The Company of Shadows (Wellington Undead Book 3) (9 page)

“Excellent, Sergeant. You have informed the outliers?” Rice jerked his head to indicate the outermost cavalry screen.

“Yes sir. They’re making straight for it, sir.”

“Jolly good. Thank you. Fall into the column, Sergeant. I should say that you have earned your pay for today.”

“Thank you, sir.”

A salute was exchanged between officer and NCO. Dismissed, the latter wheeled his mount away and trotted off to rejoin his comrades, with the other three falling into line behind him. For his part, Rice let out a sigh of quiet relief. Well, that was that. The two British columns should be able to link up before nightfall. Then it was just a question of establishing a safe harbor for the night – he seriously doubted that General Wellesley would want to march the men far, if at all, after the events of the past thirty-six hours – and settling in to get some desperately-needed rest.

Perhaps they had a chance after all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“So tell me, Irishman…have you missed me?”

Arthur felt as if he had only just pulled the coffin lid in place over his head when the familiar voice began speaking to him from out of the darkness. His eyelids fluttered open. Just as he had expected, he was surrounded by nothing but darkness on all sides, completely immersed in it.

This was how their conversations always started. As much as he hated to admit it, he had rather begun to miss them. These dream-world discussions helped him keep his verbal skills honed to a fine point.

“Yes,” Arthur admitted frankly, “I have.”

The figure of the Tipu Sultan stepped forward out of the shadows. His frame was short and squat, but carried as much muscle as it did fat. The potentate wore his traditional garb of baggy green pantaloons, a golden vest that was belted at the waist with a knotted red sash, and a turban of sky blue silk which was fronted with an enormous red ruby. Appraising him, Arthur thought that the smile he wore was genuine. The Sultan seemed truly pleased to be back.

“As have I.” The smile widened into a broad grin. He stepped forward, so that the two of them were a mere arm’s length apart, and folded his arms across his stout chest.

“Your goddess has permitted you to return, then?” As glad as he was to see the Sultan once more, Arthur simply couldn’t resist that little opening salvo. Was it just his imagination, or did Tipu momentarily wince?

“The Dark Mother is not my goddess. It would seem that she is no longer…displeased with me.” Tipu’s gaze shifted from left to right and back again, as though he were searching the shadows for any unseen listeners that might be lurking there. Apparently satisfied that there were no eavesdroppers, the potentate seemed to relax just a fraction.

“Of course. Forgive me. I had forgotten that you are a Muslim.” Wellesley had genuinely intended no offence. The last time that he had seen the Sultan, Kali had appeared in person and dismissed Tipu in a rage, flinging him violently away as an angry child might discard a stuffed doll. He may believe in a different deity, but it hadn’t saved him from the wrath of the Dark Mother, as her followers liked to call her. It had fascinated Wellesley at the time that Tipu’s own god had not intervened, and he wondered whether it was because they were in Kali’s lands now, and therefore subject to her whims no matter which deities they personally followed.

“I would expect nothing less from an infidel.” Tipu’s smile and the gleam in his eye robbed the words of some of their sting. He seemed to be quite over the whole unpleasant business.

“Touche.”

A moment of companionable silence passed between them. Finally, the vampire said, “I must confess that I am still not entirely sure whether you are real or not.”

“What else might I be?” The Sultan seemed interested in Wellesley’s response.

“A figment of my imagination. A dream. A shadow. Nothing more than a memory.”

“Ah. And what does your gut instinct tell you?”

“I am a general. I try to think with me head, not my gut.”

“Are you claiming that instinct has no role to play in generalship?” Tipu cocked his head to one side.

“That is not what I am saying at all. However, it should never be allowed to supplant reason.”

“I tend to agree, Irishman. As with so many other things in life, instinct makes for a good servant and yet a very poor master.”

Wellesley inclined his head, conceding the point. “When one considers the fact that arguing with a figment of one’s own imagination would be tantamount to lunacy, I am therefore forced to give you the benefit of the doubt so far as your objective realness is concerned.”

Tipu let out an explosive, braying laugh. Even Arthur smiled, the corner of one mouth quirking slightly at the audacity of his reasoning. Then the potentate’s expression grew more somber.

“I am given to understand, General, that you encountered my daughter on the battlefield yesterday.”

“I did.” Arthur let it hang there, saw no reason to deny the truth of it, and wondered where Tipu was going with this particular conversational thread.

“If you believe that you have killed her, General Wellesley, then you are quite correct.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow, surprised at the Sultan’s apparent lack of displeasure where this fact was concerned. “I would tell you that I am sorry for your loss, my dear Sultan, but we both know that would be a falsehood.”

“Quite alright, my dear vampire. For you see, if you think that Jamelia has given up on her quest for vengeance against you, you are hopelessly deluded.”

“But how – oh, I see.” Just like that, realization dawned on Arthur. “I had thought for a moment that you were speaking in riddles…it would not be the first time, after all. Should I then take it to mean that your daughter has recently joined the ranks of the risen dead?”

“I would not say joined, although the description is accurate, as far as it goes.” A thin, sardonic smile spread across the Sultan’s lips. He let the words hang between them for a moment. Finally, Wellesley took the bet.

“And what would you say?”

“She has not joined their ranks, my dear Arthur. No, my dearest daughter has been chosen to lead them.”

Arthur’s eyes widened just a fraction at that. “Chosen? By whom?”

Tipu did not answer, at least not verbally: instead, he simply looked upward, in the universal signal for something that was quite literally in the lap of the gods.

“I see. That would be Kali, I presume.” There was just the slightest trace of a wince when Arthur named the goddess, and the vampire knew that he had hit the mark on his very first attempt. “She may frighten you, Tipu, but the so-called ‘Dark Mother’ holds no fear for me.”

