‘Charge!’ called the general, and the infantry picked up the pace to a run.
Jai cocked his head slightly as he jogged, half-expecting to hear the shrieks of startled pain as the arrows hit home on an unsuspecting imperial troop. Nothing. That unsettled him. Of course, if could be that they missed, loosing blind in the fog, or that the cries were too muffled at this distance. But still, Jai felt his nerves tingling.
‘General…’
‘I know. I feel it too. And that smell…’
The end of the bridge came upon them suddenly, and with it came terror.
The lead elements of the attack, the light infantry clad in bronze fish-scale and linen shirts with a small shield and a ji – a wicked combination of spear point and sickle blade atop a five-foot pole – met the wiliness of General Flavius Cinna with screams. The ground all around the end of the bridge was peppered with arrow shafts, standing proud like a field of wheat anticipating the scythe, but there had been no imperial soldiers there to suffer their barbed points. The end of the bridge was deserted…
… but first it had been prepared.
The charging infantry fell from the end of the bridge, their momentum making it almost impossible to stop as they reached the pit that had been dug there, and they plunged into it with cries of alarm. More men behind them, aware of their comrades’ fate, were unable to avoid sharing it as the press of men charging behind forced them on into the same hollow. A pit forty feet square, seemingly full of water, since it had filled with the constant rains. A pit that held submerged horror. Jai grabbed the side of the bridge and clung on for dear life as the press of men, unable to stop in time, pushed more and more soldiers into that watery maw. His wide eyes saw the water swiftly turning red and, as a man plunged in and the water sloshed aside, Jai realised the floor of the pit beneath the water was covered with ash stakes, sharpened to needle points. Dozens of men were impaled now, thrashing in the water and screaming.
From the far side of the bridge, where General Jiang had mirrored Jai’s action and was even now climbing onto the bridge’s decorative parapet, Jai heard his commander bellowing for the column to halt and the archers to cease their barrage.
It took a lot of shouting, and dozens more men went into the pit, but finally the arrows stopped flying and the column slowed and stopped, shaking with horror and agitation.
Then came the western empire’s fangs. The thuds of the artillery were so muted by the mist that Jai hadn’t noticed them until half a dozen giant iron bolts suddenly ripped into the crowd on the bridge, most of them passing through at least one or two men before burying themselves in a third. Jai heard the general shouting the order to fall back and felt his own spirits plunge. Not only had the surprise attack failed, it had resulted in ignominious disaster.
But even now, as more bolts ripped into the men, Jai realised there was something else coming. The urgency in the general’s voice wasn't due to the deadly bolts alone. He caught sight briefly, through the press, of General Jiang up on the parapet of the bridge. The commander was running now – running along the side of the bridge with the grace and skill of an acrobat, passing his own men in his flight, but shouting as he went, urging them to flee.
Without questioning why, Jai was up and clambering atop the parapet moments later.
He realised then what the smell was: naphtha! He’d not recognised the odour initially, because the Inda only used it for lamps and the Jade Empire never deployed it, favouring black powder for their weapons.
The fire arrows came just as the bolts stopped. The first half dozen thudded into panicked bodies as the light infantry were trying to flee, but it took only heartbeats for one of the missiles to reach the thin, pungent, flammable coating on the floor and sides of the bridge. The entire fifty-pace span of the bridge at the western end suddenly erupted in a conflagration. Jai almost plummeted into the water below as desperate hands clawed at the white stonework. Then he was running. He could feel himself slipping here and there, but the balance he had learned in his martial classes at the academy had given him excellent judgement and reflexes, and he ran the narrow gauntlet with a seething mass of panicked humanity to one side and a fall into a deadly, swollen, churning river on the other.
He could not have said how long the run was, but as he reached the first, less densely occupied area, he finally breathed deep and slowed, dropping from the parapet. The mood of the army was more sombre than usual as they retreated from the attack, as evidenced by the fact that he was forced to push his way through the withdrawing units rather than them standing respectfully aside for an officer.
He found General Jiang standing by the second red distance marker on the causeway, a servant helping him out of his armour. Jai noted with shock the angry black and red burn marks up the general’s left forearm and the singed tatters of the uniform on that side. He approached nervously, half-expecting the general to fly into a rage. Instead, as the commander turned to his second, he looked tired and defeated.
‘The archers are gone, Jai. I saw a catapult rock hit the nearest raft. Those who survived the blow went into the river. That means that the second raft was cut adrift and they have likely perished too, further downstream. Utter disaster.’
‘We could not have known, sir,’ Jai said. It sounded feeble to his own ears, but not only was it a consolation, it was also the truth.
‘We should have known. I underestimated the man on the day we arrived in this giant graveyard. I knew then he was clever and prepared. I should have anticipated this.’
‘How, sir? We are fighting for control of the only crossing of the Nadu for an army of this size. How could we have guessed that he was willing to render that crossing impossible?’
