The northern Punjab had not been ravaged much by the war, and it was the most fertile portion of the Punjab because it got more rain during the monsoon season than the rest of the province. If the Kushans were willing to abandon their logistics train and cut across the area relying on forage, they could cover possibly thirty miles a day. Twenty, for a surety.

The terrain was good, too. Excellent, from the standpoint of a marching army. From Peshawar ran the ancient trade route known as the Uttar Path or North Way, which crossed into the Ganges plain and ran all the way to the Bay of Bengal on the other side of the sub-continent. That was the same route that Great Lady Sati herself planned to take in her return to Kausambi, once she reached it by following the Sutlej.

By now, Samudra was staring to the north, not really seeing anything except in his mind. A fast-moving Kushan army, unrestrained by a logistics train, marching down the Uttar Path from the Margalla hills with no army in their way any longer...

Theycould intercept Great Lady Sati.

Possibly. It depended on how fast her own march had been. But Samudra knew full well that with the size of the army she'd taken with her, mostly infantry and with elephant-borne chaundoli, she wouldn't be moving all that quickly.

He opened his mouth, about to issue orders-that army coming back would curse him, for sending them north yet again, but better the curses of soldiers-far better-than- A horrific chain of explosions shattered his purpose.

Gaping, Samudra spun around, now facing south by southwest.

"What happened?"The chain of explosions was continuing. As loud as it was, it seemed strangely muffled. Samudra detected what might be...

Fountains, in the distance?

One of his aides coughed. "General, I think the Romans are blowing up their mine field in the river."

"That's ridiculous! Our ironclads-"

He broke off so suddenly the last word ended in a choke.

"They're only blowing the mine field in the Indus," the same officer continued, his tone apologetic. "Not the one in the Chenab."

The Malwa had no ironclads left in the Indus. The Persians had destroyed them. There was nothing to stop the Roman warships from sallying up the river, firing at troops who had no way to shoot back except small arms and light cannon. Great Lady Sati had dismantled the heavy batteries that had once been positioned along the east bank of the Indus, once the ironclads came into service, in order to move them across the river as a shield against a possible Roman flank attack.

They could be turned around to face the river, but that would take at least a full day-and Samudra was quite sure the Romans or Persians or both would be attacking those forts again as soon as the Roman ironclad got up there and started firing on them.

Perhaps the heavy batteries at Multan could be brought down...

His earlier intentions completely forgotten, Samudra began issuing a blizzard of new orders.

"Let's hope this works," Menander muttered to himself, as theJustinian steamed at full speed up the river. "If the engine breaks down..."

He eyed the engine house warily. The damn gadget was more reliable than it had been when the former emperor after whom the ironclad had been named designed it, but it was still very far from being what anyone in his right mind would call "dependable."

Not for the first time, Meander contemplated ruefully the odd twists of fate that had wound up putting him in charge of the Roman army's brown-water naval forces, instead of becoming a simple cataphract liked he'd planned to be.

When he said as much to his second-in-command, the newly-promoted former Puckle gunner, Leo Constantes laughed.

"Today?Be glad you're not a cataphract-or you'd be taking part in the crazy charge Sittas is leading."

Menander winced. "Point."

Sittas himself was downright gleeful. He'd been frustrated for months, ever since the battle on the north lines of the Iron Triangle had settled down into a siege. There was really no place for heavy cavalry in such a fight, except to stay in reserve in the unlikely event of a Malwa breakthrough. Now, finally-!

He was tempted to step up the pace, but managed to resist with no huge difficulty. Sittas was too experienced a horseman not to know that if he arrived with blown horses at the Malwa fortifications that had driven back the Persians a few days before, he might as well not have come at all.

Besides, they were nearing the Persian lines. Sittas didn't like Persians, and never had. No Roman he knew did except Belisarius-who was hopelessly eccentric-and those who had married Persian women, who at least had a reasonable excuse. Not even Sittas would deny that Persian women were attractive.

The men, on the other hand-pah!

"Look smart, lads!" he bellowed over his shoulder. "A fancy trot, now! Let's rub salt into their wounds!"

