Belisarius used the impact to lunge upright. Ahead of him, the six eunuchs also began uncoiling. Grunting with the effort, they gathered their haunches and started to rise. The tulwars were already drawing back for the death strokes.
Belisarius ignored them. The eunuchs formed an impassable barrier—well over a ton of sword-wielding meat stood between him and any chance of killing Link. But they were much too ponderous to pose an immediate threat to his escape.
He could not hear the assassins, but he knew they were coming. Belisarius took two quick steps to his left. The servant standing there was paralyzed with shock. The general seized the man by his throat and hip, pivoted violently, and hurled him into the oncoming assassins.
The servant, wailing, piled into three of the assassins charging forward. His wail was cut short abruptly. The fourth assassin dealt with the obstacle by the simple expedient of slashing him down. As he raced toward the nearest window, Belisarius caught a glimpse of the servant's dying body, still entangling three of the assassins. The knife which ended his life, though lacking the mass of a sword, had still managed to hack halfway through the servant's neck. The edge of that blade was as razor sharp as the man who wielded it.
Belisarius reached the window. There was no time for anything but a blind plunge. He dove straight through the silk-mesh screen, fists clenched before him. The silk shredded under the impact. Belisarius sailed cleanly through the window. He found himself plunging through the night air toward the surface of the Jamuna. The assassin's hurled knife missed him by an inch. Belisarius watched the knife splash into the river. Less than a second later, he followed it in.
Ousanas rose from the shrubbery in the alley, took two quick steps, uncoiled. Quick shift, javelin from left hand to right. Uncoiled.
The sounds coming from the barge had not been loud, but they had been unmistakeable. Unmistakeable, at least, to men like Ousanas and the four Ye-tai gambling on the wharf. The Ye-tai were already scrambling to their feet, drawing swords.
The two Malwa kshatriyas standing guard at the top of the ramp, however, were a more sheltered breed. They, too, heard the sounds. But their only immediate response was to frown and turn away from the side of the barge. They stood still, staring at the doorway leading into the interior.
Ousanas' javelins caught them squarely between the shoulder blades. Both men were slain instantly, their spines severed. The impact sent one of the kshatriya hurtling through the doorway into the barge. The other Malwa struck the doorframe itself. There he remained. The javelin, passing a full foot through his body, pinned him like a butterfly.
The Ye-tai, though far more alert than the Malwa kshatriyas, were not alert enough. As ever, barbarous arrogance was their undoing. Heads down with the grunting exertion of their race up the ramp, the Ye-tai never noticed the two javelins sailing overhead. They were so intent on their own murderous purpose that it did not occur to them they had no monopoly on mayhem. Not, at least, until the barbarian leading the charge up the ramp spotted the dead kshatriya skewered on the doorframe.
Caution came, then, much too late. The Ye-tai stopped his charge. His three comrades piled into him from behind. For a moment, the four shouting barbarians were a confused tangle of thrashing limbs.
A moment was all Ousanas needed. He was already at the foot of the ramp. Four leaping strides, and the terrible spear began its work.
Three Ye-tai fell aside, collapsing off the ramp onto the wharf below. Two were dead before they struck the wooden planks. The third died seconds later, from the same huge wound rupturing his back.
The fourth Ye-tai had time to turn around. Time, even, for a furious swordstroke.
The great leaf-blade of the spear batted the stroke aside. Then, reversed, the iron ferrule of the spearbutt shattered the Ye-tai's knee. Reversed again, sweeping, the spear blade cut short the Ye-tai's wail of pain, passing through his throat as easily as it whistled through the air.
Ousanas sprang over the Ye-tai's slumped corpse. He was on the barge itself, now, standing at the top of the ramp. For a moment, the hunter stood still.
Listening. Listening.
Thinking.
He had heard the dull splash of a body striking the water. On the other side of the barge, the side facing the wide reach of the river and the shore two hundred yards opposite. Now, listening intently to the noises coming from within the barge—cries of fury and outrage, shouts of command—Ousanas grinned.
The general had made good his escape. His immediate escape, at least, from the barge itself.
Ousanas, briefly, pondered his options.
For a moment—very brief—he thought of waiting for Belisarius to appear. But he dismissed the idea almost instantly. He knew the general. Swimming around or under the barge to reach the nearby wharf was the obvious move for a man on the run. Naturally, therefore, Belisarius would do otherwise.
