In the Heart of Darkness

Chapter 17

North India

Summer 530 AD

When they came upon the third massacre, Rana Sanga had had enough.

"This is madness," he snarled. "The Roman is doing it to us again."

His chief lieutenant, Jaimal, tore his eyes away from the bloody corpses strewn on both sides of the road. There were seven bodies there, in addition to the three soldiers they had found lying in the guardhouse itself. All of them were common soldiers, and all of them had been slaughtered like so many sheep. Judging from the lack of blood on any of the weapons lying nearby, Jaimal did not think the soldiers had inflicted a single wound on their assailants. Most of them, he suspected, had not even tried. At least half had been slain while trying to flee.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"This-idiocy." Sanga glared. "No, I take that back. This is not idiocy. Not at all. This is pure deception."

His lieutenant frowned. "I don't understand-"

"It's obvious, Jaimal! The whole point of this massacre-like the first two, and the attack on the army camp-is simply to lead us in pursuit."

Seeing the lack of comprehension on Jaimal's face, Sanga reined in his temper. He did not, however, manage to refrain from sighing with exasperation.

"Jaimal, ask yourself some simple questions. Why did the Romans kill these men? Why are they going out of their way to take roads which lead past guardhouses? Why, having done so, do they take the time to attack the guardhouses instead of sneaking around them? You know as well as I do that these"-he jabbed a finger at the corpses-"sorry sons-of-bitches wouldn't move out of their guardhouses unless they were forced to. Finally, why did they attack the army camp in Kausambi on the night they fled?"

Silence. Frown of incomprehension. Sanga finally exploded.

"You idiot! The Romans are doing everything possible to lead us in this direction? Why, damn you-why?"

Jaimal's gape would have been comical, if Sanga had been in a humorous mood.

"Belisarius-isn't-isn't with them," he stammered. "He fled a different way."

"Congratulations," growled Sanga. He reined his horse around.

"Gather up the men. We're going back."

Jaimal frowned. "But it's a three-day ride back to Kausambi. And we were ordered-"

"Damn the orders! I'll deal with Tathagata. And what if it is a three day ride? We've already lost four days on this fool's errand. By the time we get back-assuming I can talk sense into the Malwa-Belisarius will have at least a week's lead on us. Would you rather extend it further?"

He jabbed an angry finger to the south. "How many more days do you want to chase after the Roman general's underlings? I doubt if we can catch them anyway. The Pathans say they've already gained a day on us. They're covering as much distance in three days as we can in four. And even have time for this"-another angry finger jabbed at the corpses-"along the way."

Jaimal nodded. Large Rajput cavalry units such as their own always kept a handful of Pathan irregulars with them. The barbarians were an indisciplined nuisance, most of the time, but they were unexcelled trackers.

"How are they traveling so fast?" wondered Jaimal.

Sanga shrugged. "They've got remounts, for one thing, which we don't. And they must have the best horses in creation. We may never know, but I'd be willing to wager a year's income that Belisarius managed to buy the best horses he could find, in the months he's been in India. And hide them away somewhere."

Then, with a tone like steel:

"And now, Jaimal, do as I command. Gather up the men. We're heading back."

Beyond a point, none of Sanga's subordinates would argue with him. That point had been reached, Jaimal knew, and he immediately obeyed his instructions.

His chief subordinates, Udai and Pratap, privately expressed their reservations to him. Those reservations, in the main, centered around their fear of the Malwa reaction when they returned to Kausambi. But, now that their course was set, Jaimal would no more tolerate dissent than would Sanga himself.

"And besides," he growled, "no one will miss us here anyway. There must be forty thousand troops beating these plains. A third of them Rajput cavalry, and another third Ye-tai horsemen. Five hundred of us will make no difference."

"True enough," grunted Udai. "As good as the Roman horses are-and with remounts-only royal couriers could move faster."

"They've been sent, haven't they?" asked Pratap.

Jaimal shrugged irritably. "Do I know? Since when does Emperor Skandagupta take me into his confidence? But I assume so. By now, I imagine, couriers have been dispatched to every port on the Erythrean Sea, alerting the garrisons."

His own tone of voice, now, was a duplicate of Sanga's:

"And that's enough. Do as you've been told."

