The tide of victory

Chapter 32

Venandakatra squalled, scrambling from the masonry collapsing not more than three yards away. He tripped and fell, knocking the wind out of himself. As he gasped for breath, he stared spellbound at the cannonball that had shattered that portion of Bharakuccha's defenses. The ugly iron thing, almost all its energy lost in the impact with the wall, rolled slowly toward him. Then, following some unseen little imperfection in the stone platform, veered away until it dropped out of sight over the edge. A second or two later, dimly, Venandakatra heard the thing come to its final rest. From the sound, the horrid missile had taken yet another life in the doing, falling on one of the Malwa soldiers cowering in the supposed shelter below.

Silently, still fighting for breath, Venandakatra cursed that soldier and savored his destruction. Just as he cursed all the soldiers who cowered beside him, and all the others who had failed to drive back the Axumite assaults and the Roman cannonade.

Almost glazed, his eyes now stared at the hole that the cannonball had made in the ramparts. Venandakatra was astonished by the power of the gun that had fired it. He had not expected that.

He should have-and would have, had he paid any attention to his military advisers or Damodara. But Venandakatra, whose last personal experience with naval warfare had been years before, had not really grasped the rapid advances that both the Malwa and their enemies had made in gunpowder weaponry since the war began. His memory had been of war galleys armed with rockets, not cannons. And his logic had told him that galleys, by their nature, could never carry many guns in any event.

On that, of course, he was correct. Like all war galleys armed with cannon, the Axumite vessels carried only as many guns as could be fit in the bow and stern. Firing a "broadside" was impossible because of the rowers' benches. And the Ethiopian ships, for all that they were designed to cross the open sea under sail, were still essentially oared galleys in time of battle.

So, yes, they had few guns on each ship-four only, on most of them, two in the bow and two in the stern. Nor were the guns particularly powerful. But the Ethiopians had many ships-and still had, even after running through Venandakatra's volleys. And the Roman ships coming behind them were designed to fire broadsides, and did carry powerful guns. Venandakatra was not certain, but he thought every Roman vessel was firing what his own gunners called "elephant feet." The Romans, if he remembered correctly, called them thirty-two-pounder carronades. For the most part, the Romans were firing grapeshot, designed to kill the men manning the huge Malwa guns. But they fired solid shot at regular intervals also, and those heavy balls had proven more than powerful enough to begin shattering the ramparts which protected Malwa's batteries. The ramparts were old stonework, erected long ago in an era of medieval warfare, not the newer style of fortifications designed to withstand cannon fire. The Malwa had simply never expected to be defending Bharakuccha against such an attack-at least, Venandakatra hadn't-so the Goptri had not ordered new construction to replace the ancient walls.

The battle had now been raging for hours. The Ethiopians had lost many ships to gunfire, true. But even those losses had been turned to their purpose, as often as not, by the sheer fury of the Ethiopian assault. Unless a ship was destroyed completely, sunk in the harbor, the Axumite sailors had driven their crippled ships into the midst of the anchored Malwa fleet. Then, after pouring over the side in that now all-too-familiar and terrifying way of boarding, had turned their own ships into floating firebombs. Between the gunfire of their galleys and the torchwork of their marines, the Ethiopians completed the destruction of the Malwa navy and began doing the same to the merchant fleet.

With any chance of being intercepted by Malwa galleys now eliminated, the Romans had sailed their warships directly before the Malwa fortifications guarding the harbor and begun firing broadsides at a range which was no more than two hundred yards. So close, ironically, that the Malwa could no longer depress the huge siege guns enough to strike back.

At which point, to Venandakatra's shock, all of the surviving Axumite galleys had offloaded their marines onto the piers of Bharakuccha itself.

Insane! Are they maddened bulls? This was a raid! They cannot hope to take one of Malwa's greatest cities!

