Mutter, mutter, mutter.
“So stop whining, Valentinian. There’s worse things in life than a long, uphill hike.”
“Like what?” snarled Valentinian.
“Like being dead,” came the serene reply.
* * *
They passed a multitude of vertical shafts along the way, identical to the one down which they had lowered themselves. But Belisarius ignored them. He wanted to make sure they had reached the mountains before emerging.
Three hours after beginning their trek, they reached the first of the sloping entryways which provided easier access to the qanat. Belisarius fought off the temptation. He wanted to be well into the mountains before they emerged, away from any possible discovery or pursuit.
Onward. Valentinian started muttering again.
Two hours later—the slope was much steeper now—they reached another entryway. This one was almost level, which indicated how high up into the mountains they had reached.
Again, Belisarius was tempted. Again, he fought it down.
Further. Onward.
Valentinian’s muttering was nonstop, now.
* * *
An hour or so later, they reached another entryway, and Belisarius decided it was safe to take it. When they emerged, they found themselves in the very same pass in the mountains from which they had begun their descent to the plateau. Night had fallen, but there was a full moon to illuminate the area.
It was very cold. And they were very hungry.
“We’ll camp here,” announced Belisarius. “Start our march tomorrow at first light. Hopefully, some of Coutzes’ cavalry will find us before too long. I told him to keep plenty of reconnaissance platoons out in the field.”
“Which could have done what we just did,” grumbled Maurice. “A commanding general’s got no business doing this kind of work.”
Quite right, came Aide’s vigorous thought.
“Quite right,” came the echo from Valentinian, Anastasius and Vasudeva.
Seeing the four men glaring at him in the moonlight, and sensing the crystalline glare coming from within his own mind, Belisarius sighed.
It’s going to be a long night. And a longer day tomorrow—if I’m lucky, and Coutzes is on the job. If not—
Sigh.
Days! Days of this! Slogging through the mountains is bad enough, without having every footstep dogged by reproaches and “I-told-you-so’s.”
“I told you so,” came the inevitable words from Maurice.
Chapter 3
“I told you so,” murmured Rana Sanga. The Rajput king strode over to the well and peered down into the shaft.
Pratap, the commander of the cavalry troop, suppressed a sigh of relief. Sanga, on occasion, possessed an absolutely ferocious temper. But his words of reproach had been more philosophical than condemnatory.
He joined the king at the well.
“You followed?” asked Sanga.
Pratap hesitated, then squared his shoulders. “I sent several men to investigate. But—it’s pitch-black down there, and we had no good torches. Nothing that would have lasted more than a few minutes. By the time we finally cleared away the rubble and figured out what had happened, the Romans had at least an hour’s head start. It didn’t seem to me—”
Sanga waved him down. “You don’t have to justify yourself, Pratap. As it happens, I agree with you. You almost certainly wouldn’t have caught up with them and, even if you had—”
He straightened, finished with his examination of the well. In truth, there wasn’t much to see. Just a stone-lined hole descending into darkness.
“From your description of the giant Roman, I’m sure that was one of Belisarius’ two personal bodyguards. I’ve forgotten his name. But the other one is called Valentinian, and—”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Udai wince. Udai was one of his chief lieutenants. Like Sanga himself, Udai had been present at the Malwa emperor’s pavilion after the capture of Ranapur. The emperor, testing Belisarius’ pretense at treason, had ordered him to execute Ranapur’s lord and his family. The Roman general had not hesitated, ordering Valentinian to do the work.
For a moment, remembering, Sanga almost winced himself. Valentinian had drawn his sword and decapitated six people in less time than it would have taken most soldiers to gather their wits. Sanga was himself accounted one of India’s greatest swordsmen. Valentinian was one of the few men he had ever encountered—the very few men—who he thought might be his equal. To meet such a man down there—