Authors: John Speed
Tiger Claws (33 page)
“I mean you’ll have one chance to kill the swordsman up there before he kills whoever goes first.” Iron moves close to Lakshman, his face now only inches from Lakshman’s nose. “Do you understand, boy? Here’s your chance to be rid of me. I’m going up there, I’ll be first. Just shoot a half a second late, that’s all, and you’re done with me for good.”
“Not my way, old man,” Lakshman replies. “Don’t want you to die by accident, do I?”
Iron bristles, but turns again to the opening above them. “How do we work this?” he asks.
The narrow stairs are crowded, slippery with rain. Their clothes are soaked, heavy with water. The smell of wet cloth mixes with sweat and fear.
“Let’s throw them a corpse,” Lakshman suggests.
Everyone glances around, trying to see who will object to this disgusting suggestion. “Come on,” whispers Lakshman, reaching down to grab the body at their feet.
Iron swings his weight behind Lakshman’s, then they all join to hoist the corpse toward the opening. The body is cumbersome, heavier than it looks, slippery with rainwater and blood. Somehow they manage to boost it nearly to the top of the stairs. Then they grunt and hoist the corpse up through the stairway opening.
In a flash they hear a clang of swords above them, and the corpse’s head topples from its body and bounces past them down the stair. They drop the headless body and it bumps down after it.
“Well, now we know,” says Iron. “Two of them. One left, one right.’
“Get ready. I’m going to be the bait. Get ready,” Shivaji whispers.
“You’ve never done this before, Shahu,” says Iron, stepping forward. “I have. Time for you to watch and learn.” He steps to the top of the stairs, and nudges Tanaji and Shivaji, until they move reluctantly down. Then he shows Lakshman and Hanuman where to stand. Lakshman is hunched in a corner, Hanuman is lying nearly prostrate on the stairs. “Can you shoot in
this position, boys?” Iron asks. The boys nod. “Then get your arrows ready. You’ll get one shot each.” As they each notch an arrow, Iron hands his battle hammer to Shivaji. “Give me the sword, Shahu. This is sword work here.” He takes Shivaji’s sword, checking its heft.
this position, boys?” Iron asks. The boys nod. “Then get your arrows ready. You’ll get one shot each.” As they each notch an arrow, Iron hands his battle hammer to Shivaji. “Give me the sword, Shahu. This is sword work here.” He takes Shivaji’s sword, checking its heft.
He’s delaying, trying to muster his courage, Hanuman realizes. Iron expects to be killed.
“Will you please get the hell on with it,” Lakshman bursts out.
“Give a man a chance, boy,” Iron hisses back. He stoops to look at Tanaji and Shivaji, one last look, maybe. Then he sighs and stands, gripping his sword and shouts, “One! Two! Three!”
He jumps up into the opening. There’s a
clang
of steel almost at once, and the twang of bows.
clang
of steel almost at once, and the twang of bows.
But Iron’s body crashes down the wet stone stairs. Then his sword clatters down, sliding stair by stair behind him. Tanaji and Shivaji watch Iron’s body slump to a stop. They turn to the twins, and from the twins to the opening.
“I got my man,” says Lakshman. “Got him through the neck. What about you?”
“Maybe,” Hanuman says.
“Shit,” says Lakshman.
“I’m going up,” says Tanaji.
“I’ll do it,” Shivaji says.
“They’re my boys,” Tanaji replies and he moves to the top of the stairs before Shivaji can stop him.
“Arrows ready?” he asks. The boys hardly have a chance to nod before he too shouts, “One, two, three,” and dashes up the stairs.
The twins don’t move; there’s no one there to shoot at. Shivaji follows up the stairs behind Tanaji, now holding Iron’s battle hammer in his hand.
They step out onto an open stone roof, the rain blustering in sheets around their feet. Tanaji, a few steps away from the stairway opening, sees Shivaji, points to a spot not far from where Shivaji stands, and continues a low sweeping prowl across the roof.
They’re in the heart of the fort now; there are no more tricky defenses. Past this point it will be hand to hand. Shivaji looks where Tanaji indicated. There’s a dead man splayed on the stones, an arrow through his eye.
Lakshman steps up the stairs now, arrow drawn. He looks at the corpse that Shivaji shows him. “I thought I hit him in the neck,” he whispers, as rain pours down his face. “That leaves one more; the one that Hanuman missed. Maybe two.”
