Namita blushed hotly and quickly lowered her eyes, her long black lashes fluttering in agitation. Like Maryam, she was convinced that these incredible blue-skinned warriors could only be from the same race as the gods. In all her picture books, Indra and Varuna were depicted with pale blue skins and giving off an aura of soft golden light. These men had no such aura, so perhaps they were not the high gods. However, they did have the same pale blue skin, and they had used the powers of light to destroy rocks and hills and forest. They came from the heavens and could only be gods. Their presence terrified Namita and yet fascinated her. She had been unable to resist watching their every movement and now she had been noticed. She stared at her plate and did not dare to look up again. She had dared too much already. Her heart hammered in her trembling breast and she almost fainted.
A hand steadied her. Her brothers Rajar and Nirad sat on either side of her and Rajar had missed nothing. Rajar also refrained from looking directly at the strangers, but his face was suddenly thoughtful.
The dancing came to an end with a final crash of cymbals and a swirl of half nude limbs and brief silk skirts. Each of the five dancers finished kneeling before the central table where the five Gheddans were seated, their heads bowed, their arms and palms out-stretched as though in offering. Kara-Rashna leaned forward from his throne and made an expansive gesture with his hand, motioning from the visitors to the kneeling girls and then from the girls back to his guests. The Gheddans realized that the girls were offering themselves and that the king was approving their sacrifice.
There was a burst of laughter, and then, jesting lewdly between themselves, Caid, Garl and Landis went forward to claim three of the girls. Thorn held back, waiting for Raven to make the next move,
Raven looked down at the dancing girl kneeling before him. She was a tempting morsel and he knew he could enjoy her, but she was only a slave. Beside him was a princess, although suddenly a very stiff and tense princess. Maryam sat biting her lip, her eyes clouded with apprehension. Raven turned to smile at her, and then turned toward her father and waved the slave girl away. Now it was the turn of Kara-Rashna and his brothers to look worried and uncertain, but Maryam was smiling again.
Raven knew that he could take her any time he wanted and there was a powerful urge in him to simply pick her up and carry her off to the nearest bedchamber. But he restrained the impulse. After fifteen years, he was no longer the raw northern barbarian who had ridden down from the wild mountains. He had learned the arts of political subtlety and calculation, for he could never have reached his present rank in the Gheddan Space Corps without them. This was only an exploratory mission and he knew that within a few days they would have to leave. Several months would then elapse before a garrison force could return here to hold the city permanently as an outpost of the Gheddan Empire. In the meantime it was best not to over antagonize these people, but to let their present king remain a suitably subdued and docile puppet. It was for this reason that he had allowed Kara-Rashna to live and remain upon his throne, despite Thorn’s advice to the contrary. And it was for this reason that he would refrain from taking the old king’s daughter too soon and too crudely. He was confident that she would come to his bed of her own free will soon enough.
Thorn was frustrated and angry. If Raven had set a precedent by grabbing Maryam, then Thorn would have had no hesitation in rejecting his own slave girl and laying claim instead to Namita. He had already realized that she too was a daughter of the king and Thorn wanted his own princess. Thorn did not always understand Raven’s thinking and actions, but his commander’s rank and sword skill permitted him to flout many conventions and even Thorn knew better than to risk his anger. Scowling, Thorn got up to claim his own slave girl, and then as an afterthought, he also grabbed the girl Raven had discarded and brought them both back to his seat.
Caid and Landis hooted with laughter, while Garl made ribald but approving comment. Raven remained relaxed and simply smiled. Thorn fondled the two girls and felt better, but he was still not fully satisfied.
Kara-Rashna hurriedly called male slaves and ordered them to show his guests to their bedchambers. Four of the Gheddans departed promptly with the five slave girls. Raven remained a moment longer, smiling at Maryam, and lightly touching her lips with his finger in a Gheddan promise for the future. Then he was led away alone.