The Persian sahrdaran and vurzurgan glared at the Roman cavalrymen the whole way through their camp. The dehgans who fell in behind Sittas' cavalry, on the other hand, seemed more philosophical about the matter. Or perhaps they were simply more sanguine. This time it would be Romans leading the charge against those damn Malwa guns. It remained to be seen how cocky they'd still be in a few hours.

"All right," Maurice said to his top officers, gathered in the command bunker. "Remember: make the sallies as threatening as you can,without suffering heavy casualties. We've got no more chance of storming the Malwa lines facing us here than they have of storming the Iron Triangle. All we've got to do is pin them, so Samudra can't pull out troops to reinforce his right flank. Any questions?"

"What ifthey make a sally?" one of the officers asked. "If they break through anywhere, we don't have Sittas and his thousands of cavalrymen to drive them back."

Maurice shrugged. "We'll scramble, that's all."

When theJustinian came in sight of the Malwa fortifications on the west bank, Menander let out a whoop of exultation. The Punjabi peasants who'd managed to escape the labor gangs and desert to the Romans had told them that the Malwa hadn't positioned any guns on the river side of the fortifications.

What they hadn't said-or hadn't been asked-was that they'd also never bothered to put up walls sheltering the guns from the river, either. Why bother, when they had the ironclads?

The gun ramps and platforms were completely exposed. The thousands of Malwa gunners and riflemen manning the lines would have no shelter at all from theJustinian.

"Load case shot!" he bellowed.

As his gun crews went about the labor, his eyes scanned the east bank of the river. There were some Malwa fortifications there also, but nothing substantial. What was more important was that he couldn't see any sign of big guns. A few small pieces, here and there, but theVictrix could handle those well enough. The fireship wasn't an ironclad, but her thick wooden walls should be able to handle anything the Malwa had on the spot. And by the time they could bring up heavy artillery, theVictrix would have done her job and gotten back downriver and out of range.

And quite a job it would be, too. Menander contemplated the mass of barges tied up to the wharves.

There were only two crossing the river. The rest...

"You're kindling, boys," he gloated. "I'd recommend you get ashore quickly."

He turned to the signalman. "Tell theVictrix to come up."

A few seconds later, the signal flags having done their work, he saw heavy steam pouring out of the Victrix 's funnel. She'd be here very shortly.

But he had his own work to do. By now, theJustinian was just coming abreast of the first fortress.

There was something almost comical about the way the Malwa soldiers were frantically trying to move the big guns facing landward and get them turned around.

It was a pointless effort, of course. But what else were they to do, except gape in consternation? The handguns and small artillery they had would just bounce off the Roman ironclad.

They wouldn't bounce off Menander, on the other hand. Constantes and the signalman had already retreated into the pilot's armored turret. Hurriedly, Menander followed them.

Once inside, he leaned over the speaking tube.

"Let 'em have it, boys."

Sittas waited until theJustinian had steamed completely past the fortifications, shelling them as it went.

"Now!" he bellowed, and sent his horse into the charge. Six thousand Roman cataphracts came after him-and after them, over twice that number of Persian dehgans.

"Back again," Menander commanded. TheJustinian had finished its turn. That was always a slow and delicate business, in the relatively narrow confines of the river. He'd had to be more careful than usual, too, since he didn't have good charts of this stretch of the Indus.

But the work was done, and the enemy was about to get savaged again. They were still as defenseless as ever. More so, actually, since he could see they were starting to panic.

And well they might. By now, close to twenty thousand heavy cavalrymen would be thundering at them.

If they'd still had their big guns intact, they could have sneered at that charge, as they'd done a few days earlier.

Now...

None of the guns had been dismounted, true enough, since Menander hadn't used anything heavier than case shot. Nor would he again, since the plan was to capture the guns intact. But he'd inflicted heavy casualties on the crews and ammunition carriers, and even managed to blow up one of the smaller ammunition dumps that had been overly exposed. They'd be in no shape to resist the kind of charge Sittas would press, all the more so since they'd have to do so with Menander firing on them again from their rear.

The barges across the river were making a nice conflagration, too. And-wonder of wonders-the wind was blowing the smoke away from the river. Menander had worried that if the smoke blew the other way he might find himself blinded.

