Chapter Thirteen

  The Shadow Of The Great Protector

  The crowd jostled and pushed against her. Hundreds of people quietly sitting and mourning had suddenly pushed forward to see the Queen of Vastrum. It was not often that the people of the land would ever brush against greatness. They might only see their lord a handful of times in their life. They might see the priests of the local temple once or twice per year. To see the Queen of Vastrum? To shake her hand? It would be the kind of meeting that they would tell their grandchildren of. If she thought it would have made any difference, she would have warned the queen and her court against such a visit to the yali. Doing so was liable to raise a riot, and sure enough, it had.

  These Vastrums held suzerainty over Ayodh but did not know it or any of their colonies. Gods, people, and land, they did not understand the forces they meddled with. Even though Ayodh was not her land, she was from Dravan to the south, she knew it better than they ever could. Ayodh was not so different from her home. She could see the faces of her brothers and sisters in the dark eyes around her, pushing and throwing themselves towards the queen and her court. They were the same kind of weak and foolish people who let themselves be thrown into a frenzy by the crowd around them. She had seen crowds go mad over far less than a queen. Now, she was the victim of such a throng. Something hit her in the head, and she fell. The press of people around her jostled and buffeted. Feet stepped on her. She cried out and tried to rise. A foot kicked her in the press of bodies. It was not intentional, how could it be? They were only people being pushed about and trying not to fall themselves. Another foot stepped on her. Her breath was driven from her lungs as another victim of the crowd fell upon her. She began to panic. She remembered the press of the undead and the horses and the dying men around her when they were massacred below Golconda. She had covered her unconscious master, Lord Havor, and protected him as slaughter reigned around them. She struggled to breathe but did not panic. She had survived then, and that was far worse.

  The person atop her struggled to their feet. Rathma had a moment of reprieve. She rolled onto her stomach and pushed herself up with a yell. She looked about. The noble ladies were retreating to their carriages. Servants, drivers, and guards were falling back. She found herself surrounded by Ayodhis. A guard was swinging his lathi hard into the crowd. She was on the wrong side of the line now.

  “Back, you bastards!” The guard was shouting. He was a tanned and thickly bearded soldier from Huz.

  Rathma tried shouting, asking for help. She was a servant, not one of the villagers! Could he not tell? Her voice was lost in the din of the mob.

  The crowd fell back now. The wealthy Vastrum ladies were departing. The queen was gone. Her carriage had disappeared in a cloud of dust. Now, it was only the crowd of villagers and the guards. The object of the crowd’s desire had departed. They began to disperse in the face of the lathis and the line of guards advancing on them. They began to go back to the forest. It did not take Rathma long to be mostly alone, facing a line of guards. She was bruised and dusty from having been trampled in the dirt. She stepped forward.

  “Go back!” One of the guards bellowed at her, raising his lathi.

  “I am a servant of Lady Julia!” She said.

  “Back, you liar!” The guard yelled, “Back!” He stepped forward before she could react and smacked her with the stick.

  The lathi was a hardened bamboo baton meant for controlling crowds. Though it was hard and could break bones, because it was bamboo, it also flexed like a cane. It whipped as well as bludgeoned. The guard’s swing was not nearly as hard as he could have swung. He just saw a small lone unthreatening Dravani. The swing stung. Rathma could feel a welt forming almost immediately, and she cried out.

  “Back, you dog!” The Huzite guard yelled, “Don’t make me hit you again.”

  “I am a servant of Lady Julia!” She cried.

  “Liar!” He screamed.

