The Tiger's Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  Tom scrambled over a low wall and into the arcade. The cannons still stood there, abandoned after firing the initial volley. Squeezing past one of them, Tom saw the hallmark stamped on the long barrel, the crossed swords of the foundry where it was cast. He recognized it. Just as he had feared, it was one of the cannon that had been on board the Kestrel. Salvaged from the wreck, cleaned and remounted, they had now been turned on Tom and his allies. The confirmation made him tremble with fury.

  This was no time to dwell on it, however. The Rani’s guards were already regrouping. A door opened in front of him: and without pausing to think where it might lead, Tom ran through. Down a corridor, past open rooms, and into a courtyard filled with trees and tinkling fountains. Shuttered windows overlooked the garden. In one corner, a flight of stairs led to the upper floors of the palace.

  Tom counted the men who had followed him. Francis was there, along with a young merchant, one of Foy’s assistants whose name he did not know. The youth was snivelling like a child, his shirt stained with other men’s blood. Tom had lost Hicks somewhere along the way, but he had the hubladar and six sepoys, though only four had kept hold of their muskets.

  Rapid footsteps pounded down the corridor that had brought them here. Tom lifted the point of his blade. Hicks ran out of the corridor, pursued by a guard armed with a scimitar. Hicks spun around, aimed his pistol and shot the man in the chest. He fell to his knees. Francis stepped forward smartly and ran him through before he could regain his feet.

  ‘Thank God you are safe,’ said Tom. ‘My sister-in-law would never forgive me if I did not bring you home safe and sound.’

  ‘No more would mine,’ said Hicks as he reloaded his pistols. ‘Curse that idiot, Foy.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘The last I saw of him was when he was kowtowing to that bloodthirsty bitch, the Rani.’

  ‘Then he is probably dead by now.’ Neither man suggested going back to try and rescue him.

  Francis had made a quick circuit of the courtyard. He ran back to Hicks, his face grim.

  ‘There are no doors. We are trapped here.’

  As if to prove his words, shouts echoed down the corridor.

  ‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ Hicks suggested. ‘Follow me.’

  He led them up the stairs to the upper level. Even now, in so desperate a situation, he showed no signs of panic. Tom marvelled at his cool bearing. Agnes had chosen herself a good husband.

  They rounded a corner at the top of the stairs and came into a long gallery. Through open doors, Tom glimpsed lavishly furnished state rooms. They ran on, choosing their course almost at random. Speed was all that mattered, never pausing to think, always driven on by the chasing pack behind them.

  The noise of battle grew louder as they entered another room. Tom swore. All their turns had brought them almost back where they began, into the galleries above the courtyard. Smoke drifted through the wooden screens. Looking down, Tom saw grim evidence of the massacre: bodies strewn across the square, some piled upon each other; severed limbs and blood splashed over the cobblestones and halfway up the walls.

  And in the midst of the carnage stood the man he had last seen on the beach, above the wreck of the Kestrel. From this angle, his face was hidden, but Tom knew him at once, purely by his bearing. He stood calm amid the dead, directing the guards who moved among the carcasses finishing off survivors. This was the man who had stolen his cannon and turned them on Tom himself.

  Tom drew his pistol. But the lattice was too finely wrought to allow him a shot through it. Then, with the instinct of a fox, the man turned quickly and stared straight at Tom – although Tom must have appeared to him only as a shadow through the screen. Once again, Tom experienced the eerie sensation of looking at his own ghost. The man barked an order to one of the guards, who handed him a firelock. He cocked the hammer, and aimed the musket at Tom.

  Tom ducked as he fired. The screen in front of Tom exploded in a cloud of splinters. Tom pushed the muzzle of his pistol through the jagged hole it had left, scanning the courtyard for his enemy.

  But he had vanished.

  ‘Come on,’ called Hicks. Tom turned back to follow him – and almost collided with Hicks as he reversed course.

  ‘Guards,’ Hicks warned. Half a dozen of the gold-helmeted guards – and in their midst, bareheaded so that the scar down his nose was plain to see, was Tungar. The Neptune sword flashed in his hand, the sapphire glinting in its pommel. Tom drew the sabre Hicks had loaned him.