"It's a miracle, lads," he said cheerfully to the other men in the turret. "The one and only time in my life I've seen a military operation work exactly according to plan."

The engine coughed. TheJustinian lurched.

Coughed again. Coughed again.

Silence. TheJustinian glided gently downriver with the current, its engine dead.

"Idiot!" Menander hissed at himself. "You had to go and say it!"

Sighing, he studied the riverbank for a moment. "Can you keep her steady in midriver?"

"Yes, sir," replied the pilot.

"All right, then." He leaned over the speaking tube again. "Relax, boys. All that happens until the engineers get the engines running again is just that we have more time to aim. Let 'em have it."

The fighting that afternoon at the front lines was brutal, but the casualties never got bad enough for Maurice to start worrying. And the Malwa never tried any sallies at all.

Samudra was too pre-occupied to order any. All his attention was concentrated on the desperate effort to get reinforcements to the Indus in time to keep the Romans and Persians from crossing. It was bad enough that he'd lost the forts on the opposite bank. It wouldn't take the enemy long to turn the guns around and built new berms to shelter them. The Persians and Romans were already working like bees to get it done. As it was, he'd henceforth be pressed on his western flank as well as the southern front. But let them get a toehold onhis side of the river...

Samudra managed to stave off that disaster. But it took two days to do so.

It wasn't until the morning of the third day that he remembered the Kushans at Margalla Pass. By which time it was too late to do anything.

Chapter 32.

Near Mayapur, on the Ganges.

"It's them, Great King," said the Pathan scout, pointing to the east. "Must be. No general-not even a Malwa-would be leading a large army from a chaundoli."

"How close are they to the Ganges?"

"For us, Great King, a day's march. For them, two. By mid-afternoon on the day after tomorrow, they will have reached Mayapur. They will need to wait until the next day to ford the river. The Ganges is still quick-moving, just coming out of the Silawik hills and the rapids. They would be foolish-very foolish-to cross it after sundown."

"Unless they were forced to..." Kungas mused. "Do you know if there's high ground nearby?"

"Yes, Great King. I have been to the shrines at Mayapur, to see the Footstep of God."

Kungas was not surprised. The Pathans were not Hindus, but like tribesmen in many places they were as likely to adopt the gods of other people as their own. Mayapur-also known as Gangadwara-was an ancient religious site, which had drawn pilgrims for centuries. It was said that Vishnu had left his footprint there, at the exact spot where the holy Ganges left the mountains.

The Pathan's hands moved surely in the air, sketching the topography. "Here, below, is the Ganges.

Here-not far-there is a ridge. Very steep. There is a temple on the crest. I have been to it."

"Is the river within mortar range of the ridge?"

"Yes. The big mortars, anyway. And the flatland by the river is wide enough to hold the whole Malwa army, while they wait to cross." The Pathan grinned fiercely. "They will be relaxed and happy, now that they are finally out of the hills and entering the plain. You will slaughter them like lambs, Great King."

As he studied the distant hills, Kungas pondered the man's use of the titleGreat King. That was no title that Kungas himself had adopted or decreed, and this scout was not the first Pathan whom Kungas had heard use the expression. From what he could tell, in fact, it seemed to have become-or was becoming, at least-the generally accepted term for him among the tribesmen.

Great King.

There were subtleties in that phrase, if you knew-as Kungas did-the ways of thought of the mountain folk. People from lands accustomed to kings and emperors would think nothing of it. "Great" was simply one of many adjectives routinely attached to such rulers. A rather modest one, in fact, compared to the "divine" appellation of Indian tradition. Even the relatively egalitarian Axumites, when they indulged themselves in formal oratory, plastered such labels as "He Who Brought The Dawn" onto their monarchs.

Something else was involved here.Great king-where the Kushans themselves simply called him "king."

The title added a certain necessary distance, for the Pathans. Kungas was nottheir king. Not the authority to whom they directly answered, who were their own clan leaders. But they would acknowledge that he was the overlord of the region, and would serve him in that capacity.

Good enough, certainly for the moment.

Kujulo was frowning slightly, looking at the Pathan. "Are you sure-"