Sanga began pacing back and forth in the command tent. His steps, as always, were as light and powerful as a tiger’s. And his voice carried the rumbling undertones of the same predator of the forest.
“We have spilled a river of blood across this land,” he growled. “Here, and in half of Bengal also. Stacked heads in small piles at the center of a hundred villages. And then burned the villages. And for what?”
He paused, for a moment, and glared at the closed flap of the tent as if he could see the ravaged countryside beyond. “To be sure, the rebellion is suppressed. But it will flare up again, soon enough, once we are gone. Does that—that—” Teeth clenched: “—spymaster really think that impaling a rebel instead of decapitating him will serve us for magic?”
Damodara shrugged. “In a word: yes. Nanda Lal has always been a firm believer in the value of terror. As much as Venandakatra, the truth be told, even if he does not take Venandakatra’s personal pleasure in the doing.”
Mention of Venandakatra’s name, inevitably, stoked the Rajput’s rage. But Damodara did not regret the doing of it. Rana Sanga, in the privacy of Damodara’s tent, could afford to rage. Lord Damodara had no such luxury himself. There was no superior in front of whom he could pace like a tiger, snarling his fury at bestial cruelty. Damodara had no superiors, beyond Nanda Lal and the emperor himself. And the being from the future called Link which ruled them in turn. Nanda Lal and Emperor Skandagupta would—at best—immediately remove Damodara from command were he to express such sentiments to them. The thing would almost certainly do worse.
“My family is in Kausambi now, you know,” he said softly. “All of them. I just got a letter from my wife yesterday. She is not pleased with the climate in the capital—it’s particularly hard on my parents—but she says the emperor has provided them with a very fine mansion. Plenty of room, even with three children.”
The quiet words seemed to drain Sanga’s anger away, as quickly as water pouring out of a broken basin.
“So soon?” he murmured.
Damodara shrugged and spread his hands widely. The lithe gesture brought a peculiar little pleasure to him. After the past two years of arduous campaigning—first in Persia, and then in eastern India—the formerly rotund little Malwa general was almost as fit as any of his Rajput soldiers.
“Did you expect anything else, King of Rajputana?” Damodara chuckled harshly. “Of course the emperor insists on taking my family hostage, in all but name. Except for his Ye-tai bodyguard troops—arrogant bastards—everybody admits that we possess his empire’s finest army.”
“Small army,” grunted Sanga.
Again, Damodara shrugged. “Only by Malwa standards. Anywhere else in the world, forty thousand men—half of them Rajputs, and all the rest adopting Rajput ways—would be considered a mighty host. And our numbers are growing.”
He turned back to the table with its clean and simple maps. When he spoke again, his voice was as harsh as Sanga’s. “But—yes, by Malwa standards, a small army. So let us put all else aside and concentrate on what we must do. Must—do.”
He waited until Sanga was at his side. Then, tracing the line of the Ganges with a finger: “Venandakatra can squawk all he wants about immediate reinforcement in the Deccan. Nanda Lal, at least, understands logistics. We will have to follow the Ganges to the Jamuna; then, upstream to the Chambal.”
The two men had spent years fighting and leading side by side. Sanga immediately grasped the logic. “Yes. Then—” His own long finger touched the map. “We make our portage here and come south into the Gulf of Khambat following the Mahi river.”
Damodara nodded. “It’s a roundabout way. But, in the end, we will approach Bharakuccha from the north, shielded from Rao’s—ah, I believe the term Lord Venandakatra prefers is ‘brigands’—by the Vindhya mountains.”
“Not much of a shield,” murmured Sanga. “Not from Rao and his—” The Rajput’s lips pursed, as if tasting a lemon. “Brigands.”
“Enough, I think. Until we reach Bharakuccha and can get reliable local intelligence, I don’t want to be blundering about in the Great Country. Not with the Panther roaming loose.”