“Yes, the cook; the sick cook,” Shivaji says. “Where’s Hanuman?”
“Went to look at Iron. Poor bastard.”
Tanaji has found another staircase on the other end of the roof. He signals to Shivaji, then, mace held high before him, he crab-steps down the stairs to the central courtyard of the fort.
Shivaji is about to follow when Lakshman taps his shoulder. In the fading afternoon light, they can just make out a patch of red slowly dissolving into the rain; a few steps beyond it is another patch, and then another; these small and dense, fresher. Lakshman and Shivaji take slow, careful steps, following the bloodstains to a rush-roofed storage hut.
A few steps farther on, they find an arced scimitar lying on the stones beside a pool of blood, the wide blade bent and deeply notched, as though it failed to cut through something hard. Holding Iron’s battle hammer, Shivaji moves toward the hut, Lakshman at his heels, arrow notched and ready. The hut is windowless, its door but a stoop hole. Shivaji creeps up and stands beside the low opening, Lakshman now at his side. The light is so dim that the inside of the hut seems night black. The two of them listen but all they hear is the pounding rain and whistling wind.
Shivaji flashes an unexpected grin at Lakshman, then ducks through the hut’s low door.
There won’t be room enough to swing a mace in there, Lakshman thinks.
But in a moment, Shivaji creeps back. “There’s a body in there.”
“Dead?” asks Lakshman.
Shivaji glares at him. “Yes, dead.”
“That’s it then,” Lakshman glances at Shivaji’s troubled face. “What’s wrong, Shahu? We wiped them out.”
“He didn’t have any wounds. So where did these bloodstains come from?”
Lakshman stifles a groan. “You can always find something wrong, can’t you? Why can’t you ever just be happy? We’ve won!”
At that moment, Tanaji comes toward them, mace gripped tight.
“You can relax,” Lakshman says. “They’re all dead.”
“That’s it, then, I guess,” he whispers hoarsely. “The lower fort is deserted. I guess we got them all.”
“I thank the goddess for this victory,” Shivaji says, raising Iron’s mace above his bowed head.
Lakshman laughs. “Hey, Shahu, your turban’s running in the rain. There’s orange all over your shirt.”
Tanaji curses, disturbed that Lakshman has spoiled this moment. “You
too, should be grateful, boy. You alone escaped unhurt.” He looks sadly at Shahu. “I can’t believe they killed Iron. After all these years, to see him go.”
too, should be grateful, boy. You alone escaped unhurt.” He looks sadly at Shahu. “I can’t believe they killed Iron. After all these years, to see him go.”
“His karma finally caught up with him,” Lakshman laughs. “Why do you think I’m uninjured?”
“Don’t tempt the gods,” Tanaji warns. Sometimes he can’t believe that Lakshman is his son. Then Tanaji sees Hanuman running up the stairway.
“Iron!” pants Hanuman. “He had a helmet wrapped beneath his turban. The metal’s sliced clean through, and part of his scalp is gone. I thought he was dead, but he started breathing again. He’s still unconscious. Maybe he broke something, falling down the stairs.”
“What’s it take to kill that son of a bitch?” Lakshman says. He leans against the hut, away from the others, shaking his head.
“Shut up, Lakshman,” Hanuman snaps. “He saved our lives.”
“He saved shit—” Lakshman starts to say, but a hand grabs him from behind and pulls him off his feet. Lakshman shouts as he falls; his bow skitters across the roof.
Now Lakshman is staring at a familiar-looking knife. The point of his own black serpent blade hovers over Lakshman’s left eye, held by an unknown hand, set to plunge into his brain. The other men stand like statues.
“Put down the knife,” Shivaji says to Lakshman’s captor, advancing inch by inch. “Put down the knife and live.”
“Throw down your weapons or he dies,” the man replies. Lakshman smells the sour, sick odor of the man’s breath as he speaks.
“We can make a deal,” Hanuman says.
“Nice words after you kill my friends.” The man half-drags Lakshman toward the stairway opening. The Bijapuri’s eyes are wild; full of crazy energy. He sits behind Lakshman, his back near the stairway opening, and raises the black serpent blade just inches from his captive’s face. Rainwater fountains along the edge of the knife, streaming onto Lakshman’s chest.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Tanaji says.
