Worse yet:
Death to Skandagupta!
And they were Skandagupta's men.
Rajiv now raised the arrow high, as if it held a banner.
"Swear fealty to me! Swear it now!"
Valentinian emerged from the gate tower. "All right, Anastasius. Get up there and-what is that crazy kid doing?"
Anastasius shook his head.
Ajatasutra came out also, in time to hear the exchange. After peering at the sight of Rajiv confronting the soldiers in the square, that familiar mocking smile came to his hawk face.
"Rajput prince. What do you expect?"
"Swear it now!"
His voice broke-that too was new-and Rajiv silently cursed all new things.
He was even thinking about Abhay's daughter! Now-of all times!
Abhay looked at the soldier next to him. As if it were the first pebble in a cascade, that look passed from one soldier to the next.
The new commander saw, and cursed also. Not silently, however.
"Damn all traitors!" he shouted, pushing his way forward, spear in hand.
"All my efforts," Valentinian hissed. "Gone to waste. Ungrateful fucking stupid worthless brat."
The commander came out of the mass of soldiers, at a charge, his spear leveled.
Rajiv notched and fired the arrow in a movement so swift and sure not even Valentinian could really follow it. The commander fell dead, perhaps a foot of the shaft protruding from his throat.
"Well," said Valentinian. "Maybe not all."
"Swear it NOW!"
The sound of shrieking Rajput voices coming from beyond the walls was almost deafening.
But what decided Abhay, in the end, was not that. It was the thunderous sound-more deafening still-of thousands of galloping horses.
He was afraid of horses. Had been, ever since he was kicked by one as a boy. The other soldiers teased him about it.
He, too, lunged forward. But with his spear held crossways, not in the killing thrust his commander had tried.
"I swear, Rajiv! I swear!" He fell to his knees, the spear still held crossways. "I swear!"
It took not more than ten seconds before all the soldiers from the barracks were on their knees beside him, swearing likewise.
"On your feet!" Rajiv bellowed. Tried to, rather. His voice broke again.
He pointed with the bow. "Line up against the wall of the barracks! In good ranks, you hear? Your spears in hand-but held at standing rest!"
They'd be safe enough there, he thought. The square was small, true, but the portion in front of the barracks was something in the way of an offset little plaza. They wouldn't simply be trampled. And their families within the barracks would be safer still.
As long as Rajiv was standing in front of them, they'd be safe. Where his father could see him, the moment he came through the gate.
Which would be. .
Any time now. He'd never heard such a sound in his life. It was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. Ten thousand galloping horses shaking the ground, while ten thousand warrior throats shook the air.
* * *
"I will be damned," Valentinian muttered.
"Speak up!" shouted Anastasius, standing right next to him. The world was filled with the noise of horses and battle cries. "I can't hear you!"
"I said: I will be damned!"
Anastasius shook his head. "Well, no kidding! You just figured that out?"
Valentinian scowled. Grinning, Anastasius pushed him toward the entrance to the gate tower.
"Come on! Let's get out of the way! Expert Rajput horsemen or not, I don't want to get trampled."
The courier galloped up to the city's commander.
"The southern gate!" he shrieked, pointing back with his finger. "Rajputs! Treason! The gate is open! The Rajputs are coming! Thirty thousand of them! By now, they're in the city!"
The commander stared to the south. That gate was too far away to see. He was almost at the northern gate, by now, with ten thousand of his own men packing the streets.
A courier galloped up from the north.
"The Ye-tai are at the gate! The rebel's Ye-tai! Ten thousand of them! Toramana himself is outside!"
The commander stared to the north. That gate he could see. And the odds were even.
"Death to Toramana!" he shouted, swinging his sword. "To the north gate!"
Toramana was indeed outside the gate. But with only three thousand soldiers, not the ten thousand Sanga was leading into the city through the southern gate.
They were all Ye-tai soldiers, however. Quite visibly so. Toramana had seen to that.
The commander of Damodara's Ye-tai troops was sitting on his horse and looking up at the soldiers manning the gate. Very boldly, within bow range.
The soldiers on those walls were mostly Ye-tai also, as Damodara's spies had reported.
"Come on, boys!" Toramana shouted. "It's all over, and you know it! So what's it going to be? Service with me? Beer, women, and a long life?"
He drew his sword and raised it, as if inspecting the edge of the blade.
"Or do we have to get messy about this?"
One of the Ye-tai soldiers on the walls was looking the other way, into the city.
"The commander's coming," he said, almost idly. "Took the bastard long enough. Got maybe three thousand men with him. Up close, anyway. More than that, trailing behind."
He didn't use the commander's name. Few of Kausambi's Ye-tai soldiers did. The man was a cypher to him. Just another one of the political generals churned up by the endless scheming within the Malwa dynastic clan. Very deadly scheming, of late.
Now, he turned and looked at his own platoon commander. So did all the other Ye-tai on the wall nearby.
The officer rubbed his face. "Ah, shit."
His soldiers waited, silently.
"Ah, shit," he repeated. Then he lowered his hand and said: "Make them open the gate. Let Toramana deal with the rest."
Before he finished, three of the Ye-tai were already plunging into the gatehouse.
They had their swords in hand, just in case the stupid peasants who actually operated the gate mechanism chose to argue the matter.
Not likely, of course.
When he saw the gate start to open, Toramana grinned. Sanga wouldn't get all the glory.
He did not forget, of course, to wave his sword in salute at the Ye-tai on the battlements, as he led his men into the city. All three thousand of them, except a few couriers sent racing off to tell Damodara that there were now two breaches in Kausambi's walls.
For their part, the Ye-tai on the walls returned his salute with the proper salutations.
"Long live the new emperor!" bellowed one of them.
His mate elbowed him.
"Long live the rightful emperor!" he corrected himself.
"Death to the impostor Skandagupta!" his mate chimed in.
When Skandagupta saw the girl enter the imperial audience chamber, forcing her way past the assembled courtiers, he broke off in mid-tirade.
"Rani?" he whispered.
The eight-year-old girl was now past the courtiers, and standing in front of the throne.
The blood drained from his face. A face that felt as empty as the one before him. The eyes before him.
"Great Lady Rani," the girl said.
Her voice changed, then. Into something no girl-no woman of any age-could possess.
"GREAT LADY RANI, NOW. YOU WILL OBEY ME, SKANDAGUPTA."
But all the emperor could do was scream.
Chapter 39