Your theory's the right one, I think, Aide said. Link is shifting to the defensive.

Yes. I hadn't thought it would, not this quickly. I'd expected the monster to try a massive assault to drive us out of the Punjab, before we could get really settled in. But… It's not. And if it waits much longer, it'll be too late.

Too late, indeed. The Romans and their Persian allies were slowly but surely gaining control of the Indus and both of its banks all the way from the Sukkur Gorge to the Iron Triangle, after already having conquered the Sind south of the Gorge. So the spearhead that Belisarius had driven into the Punjab during the course of his campaign the previous year would soon be well-supplied. The fortifications across the northern side of the Triangle were already strong enough to break any army Link could send against them within a year or two. Not even the Malwa Empire had an inexhaustible supply of men and munitions, ready to hand.

Especially men. Their morale must be close to the breaking point, I think. Link's army needs a rest, and it knows it. That's why it didn't order the assault. It can afford a stalemate, even for long period, where it can't afford another string of defeats.

The sun was coming up.

Softly, proudly: You really hammered them, these past few years.

Chapter 1

Bukkur Island, on the Indus river

He dreamed mostly of islands, oddly enough.

He was sailing, now, in one of his father's pleasure crafts. Not the luxurious barge-in-all-but-name-and-glitter which his father himself preferred for the family's outings into the Golden Horn, but in the phaselos which was suited for sailing in the open sea. Unlike his father, for whom sailing expeditions were merely excuses for political or commercial transactions, Calopodius had always loved sailing for its own sake.