“It shall be done, Mistress.” Bindusar bowed to his commander, a salute which she returned with a grave inclination of her head.
“I have absolute confidence in your abilities, Bindusar. Now go.”
With the aid of the junior officers and NCOs, Bindusar formed the battalion into a long column just four ranks wide. Jamelia stood and watched them file towards the gate, the small figure of her second-in-command looking rather queer marching at their head.
One of the mercenaries — presumably the man in charge — detached himself from where he had been leaning upon the wall, peering out into the early morning darkness.
The man approached Bindusar, and with her preternaturally sharp sense of hearing, she was just about able to follow the brief conversation which ensued. The mercenary leader’s gratitude at seeing the Maratha soldiers suddenly turned to disbelief and then ill-advised anger when the troops, who he had wrongly assumed had been dispatched to defend the rear pettah gate, marched straight past him and out through that very same gate.
His worst mistake, Jamelia reflected afterward, was in mistaking Bindusar’s size for weakness. When the mercenary demanded that the Maratha officer stand and do his duty, there came a glint of steel flashing between the two men, and the sword-for-hire received a blade in the belly for his trouble. Although Jamelia couldn’t see either man’s face in the darkness from this distance, she had watched Bindusar kill before. His expression rarely changed, not even a fraction.
What she could see was her second-in-command jerking the blade upwards sharply, disemboweling the startled mercenary in one single, fluid motion. With a hiss of escaping air,the dying man collapsed onto the floor and proceeded to bleed to death.
Well, that was one of the thousand sacrifices demanded by the Goddess.
It was a start.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Resurrection
The first question that emerged from Jamelia’s mouth when she stepped through the front doorway served to do little more than annoy Achalraj enormously.
Although the Maratha officers had appropriated — for which one could easily substitute the term stolen, he was forced to admit — practically all of the decent buildings within Ahmednuggur for their own personal use, Jamelia had seen to it that this small, unassuming little hovel located in one of the more downtrodden backstreets had been set aside for use as a makeshift shrine. As such, Achalraj had created a temporary altar, on which he had placed a small carved statue of the Dark Mother.
The priest looked up at the newcomer with unconcealed irritation. He was kneeling on the floor before a modest-sized bowl of freshly-spilled blood. Its unwilling donor was trussed, gagged, and hanging upside-down from an iron hook that had been pounded into the wooden ceiling. After making the proper venerations to Kali, Achalraj had cut the man’s throat and drained the contents of his bloodstream into a second, larger bowl.
Jamelia looked at the dangling dead man and cocked a quizzical eyebrow.
“One of the foreign mercenaries,” Achalraj explained. “He will not be missed.”
“Certainly not after the events of this night,” Jamelia agreed.
“What news of the assault?”
“The British have taken the main gate, and are even now working their way through the city.”
“No doubt searching for you,” Achalraj said pointedly. “What of the sacrifices demanded by our most venerated Dark Mother?”
“Many of the mercenaries stood and fought, either on the walls or in the town. Knowing the redcoats, they are butchering the Arabs wherever they may be found. I relayed the written orders from Scindia to their leader earlier this afternoon, instructing the mercenaries to make a fight of it while there was still hope, and then to fall back to the fortress when it seemed as though there was no further hope of holding out.”
As if to prove her point, a volley of concerted musket-fire thundered in the distance. Rather than the matchlocks preferred by the mercenaries, this was quite plainly the roar of the Brown Bess.
Achalraj raised himself slowly up into a squat, reaching down to pick up the bowl from where it lay upon the floor in front of him. The bowl was inscribed with delicate symbols and words of mystical import, painstakingly etched into the precious metal by artisans who were now long-dead. Blood shimmered inside it, gently lapping against the lip as the holy man straightened to his full height.
This was no ordinary blood. It seemed to somehow glow from within, as though lit by an ethereal radiance emanating from its very core. Not a drop was spilled on Achalraj’s black robes, which was fortunate because the blood was sacred – it had just been blessed by the hand of Kali herself, working through the medium of her priest.
“I shall need a moment to change, priest.” Jamelia went to the back of the room, using the blood-drenched corpse of the mercenary to shield her from his view. Opening the small canvas back which had been looped over one shoulder, she removed several items of dark-colored clothing: the garb of a thug cultist.
In practically no time at all, Jamelia was now wearing in soft felt boots, long trousers, a loose-fitting black tunic with long sleeves, and a wraparound shemagh that obscured all of her facial features except for the eyes. A curved dagger was belted at her waist in a sheath, and a longer sword was scabbarded in place between her shoulder blades, held there securely by a pair of pliable leather straps.
Truly, she was clad in the night.
While she had been changing, Achalraj had busied himself with laying out four bronze bottles, each of which was capable of holding perhaps three glasses of water, and a small funnel. But water had no place in what was to come next.
“Help me, if you please.” The priest lifted the bowl once more and nodded for Jamelia to take up one of the bottles and the funnel. While the tigress held the funnel in place with the narrow end inserted firmly into the neck of the first bottle, Achalraj slowly tilted the ceremonial bowl, allowing some of the rich red contents to trickle into the smaller container. Once it was full, he righted the bowl once more. Jamelia wedged a cork stopper in the neck of the bottle, setting it aside gently on the window sill. They then proceeded to repeat the pouring process with the remaining three bottles, taking great care not to spill even a single drop.