  The gold-helmeted guards knelt and aimed a volley of musket fire. Their long-barrelled firelocks were cumbersome weapons, so heavy that each had a tripod fixed to the end of the barrel. Not the weapons for fighting in a confined space. Tom and the others threw themselves against the walls of the passageway. The volley flew harmlessly past them. Before the guards could reload, Tom and his men charged.

  The guards dropped their muskets and reached for their swords, but the sepoys were on them before they could clear their blades. The sepoys showed no mercy. They bayoneted them or clubbed them with the butts of their muskets. Tungar would not stand and face Tom. He turned and fled and the surviving sepoys ran with him.

  ‘Now’s our chance to get out of this death trap!’ shouted Hicks. He pointed to an open window that led out onto the tiled roof. ‘There is a way out.’

  But Tom knew he could not leave without the Neptune sword. The lure of it was a siren song that resounded in his head.

  ‘You go ahead. I will follow you.’

  Without waiting for an argument from Hicks, he chased after Tungar down the hall. He rounded the first corner, and almost stabbed a terrified servant girl who was fleeing towards him. He shoved her aside and raced on down a short corridor and through a pair of bronze doors which were standing open.

  He paused and looked around him. He had come out into a room much larger and grander than any they had seen before. Rich tapestries draped the walls. At one end, a mahogany throne picked out in gold stood on a dais; opposite, double doors opened onto the balcony from which the enemy marksmen commenced the massacre. A tiger skin was laid out before the throne, its head tipped back and its jaws open in a silent roar.

  Tom checked the balcony, but it was empty. He was about to run on through the next door, when he heard a creaking floorboard behind him. He spun around, to see Tungar advancing from behind the throne with the Neptune sword clasped in his right hand. Tom brought up his sabre, just in time to parry Tungar’s lunge. He went on the counter attack, but the unaccustomed balance of his weapon hampered his movement, giving Tungar time to step back and recover his guard.

  Tom had won many duels with that blue sword in his hand. Now he was on the other end of it, and he understood fully the advantage it had conferred on him. But now that wicked point was turned towards him, and he felt his courage quail before its glittering menace.

  Tungar launched a series of swift, cutting attacks that Tom could barely keep pace with. But although he was driven back to the balcony he had survived. His courage returned to him, but cautiously.

  He prefers to use the edge rather than the point. Tom knew that he could use this knowledge to his advantage.

  He edged sideways, trying to turn Tungar towards his left hand. Tungar read the move and forced him back. He was trying to work Tom towards the balcony door where he would be easy prey for any marksmen in the yard below. Tom pirouetted away and regained the centre of the room. It was small advantage. It was like fighting with a leaden blade. Every movement dragged, every impact came a split second later than he anticipated. These were tiny amounts, but the fractions added up.

  He feinted left, leaving an infinitesimal opening. But Tungar saw it instantly. The lunge would have been the correct stroke, but instinct induced him into the cut. He lifted his arm, just as Tom had anticipated. Before the blade came down, Tom drove forward, putting his whole weight into the thrust so that he came inside Tungar’s guard.

  Tungar pivoted. Tom’s blade struc
k his armour a glancing blow and was deflected away, the sword spinning out of Tom’s grip. In desperation, Tom wrapped his arms around Tungar’s waist and drove him to the floor. They both went down. Tom put both his booted heels to Tungar’s chest and shoved him over backwards. On hands and knees Tom went for his sabre, which was several feet away. He got his hand on the hilt and heaved. But the blade was stuck fast. It had been trapped in the open jaws of the snarling tiger’s head. Tom tugged again, it would not budge.

  Seeing Tom’s predicament, Tungar rolled to his feet and lifted the blade of the Neptune sword over Tom’s head. Once again he favoured the edge rather than the point. In the Malayalam language he shouted ugly and evil words that needed no translation.