‘Because, Jai, he is not here to conquer. He has no real interest in this side of the river. His remit is simply to oppose us, so he is happy to prevent us from crossing and bloody our nose at any opportunity. This is poor, Jai. We are left with just two options: wait for the reinforcements who will turn this whole annexation into a war of murder and enslavement, or throw every man we have at General Cinna at one go in the hope that sheer numbers can dislodge him. I hate both options.’
‘I too, general.’
General Jiang sighed. ‘Once we are settled in again and all is back to normal, come to the headquarters. We must try and find another way. If this campaign falls into the hands of some of my peers, there will be no place safe in the world for the Inda to seek refuge.’
Chapter 11
I was not made, I think, to be a leader of men. I was rajah, yes, of a lesser kingdom in the north, but a rajah is a ruler and it is my belief that a ruler is not the same thing as a leader. To the people of Initpur, I was the ruler, but my vizier was the leader. I made the overall decisions, but it was he who enacted them and turned my decisions into acts. Thus I was a ruler, and not a leader.
All that changed when we left Initpur. My vizier was still with me, but things had changed. I still made the wide-reaching decisions – wider reaching than ever before, in fact – but my vizier was as much a novice in this new situation as I. We were both refugees now, like all those who followed us, and it had become my task not only to make an important decision, but to also enact it.
We had left Initpur to languish under the control of a foreign power, and with it I had left behind the position of ruler. I had become a leader, albeit a reluctant and worried one. And now all I can do it try and lead well, and hope that I am not leading the last of the free Inda to their doom.
During the refugees’ desperate journey south, there had been voices of dissent. It was to be expected in any gathering, particularly one the size of the Inda refugees, and especially considering the terrifying direction they were taking. Aram had patiently weathered all discord and shattered their arguments with logic and the stark truth of their situation. A few of the more recalcitrant had abandoned the column, shunning Aram’s vision of safety in the one place that all Inda knew to be unsafe. As they had passed the derel
ict sacred markers, though, they had left behind perhaps half their number. It seemed that the reputation of these lands was horrifying enough that even a definite future of war and conquest seemed preferable to the uncertainty of the south.
Not for Aram. And for the thousands who still accompanied him. The journey through the haunted lands beyond the marker had been quiet and nerve-racking. Those who had chosen to continue did so with tight lips and darting eyes, constantly aware of every rustling leaf and every flicker of movement. The sense of unseen presences and of being shadowed as they travelled was all-pervasive.
There had been a horrible incident only half an hour beyond the markers when a terrified woman discovered that her husband had brought a small utility knife with him. Aram doubted that such a thing counted as a weapon, but it caused a tremendous fuss and polarised the group. The old man who owned the knife had had such opprobrium and bile heaped upon him by the others that his heart had given out and he had expired in the heat of debate.
In the aftermath two things had happened: every blade, be it a utility knife, a dining one or even a razor, had been cast aside in a pile with much prayer and apology. And one man had suddenly become the voice of dissent.
In retrospect, Aram should have seen it coming. Parmesh had been the vizier of some lord now trodden under the western empire’s nailed boots. He had been one of the most vocal of the complainers throughout the journey, but his voice had been somewhat lost in the crowd until the incident with the knife. Now, Parmesh was a constant drone of gainsaying. Not direct opposition, mind. Aram would have known how to deal with a clear enemy. But Parmesh was not an enemy and had accepted both Aram’s leadership and his objective. He was just the voice of general background disagreement, and as such had become something of a leader in his own right.
The first night in the south lands had been a night of little sleep and persistent tense silence. A young man had started playing a veena, its ponderous wavering metallic notes ringing out through the jungle, delivering a traditional tune – a haunting melody. He was almost mobbed in an effort to stop him. No one wanted haunting melodies right now. All night, some among the four thousand refugees would raise a quiet but panicked alarm, claiming to have spotted the ghosts or seen eerie movement in the trees, to have heard distant footsteps or muffled breathing in the undergrowth. Each search had produced nothing. Anywhere else, Aram would have put it down to nerves or superstition, but here in these forbidden lands he could feel it too. Three times in that one night his flesh prickled at the sensation of being watched by some unseen observer. Of course, it did not help that the rains had stopped the moment they passed into the dead lands, and had not returned since. Uncanny.
The second day had been as troubling as the first, and Aram had noted how Parmesh was now with him at the front at all times, questioning everything, second-guessing every decision he made. Fortunately, dependable Bajaan and Mani were also ever-present, backing him up and helping him keep control. Thus the four of them became an odd tetrarchy, with Aram the senior. Thus it was that when they found the monastery’s outer marker, it was the four of them who went ahead.
