by Eric Flint
Kungas thought about it, and decided she was right. He could leave the additional two thousand men with the five thousand already garrisoning the forts in the passes at Margalla and Kohat. That would secure the gates to the kingdom and leave him almost twenty thousand men to do. .
Whatever. He didn't know yet. He was quite sure the Ye-tai deserters weren't lying. But that didn't necessarily mean their assessment of things was all that accurate, either.
Still, he thought it was probably was. Close enough, anyway. Kungas had been fighting almost since he was a boy. There was that smell in the air, of an enemy starting to come apart.
* * *
When Jaimal caught his first glimpse of the walls of Ajmer, he felt the greatest exhilaration he'd ever felt in his life. Even though he was also completely exhausted.
He glanced at Udai Singh, riding next to him at the head of the small Rajput cavalry column, and saw the same gleaming smile he must have had on his own face.
"A ride of legend!" Udai shouted. Half-croaked, rather.
Shouted or croaked, it was true. And the ragged chorus of that same half-croaked shout coming from the fifty cavalrymen following told Jaimal that their men knew it as well as they did.
Rajputana was a land of horsemen, as well as warriors. A great horse ride would become a thing of renown just as surely as a great feat of arms.
Emperor Damodara and Rana Sanga had asked them to accomplish the incredibly difficult task of riding from Bharakuccha to Ajmer in two weeks. If possible.
They'd done it in eleven days. Without losing more than nine of their horses.
"A ride of legend!" he shouted himself.
But there was no need for that, really. Already, he could see the gates of the city opening, and cavalrymen issuing forth. Hundreds of them. Even from the great distance, just seeing the way they rode, he knew they were all young men. Seeking their own place in legends.
Jaimal and Udai would give it to them.
* * *
Standing on the walls of Ajmer and watching the way the young warriors who had poured out of the city were circling the new arrivals-there were at least a thousand of them, now, with more sallying from the gates every minute-the oldest and therefore wisest king of Rajputana knew it was hopeless. That was a whirlwind of celebration and excitement, out there. Caution and sagacity would soon become so many leaves blown by the monsoon.
"Perhaps. ." began Chachu.
Dasal shook his head. Standing next to him, his brother Jaisal did likewise.
"Not a chance," said Jaisal curtly. "Look at them, out there."
"We don't even know what it's about, yet," whined Chachu. One of the other kings who formed the council grunted something in the way of agreement.
Dasal shrugged. "Don't be foolish. No, we don't know exactly what news-or instructions-that cavalry column is bringing. But the gist of it is obvious."
He nodded toward the column, which was now advancing toward the gates with over a thousand other Rajput cavalrymen providing them with what was, for all practical purposes, an escort of honor.
"The new emperor sent them. Or Rana Sanga. Or both. And they will be demanding the allegiance of all Rajputs. So what do we say?"
He had no answer, himself. The Rajput heart that beat within him was just as eager as any of those young warriors out there. But that heart had now beaten for almost eighty years, each and every year of which had hammered caution into his mind, whatever his heart might feel.
"Let's return to the council chamber and await them there," suggested Jaisal.
That might help. A bit.
"Yes," Dasal said.
* * *
But when they returned to the council chamber, they discovered it had been preempted from them already. The seven thrones had been removed from their accustomed places in a half-circle at the elevated dais. They were now resting, still in a half-circle, facing the dais.
On the dais itself, sat only one chair. A smaller and less ostentatious chair, as it happened, than the seven chairs of the kings. And the man who sat in it was smaller-certainly more rotund-than any of the kings.
But it hardly mattered. Dasal understood who he was before he even spoke.
Chachu, as usual, had to be enlightened.
"I am Great Lord Damodara," the short, fat old man said. "The emperor's father. I am the new viceroy of Rajputana. And you will obey me."
Behind him, in a row, stood half a dozen Malwa bodyguards. Assassins, to call things by their right name. More to the point, at least fifty young Rajput warriors were standing alongside the walls of the chamber. Each and every one of whom was glaring at the seven kings.
Suddenly, the plump face of Great Lord Damodara broke into a smile. The expression made him seem a much friendlier sort of fellow.
"But, please!" he exclaimed, waving his hand at the seven chairs before him. "Take your seats, Kings of Rajputana."
Dasal considered the courtesy. Then, considered the titles. Finally, considered the chairs.
The chairs made the decision. They were the same chairs, after all. Very august ones. Not to mention comfortable.
He felt relief more than anything else. Clearly enough, the new regime in the land of the Rajputs was willing to accommodate the status-if not the authority-of the old one.
He was almost eighty years old, after all. Even the youngest of the seven kings of the council was past seventy.
"Yes, Great Lord." Dasal moved forward and sat in his accustomed chair. He gave his half dozen fellows an abrupt nod, commanding them to follow.
They did so, readily enough. Only Chachu made a token protest.
"I don't understand," he whined. "If you're still alive, why aren't you the new emperor instead of your son?"
The smile on the Great Lord's face stayed in place, but it got an ironic twist.
"Good question. I'll have to take it up with my headstrong son when we meet again. For the moment, I ascribe it to the monsoon times we're living in."