Then, as their marines rampaged through the harbor area of the city, putting everything to the torch-the shipyards, the warehouses, everything-the galleys had pulled away from the docks. Again, Venandakatra had been shocked. Manned by skeleton crews, the Ethiopian warships had turned their guns on the fortifications. With the Ethiopians now firing the grapeshot which kept the ramparts clear of troops, the Romans had been freed to hammer the fortification themselves with those terrifying great iron balls.

Why? Why? Not even those guns are great enough to collapse these walls!

Which, indeed, they weren't. But, again, Venandakatra had misgauged the fury of Axum. Collapse the walls, no-but splinter them, and break them in pieces here and there, yes. As he had just discovered himself. And, as he was discovering himself, do enough damage to suppress Venandakatra's own guns and send his artillerymen rushing to shelter.

While the marines in the harbor below, finished with their work of destruction, began storming.

Venandakatra finally realized the truth. The Ethiopians could not take Bharakuccha, true enough. But, driven by that near-suicidal fury which still bewildered the Goptri, they could ruin the city completely as a working port and naval base. They would not stop until they had stormed the fortifications guarding the harbor, spiked all the siege guns and blown up the magazines. Even if half their marines died in the assault.

Frantic with fear, now, Venandakatra levered himself painfully erect. Still gasping for breath, he staggered toward the steps which led to the city below. The Axumite marines would be coming soon, he knew-and knew as well that his pitiful artillerymen had no more chance of repelling those insensate madmen than children could repel rogue elephants.

Damodara! And his Rajputs! Only they-!

Venandakatra was flooded with relief to see that his squad of chaise-bearers had remained faithful to their post. Despite the fear so obvious in their faces, they had not left the conveyance and run away, seeking shelter from the fury deep in the city's bowels.

He repaid them with curses, lashing the leader with a quirt as he clambered aboard.

"To the palace!" he shrieked. "Any slave who stumbles will be impaled!"

* * *

One of them did stumble, as it happens. Inevitably, some of the Roman guns had badly over-ranged their targets, sending iron cannonballs hurtling into the streets and tenements of Bharakuccha beyond the harbor. One such ball, striking a tenement wall-by accident, but at a perfect angle-had collapsed the front of the mudbrick edifice into the street. The chaise-carriers were forced to clamber over the rubble bearing their awkward burden, and one of them lost his feet entirely.

Fortunately, although Venandakatra was tumbled about in the chaise, he barely noticed. Partly because his own terror made him oblivious to the sudden terror of his slave. Mostly, however, because he was preoccupied with cursing all the modern technology and devices which Malwa had adopted so eagerly over the years.

There had been a time, once, when he would have had mounted couriers with him at all times. Ready to carry the Goptri's messages everywhere, to all his subordinates-and Damodara was still his subordinate in name, even if Venandakatra's authority was threadbare in reality.

But Damodara would have come, in answer to a courier-borne summons. Of that, Venandakatra had no doubt at all. For all that the Vile One hated the little military commander, he did not doubt either his courage or his competence.

Damodara would come, in fact, once Venandakatra did summon him. The only way Venandakatra now had available to do so, unfortunately, was with the telegraph which connected his palace with Damodara's field camp miles upstream on the Narmada. The marvelous, almost magical, device which Link had brought to Malwa from the future.

As his chaise-bearers lumbered toward the palace, panting with exhaustion and effort, Venandakatra kept up his silent cursing of all technology. Belatedly, he was realizing that the very splendor of the gadgetry disguised its inner weakness. Men were cheap and plentiful; technology was not. In the old days, he would have had many couriers. Today, he had only a few telegraph lines.

Only two, really-the line which connected Bharakuccha and Damodara's army camp, and the line which went over the Vindhyas to the imperial capital city of Kausambi. Early on, Rao's bandits had realized the importance of those new wires stretching across Majarashtra. So, wherever they roamed-and they roamed everywhere in the badlands which they called "the Great Country"-they cut the wires.

