The ship’s main battle lazer could have been re-targeted to demolish the temples to Varuna and Agni and then the great dome of the palace itself, all within a matter of split seconds. But nothing further was necessary. The majority of the assembly had dropped on their knees, begging and crying for mercy. The rest were groveling on their faces and bellies.
Only Jahan remained standing, but Kara-Rashna was dragging at his weakened sword arm and forcing his sword back in its sheath. Bitterly, the old general allowed himself to be pulled down onto one knee beside his king. If resistance meant the possible destruction of the entire city, then they had to accept that it would be folly to resist.
The two Gheddans grinned at each other, sheathed their swords, and walked out. The Hindus blocking the exit crawled and squirmed frantically to clear a path and get out of the way. The humiliation and demoralization of this conquered city was satisfactorily complete.
On the raised dais that supported the throne, the young prince Rajar still crouched in mortal terror beside the great gong. He had remained there like a doe hypnotized by a cobra ever since he had been permitted to cease from his labours. He had prayed that his presence was forgotten, prayed that he would no longer be noticed, prayed almost that he might become invisible. His stomach threatened to rise up and choke him with his own vomit, his heart and soul were locked in ice, and he dripped sweat more profusely than all of the appalled and horror-struck assembly put together.
When he had first entered the audience hall with Nirad, Rajar had immediately recognized the faces of the three corpses that had been so callously dumped on the dais and he had almost fainted with fright upon the spot. Each succeeding event had proved a catastrophic shock upon his nervous system and when Gandhar’s lord had been executed he had all but died.
Now he was little more than a trembling jelly and he could only thank the gods and his lucky stars that he had been clever enough to divert suspicion from himself by disguising the assassins he had hired.
Chapter Thirteen
To return to Karakhor with the entire hunting party, including the war elephants, the foot warriors, the trackers and the slaves and all the princely baggage, would have taken at least four days. Both Ramesh and Hamir were too sorely wounded to survive any more fast travel. Time was of the essence and so again Kananda handpicked a small but efficient force and they had set out in all the available racing chariots with the hope of reaching the city by the second night.
Kananda’s first choice of those who accompanied him was Gujar, for he wanted only the bravest and the best. He also wanted warriors who were fresh and rested and so he had intended that on this occasion Kasim should remain behind. Kasim had already fought beside him to the point of exhaustion and there was only so much that one friend could ask of another. But that valiant and loyal young lord had only been affronted. If Kananda had the strength to ride, then Kasim would ride with him until they both dropped. Kananda heard his friend’s words and embraced him. “So be it,” he agreed and so Kasim rode again at his side.
To Kananda’s intense joy, Zela had also insisted on again joining his party and this time she brought Blair and Kyle with her. She had tried to explain to Kananda that because as yet there had been no formal declaration of war between Alpha and Ghedda she could not simply zoom out of the blue in her Tri-Thruster and blast the Gheddan spaceship while it was still on the ground. The high state of tension that existed between Alpha and Ghedda had been defined as a cold war, an exchange of vilifying rhetoric, menace and hostility which was still a few steps removed from a total hot war of actual physical and technological combat. The distinction was a difficult one for Kananda to grasp, especially when she admitted that this far from their home civilization the Gheddans would probably not concede the same conventions to her in refraining from a first strike on her ship if they knew of its presence. However, there was no time for any lengthy debate on the issue and so Kananda swallowed his perplexity and was simply glad that she had again chosen to accompany him.
He was not quite so overjoyed with the presence of Blair, but he had to acknowledge that, with Blair and Kyle, they had now trebled their former level of lazer firepower. In fact, they had done even better, for riding in chariots instead of on horseback, the three Alphans had each been able to double the number of spare fuel packs that they carried for their weapons.
Zela had also loaded a backpack battle communicator into her chariot. It had ten times the range of the personal communicators they wore on their belts and would enable her to transmit back to the ship once they had reached the city.