Couriers had been sent, in point of fact. Just as Jaimal expected-to every port on the Erythrean Sea. The couriers were expert horsemen, riding the very finest steeds. They did not bring remounts with them, however. Instead, they changed horses at the relay stations which the Malwa maintained at regular intervals along all of the principal roads in the Empire. These relay stations were small affairs, in the Gangetic plain, not much more than a barn or corral attached to a small barracks housing a squad of four soldiers.

The courier to Barbaricum was one of three who had been sent down the road to Mathura. Mathura was not itself the destination of any of them. All three, long before they reached Mathura, would take the various branching routes which led to Barbaricum, the small ports in the Kathiawar, and the northern end of the Gulf of Khambat.

The courier to the Gulf of Khambat had left first, the day after Belisarius' escape. The Malwa were certain that the general and his underlings were fleeing back to Bharakuccha. They placed their top priority on sending off couriers to cover the entire Gulf. The couriers headed for the Kathiawar and Barbaricum had departed a few hours later, almost as an afterthought.

At first, the two men had traveled together. But, after a time, the courier destined for the Kathiawar had pulled ahead. He was new to the royal courier service, and full of his own self-importance. His companion was glad to see him go, with the relief felt by seasoned veterans the world over at being rid of the company of irritating apprentice twits. The veteran courier saw no reason to match the youth's extravagant haste. Why bother? Everyone knew the Romans had gone south, not west.

By the time he reached the relay station at the end of his first day's ride, the courier was in a thoroughly foul mood. Disgust, leavened by a heavy dose of self-pity. Barbaricum, his ultimate destination, was the very westernmost port of any significance in the Malwa Empire. It lay even beyond the Indus River-almost a thousand miles from Kausambi, as the crow flies.

The courier, of course, was not a crow. He would be forced to travel at least half again that distance before he reached his destination. Along poor roads, most of the way, and through the blistering heat of Rajputana. He would even have to pass through a portion of the Thar, India's worst desert. A long, miserable, hot journey-and with nothing to look forward to at the end except India's worst port. The courier detested Barbaricum. It was a mongrel city, half of whose population were foreign barbarians. And the Indians who lived there were not much better, having long since adapted to the customs of heathen outlanders.

So, as he dismounted from his horse in front of the relay station, the courier was feeling very sorry for himself. His sorrow turned to outrage when no soldier emerged from the barracks to assist him in removing his saddle.

The courier stalked over to the barracks door and shouldered his way through without so much as knocking.

"Just what the fuck do you-"

The sword went a quarter-inch into his chest. Not a mortal wound, painful as it was, not even a particularly bloody one. But the courier could feel the steel tip grating against his chestbone. And the hand which held that sword was as steady as a rock.

The courier's eyes began with that hand, and followed the length of the sword to the place where it disappeared into his chest. Everything else was a blur.

In a frozen daze, the courier heard a voice. He did not make out the words. The sword-tip jabbed against his sternum, pressing him back against the doorframe. He stared down at it, transfixed by the sight.

The words were repeated. Hindi words. Their meaning finally penetrated.

"Are there any more couriers coming after you?"

He understood, but couldn't speak. Another jab.

"What?" he gasped. Another jab.

"N-no," he stammered.

The sword went straight through his chest, as if driven by a sledgehammer. The courier slumped to his knees. In the few seconds remaining in his life, his eyes finally focussed on the barracks as a whole.

His first reaction was confusion. Why were his two courier companions still here? And why were they lying on top of a pile of soldiers?

His vision began to fade.

They're all dead, he realized.

His last sight was the face of the young courier who had accompanied him on the first part of his journey. The sight amused him, vaguely. The vainglorious little snot looked like a frog, what with that open mouth and those bulging eyes.

His vision failed. His last thought, very vague, was the realization that he had never actually seen the man who had killed him. Just his hand. A large, powerful, sinewy hand.

A hundred miles east of Kausambi, near Sarnath, an innkeeper was almost beside himself with joy. He drove his wife, his children, and his servants mercilessly.

"The best food!" he exclaimed again, and, again, cuffed his wife. "The very best! I warn you-if the noble folk complain, I will beat you. They are very rich, and will be generous if they are pleased."

His wife scurried to obey, head bent. His children and servants did likewise. All of them were terrified of the innkeeper. When times were bad-as they usually were-the innkeeper was a sullen, foul-tempered, brutal tyrant. When times were good, he was even worse. Avarice simply added an edge to his cruelty.

So, for all the members of that household except the innkeeper himself, the next twelve hours passed like a slow-moving nightmare.

