Chapter 37 Malini
MALINI
Across the ford, in a gleaming expanse of sunlight, stood Chandra’s army.
“They have more men than we thought,” Prakash said in a grim voice. In the chariot beside her own, he stared out at the army with a set, determined look on his face. “This must surely be the bulk of Chandra’s forces. But…”
“He isn’t there,” Malini said, answering Prakash’s unasked question. “I can see no sign of his chariot. His banner.”
“He may not wish to be conspicuous,” suggested Prakash.
“Oh no. My brother always wishes to be noticed. If he were here, we would know. Clearly, he refuses to face me in open battle.” She felt the derision in her own voice like venom. “How little he thinks of his own kin, and the men who stand against him.”
She watched the movement of distant flags on their staffs, white and gold just like her own.
Imperial versus imperial. But where her army was made up of Parijati and Srugani and Dwarali, dressed conspicuously in their own colors with their own weaponry to hand, Chandra’s forces were Parijati through and through.
Why had he sent so many men? Did he truly have a large enough army to hold Harsinghar without them?
It wouldn’t matter, of course, if these men defeated Malini’s right here, at the Veri, where their superior numbers would decimate her own.
“We hold here,” she said. “We offer to negotiate.” The longer they bided their time, the longer it would be before they would have to fight, and the longer Rao and the Saketan forces would have to cross the river and attack Chandra’s forces from behind.
She would lose plenty of men—she was aware that her strategy made that an inevitability—but keeping the count of her own dead as low as possible was a worthy endeavor.
“Of course,” said Prakash. He opened his mouth to speak further.
A sudden cry cut through the air. And then another. Next to her, Raziya leaned forward, eyes narrowing, “Empress.” Raziya said it sharply. She raised one hand, pointing. “Look.”
Malini tightened her hands on the edge of the war chariot’s walls and turned her head.
The Veri was a curving river, but so flat that it was like a silver scar across the landscape.
The curve of the river, where Priya and the others were crossing, was half-hidden by the dips and swells of the landscape—well suited for the ambush that they hoped to carry out.
But Malini still saw what came next. It was impossible to miss: Farther along the Veri—in the direction Rao and Ashutosh’s forces had traveled at the fire light of dawn—streaming black shadows were falling in an arc across the water.
They could have been birds: They moved gracefully enough.
But they were not birds. They were arrows, a huge swathe of them, released by archers in Chandra’s service.
Rao, thought Malini, numbly. Priya.
Oh, how much of a fool she’d been to allow two of the people most precious to her to fight without her, so she could not even witness their deaths.
Had they entered the water? Were they crossing, or being warned back?
More arrows fell and she clenched her hands so tightly that she could feel the bite of the chariot’s edge into her palms, the sweat rising up on her skin. She’d been such a fool.
There were cries of jubilation from across the water, and the sound of weapons being readied, armor jangling, elephants lowing as their reins were pulled to draw them forward.
There would be no negotiation. Chandra’s forces had known what Malini’s gambit would be—or guessed it a possibility—and they had prepared for it.
They needed only to face her now on the ford—no enemy at their back, and a depleted enemy before them—and their numbers would eventually overwhelm her own.
More arrows fell.
The beat of hooves, as Khalil rode over to her, flanked by two of his men.
“Blood in the water,” one of the Dwarali managed, panting almost as hard as his horse. “They—I couldn’t get closer, but I saw—soldiers in the water—”
Prakash released an oath.
“Were all our forces in the river?” Malini asked, her voice hollow.
“I—I don’t think so.” Then he swallowed and blinked and said, “No, Empress. I don’t know how many were out of the water and safe, I couldn’t see, but—”
“You’ve done well,” Khalil said roughly. “Go join the rest of the cavalry now. Prepare yourself.”
As the rider departed, Khalil turned his attention on Malini.
“Well, Empress,” he said. “We’ll need to plan fast. How many men are you willing to lose here?”
“We cannot retreat,” Prakash said. “They will… they will chase us, Lord Khalil. We would die hunted, like animals.”
“If the empress survives, there is always hope that battles will be won in the future,” said Khalil. His eyes were fixed on Malini’s own—reading her, judging her. But waiting for her response. “Besides, my lord—Dwarali has the fastest horses. I’d be willing to take the risk.”