No, did more than cut them! Copper was valuable, and the polluted Marathas were born thieves. So, until Venandakatra stopped even trying to maintain the telegraph lines anywhere except where Damodara's tough Rajputs could patrol them, the filthy Maratha rebels simply stole the lines and filled the coffers of the bandit Rao-he and his whore Shakuntala-with Malwa's precious magic.

For a few satisfying moments, Venandakatra broke off his cursing of technology to bestow various curses on Rao and Shakuntala. But that entertainment paled, soon enough, and he went back to damning the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned telegraph.

Because the problem, at bottom, was that humanity itself was a foul and despicable creature. Except for those favored few who were beginning-just beginning-to forge a new and purer breed, all men were cast in that despised Maratha mold. All men were thieves, if the truth be spoken plainly.

Venandakatra, understanding that truth, had naturally taken steps to protect the valuable telegraph. The precious device was guarded at all times, and only one such device had he permitted being installed in the city-the one adjoining his own personal chambers in the palace. Lest the grandeur of his dynasty be polluted by still more thievery.

They were almost at the palace, now. The roar and fury and the flames and the smoke of the battle in the harbor was a faded thing, two miles behind him. Venandakatra leaned forward in his chaise and began lashing the bearers with his quirt.

Faster! Faster! I'll impale the slave who stumbles!

* * *

At the end, just as they drew up before the palace entrance, the slaves did stumble-and not just one alone, but three of the four. Venandakatra had driven them at an impossible pace, and they were utterly exhausted. The sudden end of their exertions simply overcame them.

It would have been better, in truth, if the fourth man had collapsed as well. Then, falling all at once, the slaves might have lowered Venandakatra more or less gently to the ground. Instead, one man standing erect with the pole on his shoulder-too dazed and weary to realize what was happening-the sudden tipping of the chaise dumped Venandakatra onto the flagstones like a flabby fruit from an upended basket.

Shrieking with rage, he lashed the sole standing slave with the quirt. But the lash was feeble. Barely landed at all, in fact, because the Vile One had bruised his shoulder when he fell. The pain of lashing caused him to hiss and clutch the shoulder.

Then, turning away, he half-stumbled and half-lunged through the palace doors. Fortunately, the doors were already open, as they always were during daylight to allow the edifice to ventilate. As soon as he passed into the shadows of the vestibule, Venandakatra pointed with his quirt to the slaves and snarled at the guards.

"Impale them! All of them!"

Then.

Snarled again. There were no guards. The three men who were stationed at all times inside the palace entrance were absent. Gone.

Gone. Not there.

For a moment, Venandakatra simply gaped. Then, a new fury piling onto existing fury-he felt like he might burst from sheer rage-he hurried toward the staircase which led to his chambers above.

"I will have them impaled also!"

Some remote part of his mind tried to caution himself that, in the middle of a raging battle, soldiers might have gotten involved in the fighting. But Venandakatra ignored it. Duty was duty, and there's an end to it-especially the duty of servants to their master. Those guards were supposed to be there. At all times!

At the top of the stairs, he snarled again. Then, so great was his rage, uttered a wordless shriek.

And where were these guards? Two of them-at all times!

The almost-animal shriek seemed to steady his nerves. He managed to control himself enough to march, not stagger or stumble, to the doors which led to his own chambers.

He was not surprised to discover that the soldier who was supposed to remain on guard just inside his personal quarters-at all times! — was also gone.

Not there. No one.

* * *

Venandakatra realized, then, what had happened. He had been too lenient with his men. Had allowed them to soften with garrison duty, while the Rajputs and Ye-tai of Damodara and Rana Sanga campaigned in the hills against the Maratha bandits. The sudden and furious battle had panicked them all. They had fled-abandoned their lord!

He stalked toward the door which led to the telegraph chamber. On the way, he made himself a vow.

Two vows. First, every member of his personal bodyguard-whether stationed on duty that day or not-would be impaled on the morrow. Second, despite his hatred for Damodara, he would accept the military commander's proposal to rotate the garrison soldiers into the field along with the Rajputs.

