The tide of victory

Then.

Snarled again. There were no guards. The three men who were stationed at all times inside the palace entrance were absent. Gone.

Gone. Not there.

For a moment, Venandakatra simply gaped. Then, a new fury piling onto existing fury-he felt like he might burst from sheer rage-he hurried toward the staircase which led to his chambers above.

'I will have them impaled also!'

Some remote part of his mind tried to caution himself that, in the middle of a raging battle, soldiers might have gotten involved in the fighting. But Venandakatra ignored it. Duty was duty, and there's an end to it-especially the duty of servants to their master. Those guards were supposed to be there. At all times!

At the top of the stairs, he snarled again. Then, so great was his rage, uttered a wordless shriek.

And where were these guards? Two of them-at all times!

The almost-animal shriek seemed to steady his nerves. He managed to control himself enough to march, not stagger or stumble, to the doors which led to his own chambers.

He was not surprised to discover that the soldier who was supposed to remain on guard just inside his personal quarters-at all times! — was also gone.

Not there. No one.

* * *

Venandakatra realized, then, what had happened. He had been too lenient with his men. Had allowed them to soften with garrison duty, while the Rajputs and Ye-tai of Damodara and Rana Sanga campaigned in the hills against the Maratha bandits. The sudden and furious battle had panicked them all. They had fled-abandoned their lord!

He stalked toward the door which led to the telegraph chamber. On the way, he made himself a vow.

Two vows. First, every member of his personal bodyguard-whether stationed on duty that day or not-would be impaled on the morrow. Second, despite his hatred for Damodara, he would accept the military commander's proposal to rotate the garrison soldiers into the field along with the Rajputs.

Venandakatra did not stride through the door to the telegraph chamber so much as burst through it. He noticed, but ignored-why should he be different? — the absence of the guard who was normally to be found inside the chamber. At all times.

He was surprised, however, to see that the telegraph operator had remained faithful to his duty. The man was there, as he was supposed to be, sitting on a chair in front of the telegraph apparatus.

'Someone!' he barked. Then, striding forward, he grabbed the man's shoulder.

'Send an immediate tele-'

He stopped in mid-word. The telegraph operator's head lolled back. Too stunned to think-though that remote part of his mind was shrilling and shrilling and shrilling-Venandakatra simply stared at the man's neck.

It took him a few seconds to understand what he was seeing. The device which had strangled the operator was almost invisible. So mighty had been the hands which had driven that silk cord that it was almost buried in the flesh.

A soft voice spoke from behind him.

* * *

'I have bad news, Venandakatra.'

Slowly, the Vile One turned his head, looking to the corner of the room behind him and to his left. He could barely discern a figure in the shadows.

'My son, as you may well know, was born recently. And now the priests who attend him say he is healthy. Has every chance of reaching his manhood.'

The shrilling voice in Venandakatra's mind began to shape a name. But he was too paralyzed to really hear.

The shadows moved. The figure stepped forward into the light.

Prowled forward, it might be better to say. He moved more like a predator than a man. Then, as he began slipping an iron-clawed gauntlet over his right hand, assumed the form of a predator completely.

'So now it is time for our unfinished business. Let us dance, Vile One. The dance of death you would have once given my beloved, I now give to you.'

Finally, Venandakatra broke through the paralysis. He opened his mouth to scream.

But it never came. It was not so much the powerful left hand clamped on his throat which stifled that scream, as the pure shock of the iron claws on the right hand which drove into his groin and emasculated him.

The agony went beyond agony. The paralysis was total, complete. Venandakatra could not think at all, really. Simply listen to, and observe, the monster who had ruined him.

So strange, really, that a panther could talk.

'I trained her, you know, in the assassin's creed when slaying the foul. To leave the victim paralyzed, but conscious, so that despair of the mind might multiply agony of the body.'

The iron-clawed gauntlet flashed again, here and there.

When Venandakatra's mind returned, breaking over the pain like surf over a reef, he saw that he was still standing. But only because that incredible left hand still held him by the throat. Under his own power, Venandakatra would have collapsed.

Collapsed and never walked again. Nor fed himself again. His knees and elbows were. no longer really there.

'Enough, I think. I find, as I age, that I become more philosophical.'

The monster, still using only the one hand, hefted Venandakatra's body like a man hefts a sack full of manure and drew him toward the corner where it had waited in ambush. On the way, that remote part of Venandakatra's mind was puzzled to see the gray hair in the monster's beard. He had never imagined a panther with a beard of any kind. Certainly not a grizzled one.

Now in the corner, the monster swept aside the heavy curtain over the window. Tore it aside, rather, sweeping the iron claws like an animal. Sudden light poured into the chamber.

When Venandakatra saw the chair now exposed, he suddenly realized how the monster had whiled away the time he spent lurking in ambush. The chair had been redesigned. Augmented, it might be better to say. The remote part of his brain even appreciated the cunning of the design and the sturdiness of the workmanship.

The rest of his mind screamed in despair, and his ruined body tried to obey. But the monster's left hand shifted a bit, the iron claws worked again, and the scream died with the shredded throat which carried it.

'You may bleed to death from that wound, but I doubt it. It certainly won't kill you before the other.'

The claws worked again, again, again.

'Not that it probably matters. There are no guards left in this palace to hear you. It seems a great wind has scoured it clean.'

Venandakatra now stood naked, his expensive clothing lying tattered about the chamber. The iron claws raked his ribs, the iron left hand turned him. He was now facing away from the chair. His throat and joints leaked blood and ruin.

Despair of the mind, to multiply agony of the body. That was Venandakatra's last, fully conscious thought, except for the final words of his executioner.

'I thought you would appreciate it, Vile One. You always did favor a short stake.'

Chapter 33

The Indus

Autumn, 533 A.D.

Abbu leaned over the map and studied it. His face was tense, tight; half-apprehensive and half-angry. The