Chapter 30 FightFlee? #2
Although things seemed to favor them right now, Chandra knew they didn’t have inexhaustible resources.
Or men. They needed help. Even now, the intruders were aiming toward the concealed archers.
The doors of the sanctum opened, and the people of the temple city streamed forward with their makeshift weapons.
They needed to strike hard and fast.
Chandra made a cut on her palm, smeared her finger with blood, and drew the half moon mark on her forehead. Her rudraksha bracelet warmed against her wrist as she bent her arm to pick an unusually heavy arrow from her quiver.
She aimed it high into the sky, her eyes briefly closed, as she concentrated; the mantra on her arrow flickering in the darkness.
“Hreem,” she whispered the activating seed word before releasing the arrow.
A shrill whistle cut through the air.
The men of the temple city brought their shields over their heads, leaving their enemies flabbergasted for a minute.
A roaring sound filled the air, like the approach of heavy rain, minutes before a hail of arrows rained down on them, striking everything that was uncovered.
The arrow she released was a sata banu, one hundred arrows, fused together by a spell. Once activated by the seed word, the mantra caused the arrow to separate mid-flight into their individual components.
Her attack brought them a few moments. Chandra climbed down from the gopura, releasing her twin blades.
* * *
Veer put a foot on the fallen intruder and wrenched the blade stuck in the man’s stomach. He crouched and flipped over the cloak that partially covered the weathered face of the dead man.
Underneath the cloak was armor.
There was a lull in the battle. Most of the intruders had been killed.
“Well, that’s it, then. We have won,” Aradatta said wiping his forehead across his sleeve, as he came to stand beside Veer.
“Not quite.” Veer turned the dead man’s hand to expose the tattoo on his forearm.
A serpent coiled around the lotus bud.
“Thianvelli’s symbol! Impossible,” said Aradatta, kneeling to look.
“Believe it, Captain,” said a grim Veer.
“Why would Thianvelli send troops here?” The captain seemed to have difficulty wrapping his mind around this new turn of events.
“Can’t you think of a reason why?” asked Veer with a sidelong glance. “Perhaps you have something they wanted.”
“The only thing of worth here is the idol,” Aradatta replied. “But we were sworn protection from the three kingdoms. It is part of a treaty.”
“Things are changing, Captain,” said Veer curtly.
Aradatta narrowed his eyes, staring at Veer with suspicion, as he stood up. “Seems like it when warriors come to our city disguised as common folk. Who are you really?”
A spire of fire shot into the sky in the distance.
Sudden realization broke perspiration at Veer’s brow, and he swore. “We have been tricked. Captain, gather your troops. The intruders are at the temple. Shota, Billadev. To me. Now.”
“But I’ve left guards at the temple—”
“The ones we fought here are decoys. There will be more at the temple. The idol is their target.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Aradatta, keeping pace with Veer as he ran.
“No time to explain…”
The sounds of fighting grew louder as they approached the temple at a run. Groans interspaced with the clang of swords and the swish of arrows. His hopes that he might have been wrong were dashed when he found the temple doors ajar. The steps that led to the temple had great jagged cracks in them.
Veer slashed his way in, found shelter behind a pillar, and scanned the fight, searching for his errant wife. He knew after seeing arrows sticking out of the dead on the ground that she wouldn’t be missing from the action.
He spotted her lone figure straddling one of the temple spires.
A faint golden glow enveloped her, making her a visible target.
But as he watched her, she kept moving, jumping from spire to spire, running across the terraces, ducking behind the pillars, taking out as many soldiers as she could, surefooted as a mountain goat.
Relief that she was unhurt was followed by anger that she had disobeyed his instructions.
She was on the terrace of the mandapa now, hidden behind the parapets. A dried coconut frond caught fire, briefly illuminating the scene before the leaf fell crashing to the ground.
Veer sucked in a breath and took off. A group of soldiers had cornered her. Her bow lay on the ground, and she had her twin daggers in hand. He caught one of the many ropes that were strung during the festival for decoration and swung himself up onto the terrace.
* * *
Chandra whirled around at the sudden scream behind her.
A man staggered toward her, clutching the spearhead that projected from his neck. The outstretched sword in his hand told her he was about to kill her. She peered past him and found the dark, menacing shape that had thrown the spear at her assailant.
She knew who it was despite not being able to see his face clearly. A part of her felt relieved he was here, unhurt, while another part of her flinched from the aura of violence she felt radiating from him.
He deftly yanked the spear out of the dead man’s throat and aimed it toward her, mouthing something. Eyes wide, she figured it out at the last minute and ducked. She felt the dying scream of another man and the weight of his dead body as it slumped against her.
“When you choose to assign yourself as the sniper, you need to have someone to guard your flank,” hissed her husband in a murderous whisper, approaching her and helping her throw off the dead weight of her attacker.
“I know, but I didn’t have enough men,” she said, panting as they clashed with the next group of attackers on the terrace. It didn’t take them long to dispatch them off. They stopped finally, and stared at each other, trying to catch their breath.
Chandra felt a sudden, lancing pain at her shoulder. One of the fallen soldiers, who they thought was dead, had struck her with a knife. Fortunately, her leather armor had blocked the brunt of his attack, leaving a shallow wound on the upper part of her arm.
Veer extended his hand down, his fingers hooking into claws, and raised the soldier by his neck. Rage suffused his face.
The soldier’s eyes bulged, his breath slowly wheezing past his throat as it was crushed under Veer’s fist. Chandra realized, horrified, that he was taking his time to give the fallen soldier a painful death.
“Veer,” the plea flew out of her mouth, without her volition. She wished she had kept quiet when he turned his face toward her.
A burning flag flew down from the sky, briefly illuminating the rage that contorted his face in forbidding lines. She gasped. One half of his face was covered in soot and the other painted garishly in fresh blood, like burning crimson.
“Why do you think, Princess, they call me the scourge of the north?” he asked softly. “It’s because I don’t tolerate anyone hurting what I consider mine.”
His eyes were empty pits. There was no pity, no remorse there, only relentless cruelty. Her own heart twisted painfully, seeing the lack of emotions in his eyes. Although if asked, she wouldn’t have been able to say why.
Tremors rocked the assailant’s body, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Chandra walked up to him and slashed his neck in a clean and neat stroke, killing him instantly, ending his suffering.
Veer made a noise of disapproval and heaved the dead body over the parapet wall into the fight below.