  Tears filled her eyes as helplessness overwhelmed her. She had dressed like a man and had always done so since she was a young girl. Her outfit was simple cotton. She did not look much like a lady’s servant, and she well knew it. She felt weak. Loathing filled her. The feeling of boys mocking her, taunting her, her brothers, her cousins, the boys from the sangam, the village school, chasing her and calling her names, calling her weakling, little ugly chick. She hated them and herself for being unable to fight back, for being weak. He whipped at her again, and this time, she jumped back to avoid the blow. He threatened again, and she retreated further. She knew she would make no headway with these men. They were so much like the very worst men of her village: angry, obstinate, unable to listen or reason. Now, she was caught in a land full of strangers. She was Dravani, not Ayodhi. Surely, they would see that if they opened their eyes. But their minds were closed off, bent only on dispersing the crowds. Besides, they were from Huz, just a few short steps from being Westerners themselves. They surely saw her as the Vastrum did, as just another dark-skinned easterner. To them, Ayodhi, Dravani, Sangam, Desha, Dhekan, Bhodan, and Jirimanjin were all the same. She could see every difference between all these people. The Westerners could not.

  She wondered how she might return to Kanmak, a city she barely knew and a country of which she knew even less. It had taken many hours to ride by carriage from the cantonments in Kanmak up to where the yali lay dead. Even if she could retrace the path, how long would it take to walk back, days perhaps? And in an unfriendly land to Dravani. Less friendly still to women who dressed and acted like men. The Vastrum could not see the difference because they could not see past her skin or the clothing she chose, but certainly, the Ayodhis would see her for what she was, and as everywhere else, they would despise her for it. Furthermore, the afternoon sun was waning, and this was jungle. Tigers and worse hunted here. Perhaps she could find refuge at the temple, but once more, she did not know the land. Even if she found people to ask directions, her Ayodhi was not strong. She spoke parts of eight languages, but this tongue was her weakest.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  She retreated from where the soldiers stood until she was out of sight. Then she sat against the great dead yali, put her head into her hands, and wept. She had not felt so helpless very many times in her life. First, when she was young, the boys chased her, called her names and threw stones. Second, when she had been taken into captivity in Vurun and sold as a slave. The third was now. She hated it and herself.

  Once the last carriages holding the noblewomen had departed, their guards retreated away from the yali, mounted up, and followed them. The villagers had all retreated back to the forest. She could hear them resume mourning as she sat up against the great dead beast resting. Her body ached where she had been trampled and stepped on. She pressed herself down into the crook of the yali’s feline paw and found that, though it had been dead some days, it still felt warm. To her surprise, neither was there any stench or rotting. It was comforting there against the arm of the yali, and she closed her eyes and slept.

  As she slept, she dreamed. She knew it was a dream because she was back home in her village of Kamparak. She had not been home since she left when she was fourteen. The sun was shining. There was no cloud in the sky. The day was warm, with a sea breeze blowing gently off the water. The sand of the beach was white against the turquoise waters. All the men’s boats were out, a few just visible on the horizon. They were fishing for the great leviathans from which they harvested gris. They would be gone for days, searching far out at sea for the beasts. When they finally did catch one of the great tentacled deep-sea horrors, they would hook it, raise it with air bladders, and then drag it back to shore to extract the gris. It was dangerous, and she had lost two uncles to the trade when she was young, but lucrative. She knew it was a dream, too, because, in her dream, her mother still lived. Rathma saw her standing by the entrance to their home between two coconut palms. She was holding a tiny baby who was sleeping peacefully.

  “Ati,” Her mother said to her, waving her over.

  She came to her mother.

  “Come meet your brother, Ati.” Her mother’s dark face was warm and smiling, dappled in sunlight.

  No, this wasn’t right. Something felt off. Her mother smelled wrong. She used to smell like coconut oil and spices. Now, she smelled like the forest floor. The way she smiled was wrong, too, like someone was wearing the memory of her as a mask. Rathma stepped back.

  “Darling Ati, what is wrong?” The creature asked.

  “You are not my mother, and this is a dream.”

  “True.”

  Her mother slipped into another form—a dark woman wearing a cobra’s hood like a headscarf. Rain clouds billowed from the bright sky, darkening the beach and the ocean. She wore resplendent regalia, a whole rainbow of coloured silks and jewels. Lightning struck the water, and for a split second, Rathma could see that the woman had four arms and fangs.

  “Who are you?” Rathma asked.

  “You know who.”