At first, they were terrified that the nobleman and his wife would find the food displeasing. But that fear did not materialize. The noblewoman said nothing-quite properly, especially for a wife so much younger than her husband-but the nobleman was most effusive in his praise.

Unfortunately, the nobleman added a bonus for the excellence of the meal. The innkeeper's greed soared higher. In the kitchen, he buffeted his family and his servants, urging them to make haste. The nobleman and his wife had gone to bed, along with the wife's ladies, but their large escort of soldiers had to be fed also. Not the best food, of course, but not so bad that they would complain to their master. And plenty of it!

The terror of the household mounted. The soldiers were a vicious looking crew. Some sort of barbarians. There were a great number of them, with only three women camp followers. The innkeeper's oldest daughter and the two servant girls were petrified at the thought of entering the common rooms where the soldiers were staying the night. Their mother and one of the elderly servants, whose haggard appearance would shield them, tried to bring the food to the soldiers. But the innkeeper slapped his wife, and commanded the young women to do the chore. Anything to please the soldiers, lest they complain of inhospitality to their master.

That terror, too, proved baseless. For all their fearsome appearance, the soldiers did not behave improperly. Indeed, they were rather polite.

So, after the soldiers finished their meal and lay down on their pallets, the innkeeper beat his daughter and the two servant girls. They had obviously been rude to the soldiers, or they would have been importuned.

The final terror, which kept the entire household awake through the night, was for the next morning. When the nobleman and his party left, he might not give the innkeeper as large a bonus as the innkeeper was expecting. The terror grew as the long hours passed. The innkeeper's expectations waxed by the hour, as he stayed awake himself through the night, in avid consideration of his pending fortune. By the break of dawn, the innkeeper had convinced himself that he was on the verge of receiving a preposterous bonus. When the actual bonus which materialized was far beneath that absurd expectation, his family and his servants knew that he would be savage.

Yet, that terror also vanished. The bonus which the innkeeper received-to everyone's astonishment, even his own-was, by their standards, enormous.

And so, in the end, the sojourn of the unknown nobleman proved to be a blessing for that household. The innkeeper's greed, of course, would soon enough add to their misery. Neither his wife, nor his children, nor his servants doubted that in the least. The innkeeper would expect a similar bonus from the occasional noble customer in the future. And, when that bonus did not appear, would brutalize his household.

But that was a problem for the future. Neither his wife, nor his children, nor his servants were given to worrying about the future. The present was more than dark enough. And, thankfully, they would enjoy a rare respite from the ever-present fear in their lives. The innkeeper, awash in his sudden wealth, indulged himself in a drunken stupor for the next three days.

Every night, as she watched him soddenly sleeping, his wife thought of poisoning him. It was her principal entertainment in life. Over the years, she had determined eighteen different toxins she could use. At least five of those would leave no trace of suspicion.

But, as always, the amusement paled after a time. There was no point in poisoning him. She would be required-by law, now-to immolate herself on his funeral pyre. Her children and her servants would fare little better. The innkeeper had long ago sunk into hopeless debt to the local potentates. Upon his death, that debt would come due, immediately and in its entirety. By law, now, all lower-caste households were responsible for the debts of the family head, upon his death. They would not be able to pay those debts. The inn would be seized. The servants would be sold into slavery. The children, being twice-born rather than untouchable, could not be made slaves due to debt. They would simply starve, or be forced to turn themselves to unthinkable occupations.

By the end of the innkeeper's binge, three days later, his wife hardly remembered the nobleman who had given her that brief respite from fear. Her mind had wandered much farther back in time, to the days of her youth. Better days, she remembered-or, at least, thought she did. Though not as good as the days of her mother, and her grandmother, judging from the tales she half-remembered from her childhood. The days when suttee was only expected from rich widows-noblewomen desirous to prove their piety, and with no need to be concerned over the material welfare of their children.

The old days, the Gupta days. The days when customs, harsh as they might be, were only customs. The days when even those harsh customs, in practice, were often meliorated by kinder-or, at least, laxer-potentates. The days when even a stern potentate might shrink from the condemnation of a Buddhist monk, or a sadhu.

The days before the Malwa came. With Malwa law, and Malwa rigor. And the Mahaveda priests to sanctify the pure, and the mahamimamsa to punish the polluted.