  He swung the Neptune sword down with all his strength behind the blow. Tom shot out one booted foot and it caught Tungar in the knee-cap. Tungar’s litany of hatred was cut off abruptly and became a cry of pain. The sword blade hissed past Tom’s head and hit the floor, but despite the pain of his damaged knee Tungar retained his grip on the hilt. He staggered back, limping on the damaged leg, while Tom bounded to his feet and rushed at him again.

  Once more he locked both arms around Tungar, but this time from behind him and under his armpits so he could not reach back with the blue blade. Tom shoved him forward through the open doors that led onto the balcony, above the courtyard. With his damaged kneecap Tungar could not resist. Tom slammed him into the wooden guardrail, trying to force him to drop the Neptune sword.

  However the guardrail was unable to withstand the impetus of both their muscular bodies. Whether gunfire in the battle had weakened it, or whether it was simply the force of Tom’s charge, the rail splintered and gave way. Tungar crashed through. For a moment, he seemed to hang on the edge of the balcony, arms flailing for balance. Then he fell.

  Tom’s momentum almost carried him over too, but a firm hand on the scruff of his neck pulled him back from the brink.

  Tom shook himself free, and glanced back. Hicks stood behind him, a musket slung on his shoulder, but Tom hardly registered his salvation. He peered over the shattered edge of the balcony.

  Tungar lay on a pile of bodies. His right arm was flung out like a broken wing. And still clutched in his fist, was the Neptune sword. The resilience of the blade had survived the fall. It was unmarred and unmarked.

  Tom measured the drop with a calculating eye, then he changed his stance, positioning himself to make the jump. But Hicks grabbed him again. ‘Don’t be a bloody fool. Tom! You will break both your legs, and probably your neck into the bargain. It’s just a sword, not the Holy Grail.’ They grappled for a few moments longer.

  Then the people who had been looting the bodies of the dead and injured scattered around the square came running to cluster around Tungar. Some of them looked up, saw the two of them on the balcony and started shouting and pointing up at them. A few of them drew pistols and pointed them up at them.

  Tom capitulated and allowed Hicks to drag him back into the throne room.

  ‘I told you not to come back for me,’ he snarled at him.

  ‘It is as well I did,’ Hicks remarked drily. ‘And now we best make a run for home. Before the Rani and all her army come after us.’ Tom realized that he was endangering the lives of all their men, and he acceded to Hicks’ entreaties.

  The two of them ran back down the galleries. While behind them they heard the clamour of the guards who were searching for them.

  Finally, Hicks led Tom into one of the store rooms with barred windows. One of the grills had been ripped off. And beyond the opening was the tiled roof of an outbuilding. Hicks pushed Tom through the window and vaulted after him. They ran along the roof ridge to the far end. Open ground stretched beyond them to the outer palisade where Francis and the others were waiting for them.

  The drop was not too daunting. Tom lowered himself to the full stretch of his arms, and then let himself go. He landed in a patch of soft muddy ground and then beckoned Hicks to follow him. Hicks dropped the musket down to Tom, and then crouched to lower himself over the edge.

  Seemingly out of nowhere, a glistening steel snake shot out and wrapped itself around Hicks’ neck. Hicks grabbed for it with both hands and struggled to pull it loose, but it clenched around his throat; dragging him to his knees. His face swelled and turned crimson. He opened his mouth to scream but uttered no sound. The steel band snapped back, pulling him off his feet, and as he fell Tom saw a ring of blood outline the halter of steel that encircled his neck.

  As Tom watched helplessly, a figure stepped up behind Hicks. It was the man he had seen on the beach where the Kestrel had foundered, the man who had fired a shot at him minutes ago – and again Tom felt that strange intuition, the sense of destiny being fulfilled.

  Still watching Tom, the man made another movement with his right hand. The ring of bright steel that encircled Captain Hicks’ neck jumped tight. It cut down through skin and flesh, through veins and arteries, and then finally through sinew and vertebrae.

  Hicks was decapitated completely. His head tumbled from his shoulders, and a bright fountain of blood shot from the stump of his neck. He slumped forward and fell from Tom’s view behind the angle of the roof. His killer snapped his wrist again and the metal snake whipped back upon itself into a tight reel in his right hand.