“If you say the word,” Raziya said in a low voice, “we will guide you to safety as swiftly as we can.” Her own women on their horses, in their gleaming armor, were listening. Waiting.
There was no time to strategize or think the path ahead through carefully and logically.
And yet Malini saw it all—saw it even as she stood on her chariot, and heard conches sound, and heard the noise of animals and dying men and the hiss and clang of weaponry, all of it the rich warning of an oncoming storm of war—the paths that lay before her.
Defeat, slow and inevitable, if she ran.
Defeated, fast and fierce, if she remained.
Unless.
She thought of Priya’s strength—the steadiness and power of her. She touched her knuckles to the black flower bound by a chain to her throat—the black flower made from her own pain by Priya’s hands. She breathed.
“We’re showing a lack of trust,” she said. “There are still men alive at the village crossing. And they are going to make it across.”
“They’ve been slaughtered,” said Prakash. “Trapped—”
“Not all of them,” she said. Metal on her tongue—blood, terror. Whatever her body was trying to tell her, she couldn’t allow herself to feel it. “Lives have been lost, but there are plenty of soldiers still alive. When they cross, we will move, and crush Chandra’s forces, just as we planned.”
“Even if they cross—and they cannot—their appearance will be no surprise, Empress.” Prakash’s voice was oddly subdued, his face grim. “Without surprise, we cannot win. Your brother’s forces know we’re attempting to surround them, they will not leave themselves unprotected—”
“My brother’s forces know that they have rained arrows down on my soldiers, and that my soldiers are dead, or wounded, or trapped on the bank,” Malini said.
“My brother’s forces believe, as you do, that the rest of our warriors left on the shore cannot cross.
That the only strength I have is what is visible to them right now: the men that surround me.
Your men. Let us use their belief against them and fight them with all our strength.
Keep their focus on us, so they do not see the enemy they believe they have defeated coming at their backs, until it is too late. ”
Silence.
“Empress,” Prakash said awkwardly, just as Khalil said bluntly, “You’re relying on an impossible hope.”
“I know the worth and strength of my men.”
Prakash exhaled shakily. “We would be choosing death.”
“You have no swift Dwarali steeds, Lord Prakash,” she replied bluntly.
“Nor do my Parijati soldiers. I may live—and Lord Khalil’s men may live, and his wife may yet live, and her women also—but there is no choice for you but death in flight or death in battle.
If you will not trust me, then trust this, at least. And make your choice. ”
No time. No time. But Chandra’s soldiers hadn’t yet crossed the ford—were preparing their archers, as Malini’s own arrayed themselves along the bank.
The guardswomen were drawing shields, preparing to defend the chariot where Raziya and Malini stood.
So she had long enough to watch Prakash’s expression crumble, then grow resolute; for his shoulders to straighten and for him to say, “I will trust in your choice, then. Empress.”
“General,” she said in turn. Inclined her head. “And you, my Dwarali general?”
Khalil was silent, his eyes hooded, thoughtful. He looked, not at Malini, but at the woman next to her. He gave a nod.
Whatever had passed between them was enough.
“As you said, Empress,” he said finally. “I and my wife can flee. As can you. And your hope seems false.” A quirk of his mouth, mirthless. “As a man who has used this very gambit, I know you’ve failed.”
“Lord Khalil,” she said. “I have long considered you one of my strongest allies. You have come this far. You waited against all hope for Aditya to rise to his fate in Srugna. You have accompanied me, every step of the way, as I have striven to meet my own. And my fate—my purpose—has not failed me yet. Will you be my ally here now, too? Will you trust in my fate?”
“I am no worshipper of the nameless, to place my hands in prophecy,” he said.
“But you are a worshipper of the mothers, and I am their hands,” she replied.
“I have long thought,” he said eventually, “that loyal allies must receive loyal rewards.”
“An empress fulfills all her debts, Lord Khalil,” she replied, hoping the look on her face, the weight of her words, mirrored his own. “But an empress must gain her throne in order to give her words the weight of action.”
“I will hold you to that, Empress.” He tugged the reins of his mount; turned. “I’ll prepare the cavalry. We’ll throw all our might at them, and see what comes of it. Apart from too many dead horses.” He patted his own mount’s neck. “Survive, Empress.”
“I will,” she promised, with utter surety. She had no room for doubt. Either the miracle she’d asked Priya for would manifest, or Malini would soon be dead. And the dead had no capacity for regret anyway.