Fourteen royal couriers raced south across northern India. Unlike the three couriers headed west, all of these couriers were filled with the urgency of their mission. Royal couriers, in their own way, were one of the pampered elite of Malwa India. All of them were of kshatriya birth-low-caste kshatriya, true, but kshatriya nonetheless. And while their rank was modest, in the official aristocratic scale, they enjoyed an unusual degree of intimacy with the very highest men of India. Many of those couriers, more than once, had taken their messages from the very hand of the God-on-Earth himself.

An arrogant lot, thus, in their own way. Royal Malwa couriers believed themselves to be the fastest men in the world. As they pounded their way south, every one of those fourteen men was certain that the vast hordes of the Malwa army had no chance of catching the foreign devils. The couriers-and they alone-were all that stood between the wicked outlanders and their successful escape.

Fast as the Romans and Ethiopians were, with their remounts and their fine steeds, they were not as fast as Malwa couriers. The horses which the couriers rode were even better, and the couriers enjoyed one great advantage-they were under no compulsion to keep their horses alive. Many more horses awaited them in relay stations along every main road. And so all of them, more than once, ran their horses to death as they raced from station to station along their route.

The couriers were filled with the confidence that they could reach the ports before the fleeing enemy, and alert the garrisons. The Malwa army could flounder, and the Rajputs and Ye-tai thrash about in aimless pursuit, but the couriers would save the day.

So they thought, and they were not wrong in thinking so. But the couriers, like so many others throughout India in those weeks of frenzy, were too confident. Too full of themselves; too incautious; too heedless of all that could go wrong, in this polluted world.

One courier's incaution manifested itself in the most direct way possible. Thundering around a bend in the road, his forward vision obscured by the lush forest which loomed on either side, the courier suddenly learned that he was indeed faster than the foreign enemy. He had overtaken them.

The courier had already plunged into the midst of the foreigners before he made that unhappy discovery. A quick-thinking man, the courier did not make the mistake of trying to turn around. Instead, he took advantage of his speed and simply pounded right through them, guiding his horse expertly through the little crowd.

He made it, too. In truth, the royal courier was one of the very finest horsemen in the world.

But no horseman is fine enough to outrun a cataphract arrow. Not, at least, one fired by the bow of that cataphract named Valentinian.

The foreigners dragged his body into the woods, and then piled insult onto injury. They added his wonderful steed to their stock of remounts.

A second courier, and a third, and then a fourth, also discovered the caprices of fate.

Dramatically, in the case of the second courier. The monsoon downpours had washed out portions of many of the roads throughout India. The route this courier took happened to be one of the lesser roads, and thus suffered more than its share of climatic degradations. The courier, however, was unfazed by these obstacles. He was an experienced courier, and an excellent rider. He had leapt over many washed-out portions of road in his career, and did so again. And again and again and again, with all the skill and self-confidence of his station in life. What he failed to consider, unfortunately, was that his horse did not share the same skill and experience-not, at least, when it was half-dead from exhaustion. So, leaping yet another stream, the horse stumbled and spilled the courier.

Well-trained, the horse waited for its rider to remount. A very well-trained horse, that one. It did not begin to forage for two hours, after its equine mind finally concluded that the courier seemed bound and determined to remain lying in the stream. Face down, oddly enough, in two feet of water.

The third courier's mishap took a less dramatic form. He, too, driving an exhausted mount across a broken stretch of road, caused his horse to stumble and fall. Unlike the other courier, this one did not have the bad luck to strike his head against a boulder in a stream. He landed in a bush, and merely broke his leg. A simple fracture, nothing worse. But he was not discovered for two days, and by the time the small party of woodcutters conveyed him to the nearest Malwa post it was much too late for it to do any good.

The fourth courier encountered his unfortunate destiny in its most common and plebeian manifestation. He got sick. He had been feeling poorly even before he left Kausambi, and after a week of relentless travel he was in a delirium. A man can drive a horse to death, but not without great cost to himself. That courier was a stubborn man, and a brave one, and he was determined to fulfill his duty. But willpower alone is not enough. On the evening of the seventh day he reached a relay station and collapsed from his horse. The soldiers staffing the station carried him into the barracks and did their best-with the aid of a local herb doctor-to tend to his illness.

Their best, given the medical knowledge of the time, was not good enough. The courier was a brave and stubborn man, and so he lived for four more days. But he never recovered consciousness before dying, and the soldiers were afraid to even touch the courier's message case, much less break the Malwa seal and open the royal instrument. It would have done no good, anyway, since all of them were illiterate.

