"I wish we were too," muttered one of the other squad members.
Again, the newcomer shrugged. "So do I. But they're leaving some of the Ye-tai they brought with them here-me among them, worse luck-while they take back to the Punjab almost ten thousand regular troops."
"Why do the two of you wish you were going back to the plain?" demanded the squad leader. "So we could get lost in a whirlpool in the Ganges? Don't be stupid."
Their camp was perched on a rise that looked directly onto Margalla Pass, which divided the Vale of Peshawar from the Punjab proper. From the distance, the squad leader couldn't see any of the Kushan troops who were holding the pass. But he imagined he could almost see the blood the Malwa army had left on those slopes, in the course of four defeated assaults.
They were being ground up here. On level ground, the Ye-tai squad leader would have faced Kushans without worrying too much. Up here, in the hills and mountains, fighting them was like fighting crocodiles in a river.
"I'm half-Sarmatian," he murmured. "Mother's side."
None of his mates so much as curled a lip, despite the absurdity of the statement. There hadn't been any Sarmatians in centuries.
It didn't matter, since that wasn't the point of the statement. Within a few seconds, all of the squad members were eyeing the new arrival.
Fortunately for him, he wasn't stupid. "The war's lost," he said, softly but clearly. "That's what I think, anyway."
The squad leader grinned. "What's your name?"
The new man grinned back. "Prabhak. I know, it sounds funny. It's a Sarmatian name. Given to me by my mother."
At that, the whole squad laughed. "Welcome, brother," said one of them. "Would you believe that all of us are half-Sarmatian?"
That brought another little laugh. When it died down, Prabhak asked: "When? And which way?"
The squad leader glanced at the sun, which was now setting. "As soon as dark falls. There'll be a half moon. Good enough. And we'll head for the Kushans."
Prabhak winced, as did most of the squad members.
"Don't be stupid," growled the squad leader. "You want to spend the rest of your lives living like goats?"
Put that way. .
"They say King Kungas isn't a bad sort," mused one of the squad members.
The squad leader chuckled humorlessly. "Nobody says anything of the sort. He's a demon and his witch wife is even worse. Which is fine with me. Just the sort of rulers who can keep us alive, in what's coming."
* * *
The first fortress in the Vindhyas that Damodara's army reached was deserted. Its garrison had fled two days before, they were told by some of the natives.
So was the second, and the third.
The fourth fortress, far down from the crest, was still manned. Either the garrison or its commander was more stalwart.
They were stalwart enough to last for exactly eight minutes, once Sanga launched the assault, before they tried to surrender.
Tried, and failed. Sanga was giving no quarter.
Even if he'd been inclined to, which he wasn't-not with his wife and children in Kausambi-Lord Damodara had commanded a massacre.
Emperor Damodara, rather. As a mere lord, Damodara had always been noted for his comparative leniency toward defeated enemies, by Malwa standards. But the garrison of the fortress which had dared to resist him were no longer simply "enemies." They were traitors and rebels.
Of course, Sanga allowed some of the garrison to escape. That, too, had been commanded by Emperor Damodara. There was no point in slaughtering garrisons if other garrisons didn't learn of it.
By the next day, Damodara's army was out of the mountains and marching up the Chambal river. The Chambal was the main tributary of the Yamuna, whose junction was still five hundred miles to the north. Once they reached that junction, they'd still have three hundred miles to march down the Yamuna before reaching Kausambi.
Even with every man in his army mounted, either as cavalry or dragoons, Damodara could not hope to make faster progress than twenty miles a day-and the long march would probably go slower than that. True, now that they were out of the Vindhyas, the countryside was fertile and they could forage as they went. But his army still numbered some forty thousand men. It was simply not possible to move such a huge number of soldiers very quickly.
Six weeks, at least, it would take them to reach Kausambi. Conceivably, two months-and if they had to fight any major battles on the way, longer than that. They could not afford to be delayed by any of the fortresses along the way.
The first fortress they encountered on the river was deserted.
So was the next.
So was the next.
"They've heard of us, it seems," said Rana Sanga to the emperor.
"I prefer to think it's the majestic aura of my imperial presence."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Though I'm not sure I understand the difference."
Damodara smiled. "Neither do I, as it happens. You'd think I would, since I believe I'm now semi-divine. Maybe even three-quarters."
* * *
The Bihari miner straightened up from his crouch. "They're getting close, master. I think so, anyway. It's hard to tell, because of all the echoes."
The term "echoes" seemed strange to Valentinian, but he understood what the miner meant. At the first dogleg, they'd dug two short false tunnels in addition to the one that led-eventually-to the exit in the stables. What the miner was hearing were the complex resonances of the sounds being made by the Malwa miners as they neared the end of clearing away the rubble that the Romans had left behind when they blew the charges.
"Will you know when they break through?"
"Oh, yes. Even before the charges go off."
The miner grimaced as he made the last statement. As someone who had spent all of his adult life and a good portion of his childhood working beneath the earth, he had an automatic sympathy for men who would soon be crushed in a series of cave-ins. Enemies or not.
Valentinian didn't share any of his sentiments. Dead was dead. What difference did it make if it came under tons of rock and soil, the point of a lance-or just old age?
He turned to Rajiv. "Are you willing to do this? Or would you prefer it if I did?"
The young Rajput prince shrugged. "If everything works right, the charges will go off automatically, anyway. I won't have to do anything."
" 'If everything works right,' " Valentinian jeered. "Nothing ever works right, boy. That's the cataphract's wisdom."
* * *
But Valentinian proved to be wrong.
When their miners finally broke through the rubble into a cleared area, two Malwa officers pushed them aside and entered the tunnel. For all the risk involved, they were both eager. Emperor Skandagupta had promised a great reward for whatever officers captured Damodara's family.
Both of them moved their torches about, illuminating the area. Then, cursed together.
"Three tunnels leading off!" snarled the superior officer. "But which is the right one?"
His lieutenant gestured with his torch to the tunnel ahead of him. "I'll explore this one, if you want. You take one of the others. We can leave some men to guard the third, until we have time to investigate it."
"As good a plan as any, I guess." The captain swiveled his head and barked some orders. Within a minute, three guards had entered the tunnel along with one of the mining engineers.
"Make a diagram of the three tunnels," he commanded the engineer. "Nothing fancy. Just something that shows us-the emperor-what direction they lead."
He ordered the guards to remain at the head of the third tunnel, while he and the lieutenant explored the other two.
The engineer was done with his task in less than two minutes. "Nothing fancy," the man had said-and the engineer didn't want to stay there any longer than he had to. His sketch completed, he crawled back through the opening into the area that had now been cleared of the rubble left behind by the great explosions.