The Dance of Time

Valentinian had no expression on his face at all. Another arrow was already out of the quiver and notched.

"It was quick, Rajiv," said Anastasius quietly. "In the heart. We can't leave anyone behind who might talk, you know that. And we need you now on the detonator."

Tight-faced, Rajiv nodded and came toward Lata. Looking down, Lata saw an odd-looking contraption on the floor not more than three feet away from her. It was a small wooden box with a wire leading from it into the wall of the alcove, and a knobbed handle sticking up from the middle. A plunger of some kind, she thought.

Rajiv didn't look at Valentinian as he passed him. He seemed surprised to see Lata. And, from the look on his face, a bit frightened.

"You have to go below!" He glanced back, as if to look at Valentinian. "Quickly."

"I just came up to see what happened to her. We took a count and..."

Turning his head slightly, Valentinian said over his shoulder: "Get below, Lata. Now."

* * *

Once she was back in the cellar, she just shook her head in response to the question in Lady Damodara's raised eyebrows.

The lady seemed to understand. She nodded and looked away.

"What happened?" Dhruva hissed.

"Never mind. She's dead." Lata half-pushed her sister toward the tunnel. "We're almost the last ones. Let's get in there. We're just in the way, now."

There were two Bihari miners left, still standing by the entrance. One of them came to escort them.

"This way, ladies. You'll have to stoop a little. Do you need help with the baby?"

"Don't be silly," Dhruva replied.

* * *

The upper hinge gave first. Once the integrity of the door was breached, three more blows from the battering ram were enough to knock it complete aside.

By the time those blows were finished, Valentinian had already fired four arrows through the widening gap. Each one of them killed a Malwa soldier in the huge mass of soldiery Rajiv could see on the street beyond.

Anastasius fired only once. His arrow, even more powerfully shot, took a Malwa in the shoulder. Hitting the armor there, it spun him into the mob.

The Ye-tai mercenary fired also. Twice, Rajiv thought, but he wasn't paying him any attention. He was settling his nerves from the killing of the maid by coldly gauging the archery skill of the two cataphracts against his father's.

Anastasius was more powerful, but much slower; Valentinian, faster than his father—and as accurate—but not as powerful.

So, a Rajput prince concluded, his father remained the greatest archer in the world. In India, at least.

That was some satisfaction. Rajput notions concerning the responsibility of a lord to his retainers were just as stiff as all their notions. Even if, technically, the maid was simply a servant and not one of Rajiv's anyway, her casual murder had raised his hackles.

Don't be silly, part of his mind said to him. Your father would have done the same.

Rajiv shook his head. Not so quickly! he protested. Not so—so—

The voice came again. Uncaringly? Probably true. And so what? She'd have been just as dead. Don't ever think otherwise. To you, he's a father and a great warrior. To his enemies, he's never been anything but a cold and deadly killer.

And you are his son—and do you intend to flinch when the time comes to push that plunger? Most of the men you'll destroy when you do so are peasants, and some of them none too intelligent. Does a stupid maid have a right to live, and they, not?

The door finally came off the hinges altogether and smashed—what was left of it—onto the tiles of the huge vestibule. Malwa soldiers came pouring in.

Valentinian fired three more times, faster than Rajiv could really follow. Valentinian, once; the Ye-tai, once. Four Malwa soldier fell dead. One—the Ye-tai's target—was merely wounded.

Valentinian stepped back quickly into the shelter of the alcove. Anastasius and the Ye-tai followed, an instant later.

"Now," commanded Valentinian.

Rajiv's hand struck down the plunger.

The charges carefully implanted in the walls of the vestibule turned the whole room into an abattoir. In the months they'd had to prepare, the major domo had even been able to secretly buy good drop shot on the black market. So it was real bullets that the mines sent flying into the room, not haphazard pieces of metal.

Rajiv supposed that some of the soldiers in the room must have survived. One or two, perhaps not even injured.

But not many. In a split second, he'd killed more men that most seasoned warriors would kill in a lifetime.

* * *