It was not until two days later, upon the arrival of the first unit of regular troops slogging in pursuit of the escapees, that an officer inspected the message. A high-caste officer, a Malwa as it happened, who was arrogant enough to break the royal seal. Immediately upon reading the message, the officer issued two commands. His first order despatched his best rider to Bharakuccha with the-now much too belated-message. His second order flogged the guards of the relay station. Fifty lashes each, with a split bamboo cane, for gross dereliction of duty.

Still, ten couriers remained. By the end of the second week after the Romans and Ethiopians began their flight south, all ten of these couriers had bypassed the foreigners and were now forging ahead of them. Slowly, to be sure. The foreigners were indeed moving very rapidly, and were steadily outdistancing the great mass of their pursuers. Even the couriers were only able to gain a few miles on them each day. (On average. All of the couriers were taking different roads, and none of those roads was the same as that taken by the foreigners.)

A few miles a day is not much, but it would be enough. The couriers would arrive at the Gulf of Khambat with more than ample time to spread the alarm. Four of them were destined for Bharakuccha itself. By the time the outlanders arrived at the coast, Bharakuccha and the smaller ports would be sealed off. The foreign escapees would be trapped inside India, with the enormous manpower of the Malwa army available to bring them down.

That had been the Malwa plan from the beginning of the chase. The Emperor and his high officials had hoped, of course, that the army would catch the fugitives before they reached the coast. But they knew the odds were against that, and so they had immediately sent out the couriers.

It was an excellent plan, taking advantage of the excellent Malwa courier corps. A plan adopted by men who were as intelligent as they were arrogant. And, like many such plans, collapsed of its own arrogance.

Haughty men, swollen with their own self-importance, have a tendency to forget about the enemy.

Enemies, in this case. The man they were pursuing, the general Belisarius, was something quite foreign to their experience. He, like them, also made plans. He, like them, also followed those plans. But he-quite unlike them-also knew that plans are fickle things. And, that being so, it always pays to make plans within plans, and to keep an eye out for every unexpected opportunity. Every new angle.

Months earlier, Belisarius had seen such an opportunity. He had seized it with both hands. The Empress Shakuntala had been delivered from captivity, and Majarashtra's greatest warrior set free from that task.

Raghunath Rao had been free for months, now. Free to set the Great Country afire.

Months, of course, are not enough to create a great popular rebellion. Certainly not in a recently conquered land, whose people are still licking their wounds. But months are enough, for such a man as Rao, to assemble the nucleus of his future army. To gather rebellious young men-almost a thousand, by now-in the isolated hillforts which pocked the Great Country's badlands.

Rao was not only an experienced commander, he had the natural aptitude of a guerrilla fighter. So, almost from the day he returned to Majarashtra, he had set the young men rallying to his banner to the first, simplest, and most essential task of the would-be rebel.

Intelligence.

Watch. Observe. Nothing moves south of the Vindhyas without our knowledge.

The fastest of all the Malwa couriers finally made his way through the Gangetic plain, and through the Vindhya mountains which were the traditional boundary between north India and the Deccan. Bharakuccha was not far away, now.

He did not get thirty miles before he was ambushed. Brought down by five arrows.

Rao, as it happened, was camped not far away, in a hillfort some twenty miles distant. Within hours, the young Maratha ambushers brought him the courier's message case. Rao had no fear of the royal seal, and he was quite literate. A very fast reader, in fact.

Immediately after reading the message, he issued his own set of rapid commands. Within minutes, the hillfort was emptied of all but Rao himself and his two chief lieutenants. All the others-all three hundred or so-were racing to spread the news.

Malwa couriers are coming. All of them must be stopped. Kill them. Take their message cases. Rao himself commands.

After the young warriors were gone, Rao and his lieutenants enjoyed a simple meal. Over the meal, they discussed the significance of this latest event.

"Can we aid the Romans in some other way?" asked Maloji.

Rao shrugged. "Perhaps. We will see when they arrive. I do not know their plans, although I suspect the Malwa are right. The Romans and the Africans will try to take ship in Bharakuccha. If so, it will be enough for us to stop the couriers." He smiled grimly. "Those men are very capable. They will manage, if we can keep the garrisons from being alerted."

"What if the Empress is with them?" asked his other lieutenant, Ramchandra.

Rao shook his head firmly. "She will not be."

"How do you know?"

Rao's smile, now, was not grim at all. Quite gay, in fact.