Ousanas' task, then, was not to help Belisarius escape directly. It remained, diversion.
Now, Ousanas drew a grenade. For a moment—again, very brief—he considered hurling it into the barge itself.
No. The havoc would be gratifying, but the sound of the explosion would be muffled.
Follow the plan. The main purpose of the grenades was to signal his comrades.
Ousanas turned and raced back down the ramp. A moment later, standing again on the wharf, he laid down his spear. From a small pouch at his waist, he withdrew the striking mechanism.
He even took a moment—very brief—to admire the clever Malwa device, before he struck the flint and lit the fuse to the first grenade.
The fuse was short. He lobbed the grenade onto the deck of the barge. Drew the second grenade. Lit the fuse. This fuse was even shorter.
The first Malwa assassin appeared in the doorway. Saw Ousanas, squealed his rage. Ousanas tossed the second grenade.
No lob, this toss. Ousanas the spear-hurler had learned his skill as a boy, hunting with rocks. The grenade split the assassin's forehead wide open. An instant later, the forehead disappeared altogether, along with the head itself and half the man's body. The explosion blew the doorway into splinters.
The second grenade erupted on the open deck. The damage here was slight. Almost all the force was directed upward, leaving only a small hole in the planking as a memento of its fury.
Other, of course, than the great sound rocketing through the night sky over Kausambi.
Ousanas picked up his spear and raced away. As he entered the mouth of the alley, running like the wind, he heard new sounds of fury behind him. Other Malwa had appeared on the deck and spotted his fleeing figure.
There would be little to see, he knew. A tall shape sprinting down an alley. As tall as a Roman general. True, the color of the shape seemed black. Meaningless. All men would appear black in that dark alley. The Malwa dynasty saw no reason to waste money lighting the alleys of their capital. They did not travel in alleys.
They will tonight, thought Ousanas gleefully. Oh, yes, they will learn many alleys tonight. I will give them a tour.
Then, only: Good luck, Belisarius.
All other thought vanished, beyond the immediacy of the hunt. The hunter was now the prey, true. But he was a great hunter, who had studied many great prey.
Swimming away from the barge, Belisarius heard the sounds of struggle behind him. He did not turn his head. To do so would have interrupted the powerful breast-strokes which sent him quietly surging into the middle of the Jamuna. But he listened, carefully, with experienced ears.
Wail of agony, cut short. Chopped short. Malwa cry of fury. Explosion, muffled; explosion, loud as a thunderclap. Malwa cries of fury. Cries of furious discovery. Cries of furious pursuit.
Belisarius was not certain, of course, but he thought he knew the identity of the man who had caused those sounds. Not certain, no. But he thought he recognized a certain signature in them. Some men, like Valentinian, had an economical signature. Others preferred more flair.
He started to grin, until a small river wave caught his mouth. He could not afford to choke, not now, so he sealed his lips and drove steadily onward through the dark water.
For all the strength of the general's limbs, his progress was slow. He was encumbered by boots and clothing, heavy with wet saturation. But he did not stop to shed them. Not yet. He had to reach the middle of the river, out of range of shore-carried lanterns. So he simply drove onward, slowly, quietly, steadily, with the patience of a veteran campaigner.
Yes, he thought he knew that man. It had never been part of any plan to have that man ready to intervene as he had. But it had never been part of any plan for Belisarius himself to be trapped. Yet, trapped he had been, and the man had intervened.
Again, he suppressed a grin, remembering something that man had once said. In the dank hold of a ship, as they plotted together against the enemy who owned that great vessel.
"Good plans are like good meat, best cooked rare. Now we can move on to discuss truly important things. Philosophy!"
Outlandish man. Bizarre man.
But never empty. Never nothing.
The sound of the grenade explosions was faint. Not so much due to their distance, as from the hubbub rising from the Malwa soldiers chattering over their evening meal. But, to the men listening for that sound, they were unmistakeable.
"That's it, then," Menander heard Valentinian say. The words were spoken softly, calmly, almost serenely.
Much less serene were Valentinian's next words, hissed:
"Fuck exciting adventures."
