In the Heart of Darkness

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.

Hurriedly, Valentinian fired again. This time, cursed bitterly. He had missed completely—his shot sailing ten feet over the enemy's deck.

Meantime, Belisarius set another corbita's rigging aflame. Then, after two misses, set another aflame.

They were surrounded by enemy ships, now, several of them within bow range. Arrows were pouring down on them like a hail storm. The rowers' shelter sprouted arrows like a porcupine. In his own little cabin at the stern of the ship, the steering officer was crouched low. The thin walls of his shelter had been penetrated by several arrow-heads. But he kept calling out his orders, calmly and loudly.

Arrows thunked into the walls of the wood-castle. Fortunately, due to the height of the fighting platform, the men on it were sheltered from arrows fired on a flat trajectory from the low-hulled corbita. But some of those arrows, fired by better or simply luckier archers, were coming in on an arched trajectory.

One of the windlass-crankers suddenly cried out in pain. An arrow had looped over the walls and plunged into his shoulder. He fell—partly from pain, and partly from a desire to find shelter beneath the low wall. His relief immediately stepped forward and began frantically cranking the windlass.

As he waited—and to give himself something to think about other than oncoming missiles—Belisarius watched Valentinian fire a third firebomb at the same misbegotten corbita.

Belisarius had never seen Valentinian miss anything, three times in a row. He didn't now, either. The shot was perfect. The firebomb hit the rail right before the mast, spewing death over the deck and destruction into the rigging.

His loader:

"Ready!"

Belisarius turned, aimed—

Nothing. Empty sea.

They had sailed right through the enemy fleet.

A movement in the corner of his eye. He swiveled the scorpion hurriedly, aimed—

A dromon, scudding across the waves, right toward them. John of Rhodes, standing in the bow, hands on hips, scowling fiercely.

His first words, in the powerful carrying voice of an experienced naval officer:

"Are you out of your fucking mind?"

His next:

"You could have wrecked my ship!"