The Vengeance of Indra by Shatrujeet Nath

Author:Shatrujeet Nath [Shatrujeet Nath]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Vikramaditya Veergatha: Book 3 — The Vengeance of Indra
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Published: 2017-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Promise

Hey,” he shouted. Then louder, “Hey you... can you hear me?”

His head almost didn’t hurt when he was sitting still, his back pressed to the rough stone wall of his cell. When he moved, it throbbed with a dull, insistent pain that he had somehow learned to ignore. But the effort of shouting brought an explosion of agony, a shower of pain that sent shards down his neck and caused his world to tilt precariously. Still he shouted, doing what he could to attract the attention of whoever was outside.

“Hey, I know you can hear me, you idiots. Let me out.” He shook his manacled fists vigorously, partly in frustration, partly with the idea of getting the heavy chain and bracket tethering him to the wall to rattle loudly enough for the sound to carry outside. The metal links chinked against one another dully, and the chain clattered and sank to the cold stone floor in an abrupt little collapse. “Heyy!”

Fighting the giddy spin of the room and the accompanying wave of pain that cascaded down his neck and shoulders, he paused, ear cocked in the direction of the broad, wooden door, waiting to hear the sound of approaching footsteps.

Nothing.

He turned his attention to the small window set high in one wall, impossible to reach because there was nothing to stand on, and impossible to breach because of the thick mesh of iron bars stretched across its opening. Outside, whoever had been pounding grain had gone silent, and for a moment, it seemed his cries were going to be answered. But the next instant, the rhythmic beat of a mortar striking a wooden pestle resumed, and he felt the despair rise to his mouth, bitter like bile.

“Hey,” he half-shouted, half-snarled, flinching as the pain triggered a kaleidoscope of sparks under his eyelids. “Let me out of here, you... you retards. You don’t know who I am. I am Ghatakarpara, nephew of Samrat Vikramaditya. Release me now and I will make sure you are treated with mercy. Release me. Hey.”

The prince had no idea where he was or how many days had passed since the evening he had been waylaid by the little stream. He had surfaced to consciousness slowly — it had felt like rising out of a river, submerging again, then coming back up for air, sinking, then up again — and he couldn’t say for certain how long he had been drifting in and out. He had a vague recollection of people carrying him on a litter made of cane, a strip of blue sky with high, rugged mountain ridges on both sides slipping past over his head. Another time, he lay on hard ground, a fire was burning nearby while the sky overhead was full of stars, and he could hear someone playing a drum. Maybe these were just dreams, though the more he thought of them, the more he knew they weren’t.

Because always, always, there had been that splitting pain in his head. Inside his head.

Ghatakarpara

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