The monastery’s territory was apparently delineated with markers on the approach roads, though the precise meaning of the stones was lost on the travellers. Aram and his people had known about the line of markers that set the boundary of the haunted lands, but no one other than the guardian monks themselves had ever been to their monasteries, and so no one knew anything about them. The sacred images of the gods made it clear the stone by the road was the work of the monks, but the writing on it was in the ancient forgotten tongue and utterly incomprehensible.
The huge mass of shivering, nervous refugees remained in the best area they could find, three large clearings that seemed to be a natural feature of the jungle. Aram and his three companions steeled themselves and began to move forward along the path they had been following for some time.
For the next half mile, Aram was fascinated to see the change in the land around them. The thick jungle receded a little, the verges of the path trimmed back to create a wide grassy swathe. Then the trees and creepers, ferns and bushes disappeared entirely, giving way to cultivated fields. The crops had been planted in season and carefully cultivated patches of wheat and tea were now ready for harvest. A river had been diverted to create heavily irrigated areas where rice was grown in paddies, and that too was now ready for harvest.
Pens of animals were visible from the road – horses, cows and goats, all animals that could live indefinitely on the green pastures they were allotted and the fresh water diverted into their enclosures. A large lake close to the path teemed with fish, several small jetties striding out over the rippling waters and inviting a man to cast a line.
It was idyllic, especially after the perilous journey, and a blue sky punctuated with a few small high clouds only added to the beauty. But it was marred by one thing: neglect.
The crops had been lovingly sown and nurtured, but had been left to go somewhat wild, weeds and saplings springing up among them. Aram was no farmer, but Initpur had been rural enough in its economy that he had learned much of what farmers knew as a matter of course, and he estimated from the condition of the fields that they had not been tended for between two and three months. A similar conclusion could be drawn from the lack of upkeep on the lake jetties and the overpopulation of fish, and from the unkempt appearance of the animals, who had reverted to a wilder nature for all their domestication.
Moreover, the eerie feeling of being observed – or at least of not being alone – was gone. Here the land felt actually deserted. It was most odd that the untouched jungle felt alive with presence, while the one place they had found that showed all the signs of civilisation seemed utterly empty.
‘Where are the monks?’ Parmesh asked quietly, for once his question echoed by Aram’s.
Where indeed?
Leaving the question unanswered, Aram led them on. More fields. Barley and mustard. Coops of near-feral chickens. Sheds covered with moss. Farm implements tangled with weeds. Months. The monks had not worked their lands for months.
The monastery was impressive. Far more impressive than Aram had expected. It had been perhaps two centuries since the monks had first come south at the guru’s instruction, founding their monasteries and maintaining the marker line. One might expect a certain level of ornateness and ornamentation to develop over that time, but what surprised Aram was not the intricacy of the place, but the scale.
The complex was surrounded by a low wall, perhaps five feet high, buttressed in places, with gates that stood open on the various approach paths, of which several others could be seen even from this road. The gathering of structures inside put the palace complex of Initpur to shame. It would dwarf any palace or monastery in the north. Towers and roofs rose above that boundary wall in a huddled collection that filled an area large enough to muster an army.
Mani whistled through his teeth, impressed.
‘I had no idea there were so many monks at these places,’ Bajaan added.
‘There aren’t,’ Parmesh reminded them in flat tones.
‘What now?’ Mani pressed, ignoring the ever-present voice of gloom.
‘Now,’ Aram replied, ‘we search the monastery. Perhaps we will find the monks, or at least their remains. Perhaps we will learn where they have gone if they still live. Come on.’
They approached the walls and passed through the iron gates tentatively. As they did so, Mani grasped one of the swinging portals and gave it an experimental nudge. It shrieked with the tortured sound of rusting metal. The gates had not been closed for months either.
‘This is making me nervous,’ Parmesh muttered.
Aram and the others were nervous too, but they felt no need to add voice to their fears. It was uncanny. It was wrong. The main complex was of ancient construction, begun two centuries ago when the monks first came here and continually updated, embellished and extended over the decades. A huge ornate frontage cont
ained a great doorway, which once again stood open and creepily inviting. A bell hung by the gate and Aram reached up towards it but changed his mind and walked on.
The walled enclosure contained more than the main monastery complex, though. There were orchards with fruit hanging from sagging branches, and vegetable gardens, overgrown but full and thriving amid the weeds, sheds and barns, structures of all sorts. And oddly, in an area that would otherwise have been naught but a wide swathe of open, dusty ground, three enormous wooden barn-like buildings.
‘Let’s look in there first,’ Aram said, pointing at those three great structures.
The four men approached the nearest nervously, slowly. The building was high enough to contain two levels, like a barn with a mezzanine hayloft. It had numerous shuttered windows too high up to peer in without standing on a man’s shoulders. Aram considered that, but decided to circle the building first.
The door was shut. That came as something of a surprise, considering the open nature of every other portal they had seen. Aram glanced at Mani and Bajaan, who both nodded. Parmesh was frowning his usual disapproval.
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