“Well, I don’t want to hurt him,” the man replies. “But I will. I might be a cook, but I still know how to kill.” He flicks the knife like lightning at Lakshman’s eyebrow, sending blood streaking down Lakshman’s wet face. “Sharp knife,” he says. “Cooks say a sharp knife will never cut you.” He flicks the knife point again, making a tiny bleeding “X.” “Another lie.”
The cook leans back, though he still holds the knife to Lakshman’s eye. “Say, come here, you,” the cook says to Hanuman. Hanuman moves with slow steps. “Closer.” Hanuman understands, and brings his face close to that of his twin. He can feel Lakshman’s, anxious breath on his wet skin.
“You look the same,” the Bijapuri says, faintly amused, glancing from face to face. “Almost.”
“He’s my brother,” Hanuman says. “Let him go, and …”
“Brothers? Twins?” the cook says. “Not quite the same, though.” With unimagined quickness the cook swings the serpent blade. Hanuman screams, pushing himself away, his hands over his eye.
“Now you look the same,” the cook says. Hanuman lurches back and Tanaji pulls his son’s blood-drenched hand away from his eye to check the damage. The rain spills across his eyebrow, over a fiercely bleeding “X,” just like the one carved on Lakshman. “That’s just to let you know that I can do whatever I want,” the cook says. Lakshman whimpers.
“Tell us what you need,” Shivaji says. “To go free? Done. Release him. There are horses outside the gate. Take one and go.”
“Don’t know what I want,” the cook replies, suddenly thoughtful. He licks his lips as though savoring the taste of the rain on his tongue. “Might want something more. Don’t know. Might want a lot more. Might want something from his brother, too.” The man leers, his eyes glittering and rolling back in his head so they see the bloodshot whites.
He slides the knifepoint down over Lakshman’s face, gently dragging it along the skin, hard enough that it leaves a stark white track on the cheek and neck, but not deep enough to cut. He slides the serpent blade along the chin, the jaw, bringing it at last to the bottom of Lakshman’s ear.
The Bijapuri looks to the three men that watch him, as if inviting them to pay attention. Suddenly the long serpent blade swings in his hand. Tanaji grimaces, sure the cook means to plunge the point into his poor son’s throat. Instead the cook stops with sudden precision, and flicks the razor-smooth blade outward with a snap of his wrist.
Lakshman’s earlobe flies through the air to land at Hanuman’s feet.
“Stop!” Tanaji yells. “Take me instead! Do what you want to me!”
“You the daddy?” the man asks, his glittering eyes suddenly full of understanding. “You the daddy of these sweet boys?” Pulling Lakshman’s head upward, he takes the knife and now presses its point under Lakshman’s chin until a tiny drop of blood wells up. “Your sweet boy’s peeing his pants, daddy. I can feel it. It’s warm.”
“Let him go or die,” Shivaji says, glancing up behind the cook.
“You can’t fool me like that, friend,” the cook replies, his gap-toothed grin widening. “I know there’s nothing there behind me.”
“You’re wrong, boy,” says Iron’s voice. He staggers up the stairway opening. His turban gone, blood drips along his forehead from underneath
the headpiece of the torn helmet he still wears. The cook doesn’t look around, so he can’t see Iron weaving on his feet. “Drop the knife.”
the headpiece of the torn helmet he still wears. The cook doesn’t look around, so he can’t see Iron weaving on his feet. “Drop the knife.”
“Or what?” the cook replies. “Or what?” he says, sliding the blade up over Lakshman’s face again.
Hanuman sees the world around him moving in awful slowness. He sees Iron’s sword whirling in an axlike arc, whistling through the air as Iron slams it home. As Iron swings his sword, the cook slides the point of the serpent blade in a ragged trail along his brother’s quivering face.
Hanuman sees the cook’s head burst beneath Iron’s heavy sword. The skull splits like a block of wood. The halves cave away, flopping to his shoulders like a melon split in two.
The serpent knife flies from the cook’s senseless hand and slides across the puddles and the stones, but its awful work is done. Lakshman lifts his head. As Hanuman stares, the razor cut across his face begins to ooze red. He watches horrified as the sliced skin slides apart. Lakshman’s eye spills out like jelly, gushing down the gash of the deep and perfect cut the blade has made. Blood and rain bubble from his wound.
Hanuman is clutching his brother’s face, frantically trying to scoop the streaming jelly back into Lakshman’s socket. The screams he hears are Lakshman’s and his own.
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