The smile became serene. "But I don't imagine I'll argue the point with him. Actually, it might make for a good tradition. When emperors-and kings-get too old, they tend to get too set in their ways. Best to have them retire and take up some prestigious but less demanding post, while their son assumes the heavier responsibilities. Don't you think?"
The smile was friendly. But the assassins were still there, not smiling at all. And the young warriors were still glaring.
"Indeed, Great Lord," said Dasal.
His brother echoed him immediately. Chachu, thankfully, kept his mouth shut.
* * *
Or, at least, kept his mouth shut until the two leaders of the newly arrived cavalry column finished their report.
"That's madness!" Chachu exclaimed. "Belisarius?"
But Dasal had come to the opposite conclusion. The great lord was right. Old men should retire, when the time comes.
Especially when presented with such a fine way to do so.
"It's brilliant," he rebutted, rising to his feet. "And I will lead the force that goes into the Thar to find him."
His brother came to his feet also. "I'll go with you."
"You're too old!" protested Chachu.
The two brothers glared at him, with the combined indignation of one hundred and fifty-six years of life.
"I can still ride a horse!" snarled Dasal. "Even if you can't ride anything other than a chair any longer."
* * *
They left the following evening, just after sunset. No sane man rides into the desert during the day. Dasal and Jaisal had one hundred and fifty-six years of sanity between them.
The young warriors were impatient, of course. All seven thousand of them.
Especially impatient were the six thousand that the two kings had insisted ride on camels, carrying the water and other supplies that they were quite sure Belisarius needed. Leave it to an idiot Roman to try to cross the desert without camels. Relying on wells! In the Thar!
Most impatient of all were
the ten thousand-with more coming into the city every day-whom Dasal had insisted remain behind. With, fortunately, the agreement and approval of the new viceroy of Rajputana. They would just be a nuisance in the expedition, and a new Rajput army had to be formed.
Formed quickly. The monsoon was coming.
Fortunately, Rana Sanga's two lieutenants Jaimal and Udai Singh had the authority and experience for the task. They needed a rest anyway, after their ride of legend. By the time Jaisal and Dasal returned to Ajmer with Belisarius, the new army would be ready.
For. . whatever. Given Belisarius, it would be a thing of legend. Dasal only hoped he would live long enough to see it.
Assuming the idiot Roman was still alive. Crossing the Thar on horses! Relying on wells!
* * *
When the Malwa assassination team finally rowed their ship into the great harbor at Bharakuccha, they knew another moment of frustration and chagrin.
"Look at that!" snarled one of them.
The captain of the team just shook his head. The docks and piers of the city seemed practically covered with a carpet of people, all of them come down to greet the Axumite fleet escorting the Emperor of Rome.
The fleet was already anchored. As they drew closer, the Malwa assassins could see the Roman imperial party being escorted to the great palace of the Goptri by a small army of Ethiopian sarwen.
Even if they'd been in position, there would have been no way to get to the boy emperor. And once he was in the palace. .
The captain of the assassination team and his lieutenant were both familiar with the great palace of the Goptri. As the palace of a conquering viceroy in a hostile land, serving a dynasty famous for its paranoia, it had been designed to thwart assassins. Unless the guards were utterly incompetent. .
"Ethiopian sarwen," the lieutenant grumbled. "And you can be sure that Raghunath Rao will be there to advise them."
The captain spent a moment adding up the miles he and his team had traveled, to carry out an assignment that always seem to recede before them in the distance. It had been like trying to assassinate a mirage in the desert.
From Kausambi to Bharakuccha to Alexandria to Constantinople. And then back again, almost all the way.
Something like ten thousand miles, he thought. Who could really know?
"Nothing for it," he said. "We'll sell the ship as soon as we can, since we're almost out of money. Then. . we'll just have to see what we can do."
* * *
Finding a buyer for the ship was easy. Whether rightly and wrongly-and, more and more, the captain was beginning to wonder if they weren't right-the merchants of Bharakuccha seemed quite confident that the old Malwa empire was gone from the Deccan and that trade would soon be picking up.
They even got a better price than the captain had expected.
That was the first and last thing that went as planned. No sooner had they emerged from the merchant clearinghouse than a harried-looking official accosted them. Accompanied, unfortunately, by a large squad of soldiers.
Not regular Malwa soldiers, either, to make things worse. Marathas, from their look, newly impressed into the city's garrison. It seemed the new Axumite commander had given orders to form units from all residents of the city.
The captain sized them up. Eight of them there were, and tougher-looking than he liked. He didn't doubt that he and his four assassins could overcome them. But not without suffering casualties-and then what?
Five Malwa assassins in today's Bharakuccha, many if not all of them wounded, would be like so many pieces of bloody meat in shark waters.
"There you are!" the official exclaimed. "You are the trade delegation just returned from Rome, yes?"
That had been their official identity. The captain wondered how an official in Bharakuccha-the place was a madhouse! — had managed to keep track of the records and identify them so soon after their return.
He brought down a savage curse on all hard-working and efficient bureaucrats. A silent curse, naturally.
