Chapter 31
Bharatas had ridden Kurdan into the valley. Though he had his pick of the finest stock in Akershan now, she had been with him when his vendetta against Ashok Vadal had begun, so it seemed appropriate she would be his steed at its potential end.
He dismounted at the edge of the lake and watched as a few low-status soldiers had to suffer the indignity of floundering about naked in the dark, icy water, searching for the supposed secret path. Very few whole men knew how to swim. Swimming was for lowly impure things, like fish, or casteless.
Other soldiers of Akershan stood all along the shore, torches held aloft. Eager. Was this the end of their long hunt? Could the rebels really be hiding on the other side?
“Have you found anything yet?” Bharatas demanded.
One of the poor freezing warriors had struggled to a spot where his feet could reach the bottom. “Not yet, bearer.”
“Keep looking.” Then he nodded toward one of the risalders. “Bring up the prisoner.”
The lake wasn’t that big, the water wasn’t that deep, and the mountain runoff was clear enough there was surely no demon concealed in it, but if what the prisoner had given up after many long torture sessions was accurate, this was one of the finest defenses Bharatas had ever heard of.
While Bharatas waited, he fed Kurdan a carrot from his pack, and then scratched behind her ears, as she liked. The prisoner was in such terrible shape that he couldn’t walk, so was dragged by each elbow by a pair of warriors. Since all his toes had been snapped and his shins beaten with rods, he couldn’t even stand on his own, so they had to hold him up before their leader.
“This is it?”
“It is.” It was hard to understand their captive, since all of his teeth had been smashed out. “Just kill me.”
The worker had held out a surprisingly long time, but as predicted, all men break eventually. Well, perhaps not Ashok Vadal. That one Bharatas assumed he would just have to kill, and with ancestor blade in hand, he would actually have a chance. Angruvadal versus Akerselem. Their battle would be legend. There were rumors Angruvadal was broken, but Bharatas would assume the worst.
“Where is the tunnel?”
He pointed with one shaking hand, but since each of his fingers had been repeatedly smashed until they were just crooked lumps, it was hard to tell exactly where the prisoner was pointing. It would have to be close enough for the unfortunate swimmers. “Search more to the left,” Bharatas ordered.
“It’s deeper there,” a warrior wailed. “It’s too cold. We’ll drown.”
“The blood of Chakma cries for vengeance!” he shouted back. “Better to drown than let that insult against our house stand.”
The men took deep breaths and swam out into the darkness.
The swimmers weren’t the only ones holding their breath. The finest warriors in Akershan waited to see if they would finally have the chance to restore their honor. Every man was quiet. All that could be heard was the occasional snort of a horse, the crackle of their torches, and the prisoner begging for death.
A short time later a warrior came desperately splashing back. It was hard to understand him over the chattering of teeth. “We found it! It’s just as he said!”
The torturers had been told the only way in was a long cut through the mountain, usually filled with water, which ended in a reservoir elevated above them, overlooking a bounteous secret valley populated entirely with religious fanatics. It was a veritable rebel paradise, free of Law or caste.
And now Bharatas would destroy it.
“You’ll never get inside.” The prisoner had found the strength for one last taunt. “These mountains can’t be crossed. No man can hold his breath long enough to reach the other side.”
Except Bharatas had already thought about the challenges of besieging such a place and had requisitioned a great number of tools. “Alright, men, this is the place. Get to work.”
“You heard the bearer! Seventeenth paltan has the first shift!” an officer shouted, and warriors rushed forward carrying shovels and picks.
“You fools can’t dig through the mountain!”
“We don’t need to,” Bharatas assured the captive. “I’d bring the entire might of Akershan down upon this place if I needed to, but once you described the nature of it, I knew all I really needed was time and gravity.”
The prisoner was barely still alive, but as the warriors began laboring, the realization of what they intended to do truly ended him. In his delirium of pain, he had probably convinced himself what did it matter if he talked? They’d never get in anyway. By the torchlight Bharatas could see the man begin weeping, for he finally accepted the truth, that he had brought death upon his friends.
“Kill me, please.”
“Do it yourself or ask your gods for help. I am a man of my word…” To the guards he said, “He told me what I wanted to know. As agreed, give him blankets and rations, put him on a strong horse, and point him toward Dev.”
As they carried the screaming worker away, Bharatas returned to filling his vow.
“Drain the lake.”