"I know the mind of Belisarius, Ramchandra. That man will never do the obvious. Remember how he rescued Shakuntala! In fact-" Rao looked down at the message scroll, still in his hand. "I wonder. ." he mused.

He rolled up the scroll and slapped it back into the case. The motion had a finality to it.

"We will know soon enough." His smile, now, was a veritable grin. "Expect to be surprised, comrades. When you deal with Belisarius, that is the one thing you can be sure of. The only thing."

With a single lithe movement, Rao came to his feet. He strode to the nearest battlement and stood for a moment gazing across the Great Country. The stone wall of the hillfort rose directly from an almost perpendicular cliff over a hundred yards in height. The view was magnificent.

His two lieutenants joined him. They were both struck by the serenity in the Panther's face.

"We will see the Empress, soon enough," he murmured. "She will arrive, comrades-be sure of it. From the most unexpected direction, and in the most unexpected way."

That same day-that same hour-the young officer in command of a guardpost just south of Pataliputra found himself in a quandary.

On the one hand, the party seeking passage through his post lacked the proper documentation. This lack weighed the heavier in the officer's mind for the fact that he was of brahmin ancestry, with all the veneration which that priest/scholar class had for the written word. Brahmin ancestry was uncommon for a military officer. Such men were normally kshatriya. He had chosen that career due to his ambition. He was not Malwa, but Bihari. As a member of a subject nation, he could expect to rise higher in the military than in the more status-conscious civilian hierarchy.

Still, he retained the instincts of a pettifogging bureaucrat, and the simple fact was that these people had no documents. Scandalous.

On the other hand-

The nobleman was obviously of very high caste. Not Malwa, no-some western nation. But no low-ranking officer is eager to offend a high-caste dignitary of the Empire, Malwa or otherwise.

The officer could hear his men grumbling in the background. They had seen the size of the bribe offered by the nobleman, and were seething at their commander's idiotic obsession with petty rules and regulations.

The officer hesitated, vacillated, rattled back and forth within the narrow confines of his mind.

The nobleman's wife ended that dance of indecision.

The officer heard her sharp yelps of command. Watched, as she clambered down from the howdah, assisted by her fierce looking soldiers. Watched her stalk over to him.

Small, she was, and obviously young. Pretty, too, from what little he could see of her face. Beautiful black eyes.

Whatever pleasure those facts brought the officer vanished as soon as she began to speak.

In good Hindi, but with a heavy southern accent. A Keralan accent, he thought.

After I inform the Emperor of Kerala of your insolence your remaining days in this world will be brief. He is my father and he will demand your death of the Malwa. Base cur! You will-

Her husband tried to calm her down.

— be impaled. I will demand a short stake. My father the Emperor will-

Her husband tried to calm her down.

— allow a long stake in the interests of diplomacy but he will not-

Her husband tried to calm her down.

— settle for less than your death by torture. I will demand that your carcass be fed to dogs. Small dogs, who will tear at it rather than devour it whole. My father the Emperor will-

Her husband tried to calm her down.

— not insist on the dogs, in the interests of diplomacy, but he will demand-

Finally, finally, the nobleman managed to usher his wife away. Over her shoulder, shrieking:

— your stinking corpse be denied the rites. You will spend five yugas as a worm, five more as a spider. You will-

As the party passed through the post, the officer's mangled dignity was partially restored by the large bribe which the nobleman handed him. Partially, no more. The young officer did not miss the smirks which were exchanged between his own soldiers and those of the nobleman's escort. The smirks which common troops exchange, witnessing the abasement of high-ranked adolescent snots.

Within the next week, nine of the ten Malwa couriers died in Majarashtra. They traveled faster than the Maratha guerillas, of course, but the couriers were restricted to the roads and had no real knowledge of the countryside. Rao's young men, on the other hand, knew every shortcut through those volcanic hills. And every spot for a good ambush.

Of the fourteen royal couriers who had headed south from Kausambi weeks earlier, only one survived the journey. His route had been the northernmost of those taken by the couriers, and did not really do more than skirt the Great Country. So he arrived, eventually, at his destination. A tiny port nestled at the northern end of the Gulf.

Finally, everything went according to plan. The commander of the little garrison immediately mobilized his troops and began a thorough and efficient patrol of the port and its environs. All ships-all three of them-were sequestered, prevented from leaving.

The commander was an aggressive, hard-driving officer. The small harbor was sealed tight. And so, according to plan, none of the enemy escaped through that port.

Which, as it happens, they had never had the slightest intention of doing.