Cadel and Laurya were to maintain the Tri-Thruster in instant flight and battle readiness, with one of them awake at all times to respond to her call. She was just a little bit worried about leaving the ship with a bare minimum crew, but she had decided that she had to accompany Kananda to keep in touch with what was happening. Without up-to-the-minute information from Karakhor, it would be impossible to plan any definite strategy to counter the Gheddan presence. And even with Blair and Kyle beside her, they would still be outnumbered by their enemies. She was counting on surprise, and the fighting spirit of Kananda and his friends, to tip the balance in any hot encounter.
They rode one to each of the light, two-wheeled chariots, each chariot drawn by two swift horses. They were twenty chariots and Kananda led the way with his golden, sun-burst pennant flying bravely in the breeze. Gujar and Kasim drove their chariots close behind him, flying their own defiant banners of green and blue. The three Alphans brought up the rear, lagging at first as they struggled to master their new roles as charioteers. However, they quickly learned the new arts, their impatient steeds needing little more than a free rein.
In a thunder of flying hooves and wheels, the reckless cavalcade dashed furiously through forest and plains on their desperate race to Karakhor.
By nightfall, they had lost two of the chariots. One had broken an axle and had been washed away into deep water at one of the three fast-flowing river crossings. The other had been charged and smashed into splinters by the swinging horn and massive bulk of an angry rhinoceros. The chariots had burst through its peaceful domain, scattering its browsing harem of three contented cows and turning the short-tempered bull instantaneously into an avenging whirlwind of armour-plated destruction.
The unlucky charioteer at the river had at least been spared his life. He had been able to swim clear of the wreckage and his companions had fished him out on the far bank. However, the driver of the second lost chariot had been disemboweled and pulped by the pounding horn of the rhinoceros long before anyone could come back to aid him. It had been over in minutes, and by the time Zela had hauled on her reins to turn her chariot and get into a firing position, the old bull was trotting off into a curtain of thorn bushes with his attendant cows, snorting his contempt over his shoulder. A lazer bolt then would have been wasted when they might well have greater need of it later.
To Kananda, these losses were again portents of ill will from the gods. When the darkness forced them to halt lest they smash the axles of more chariots, he took his bow and arrows and, in the last glimmer of fading light, shot a small deer. He built a fire to burn the animal in sacrifice to Indra, although in his heart he felt that the offering and his prayers were not enough.
Zela watched him with deepening concern. There were some aspects of his faith and its fatalism that irritated her and she wished that she knew the way or the words to help him rise above them. In her own world-view, there were no super-human beings who took sides for or against in human conflicts. Instead, the God Behind all Gods was understood as Pure Spirit, and at last perceived to be removed from the endless squabbles of men, although not indifferent to their overall well-being. The spiritual essence of creation maintained the development and balance of the universe. For her, prayer was simply an acknowledgement of what was, and the hope that eventually her own spirit would prove fit to rejoin the eternal Spiritual Stream. For most Alphans who still prayed, prayer was no
longer a pleading for intervention. The God Behind All Gods was not a vain power to be praised and appeased and manipulated.
If there was any meaning to life beyond the immediate physical surface, then to Alphan logic it had to be a spiritual meaning. The physical life of the present, so clearly contingent, uncertain and temporal, ended forever with the moment of physical death. This far, Alpha agreed with Ghedda, but here their philosophies diverged. On Ghedda, all meaning to life, like the physical life itself, was finite. But the philosophers of Alpha taught that the finite life was shared by the infinite and that the meaning to life was concealed in the spiritual development of each individual being.
Herein lay the Alphan answer to the problem of evil, of explaining death, misfortune and disaster in a universe that was believed to be created and maintained by a benevolent, spiritual essence. What happened to each individual being, physically or materially, or in terms of the actual length of the microscopic time-blink that they endured, was all in the eternal scheme of things irrelevant. The crucial thing was not to be comfortable, to be free from pain, worry and fear, but to develop spiritually. Consequently wars, disasters and tragedies, were not the unsolvable problem of evil that previous generations had believed them to be, but were a mere surface ruffle of insignificance, like the wind and storm-tossed waves on a vast, deep ocean. The storms could be terrible indeed in the small boat of physical life caught up in those violent waves, but they had no meaning at all in the endless calm depths of spiritual infinity.
