them forward anew.

Began, but ceased suddenly. Ousanas had used up all his javelins. So the dawazz hurled his great stabbing spear.

It was the first time in his life that Belisarius had ever seen a man actually decapitated by a spear-cast. For a moment, he gaped with astonishment. The huge blade of the dawazz's spear simply lopped the pirate's head off and then continued on to sink into the chest of a pirate standing behind.

The Arabs froze at the sight, momentarily paralyzed. Belisarius bellowed. The cataphracts and sarwen lunged forward.

Now it was pure mayhem, sheer carnage. The Romans and Axumites hammered into the Arab crowd like a machine. The lightly armored pirates at the front went down like slaughtered lambs, their skulls crushed or split open, their chests or bellies skewered, their arms amputated. In falling, they hampered the pirates behind who, in turn, could put up little resistance to that ferocious charge.

It was not all one-sided, of course. Menander cried out and fell, clutching his side. A sword thrust coming from somewhere in the pirate mob had found its mark. One of the sarwen cried out also, staggering, his face covered with blood from a scalp wound. The wound was not fatal, for the Ethiopian had deflected the sword with his shield just before it landed. But, like all head wounds, it bled profusely.

Stubbornly, the sarwen began to return to the front line, but Ousanas pulled him back and gently took his spear. The man was almost helpless, blinded from the blood. Garmat steadied him with a hand. The old adviser stood guard over the wounded sarwen and Menander, as the battle pushed its way to the stern.

Ousanas took a place in the front line. A moment later, so did Eon. There was no dawazz, now, to restrain the pride of young royalty. Eon surged into the gap created by Menander's fall and began his eager spearwork with the two veterans, Valentinian and Anastasius, on either side.

Young and impetuous he may have been, even, perhaps, foolish in his enthusiasm. But he tripped neither of the cataphracts by his side, nor did he get in the way of their veteran slaughter. And if, once, Anastasius was forced to cover the prince's side because the youth had surged too far forward in his inexperience, the huge Thracian was not disgruntled. He had done the same before, many times, for other young warriors. Young warriors who, often enough, had been paralyzed with sudden fear—which the prince certainly was not. Eon slew the man before him, and Anastasius crushed the life from the other who would have stabbed the prince's unguarded side.

All in a day's work, all in a day's work. Training young warriors was part of the trade, and it was a trade which could be learned by no other method. So did Anastasius remind the dawazz, firmly, in the quiet hours after the battle, when Ousanas began to chide the idiot boy. And Valentinian actually managed to silence Ousanas completely—wonder of wonders—with a few short, curt, pungent phrases. Hot and angry phrases, in point of fact.

The cynical veteran Valentinian, as it happens, had developed a sudden enthusiasm for the Prince Eon. A very fierce enthusiasm, born of an ancient warrior tradition.

Not all the casualties of a battle are novices. Veterans die too, sometimes, brought down by the smallest chances. And on that night—that hellfire-lit, bedlam-shrieking, dragon-raging night—the crafty and cunning Valentinian had finally met his nemesis. From the smallest, chanciest thing.

The veteran killer, master and survivor of a hundred dusty battlefields, had found his death aboard wooden planks. He had not considered the nature of a blood-soaked ship's deck, so unlike the blood-soaked soil of land carnage. And so, striding forward to deliver another death-blow, as he had done times beyond remembering, his foot had skidded out from under him. Flat on his back Valentinian had fallen, his shield askew, his sword arm flailing, his entire body open and helpless. A pirate took the wonderful opportunity instantly and gleefully. To his dying day, Valentinian would never forget the sight of that sword tip readying to butcher his belly.

Except that the sword tip stopped, not more than an inch away, and withdrew. It took Valentinian a moment to realize that the cause of the bizarre retreat was Eon's spear, which had taken the pirate square in the chest. The veteran Valentinian was paralyzed himself, then, for a second or two. Not from fear so much as a strange wonder.

The pirate never lost his determination to slay the cataphract. His fierce black eyes never left those of Valentinian. And the rage in those eyes never died, until the man himself did. His sword continued to jab, his body continued to lunge forward. But the pirate was inexorably held at bay, by a spear in the hands of a boy. An idiot boy, perhaps, but a strong and fearless boy, most certainly.

So, in the quiet hours after the battle, when the boy's mentor began to criticize him for an idiot, Valentinian would have none of it. No, none at all. And it was noted, thereafter, by all who knew that deadly weasel of a man, that a small group of people had gained a new member.

The comrades-in-arms of Valentinian, that group was called, by him as well as others. Those few—those very, very, very few—privileged to share his cups, handle his blades, criticize his faults, and compliment his women.

Eon, Prince of Axum, was the only royal member of that club. Then, or ever. But the lad took no umbrage in the fact. Royal, the group was not; no, not even noble. But it was among the smallest clubs in the world. Perhaps its most exclusive. Certainly its most select.

All that, however, lay in the future. The Arabs had been pushed back into the very stern of the ship. As their numbers grew compressed, their ability to fight lessened. The press of the mob badly hampered those pirates who were still eager for combat.

But there were few such left. The ruthless assault of the Byzantines and Ethiopians had demoralized the great majority of the pirates—the more so, in that they had thought themselves on the verge of victory.

Most, now, thought of nothing but escape. As many as could clambered down the stern of the ship into the galley which was still lashed alongside. But the galley was soon so overloaded with refugees that its captain ordered the grappling lines severed.

Many pirates simply dove off the side of the ship. Some found refuge aboard the retreating galley which had been lashed to the stern. More found refuge in the other surviving pirate craft, which had now found its way from the bow whence it had been repulsed earlier by those same horrible Romans and Axumites. Most drowned.