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Fortune's Stroke
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
EPILOGUE
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Fortune's Stroke
RULES THE GREATEST
EMPIRE ON EARTH!
Link, the supercomputer from a future that should not exist, has used terror and gunpowder weapons to forge the Malwa Empire: harnessing the vast manpower of the Indian subcontinent and using the barbarian races of the periphery to bind the whole together. No power on Earth in the 6th century could stand against Link's evil.
Aide, a human soul embodied in a jewel, has come back to halt evil's progress. Aide has no power but that of truth, but truth is the only power that could move the greatest general of the age, Belisarius.
With his sword, his paladins, and his genius, Belisarius has turned the armies of Byzantium into a weapon capable of blunting the first assault of the Malwa hordes. Now, supported by allies from all the world yet free, Belisarius, with his wife and co-commander Antonia, faces overwhelming Malwa numbers in a ring that tightens about them.
There is no room for maneuver and no safety in defeat. The armies of Good and Evil gathered on the fertile plains of Mesopotamia will decide the fate of the world.
And the fate of all the future!
Cover art by Gary Ruddell
Interior maps by Randy Asplund
Hardcover
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
First printing, June 2000
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 0-671-57871-5
Copyright © 2000 by Eric Flint & David Drake
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com
Typeset by Windhaven Press
Auburn, NH
Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webwrights.com to
John & Becky
BAEN BOOKS by DAVID DRAKE
(with L. Sprague de Camp)
(with L. Sprague de Camp)
(with Ben Ohlander)
(edited with Billie Sue Mosiman) BAEN BOOKS by ERIC FLINT
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Contents
Prologue
The best steel in the world was made in India. That steel had saved his life.
He stared at a drop of blood working its way down the blade. Slowly, slowly. The blood which covered that fine steel was already drying in the sun. Even as he watched, the last still-liquid drop came to a halt and began hardening.
He had no idea how long he had been watching the blood dry. Hours, it seemed. Hours spent staring at a sword because he was too exhausted to do anything else.
But some quiet, lurking part of his battle-hardened mind told him it had only been minutes. Minutes only, and not so many of those.
He was exhausted. In mind, perhaps, even more than in body.