"Come with me!" the official commanded. "I've been instructed to send a courier team to catch up with the emperor"-he didn't even bother to specify the "new" emperor-"and you're just the men for the job!"
"I can't believe this," muttered his lieutenant. Very softly, of course.
* * *
The next morning, they were riding out of the city on excellent horses, carrying dispatches for Damodara. Along with a Maratha cavalry platoon to provide them with a safe escort out of the Deccan. The assassins were obviously Malwa-some sort of north Indians, at any rate-and despite the new truce between the Malwa and Andhran empires, it was always possible that a band of Maratha irregulars in the hills wouldn't obey it. Or would have simply turned to banditry, as some soldiers always do at the end of a war.
That same escort, needless to say, also made it impossible for them to return to Bharakuccha and continue their assignment. Not, at least, until they'd passed the crest of the Vindhyas-at which point, they have to return another hundred miles or so, and do it without being spotted by Maratha patrols.
The only bright spot in the whole mess was that their luggage hadn't been searched. If it had been, the bombard would have been discovered-and they'd have had a very hard time explaining why and how a "trade delegation" had been carrying an assassination device. A bombard of that size and type was never used by regular military units, and it would have been even more useless for trade delegates.
That night, around their campfire and far enough from the Maratha escort not to be overheard, the five assassins quietly discussed their options.
"It's hopeless," the captain concluded. "We've done our best. Let's just give it up and return to Kausambi for a new assignment."
His lieutenant finally said it. "That's assuming we don't find a new emperor when we get there. Then what?"
The captain shrugged, and spit into the fire.
More cheerily, one of the other assassins said: "Well, there's this. Whoever the emperor is when we get there, one thing's for sure. We won't be reporting failure to Nanda Lal. No matter what."
That was true. Perhaps the only certainty left in their lives. They'd all seen Nanda Lal's head perched on a pike outside the Goptri's palace. There hadn't been much left of it. But the captain and the lieutenant had recognized the nose. Broken, years ago, by the boot of Belisarius. Battered, at the end, by boys in their play.
Chapter 30
The Thar desert
Belisarius finally managed to force his eyes somewhere else. Staring at the empty well wouldn't make it fill up.
Not that he found the sight of the desert any prettier.
"So, I gambled and lost," he said to Ashot and Abbu, standing next to him.
Ashot was still scowling down into the well. Abbu was scowling at the desert, his eyes avoiding the general's.
"It's not your fault, Abbu."
The old bedouin grimaced. "This well was one of the best!" he protested. "I was worried about the last one. And another one some twenty miles farther. Not this one!"
Finally, Ashot straightened up. "Wells are finicky in a desert like this. If the water table was reliable, we wouldn't have had to dig our own. There'd have been wells already here."
The Armenian cataphract wiped the dust off his face with a cloth. "What do we do now, General? We don't have enough water left to make the crossing to the next well. Not the whole expedition, for sure. A few dozen could make it, maybe, if they took all the water we still have."
"For what purpose?" Belisarius demanded. Not angrily, just wearily.
He leaned over the well again, gauging the dampness at the very bottom. There wasn't much.
There were two decisions to be made. One was obvious to probably everyone. The other was obvious to him.
"No," he said. "We'll send a very small force-five men-with all the water they need to cross the rest of the Thar without stopping. They might be able to reach Ajmer in time to bring a Rajput relief expedition, if Rana Sanga's already gotten
the word there."
Ashot winced. Abbu shook his head.
"That's a lot of 'ifs,' General," said the Armenian. "If they can cross in time. If the Rajputs are already prepared. If they'll listen to a handful of men in the first place. If they can get back in time with water before the rest of us are dead."
"The first 'if' is the easiest, too," Abbu added. "And it stinks. Five men, crossing as fast as they can. . It would still take them at least five days. Another week-at least-before they could get back with enough water to make a difference. That's twelve days, General, at best."
Belisarius had already figured out the deadly arithmetic. If anything, Abbu was being optimistic-one of the few times Belisarius could ever remember him being so. Belisarius himself thought the minimum would be two weeks.
In the desert, in the hot season, a man without water could not survive for more than two days before he started to die. And he died quickly, thereafter. Maybe three days, depending on the temperature. That assumed he found shelter from the sun and didn't exert himself. If he did, death would come much sooner.
If the Roman expedition shared all their remaining water evenly-and gave none to the horses-they'd run out in three days. At most, the moisture still seeping into the bottom of the well might provide them with another day's water. Then. .
They might last a little over a week, all told. Not two weeks, certainly. Probably not even twelve days.
There was no way to go back or to go forward, either. The last well was four days behind them, and it would be almost dry anyway after their recent use of it. The next well was at least two and a half days' travel, according to Abbu, for a party this size. Since they had to water the horses also, while traveling, they'd run out within the first day. The last two days they'd be without water.
So would the horses.
They'd never make it. Not in the Thar, in the hot season.
"I understand the arithmetic," Belisarius said harshly. "It's still our only chance."
The second decision, then.
"You'll lead the party, Ashot. Abbu, you go with him. Pick three of your bedouin for the remaining men."
Ashot's eyes widened, a little. Abbu's didn't.