But Menander thought the hiss was more from exertion than annoyance. Valentinian favored a very powerful bow. The arrow which that bow launched flew into the Malwa army camp with a trajectory that was almost perfectly flat. Thirty yards away, a soldier squatting over his mess tin was slammed flat to the ground, as if struck by a stampeding elephant.
Menander's first arrow caught another soldier in the huddled platoon. He too was slain instantly, if not with the same dramatic impact. Valentinian's second arrow arrived a split second later. A third Malwa went down.
A platoon eating their meal nearby received its first casualty. A bad wound, not a fatal one. A horrible wound, actually. The cruel warhead of Anastasius' arrow shredded the soldier's left shoulder. Anastasius was not an accurate archer, but his bow was even more powerful than Valentinian's.
Now, thirty yards down, more casualties. Three Malwa soldiers, slain by javelins hurtling from the nearby woods. Another volley. Two dead. One mortally injured.
Valentinian's count was now five. All dead. Menander killed another, wounded a third. Anastasius killed two.
"Enough!" shouted Valentinian. The cataphract turned and plunged into the darkness of the trees. Menander and Anastasius followed him. To their left, Menander could hear Prince Eon and the sarwen making their own retreat.
Within half a minute, the cataphracts reached the small clearing where Garmat and Kadphises were holding the horses. Seconds later, Eon and the sarwen lunged into the clearing.
Garmat and Kadphises, hearing them come, were already astride their horses. The others mounted quickly.
Valentinian reined his horse around, heading for a small trail leading through the woods to the southwest. Back toward the Malwa army camp. Even through the trees, they could hear the uproar coming from the Malwa soldiery.
Anastasius and Menander began to follow him. So did Eon.
Valentinian reined in his horse, glaring at the Prince.
"Stop this nonsense, Eon!" snarled Ezana. He and Wahsi, following Garmat and Kadphises, were guiding their own horses and all the remounts toward a different trail, leading southeast from the clearing. Away from the army camp.
Eon scowled, but he halted his horse. For a moment, the Prince and Valentinian stared at each other. The glare on Valentinian's face faded, replaced by a smile.
There was none of a veteran's mocking humor in that smile, however. Just the smile of a comrade.
"I thank you, Eon," said Valentinian, almost gently. "But you are being foolish. Ethiopians are infantrymen, not cavalry. This is cataphract work."
Then, he was gone. Seconds later, Anastasius and Menander vanished into the trees with him.
Eon sighed, turned his horse, and sent it trotting down the trail where the other Axumites had gone. After a moment, the young prince shrugged his thick shoulders, shedding his regrets. He urged his horse alongside Ezana.
The sarwen glanced at him, scowling. Soon enough, however, the scowl faded. And, soon after that, was replaced by a thin smile. A grim smile.
Young princes, Ezana reminded himself, needed to be bold. Even impetuous. Better that, than the alternative. Caution and cunning, shrewdness and tactics—these could be taught.
The smile widened. Still grim.
If he ever becomes the negusa nagast, thought Ezana, he may not be a wise ruler. Not wise enough, at least, for the new days of Malwa. But he will never lack courage. Not my prince.
In the alley where an Empress and her escort lay hidden, the sound of the grenade explosions was also heard. Faintly, of course, due to the distance. But not at all muffled. Kausambi was a great city, teeming with people. But, like all cities of that time, long before the invention of electric lighting, the vast majority of its residents rose and slept with the sun. For all its size, the city at night was shrouded in a quietness which would have surprised an urbanite of future centuries.
The Mahaveda and the Ye-tai standing guard before the armory heard the explosions also. The two Ye-tai looked up from their idle conversation, craning their heads in the direction of the sounds. Other than that, however, they did not move.
One of the Mahaveda, frowning, stepped forward from the overhanging archway where he stood guard with his two fellows in front of the heavy double doors of the armory's main entrance. The priest walked a few paces into the street, stopped, turned in the direction of the sounds, listened. Nervously, his fingers fluttered the short sword at his waist.
Listened. Listened.
Nothing.
Silence.
The vicinity of the wharf, of course, was very far from silent at that moment. By now, Malwa kshatriyas and Ye-tai were racing about the barge, charging up and down the wharf, plunging in a mass down an alley, shouting orders, shrieking counter-orders, bellowing commands. But those were human sounds, for all their raucous volume, far too small to carry the distance to the armory.