  “Ammamaha.” She spoke the name slowly in a kind of reverence. The woman before her was a goddess. They worshipped her in her village. She had a shrine in every village. They had temples to her all along the western coast of the Bay of Accad, from Desha to Dravan down to Sangam in the far south. Only one thing confused Rathma, "Why are you here, Amma?”

  Lightning cracked in the distance, revealing the goddess's form again. “Am I not allowed to come and see one of my little children?” She asked, trying to sound innocent.

  Her mother had told her more than once, “Pray, be good, make your offerings, but do not be too pious. Beware a god who takes notice of you, tiny girl. You are an ant to them.”

  “Of course, Amma.” A feeling of dread filled Rathma, “I only mean, what is it you want of me?”

  “You are sleeping beside my great yali. Her name was inaudible to a human ear. You would only hear it only as the patter of rain. She guarded the great temple of Krurushustana. She is gone now, returned to the living earth from where I raised her. She was among the last of my great ones.”

  “What can I do?” Rathma asked.

  “Nothing. It has nothing to do with you. You are not called or chosen, little one.” The tone was dismissive.

  Rathma was angry at the tone, “Then why do you disturb my sleep?”

  “My great one no longer guards these forests. The great maw widens. Sorrow will fill the land. You cannot stop it. I have taken pity upon you, for you fell to sleep beside my great one. I tell you this so you may wake and flee.”

  “But…” She tried to say, but the goddess was gone.

  Rathma woke as abruptly as the goddess had vanished. The image of her village, childhood home, and the beautiful beach where she grew up were all gone. A light rain was falling. Small misty droplets of water hit her face. The forest was quiet. It was still pitch black. Clouds had rolled in and were covering the moon and stars. She carefully looked out from her hiding place. Though her eyes were accustomed to the dark, she could see nothing. A twig snapped, followed by a grunting noise. Something large was near. She stayed quiet and hunkered down, hidden in the enormous paw of the yali.

  “Run, little one.” She heard a voice in her head, her mother’s.

  A scream cut the night. Half fury, half pain. It was inhuman, bestial, but not of any animal Rathma knew. It was near. She waited two heartbeats, then leapt up and fled. She had always been a fast runner, faster than most boys she grew up with, faster than many grown men. She kicked off her sandals and flat-out ran up on the balls of her feet down the stone road they had arrived on. Whatever it was, it was chasing her. She hazarded a look behind her. The thing in the dark was gaining on her. Instinctively, she reached into her cloak and found a knife, a simple katar that she kept under her clothes. She gripped it as she ran, pulled it from her shirt, turned, and reversed back at it. Quick as a snake strike, she met the oncoming dark shape. It was not expecting this. She rammed the katar home, straight into the centre of the oncoming shape. It bowled her over, and they tumbled to the ground. Blood sprayed, and the thing bleated and screamed strangely. Like a goat with its throat cut for sacrifice. She ripped the blade from it and plunged the katar back into it. Together, they rolled. Terrible claws gouged her flesh as they wrestled. She took the knife again and again, stabbing as fast as she could, making holes in the thing and ripping them wide. It began to weaken, its cries changing as it died. She remembered the death rattles of the great leviathans when they were pulled ashore to be drained of gris. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was more the horrible clicking groans of those than it was a dying man. She had killed men before this way, though they gave up much faster. Soon, the thing stopped moving. Rathma’s arms burned, her lungs burned, the claw marks on her shoulder and body burned. She knew it would hurt far worse when the adrenaline of the fight wore off. She rolled off it. The sky was beginning to brighten now. She could only half make out what it was in the pre-dawn darkness, though it was barely more than a dark shape in the cart track. Eyes like a tiger. Tusks like a boar. Arms like a man. Claws at the end of terrible strong fingers. Black skin like the night. It lay on the ground, unmoving. Rathma shuddered in horror at the memory of this thing on her, attacking, clawing, breathing, screeching, and trying to kill her. Another scream sounded much further off in the forest. Her mother’s voice called to her again, “Run, Ati!” Without any hesitation, she turned and ran. She did not fully understand the words she heard in her dream, but she knew with utter certainty that the hunters should not have killed the yali.