The king and his brothers looked relieved. Queen Padmini was also relieved, but determined to scold her promiscuous daughter fiercely at the first opportunity. The feasting was over, the orchestra departed, and the rest of the guests began to say their goodbyes and disperse.
Namita joined Maryam and the two departed together. Rajar watched them go, his face was expressionless but he was thinking furiously. His half-sister’s flagrant behaviour throughout the evening had made no secret of her intentions. She was making up to the leader of the blue-skinned strangers with the obvious aim of forming a marriage alliance. Such an alliance would clearly be beneficial for Karakhor, for the power of the strangers would be more than enough to protect them from the threat of Maghalla. But such an alliance would not further Rajar’s own ambitions.
Rajar concentrated hard, reviewing all that he had observed here tonight. The one they called Thorn was clearly second in this hierarchy of the gods, and if anything happened to the leader then it was reasonable to suppose that Thorn would be the new leader. Thorn had cast lustful glances at his full-sister Namita, and if something could be arranged to remove Raven from the picture, then an alliance between Thorn and Namita was one that Rajar was certain he should be able to manipulate.
Persuading Namita to make a more positive response to Thorn might not be too difficult. It was the idea of removing Raven and the possible consequences that made him shiver inside. However, it could be worth thinking about. The art of palace intrigue was to turn the unwitting into tools and to devise methods that could not be traced back to the instigator. The unseen hand behind the scenes need have no fear.
That was how the principles worked with mortals, but would it be different with the gods.
The young prince trembled and went to his bed with plenty of food for thought.
Chapter Eight
The three great temples to Varuna, Indra and Agni were the natural focal point of Karakhor, and the obvious starting point for any idle exploration of the city. The carved ramparts of red sandstone glowed with polished and intricate beauty in the bright mid-morning sun, and on leaving the palace, Raven strolled casually toward the nearest of these strange monuments to an even stranger faith. He could not understand the devotional psychology that had urged their creation, but the sheer size and dominance of the temples demanded a closer inspection. He was accompanied by Maryam, Namita, and Thorn.
Maryam was at his side because this was where she wanted to be. Her bravado of the previous evening had dwindled with the cold light of dawn and a bout of warning chastisement from her mother, but she was still convinced that fate had ordained that this was to be her place. She had appeared, trembling a little, with the slave girl who had served his morning meal and had made it plain that during his waking hours she intended to be his constant companion and guide. It had been her suggestion, transmitted in smiles and gestures, that he should make a tour of the city.
Namita was there because it would not have been seemly for Maryam to go with the stranger alone. She was a reluctant chaperone, bound by her sense of royal duty, her obedience to the anxious wishes of the queen, Padmini, but most of all by her own love and concern for her sister.
Thorn was there as Raven’s second sword, although he doubted that his commander would meet with any danger he could not overcome alone. The people here were too soft and too primitive to be dangerous and were too cowed to be even hostile. At the same time, this was a largely unknown planet and Thorn had his own curiosity and his own sense of duty. The discovery that Namita was also to be a member of their party had been an added incentive to his decision. He had favoured her with a smile but her only
reaction had been a look of terror. Now he scowled a little because she had contrived to walk so that Maryam and Raven were between them.
Twenty paces behind them there followed a nervous captain and a small detachment of warriors from the palace guard. They were present under the orders of Warmaster Jahan to observe, to protect their strange guests while in the city, and to protect the city and their princesses from the strangers. For the first two tasks, they were equipped and capable. For the latter, they could only pray that no such need would arise.
Raven stopped in the shadow of the first temple, gazing up at the sculpted bands of men, beasts and gods. There were garlands of stone leaves and vines, lines of marching war elephants and warriors, huntsmen and chariots pursuing game, and then elaborate stone panels showing couples and foursomes in explicit sexual poses and detail. Maryam followed the direction of his gaze and blushed hotly. She had seen these scenes before but the proper thing was to pretend not to have noticed.