"Now," hissed Shakuntala.
Kungas, watching the Malwa, made a peremptory little gesture.
"Not yet," he whispered back. The Empress stiffened. Imperial hauteur rose instantly in her heart, and she almost barked a command. But her common sense rescued her—common sense, and the years of Raghunath Rao's hard tutoring. She bit her lip, maintaining silence. In her mind, she could hear Rao's voice:
So, fool girl. You are a genius, then? You understand tactics better than a man who has vanquished enemies on a hundred battlefields? A man so good that I could not overcome him?
Harsh voice. Mocking voice. Beloved voice.
The Mahaveda priest standing in the center of the street shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk back to his post. Farther down, the two Ye-tai guards resumed their slouching posture. The sound of the grenades had been distinct and startling. But—distant. Very distant. And nothing had followed, no sound. An accident, perhaps. No concern of theirs.
"Now," whispered Kungas. Shakuntala drove all thoughts of Rao from her mind. She rose and began walking forward into the street. Behind her came all four of the Maratha women.
Tarabai pushed her way past Shakuntala.
"Follow me, Your Majesty," she whispered. "Do as I do, as best you can."
Again, for an instant, royal arrogance threatened to rise. But Shakuntala's struggle against it was brief and easy this time. She had no need to call Rao to her aid. Common sense alone sufficed.
I can wear the clothing. But I don't, actually, have any idea how a prostitute acts.
She watched Tarabai's sashaying stride and tried, as best she could, to copy it. Behind her, she heard Ahilyabai's voice, rising above the muttered words of sullen Kushan soldiers.
Strident voice. Mocking voice.
"If you want charity, get a beggar's bowl!"
Shakuntala and Tarabai were halfway across the street. Before them, the Empress watched the Mahaveda priests stiffen. First, with surprise. Then, with moral outrage.
Again, behind, the angry sound of male voices. Drunken voices, speaking slurred words. Shakuntala recognized Kungas' voice among them, but could understand none of the words. Her concentration was focussed on the priests ahead of her.
She did, vaguely, hear Ahilyabai:
"Fucking bums! Seduce a stupid virgin, if you have no money! Don't come sniffing around me!"
The priests were fifteen feet away, now. Shakuntala almost laughed. The Mahaveda—faces distorted with fury—were practically cowering in the overhang of the door to the armory. They had drawn their swords, and were waving them menacingly. But it was a false menace, an empty menace. Fear of pollution held them paralyzed.
"Keep away!" cried one.
Another: "Filthy women! Unclean!"
Tarabai swayed forward, crooning:
"Oh, now, don't be like that! You look like proper men. We don't cost much."
The third Mahaveda bellowed to the Ye-tai. The two barbarians had come partway down the street to watch the spectacle. The Ye-tai were grinning from ear to ear. Even the sight of the straggling band of Kushan soldiers haggling with the whores didn't cut through their humor.
Again, the priest bellowed, waving his sword in a gesture of furious summoning. Still grinning, the two Ye-tai trotted toward them.
Shakuntala stepped forward to meet them. Tarabai was pressing the priests further back into the alcove formed by the overhang. Pressing them back, not by force of body, but by the simple fact of her tainted nearness.
Behind her, Shakuntala heard Ahilyabai's shriek of anger.
"Get away, I say! Get away! Worthless scum!" Then, fiercely: "We'll set the Ye-tai on you!" Then, crooning: "Such good men, Ye-tai."
The two Ye-tai reached the Empress. Neither one of them had even bothered to draw his sword. Still grinning, the barbarian on her left placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Come on, sweet girl," he said in thick Hindi. "Leave the poor priests alone. They're manless, anyway. Come along to our guardhouse—and bring your sisters with you. We've got ten strong Ye-tai lads there. Bored out of their skulls and with money to burn."
Smiling widely, Shakuntala turned her head aside. Shouted to Tarabai:
"Forget the stupid priests! Let's—"
She spun, drove her right fist straight into the Ye-tai's diaphragm. The barbarian grunted explosively, doubling up. His head, coming down, was met by Shakuntala's forearm strike coming up. A perfect strike—the right fist braced against left palm, a solid bar of bone sweeping around with all the force of the girl's hips and torso. A small bar, true, formed by a small bone. So the Ye-tai's jaw was not shattered. He simply dropped to his knees, half-conscious. His jaw did shatter, then, along with half of his teeth. Shakuntala's knee did for that. The barbarian slumped to the street.