This was the understanding taught by her father, Laton, in the Academy of Knowledge in the City Of Singing Spires, and this was what Zela believed.
They built themselves a circle of small fires to keep out predators and poisonous snakes and, with two warriors posted as guards to be relieved at hourly intervals, the rest lay down to snatch a few hours sleep. Most of them were too weary to talk and Kananda had already made it plain that they would continue with the first glimmers of dawn.
Kananda wished that he could lie close to Zela, but with Blair and Kyle among the party it no longer seemed permissible. He flung himself upon his back on a patch of soft moss and stared up moodily at the stars. If the other Alphans were not here, he knew that he and Zela would have slept as they had before, with fingers touching. Now he felt that such intimacy might cause her to lose face or be embarrassed before her people.
Zela was also wishing that the hectic pace of their adventures might slow to allow them more time to explore their own tentatively developing relationship. She lay as though asleep, but she was remembering the touch and taste of that one brief kiss on the first night of their search for Ramesh. Since then, they had been through much trial and trauma together, but there was no memory more clear or lingering than the warmth of his lips upon hers.
Zela had known her fair share of young men, most as friends, and only a few intimately. Her beauty attracted them without any conscious effort on her part, despite the determination and dedication it had taken for her to reach her present rank. However, there had been no man who could match up to her idol, her dead elder brother Lorin. Every man she had ever met was automatically measured and judged against that most cherished of memories and all of them had in some way fallen short. One private corner of her mind was forever a shrine to the bravery, the gaiety, the bright intelligence and the handsome, laughing face that was her memory of Lorin.
But now there was Kananda, a barbarian prince from a primitive planet, who was almost everything that Lorin had been. It was true that his deference and devotions to his personal gods seemed to her unbalanced and immature, yet still he fought with a raw and naked courage that accepted no defeat, even when he believed that all his gods were against him. And he possessed the one skill that Lorin had lacked, the one failing that had cost Lorin his life: Kananda was a brilliant swordsman.
Zela wondered if she was falling in love. She was sure of one thing: Kananda was a man she would have been proud to introduce to Lorin. That must mean something. She had never felt like that before. Dreaming of his kiss, she fell asleep.
The last pair of messengers sent by Kara-Rashna had been running southward for two days. This was the second night of their journey and at dusk they had stumbled to a foot-sore halt and searched for somewhere to rest. With fears of the monkey tribe savages and Maghallan soldiers in their minds, they had not dared to light a fire in case it attracted more attention than it deterred and so they had simply crawled into a crack in a pile of rocks and prayed to pass the night unseen and unmolested.
There they might have passed the hours of darkness in exhausted sleep, except that a hunting leopard chose to make its kill within their range of hearing. The noise startled them awake and they cowered fearfully together. They carried no weapons which would have slowed them down and so they were defenceless. They could only hide. Finally the writhing and roaring noises ceased. They waited, hoping that the leopard had dragged its kill further away, but they could not be sure. The uncertainty became unbearable and the bravest of the pair inched his way higher into the rocks to survey the moonlit plain around them. He could see no signs of the leopard, but far away in the night he could see the dim flicker of campfires.
He returned to his companion and they discussed the possibilities in low whispers. Fires could only mean men, but were they friends or foes? Perhaps they were neutral travelers, merchants or traders from Bahdra or one of the other southern kingdoms. If they were not hostile, they might at least have news of Kananda’s hunting party. Their campfires might also prove a safer place to spend the night.