However, Raven’s gaze moved on. He was not so much impressed by the loving artistry of the multitude of sculptures as by the vast amount of time and human energy that must have been poured into the creation of these apparently useless monuments. The waste was a measurement of the backwardness and mental weakness of the people of this planet.
“What is its purpose?” Thorn asked in bewilderment. “It is neither a war ship nor a fortress. Why would they want to build it?”
Raven shrugged. “It must serve a religious purpose. We know that on Dooma such ideas still flourish on the continent of the Alphans. They still believe in gods, or a god, and raise strange buildings in which to house them.”
“What is a god?” Thorn demanded. His education had been a purely practical one of military matters and spaceship navigation.”
“A god is a kind of super-being, an invisible power that is supposed to be greater than a man and his sword. There are many of them. At one time, even on Ghedda, every group of people claimed to have one as its guardian.” Raven smiled sardonically. “They were even believed to grant their followers some kind of life after death. They were a refuge for those who were afraid of death, and because they were afraid to die they were afraid to live.”
“Fool’s nonsense,” Thorn agreed. “How could men be so stupid?”
“They were not men. They were women and children. On Ghedda it was all a long time ago, before men found the courage to face the truth and take command of their own destiny.”
They turned a corner of the building into the sunlight and moved toward the main entrance, which faced onto the central square. There were crowds of people hurrying about their daily business who now began to stop and stare, half in wonderment but more in fear. The two blue-skinned Gheddans ignored the growing number of brown-skinned Hindus and paused again before the temple doorway. On either side, set in porticos carved out of the solid stone, were life-sized statues of human form, but with the heads of a boar and an elephant. Each figure was richly dressed and jeweled, with six arms holding weapons and tools, and representations of the sun and the earth.
Thorn indicated the boar-headed figure with bafflement in his voice. “Is this a god?”
“Perhaps.” Raven’s knowledge was limited to a lecture he had once attended on Alphan psychology. It had been one of a compulsory series at the City Of Swords Space Centre, given with the aim of understanding the enemy.
Maryam could not understand their words, but she knew they were speaking of the god. “This is Lord Shiva,” she tried to explain. “The Lord of the Beasts in his boar incarnation.”
Raven and Thorn looked at her without comprehension. Thorn shrugged. Raven smiled.
“We shall look inside,” Raven decided. He moved to enter the doorway.
None of them had yet noticed the fearful priest standing in the deep shadows inside the temple. Now he came quickly forward. He was a young man, shaven-headed and wearing only the simple white robe of his calling. His face was almost as pale as his robe and his slim hands fluttered in bird-like agitation across his breast as he tried to wave them away. The interior of the shrine was holy and forbidden to all but known believers.
Thorn and Raven stopped. The young priest bravely spread his arms wide to bar their way, a clear indication that they should not enter. Thorn looked at him in astonishment and then laughed and drew the hand lazer from his hip. He raised the weapon and aimed at the white-robed breast. Maryam and Namita recoiled with gasps of horror, turning their heads and covering their faces with their hands. Then Raven’s hand closed firmly over Thorn’s wrist and pushed the lazer down and away.
“Destroying a fool will prove nothing,” Raven said calmly. “But if we destroy one of their god images, then we will instill a real respect.”
He drew his own lazer as he spoke, aimed, and exploded the boar’s head from the nearest statue. The young priest and the princess Namita both collapsed in a dead faint.
Raven holstered his lazer, stepped over the inert priest, and entered the temple.
Thorn paused for a moment to look around the shocked faces of the people clustered in the square, and then at the drained white face of Maryam who was fighting to prevent herself from swooning. Raven’s words and actions made tactical sense, but again Thorn wondered whether Raven might have been partly influenced by the weaker motive of sparing the earth woman the greater distress of seeing the priest killed. Finally he dismissed the idea and followed his leader.