The Empress had turned away before the Ye-tai hit the ground. She was beginning her strike against the other Ye-tai. Twisting aside, drawing back her leg, preparing the sidekick. Silently cursing her costume. The sari impeded the smooth flow of her leg motion.
This Ye-tai, squawking, reached for his sword.
The sword-draw ended before it began.
Shakuntala's leg fell back, limply, to her side. The Empress stared, wide-eyed. Her jaw almost dropped.
She had only seen Kungas in action once before in her life. In Amaravati, when Andhra had finally fallen and the Malwa hordes were sacking the palace. But, even then, she had not really seen. The Ye-tai astride her, tearing off her clothes and spreading her legs in preparation for rape, had obscured her vision. She had caught no more than a glimpse of a Ye-tai fist, amputated, before she had been blinded by the blood of her assailants' decapitation and butchering.
Kungas had done that work, then, just as he did it now. In less than three seconds, the Kushan commander quite literally hacked the Ye-tai to pieces.
Shakuntala shook off the moment, spun around. The Kushan soldiers, all pretense of drunkenness vanished, had lunged past Tarabai and finished the priests. Their bloody work was done by the time Shakuntala turned. The priests had not even had time to cry out more than a squeal or two. Shakuntala was not certain. The squeals had been cut very short. But she thought, for all the carnage, that there had been little noise. Not enough, she was sure, to carry into the guardhouse down the street.
The Kushans were quick, quick. One of the soldiers was already examining the great door leading into the armory. His indifferent knee rested on the chest of a dead priest.
"Too long," he announced curtly. "Two minutes to break through this great ugly thing."
Kungas nodded, turned away. He had expected as much.
"Through the guardhouse, then," he commanded. Kungas began loping up the street toward the side-door where the two Ye-tai had been standing earlier. His men followed, with that same ground-eating lope. Quick, quick. Shakuntala was struck by the almost total absence of noise as they ran. Some of that silence was due to the soft shoes which the Kushans favored over heavy sandals. But most of it, she thought, was the product of skill and training.
Shakuntala and the Maratha women followed. More slowly, however, much more slowly. Saris complimented the female figure, but they did not lend themselves well to speedy movement. Frustrated, Shakuntala made a solemn vow to herself. In the days to come, among her many other responsibilities, she would inaugurate a radical change in feminine fashion.
She had time, in that endless shuffle up the street, to settle on a style. Pantaloons, she decided, modeled on those of Cholan dancers she had seen. More subdued, of course, and tastefully dyed, to mollify propriety and sentiment. But pantaloons, nonetheless, which did not impede a woman's legs.
She saw, ahead of her, the Kushans charge into the guardhouse. The sounds of violent battle erupted instantly. A harsh clangor of steel and fury, flesh-shredding and terror. The quiet street seemed to howl with the noise.
Cursing bitterly, she sped up her shuffle. The battle sounds reached a crescendo.
Shuffle, curse. Shuffle, curse. Shuffle, curse.
The guardhouse was still ten yards distant. The sounds coming through the open door suddenly ceased.
Finally, finally, she reached the door. Shuffled into the guardhouse.
Stopped. Very abruptly. Behind her, the Maratha women bumped into her back. Tarabai and Ahilyabai peeked over the shorter shoulders of their Empress. Gasped. Gagged.
Shakuntala did not gasp, or gag. She made no sound at all.
Hers was a fierce, fierce heart. The ferocity of that heart, in the decades to come, would be a part of the legacy which she would leave behind her. A legacy so powerful that historians of the future, with a unanimity of opinion rare to that fractious breed, would call her Shakuntala the Great. But even that heart, at that moment, quailed.
The Kushans had gone through the Ye-tai like wolves through a flock of sheep. Like werewolves.
The floor was literally awash in blood. Not a single Ye-tai, so far as she could see, was still bodily intact. The barbarians were not simply dead. Their corpses were gutted, beheaded, amputated, cloven, gashed, sliced, ribboned. The room looked like the interior of a slaughterhouse. A slaughterhouse owned and operated by the world's sloppiest, hastiest, most maniacal butcher.