Once all four of the bottles had been filled, perhaps a thimble-full of blood still remained in the bowl.
“This is now the blood of our goddess,” cautioned Achalraj, still holding the bowl reverently between trembling fingers. “We must not allow even the tiniest amount to go to waste.”
“That should be simple enough to remedy.”
Jamelia walked over to the hanging corpse. Removing the curved dagger from its sheath, he flipped the blade into an underhand grasp and slashed it forcefully across the dangling rope. The knife was sharp, and the strands separated immediately. With a sickening thud, the body landed on its head upon the bare wooden floorboards, then flopped over onto its back. Sightless eyes gazed fixedly into the air, seeming to regard the hook from which he had fallen.
“He shall be our first,” Jamelia said, stating the obvious. Achalraj bowed his head in silent agreement, and without a word the priest upended the bowl, draining the last of the consecrated blood into the dead mercenary’s open mouth. The viscous fluid spattered across the man’s lips, decayed teeth, and the tip of his tongue.
“Step back,” cautioned Jamelia, casually placing an outstretched arm in front of the priest’s chest. He did not need to be told twice, for Achalraj had seen the speed and viciousness with which the bodies of the dead could be brought back to life. Instead, not quite daring to turn his back on the corpse, he went to the heavily scratched wooden table that occupied one entire corner of the room and proceeded to wrap first the bowl and then the statuette of Kali in several layers of protective cloth, before placing them carefully inside a plain sack that he kept for just such a purpose. The four bottles went in after it.
His fall onto the wooden floor had succee
ded in staving in the mercenary’s skull, causing a depressed fracture some six inches in diameter that spanned the crown. Dark black blood was leaking from one ear, oozing down the side of his jaw and neck.
The fingers of one hand twitched, followed by a spasmodic jerking of the entire right arm. With an animalistic groan, the mercenary’s face began to reanimate, its facial features assuming an expression of apparent puzzlement. The tongue flicked out, smearing the fluid which had until recently run through his own veins and arteries but was not transmogrified into the blood of Kali herself, across his pale grey lips.
For a brief moment, the man looked to Jamelia like some ridiculous street performer, one who perhaps rouged his lips in an obscene parody of the feminine.
And then he lunged.
Reflexively, she slammed Achalraj back against the wall with one hand, placing her own body between his and the slowly awakening creature. For his part, the priest took no offence, choosing instead to simply scoop up the sack and duck through the front door and out into the street.
The hungry dead thing was clawing at the floorboards now, Jamelia noticed with equal parts disgust and horrified fascination. Doubtless the creature sensed in her its next meal. The thing was as weak as a newborn at first, but it was getting stronger with every passing second. Its fingernails scrabbled at the rough wood, leaving long furrows in its excitement to get at her, finally gaining enough traction to begin hauling the snapping mouth towards her.
Satisfied that all was going according to the Dark Mother’s plan, Jamelia joined the priest outside in the street. She did not bother to close the thin wooden door behind her. After all, why make it harder for the creature within to gain its freedom and set about doing the holy work of their Goddess?
“I will lead,” she told Achalraj in a tone which left no room for argument. “Stay close to me. Stick to the shadows. Do that, and we may yet survive this night.”
“As you say,” the priest acquiesced with a nod. In truth, her easy assumption of the mantle of command rankled with him, but Jamelia’s reputation as both an assassin and a merciless killer of men was well-known throughout Scindia’s domain. Achalraj was above all else a pragmatist, and knew that his best chance of making it back to the safety of the Maratha lines in one piece was to follow in the wake of this exceptional killing machine.
Her dark attire melding into the dark shadows along the right-hand side of the street, Jamelia duck-walked along the frontage of hovels, finally reaching an intersection with a broader cross-street.
“This way,” she hissed, darting across the intersection of the two roads. Achalraj followed her, trying to mimic her speed and follow in her actual footsteps as much as possible. Cloaking herself in still more darkness on the opposite side of the street, Jamelia turned left and began to pick up the pace.
Screams and more musketry came from somewhere off to their right. Achalraj judged them to be coming from two or possibly three streets away. Fortunately, they were shielded from sight by the row of squalid little homes.
The pair crept along for what seemed like an age, finally reaching the end of the street. Jamelia halted the priest with an upraised hand, pressing his chest firmly backwards against the mud-brick wall. Dropping into a crouch, she slowly stuck her head out from behind the wall – any observant enemy would be watching for something to appear at head height, rather than halfway up from the ground.
“The way is clear. Come.”
Jamelia had led them to a stretch of barren wasteground which abutted the pettah walls. This particular stretch was quiet and appeared to be deserted, though as it circled around to their right, the twenty-foot high wall would soon abut with the main gate, for which the British had paid what she considered to be a fairly modest price in blood to seize…which was just as she had intended.
