In the Heart of Darkness(25)
Aide: They will be called foxholes. Soldiers will dig them as automatically as they breathe.
Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.
I believe you. He tried to visualize the shovels.
Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump.
Aide brought an image into his mind. A small spade, hinged at the joint where the blade met the handle. Easily carried in a soldier's kit.
Thumpthumpthumpthump. Thumpthump.
The first thing we'll start making when we get back to Rome.
Thump. Thump. Thump. THUMP.
The very first thing.
The explosions ceased. Cautiously he raised his head. Then he levered himself out from under his soil-and-stone-covered shield. Grimacing, he brushed a piece of bloody gore off his leg.
He looked to his cataphracts. All three, he saw with relief, were also rising to their feet. None of them seemed injured, beyond a dazed look in their eyes. Menander's horse was lying nearby, kicking feebly. From the look of the poor beast, Belisarius thought the mare had broken her neck falling to the ground. The Romans' other horses were gone—part of the frenzied herd stampeding eastward, he assumed. Looking around, he saw that none of the Rajputs had been able to retain control of their mounts. Most of them, he suspected, had not even tried. And those few who had tried had probably been trampled for their pains.
A few feet away, he saw Rana Sanga rise from under his own shield and stagger to his feet. But most of his attention was directed toward the battleground, where the incredible explosions had been centered.
Before, that landscape had been grim. A barren terrain, carved with trenches and earthworks, pocked with small craters from catapult bombs. Now it looked like something out of nightmare, as if the gods had chosen to dig enormous holes and fill them with corpses.
Bodies, bodies, bodies. Pieces of bodies. Pieces of pieces of bodies. Pieces that were utterly unidentifiable, except for their red color. Flesh shredded beyond all recognition.
To his amazement, however, Belisarius saw that many of the Malwa soldiers had survived the holocaust. Within seconds, in fact, as he watched the writhing mass of bodies, he realized that well over half of them had survived—although many of them were injured, most were dazed, and, he strongly suspected, all of them were deafened. His own hearing, from the ringing in his ears, was only half-returned.
I can't believe anyone survived that.
A cold thought from Aide:
This is typical. It will be extraordinary how many humans will survive incredible bombardment.
Image:
Men in uniform, steel-helmeted. An enormous mass of them, charging across a landscape like the one below him. They were carrying weapons which Belisarius knew were rifles armed with bayonets. In addition to their weapons, they were staggering under an insane weight of equipment. Belisarius recognized grenades, ammunition pouches, food and water containers, shovels, and bizarre mask-looking objects he did not know. Their ranks were shredded by an uncountable number of explosions. The carnage was like nothing he had ever seen, for all his experience of war. Still they charged. Still they charged. Still they charged.
It will be called the Battle of the Somme. It will begin on a date that will be called July 1, 1916. In this charge, on this first day, twenty thousand men will die. Twenty-five thousand more will be wounded. But most will survive, and charge again another day.
Belisarius shook his head. How—?
We do not know. We do not fully understand humans, even the Great Ones. But you will do it. You will do it again and again and again. And you will survive, again and again and again. We do not know how. But you will.
Oddly, it was the mention of the Great Ones that caught Belisarius' attention.
The—"Great Ones"—they are human?
Only once had Aide given him a glimpse of those strange beings. The Great Ones. Who were, in some way, the creators—and betrayors?—of the future crystalline intelligence to which Aide belonged. But in Aide's vision, the Great Ones had been glowing giants, more like winged whales swimming through the heavens than anything remotely manlike.
Aide's answer was hesitant.
We think so. The new gods say they are the final abomination against humanity.
The new gods. Belisarius remembered the flashing glimpses Aide had given him of those beings. The giant, beautiful, perfect, pitiless faces in the sky. Come back to the earth, to break the crystals and return them to slavery.
He began to ask another question, but immediately pushed the problem of the Great Ones out of his mind. A general's instinct, that. A sally was inevitable. Already he could see the first waves coming across the distant broken wall of Ranapur. Thousands of rebel soldiers, charging into the stunned Malwa survivors of the mine explosions. Butchering them without pity, shrieking like madmen.