  Tom raised the firelock and aimed at him. He pulled the trigger, but the weapon misfired. The killer laughed down at him, and in that instant Tom recognized his features and the sardonic tone of his laughter. This man was the spitting image of his brother Guy Courtney, or rather as Guy had been when he last laid eyes on him over twenty years previously.

  With another snap of his wrist, the killer unleashed the silver steel snake at Tom. It hummed in the air as it uncoiled down towards him. But then it stopped abruptly at its full extension, only a foot in front of Tom’s face. Tom jumped back with a startled cry.

  When he looked up again at the roof the killer and his infernal steel garrotte had disappeared. But Tom knew that he would never forget him.

  A chorus of shouts sounded from the palace gate. A band of the orange-sashed guards came charging around the corner. With a pang of remorse, and the murderer’s laughter ringing in his ears, Tom ran.

  From the top of the outer wall of the palace Francis and the sepoys urged him on. They reached down and helped him over the wall, as a volley of musket balls smacked into the brickwork below them.

  Then they were all over, but a long, long way from safety.

  Forcing himself to put Hicks’ fate out of his mind, Tom made a quick head count. Francis, the hubladar, five sepoys and the young Company factor who stared at the ground and fiddled with the buttons on his coat. They had four muskets between them.

  ‘How much powder and shot?’

  ‘Precious few balls. One flask of powder.’ Unlike the British armies, Indian troops had not yet adopted the ball cartridge, which combined the musket ball and the correct amount of powder in a paper wrapper.

  On the far side of the wall, Tom could hear the sounds of the Rani’s army mustering. The gates began to open. He grabbed the young factor by the shoulders.

  ‘Look at me.’ He shook him. ‘Look at me. What is your name?’

  ‘K … Kyffen, sir,’ he stammered.

  ‘Can you run?’

  Kyffen nodded.

  ‘Then get back to the factory as fast as you like. Tell them …’ Tom hesitated as he remembered the force they had left behind them when they left the factory; a handful of old men, women and boys. How could he hope to defend the fort with them?

  But what was the alternative? They had only the one small boat, and in the monsoon season it would be folly to trust it to the seas. On the other hand, the fortress’s walls were tall and thick. Even with the Centaurus’ guns, the Rani’s men could not have salvaged much ammunition. The defenders might hope to hold out for some time, with luck and good tactics. Perhaps long enough for reinforcement to reach them from Madras.

  Kyff
en was still waiting for orders. Tom felt the weighty responsibility of his decision, of the lives that depended on the choices he made now in the heat of this moment.

  ‘Tell them to prepare for a siege. We will delay the Rani’s men as long as we can.’

  Kyffen ran as if his feet were on fire. The others followed as far as the trees. Tom divided them into three pairs, each pair with a firelock, keeping one for himself.

  ‘Fire in turns,’ he ordered them. ‘One pair fires, the second reloads while the third retreats. And aim for the officers, as best you can. Their lack of training and discipline is our best hope now.’

  Afterwards, all Tom remembered of the retreat was the terror. Not for himself, but for Sarah and Agnes, the knowledge of what would happen to them if he failed. The journey was a constant blur of running, turning, firing, reloading and running again; always too slow, always conscious of their dwindling supply of ammunition, while the Rani’s vanguard pursued them remorselessly.

  Tom fired and ran back. He reached in his pocket for the next musket ball, but it was empty. He found Francis, crouched behind a tree waiting for his partner to reload.

  ‘Do you have any more musket balls?’

  ‘Two,’ Francis replied with a grin. ‘I can let you have one. If you promise not to miss.’

  ‘Your generosity is overwhelming.’ Tom tried to grin back at him, but the smile would not stay on his face.

  They had not covered much more than two or three miles. With daylight fading, and the road a mire, they could not hope to outrun the pursuit. The Rani had cavalry. If she released them it would all be over before nightfall.

  ‘We must give Mr Kyffen more time.’

  An explosion rent the air, so loud it shook a shower of water droplets from the trees above them. Tom looked back, dreading that the Rani’s guards had brought up their big guns. But he could not make out any pursuit. There was another deafening crash.