They finally decided that it was their duty to find out. And convincing themselves that the leopard had secured its meal and therefore would not kill again this night, they left their shelter and hurried at a run toward the far flickers of light. When close, they slowed and approached with caution, but soon they recognized Karakhoran chariots in the gloom, and then, to their elation, the sun-burst pennant of Kananda. They had found their prince and, abandoning stealth, they shouted to the guards to announce that they came with news from Kara-Rashna.
The two men were brought quickly to Zela and Kananda where they made the customary bows and salutations and then told their story. Kananda listened to their excited babbling with a sense of rapidly growing alarm, for only one point was making a total impact.
“You say that my sister Maryam is to be married! Who is this man to whom she is betrothed? What is his name?”
The runner flinched, realizing that his news was not wholly welcome. He said uncertainly, “He is the leader of the blue skinned gods—he is the one called Raven.”
“Raven!” Zela echoed the name sharply, her feelings a sudden confusing surge of elation, fear and disbelief. Her hand dropped to her sword and although she did not draw the blade, her knuckles whitened around the hilt. The foul murderer of Lorin was here, on this planet, in the city that was their destination. Her sworn enemy was the leader of the rival Gheddan expedition.
It was too much of a coincidence, too much to hope for. Perhaps the runner had misunderstood the name. But no—Ghedda had less than a handful of space commanders with interplanetary experience. That her opponent should prove to be Raven was not impossible, it was all too highly probable. Her heart soared in her breast and its violent pounding cried out for vengeance.
“Are you certain—” she demanded of the runner. “Are you sure his name is Raven?”
The runner stared at her silver suit and golden form. She was as strange and unexpected as the blue-skinned ones and the tone of her voice struck a shiver in his soul. He nodded his head and licked his suddenly dry lips.
“Of this I am sure, noble one, the god is called Raven.”
Kananda was staring at Zela, his eyes filled with concern and understanding. “Is this the one you seek?” He asked, “The one who slew your brother?”
Zela nodded. “It is the same name. It must be the same man.”
“And this monster is to marry my sister! What madness is this? How
can my father and uncles permit such a thing? Are they all bewitched?”
No one could answer his outburst and he turned back to the hapless runners. “Answer me. What is truly happening in Karakhor? We have defied Sardar and Maghalla. How can they now sacrifice Princess Maryam to this greater evil?”
“Princess Maryam herself wishes for this marriage.” The runner could barely croak the words. “It is she who arranges it. Kara-Rashna not only desires your own return, noble prince, but also the return of the high priest, Kaseem. He seeks Kaseem’s holy wisdom in this matter.”
“Kaseem is two days’ journey behind us,” Kananda said impatiently. “But we are only one day’s ride from Karakhor.”
He turned to face his young lords and the waiting Alphans, and now it was his right hand that closed firmly over the hilt of his sword.
“I swear by Indra and all the gods that while I live Maryam will not make this marriage,” he cried in ringing tones. “If it is her desire, then it must be because she is not truly aware of the inner nature of this man to whom she is betrothed. She has been blinded by a creature more cruel and merciless than Sardar of Maghalla ever could be. By Indra, by Varuna, by Agni, the sister I love more than my life will never be joined to this man.”
Kasim and Gujar took hold of their own swords. “By all the gods, we swear this with you,” they bravely proclaimed together.
Have no fear, Kananda—the words were formed in Zela’s mind—for Raven will die upon my sword. But with Blair and Kyle standing close and listening, she refrained from saying them aloud.
In Karakhor, the day following the brutal execution of Gandhar’s lord had been a long and fearful one. No one knew nor could guess at what the strangers might do next. No one yet knew why they were here or what it was that they wanted. The speculation that they were messengers from Indra, which had followed their violation of the temple of Varuna, was now shattered by the havoc they had wreaked upon the temple of Indra in its turn. The mass of the city population was now facing for the first time the apocalyptic thought that there could be an even greater power than the gods they had so revered. No one knew how to pray to these new gods or what sacrifices to make. The holy priests to whom they normally looked to for guidance were mentally paralyzed.
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