“And I had thought you so much wiser than that, vampire.” Tipu had suddenly turned somber. “You underestimate the goddess of the dead at your own peril. She has powers that you cannot possibly comprehend, and has favored my daughter with some of them.”

“Such as…?”

“Jamelia came close to death, thanks to the wounds that you inflicted, Wellesley. Very close. But Jamelia is instrumental to her plans, and is therefore not a piece that the Dark Mother would permit to be removed from the game board so easily.”

“You are saying that she is a queen, rather than a knight or a bishop.”

“Precisely.”

Arthur rather appreciated the comparison of their current situation to the game of chess. It was a game that he loved to play, finding it a very useful analog to the art of strategic thinking that was his stock in trade during everyday life.

“Which would make Berar and Scindia the king,” the vampire observed.

“You have precious little chance of checkmating that particular king. They have a near-limitless supply of pawns, Irishman, whereas your precious red-coated minions are fast running out. Mathematics alone tells us that this game can end in only one way.”

Arthur regarded him stonily for a moment, choosing his words with great care. “That would be correct, were this simply a war of attrition. But this is not such a war, Tipu. I would have thought that the outcome of Assaye should have made that abundantly clear.” The Sultan opened his mouth to respond, but Wellesley talked right over him. “War is about far more than the numbers, Tipu. Far more. Data is important, yes, I shall grant you that. I am something of an obsessive on that particular point, if the truth be told. But the wise man places his money on the better general, even if he is burdened with inferior numbers and resources, over the bloated and over-confident blusterer.

“The living dead may outnumber my living redcoats and our allies, my dear Sultan, but you may rest assured of one thing: the king who finally prevails on this particular chess board shall be named George, and none other.”

Arthur’s voice burned with the fires of conviction, never once wavering or displaying even the slightest trace of doubt. He knew that he was going to win, for no other outcome was conceivable. The vampire general was supremely self-confident – many thought him self-absorbed and arrogant – but it was backed up with hours of painstaking preparation and research: he knew the movement capabilities of his prime fighting men, for example, because upon first arriving in India he had carefully weighed them and then marched them over specific distances with full fighting kit, diligently recording the times in a log book that he carried with him to this day.

Other than one incident several years prior – an ill-conceived attack on a stand of tope, during the Seringapatam campaign which had ended in the Sultan’s demise – Wellesley’s record of skirmishes and battles, though not yet particularly long, was a list composed entirely of victories. He knew with utter certainty, down in his very marrow, that despite all the odds that were so heavily stacked against him, this campaign against the Marathas would be no different.

“Confidence is a valuable trait in a general,” Tipu said, his gaze locking with Wellesley’s own. Neither man looked away. “Arrogance less so.”

Arthur regarded him impassively. “You have not yet told me how you escaped from wherever it was that Kali sent you. Escaped…or did she allow you to leave?”

The momentary downcast flicker of Tipu’s eyes gave him all the answer he needed. The Sultan had been permitted to return and visit with him once more. The question was: why?

“I am the bearer of a message,” Tipu said at last. He seemed fidgety, as befit the bearer of ill tidings.

“Well? Out with it, man!” Arthur could feel his sudden annoyance already giving way to the first kindlings of anger. His tone was harsher than he would have liked, for he felt no personal enmity toward the Sultan. His daughter, on the other hand…

Taking a deep breath, the potentate closed his eyes for a moment, seeming to center himself, and then began, “The most mighty and munificent goddess Kali, the Dark Mother, sends this message to Major General Arthur Wellesley, the vampire who leads the illegal incursion into Maratha territory…”

“Illegal? Ha!” Wellesley snorted, a harsh bray that put the Sultan off his stroke. “My brother is the appointed crown representative of all India. Do not speak to me of legality, if you please.”

“…illegal incursion into Maratha territory,” Tipu went on, ignoring the vampire’s interruption. “The message is as follows: the vampire general shall immediately turn around, and return with his troops to the island-citadel of Mysore, never to return.” It may have been Arthur’s imagination, but he could have sworn that Tipu’s voice wavered ever so slightly as he mentioned his former seat of power. Tipu’s body still lay entombed in a mausoleum there, next to those of his parents and others of his line.

“And if I do not?” Arthur asked, genuinely curious.

“Should he fail to do so, then the forces of the Maratha Confederacy will meet the British invader once more upon the field of battle.”

“I heartily encourage them to try. It has not turned out well for them so far.”

“The tigress Jamelia, chosen instrument of the Dark Mother, has been bestowed with the power to command the risen dead, no matter how great their number. Under her direction, the army of the dead shall hound the British at every turn, eroding the ranks of the invader while swelling their own.” Wellesley’s face hardened at this, for his imagination was already conjuring up unbidden images of the shuffling, wailing bodies of the dead, clad in bright red jackets and howling for the flesh of the living. Blasphemy. An abomination in the eyes of God. Every single one of his fallen redcoats who came back to an obscene parody of the life they had once known was one too many – an insult, and one that Arthur took very personally indeed. “Kali is not entirely without mercy, my Irish friend, and so she offers you this one last chance: leave these lands, now and for all time. Otherwise, I fear that it shall not go well for you, or for those red-coated cattle you so blithely lead to the slaughter.

“Heed my warning, Wellesley, for I have grown really quite fond of you since my death.” Tipu smiled again, though there was little warmth behind it. “The Deccan plain shall become your burial ground if you insist on pursuing this imperialistic venture. Nor shall it be a quiet burial ground, for though you and your vampire cohort shall meet your ends, no such eternal peace will be granted to your men…their hungry corpses will roam the wilderness for many years to come, feasting upon the flesh of animals and what few stragglers they can catch unawares. There is no dignity in such a living death.