Turning right, the pair skirted the inner pettah wall, taking advantage of the natural cover provided by the shadows until the main gate came within sight. A cannon stood at a skewed angle in between the shattered wooden gates, smoke still curling languidly up from its barrel even though the assault had taken place over an hour ago…perhaps even two, Jamelia realized. She had no timepiece, and hadn’t been paying a great deal of attention to the passage of time tonight, so great was her focus upon the mission at hand.
A single red-jacketed figure appeared to be supervising the work of four native soldiers. She guessed the man to be a sergeant or similar non-commissioned officer, based upon the way in which he ordered the Indian soldiers around. Under his direction, the four were performing the work of laborers, dragging the bodies of fallen British redcoats into a rough line that followed the curve of the pettah wall.
Laying out their dead in preparation for burial.
Perfect.
“This will do,” she whispered to Achalraj. “Hand me one of the bottles, please.”
Dropping slowly to one knee, the priest laid down his sack and rummaged around beneath the flap, finally producing one of the four bottles containing blessed blood. He handed it to her wordlessly, reverence apparent in his every move.
“Wait here.” And with that simple instruction, the tigress was gone, her figure absorbed into the darkness with an almost supernatural speed.
Puffing out his cheeks, Achalraj let out a long, slow breath before settling down into a particularly deep patch of shadow. He surmised that it wouldn’t be long before the performance began.
An Assassin Strikes
Sergeant Steven Brown had been given the shitty end of the stick yet again, and he was less than bloody happy about it.
In their infinite wisdom, his employers – technically the bloody Court of Directors of the bloody Honorable bloody East India Company – had decided that his place was not to be among those first into the city behind the assaulting party, plundering whatever was of any value and making warm acquaintance with the female inhabitants – no, not for Brown the joys of wine and women this night. His appointed task was to police a bunch of bloody heathen Hindus, making sure that the illiterate little swine didn’t go through the pockets of the dead redcoats while they were lining them up nice and neat for a proper burial.
Brown was a tall man and stocky with it, standing a good six feet if he was an inch. His long dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail and caked with powder, in the fashion of so many soldiers of the British Army of India. The sticky white powder flaked off down the back of his red jacket whenever he turned his head, but the nasty stuff at least kept it under some form of control and, more importantly, out of his face.
The three broad chevrons stitched onto his sleeve reminded all and sundry of the authority bestowed upon him from on high, and carried with them an almost godlike power that he applied to any man of lower rank whenever he felt like doing so.
“Juldi! Juldi! Get a bleeding move on, you sons of Hindu whores. We ain’t got all night!”
The sergeant stopped short of applying his well-worn boot to the men’s bodies – he knew from experience that even the most cowed soldier might be tempted to put a bayonet in the back of a physically abusive commander during the sound and fury of a battle, if he thought he could get away with it – but he felt no compunction whatsoever about unleashing a stream of near-continuous bigoted invective, which served to engender hatred amongst the men rather than to motivate them. Brown frankly didn’t give a damn, so long as they obeyed his orders and took care of all the manual labor themselves.
Sergeants weren’t meant to get their hands dirty. That was what privates were for.
He stood still for a moment to catch a breather, leaning against the outer wall with one hand, enjoying the cool touch of the stone through the coarse material of his jacket. He propped the heavy Brown Bess musket up against the wall next to him, and cast a speculative glance at the gateway and its surroundings.
The fighting had been ferocious around the main gate; the ladders used for the escalade still stood in place on either side of the pettah wall, though on
e of those outside had gotten blasted into smithereens by a stray cannon ball fired by the defenders.
Brown looked around him at the bodies.
So many bodies, he thought, and gave a sigh that was part sadness at the loss of British life and part relief at the fact that his EIC battalion hadn’t been a part of the initial assault. A lot of the red-coated corpses had bare legs, wearing kilts instead of long trousers. God, but how those poor Scots bastards had suffered during the escalade.
Still, better them than me.
A respectable line of dead British soldiers was beginning to form, the four sweating native soldiers laying the broken and traumatized bodies out side-by-side in the shadow of the pettah wall. Heads, arms, and legs were missing or mangled beyond all recognition in some cases, but the Indian detail treated them all with a degree of gentleness that even a heart as cold and calloused as that of Sergeant Brown could not help but be touched.
A sudden skittering noise caught his attention. He squinted into the darkness, thinking that the sound had come from the general direction of the ramshackle homes on the other side of the barren stretch of ground. Had a stone been kicked, perhaps? It had certainly sounded like it.
Brown reached for the musket’s barrel and hefted it. The weapon was loaded, he had made sure of that, but he hadn’t expected to fire the damned thing on a body recovery detail. He cocked the weapon, causing a loud click that turned the heads of his men.
“Keep bloody working,” the sergeant scowled, holding the weapon at port arms and strolling slowly across the wasteground towards the closest house.
The pebble came out of nowhere, catching him a glancing blow on the right temple. Staggered by the blow, the sergeant threw up a hand instinctively to guard his skull, letting out an indignant roar as he did so.
As soon as his hand left the barrel of the musket, Jamelia struck.
Goddess of the Dead (Wellington Undead Book 2) Page 11