The young guard captain came forward to steady Maryam. It was all he dared to do, for his own heart was beating fast and his throat was too dry to issue orders. Maryam pushed his hand from her arm and bade him to tend to Namita. She stared up at the temple and now she knew who her chosen champion represented.
The door was guarded by the Lord of the Beasts, but the temple itself was dedicated to the worship of the Lord Varuna, the high god of the blue sky. Only one god was equal in power to Varuna, and that was Indra, the mighty god of war. She looked to Indra’s temple on the opposite side of the square, as high and as splendid as the temple to Varuna. Only Indra would dare to destroy the Lord of the Beasts and desecrate the temple of Varuna. Therefore it could only be that the blue-skinned ones were messengers from Indra. Perhaps their leader, was an incarnation of Indra Himself!
Zela was violently awakened as a coarse hand crushed against her mouth. She had fallen asleep in the small wooded glade where they had stopped to snatch a short night’s rest, and her last memory had been a gentle one of the brilliant canopy of stars spread high above her. She had identified the nearer speck of light that was Dooma and her fading thoughts had been of her home planet, together with a brief prayer to the God Behind All Gods, the spiritual essence of all creation.
Now the stars were blotted out, and the dark side of creation loomed over her in the form of a man whose only thought was to kill her. She saw a cruel face with fierce, dark eyes, and recognized the black turban and laced black waistcoat of a Maghallan soldier. She smelled the rank sweat and bloodlust on him and saw the glint of steel as his dagger swept down toward her breast.
She would have died, but another blade was faster. A sword slashed the wrist wielding the dagger aside and then Kananda kicked the Maghallan away from her. The man rolled into bushes and darkness, screaming as he clutched the severed stump of his wrist.
The camp was in uproar. The two guards Kananda had posted lay sprawled in the grass with slit throats, and from all sides the Maghallan soldiers were rushing forward through the surrounding trees.
“Stand! Stand!” Kananda roared the alarm. “Stand for Karakhor!”
He suited his action to the words by standing astride Zela as she still lay half shocked, his sword in one hand and a dagger in the other as he fought back the first wave of the Maghallan attack. His companions rose quickly, grabbing for their weapons, but half of them were too slow and too weary. The Maghallans had cut down four more of the Karakhorans before they could begin to defend themselves.
They were heavily out-numbered,
taken by surprise, and within another minute they would all have been butchered. Zela’s blood ran cold but her mind ran fast and she drew her hand lazer as she still lay sprawled on the ground. After retrieving the body of Ramesh, she had fitted a new fuel pack and the weapon was fully re-charged. She fired forward, through Kananda’s spread legs, and then rolled quickly onto her elbows and stomach to fire left, right, and directly behind. She aimed only to miss their still-surviving companions, but the ranks of the Maghallans were so thick that each energy bolt killed or scorched at least two or three of the enemy. The Maghallan onslaught became a rout, and as they turned and fled, the lower branches of the trees behind them burst into flames.
Zela struggled shakily to her feet. “The horses,” she gasped, and gestured to where their tethered mounts were plunging and rearing in their terrified attempts to escape from the crackling heat.
Kananda understood and shouted more orders to the rest of the group. They ran for their mounts and grabbed for the reins before the animals could bolt. With swords they cut them free and backed them away from the fire then quickly they swung up into the saddles. Hamir and Kasim together heaved up the still unconscious body of Ramesh onto a spare horse and quickly roped it into place before finding their own mounts. Zela fired another lazer blast at the re-grouping Maghallans, but the beam was noticeably weaker and only one man fell.
“Ride,” Kananda commanded.
They were seven. Four of them instantly spurred their horses and charged out of the glade. Kasim was the fifth. He looked back in anguish to their fallen companions, but there was no time and no way in which any who might still be alive could be helped. Kanada struck the flank of Kasim’s mount with the flat of his sword, and then scooping up the reins of the horse to which the body of his brother was now lashed, he followed with Zela at his side. Zela had holstered her lazer and her sword was now in her right hand as she carved their path.
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