In the Heart of Darkness(141)

But he did not have time to find any satisfaction in the deed. Belatedly, he realized that his reckless straight-ahead charge, for all its immediate effectiveness, had placed he and his men in mortal peril. Instead of standing off at a distance and bombarding his enemy, he was plunging straight into their massed fleet of ships. There were archers on all of those ships—hundreds of them. Thousands of them.



Within two minutes, they would be inundated with arrows.



A voice, pouting:



I told you so.



Sulky self-satisfaction:



Cross the T. Cross the T.



Valentinian had already reached the same conclusion.



"We're in a back alley knife fight, now. Only one thing to do."



Belisarius nodded. He knew the answer to their dilemma.



Valentinian had taught it to him, years ago.



Chop the other mindless idiot first.



He turned to Honorius. The seaman's face was pale—he, too, recognized the danger—but was otherwise calm and composed.



"Straight ahead," he commanded. "As fast as you can. We'll try to cut our way through."



As he brought his scorpion to bear on the next ship in line, he caught a glimpse of Valentinian crouched over his own weapon. An instant later, the cataphract's scorpion bucked. The deck of a nearby corbita was transformed into the same hell-on-earth which had already visited four cataphract-laden akatoi.



Valentinian grinned, like a weasel.



Seeing that vicious grin, Belisarius found it impossible not to copy it. Time after time, in years gone by, as he trained a young officer in bladesmanship, Valentinian had lectured him on the stupidity of fighting with a knife in close quarters.



Valentinian should know, of course. It was a stupidity he had committed more than once. And had survived, because he was the best close-quarter knife-fighter Belisarius had ever met.



He heard his loader:



"Ready!"



The closest enemy ship was a corbita, but Belisarius aimed past it, at the next approaching akatos. He feared the archery of those cataphracts more than he did the bowmanship of common soldiers.



He fired. Missed. Although the ship was hardly pitching at all, it was still rolling, and his shot had been twenty yards too far to the right.



His men rearmed the scorpion and Belisarius immediately fired. Another miss—too high, this time. The bomb sailed right over the akatos' mast.



Windlasses spun, the men turning them grunting with exertion. The loader quickly placed the bomb, the claw-man checked the trigger.



"Ready!" called the loader. Belisarius took aim—more carefully, this time—and yanked the trigger.



For a moment, he thought he had fired too high again. But his firebomb caught the mast two-thirds of the way up and engulfed the akatos' rigging in flames.



Behind him, he heard Honorius call out an order to the steersman. Belisarius could not make sense of the specific words—they were spoken in that peculiar jargon known only to seamen. But, within seconds, as he saw their ship change its heading, he understood what Honorius was doing. The seaman was also learning—quickly—some of the principal lessons of the new style of naval warfare.



That akatos is out of action, but its cataphracts can still use their bows. Solution? Simple. Sail somewhere else. Stay out of archery range. Let it burn. Let it burn its way to hell.



He started to tell Valentinian to pick out the cataphract-bearing akatoi first, but saw there was no need. Valentinian was already doing so. His next shot sailed past a nearby corbita, toward an akatos at the extreme range of almost five hundred yards. Valentinian was as good with a scorpion as he was with a bow. He had deliberately shot high, Belisarius saw, knowing that a strike in the rigging was almost as good as one of those terrible deck-sweeping rail shots.



Another akatos began burning furiously.



"Ready!" called his loader.



Belisarius scanned the ship-crowded sea hastily, looking for one of the two remaining akatoi.



He saw none. Hidden, probably, behind the close-packed corbita. Their swift charge had placed them in the middle of the enemy armada.



There was no time to waste. One of those corbita was within two hundred yards. Common soldiers could shoot arrows also. Not as well as cataphracts, true, but—at close range—good enough. Already, arrows from that approaching corbita were plunging into the sea within yards of their ship.



He aimed his scorpion. Missed. Fired again. By luck—he had been aiming at the rigging—his shot struck the rail and poured fury across the enemy's deck.



Valentinian struck another corbita. Then, cursed. His shot had been low. The firebomb had erupted almost at the waterline. The enemy's hull was starting to burn, but very slowly.