Venandakatra did not stride through the door to the telegraph chamber so much as burst through it. He noticed, but ignored-why should he be different? — the absence of the guard who was normally to be found inside the chamber. At all times.

He was surprised, however, to see that the telegraph operator had remained faithful to his duty. The man was there, as he was supposed to be, sitting on a chair in front of the telegraph apparatus.

"Someone!" he barked. Then, striding forward, he grabbed the man's shoulder.

"Send an immediate tele-"

He stopped in mid-word. The telegraph operator's head lolled back. Too stunned to think-though that remote part of his mind was shrilling and shrilling and shrilling-Venandakatra simply stared at the man's neck.

It took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing. The device which had strangled the operator was almost invisible. So mighty had been the hands which had driven that silk cord that it was almost buried in the flesh.

A soft voice spoke from behind him.

* * *

"I have bad news, Venandakatra."

Slowly, the Vile One turned his head, looking to the corner of the room behind him and to his left. He could barely discern a figure in the shadows.

"My son, as you may well know, was born recently. And now the priests who attend him say he is healthy. Has every chance of reaching his manhood."

The shrilling voice in Venandakatra's mind began to shape a name. But he was too paralyzed to really hear.

The shadows moved. The figure stepped forward into the light.

Prowled forward, it might be better to say. He moved more like a predator than a man. Then, as he began slipping an iron-clawed gauntlet over his right hand, assumed the form of a predator completely.

"So now it is time for our unfinished business. Let us dance, Vile One. The dance of death you would have once given my beloved, I now give to you."

Finally, Venandakatra broke through the paralysis. He opened his mouth to scream.

But it never came. It was not so much the powerful left hand clamped on his throat which stifled that scream, as the pure shock of the iron claws on the right hand which drove into his groin and emasculated him.

The agony went beyond agony. The paralysis was total, complete. Venandakatra could not think at all, really. Simply listen to, and observe, the monster who had ruined him.

So strange, really, that a panther could talk.

"I trained her, you know, in the assassin's creed when slaying the foul. To leave the victim paralyzed, but conscious, so that despair of the mind might multiply agony of the body."

The iron-clawed gauntlet flashed again, here and there.

When Venandakatra's mind returned, breaking over the pain like surf over a reef, he saw that he was still standing. But only because that incredible left hand still held him by the throat. Under his own power, Venandakatra would have collapsed.

Collapsed and never walked again. Nor fed himself again. His knees and elbows were. no longer really there.

"Enough, I think. I find, as I age, that I become more philosophical."

The monster, still using only the one hand, hefted Venandakatra's body like a man hefts a sack full of manure and drew him toward the corner where it had waited in ambush. On the way, that remote part of Venandakatra's mind was puzzled to see the gray hair in the monster's beard. He had never imagined a panther with a beard of any kind. Certainly not a grizzled one.

Now in the corner, the monster swept aside the heavy curtain over the window. Tore it aside, rather, sweeping the iron claws like an animal. Sudden light poured into the chamber.

When Venandakatra saw the chair now exposed, he suddenly realized how the monster had whiled away the time he spent lurking in ambush. The chair had been redesigned. Augmented, it might be better to say. The remote part of his brain even appreciated the cunning of the design and the sturdiness of the workmanship.

The rest of his mind screamed in despair, and his ruined body tried to obey. But the monster's left hand shifted a bit, the iron claws worked again, and the scream died with the shredded throat which carried it.

"You may bleed to death from that wound, but I doubt it. It certainly won't kill you before the other."

The claws worked again, again, again.

"Not that it probably matters. There are no guards left in this palace to hear you. It seems a great wind has scoured it clean."

Venandakatra now stood naked, his expensive clothing lying tattered about the chamber. The iron claws raked his ribs, the iron left hand turned him. He was now facing away from the chair. His throat and joints leaked blood and ruin.

Despair of the mind, to multiply agony of the body. That was Venandakatra's last, fully conscious thought, except for the final words of his executioner.

"I thought you would appreciate it, Vile One. You always did favor a short stake."