Her eyes met those of Kungas across the room. The commander of her bodyguard had a few bloodstains on his tunic and light armor, but not many. He was down on one knee, wiping his sword on a Ye-tai's tunic. His face, as always, showed nothing. Neither horror, nor fury, nor even satisfaction in a job well done. So might a mask of iron, suspended on a wall of brimstone, survey damnation and hellfire.
Strangely, then, the emotion which swept through Shakuntala's soul was love. Love, and forgiveness.
Not for Kungas, but for Rao. She had never, quite—not in the innermost recesses of what was still, in some ways, a child's heart—forgiven Rao. Forgiven him, for the months she had remained in captivity before he finally rescued her. Weeks, at the end, in Venandakatra's palace at Gwalior, while she paced the battlements and halls, guarded by Kungas and his Kushans, knowing—sensing—that Rao was lurking in the forest beyond. Lurking, but never coming. Watching, but never striking.
She had cursed him, then—somewhere in that child's innermost heart—for a coward. Cursed him for his fear of Kungas.
Now, finally, the curse was repudiated. Now, finally, she understood.
Understanding brought the Empress back. The child vanished, along with its quailing heart.
"Excellent," she said. "Very excellent."
Kungas nodded. His men smiled. None of them, she was relieved to see, was badly hurt. Only two were binding up wounds, and those were obviously minor.
Kungas jerked his head toward a door at the far end of the guardhouse.
"That leads into the armory itself. It is not barred."
"We must hurry," said Shakuntala. She eyed the floor, trying to find a way to cross without leaving her feet soaked with blood.
Two of the Kushan soldiers—grinning, now—solved the problem in the simplest way possible. They grabbed Ye-tai corpses and dumped them on the floor, forming a corduroy road of dead flesh.
Shakuntala, never hesitating, marched across that grisly path. More gingerly, her women followed.
By the time she passed through the far door, the Kushans were already spreading through the recesses of the armory, setting a perimeter. They knew, from a prior hasty reconnaissance, that there was another guardhouse on the opposite side of the huge brick building. Now, they were searching for the door leading to that guardhouse, and keeping a watch for any Ye-tai or Mahaveda who might chance to be in the armory itself.
The armory was uninhabited. They found the door. Behind it, the Kushans heard the sounds of Ye-tai. Idle sounds, barracks sounds. The barbarians had obviously heard nothing of the lethal struggle.
The Kushans relaxed, slightly. They set a watch on the door, leaving four of their number on guard, while the remainder sped about the task which had brought them there.
Shakuntala and her women were already prying open the lids of gunpowder baskets, using knives which had once belonged to Ye-tai guards. Following them, the Kushan soldiers upended the baskets and spread granular trails throughout the armory. Soon, very soon, every stack of baskets in the armory was united by a web of gunpowder on the floor. That work done, the Kushans seized racks of rockets hanging on the wall and positioned them in and around the gunpowder baskets.
"Enough," commanded Kungas. His voice, though quiet, carried well. Instantly, his men left off their labor and hurried back to the guardhouse. Hurried through, until stymied by the slow-moving women. At Shakuntala's irritated command, the Kushans picked up all of the women—including her—and carried them into the street. Carried them, at Shakuntala's command, down the street and into the alley. Only then, at her command, did they place the women on their feet.
Shakuntala looked back. Kungas was already halfway to the alley, walking backward, spilling a trail of gunpowder from a basket in his arms. The last of the gunpowder poured out of the basket just as he reached the alley.
"Do it," commanded Shakuntala. Kungas drew out the striking mechanism, bent down, operated it. Immediately, the gunpowder began a furious, hissing burn. The sputtering flame marched its crackling way toward the armory.
"Hurry," he growled. He did not wait for Shakuntala's command. He simply scooped her up in his arms and began racing down the alley. Behind him, his men followed his lead, carrying the Maratha women in that same loping run.
Shakuntala, bouncing up and down in his arms, was filled with satisfaction. But not entirely. There was still room in her heart for another emotion.
When the armory blew, two minutes later, the Empress was caught by surprise. Her frustrated mind had been elsewhere. Thinking about pantaloons.