you can try your luck out there,” he said, pointing at a slum to their left. “You’d last about ten minutes. They’d cut your throat for your shoes, much less any money you might have, and you’d be praying for the police to find you and drag you off to prison. Want to test my patience? Because I’m in a seriously bad mood, and I’m getting tired of being interrogated like a schoolboy while I save your sorry ass.”
Drake decided to err on the side of prudence and sat back. Allie squeezed his hand, which was slim comfort as they bounced along to an unknown destination in a country he’d already grown to hate in only a few short hours.
Chapter 10
India-governed Jammu and Kashmir
Two men carried a stretcher down a trail toward a clearing near the ruins of an ancient stone structure, now little more than rubble. Three more toted torches, whose flames provided light in the darkness. Fog curled around them, lending them the appearances of spectral phantoms as they trudged down the path. All wore the traditional garb of mountain peasants: stained, ragged handmade robes and callused bare feet.
At the clearing, they approached a tall post at the center of a flat stone area, perhaps once a terrace or courtyard but now unrecognizable. The men were obviously nervous, glancing around furtively as they set the stretcher on the ground.
A rail-thin young man lay on the coarse canvas, clad only in an orange loincloth, his form so emaciated that his ribs jutted through his skin. He moaned and glanced at his bearers first in confusion and then in growing horror as he realized where he’d been taken. He’d never been to the cursed place, but the legends were of nightmare proportion, and evil seemed to emanate from the ruins like poison smoke.
“No…” he managed, his voice a croak. “Please. I beg you.”
The torch carriers looked away, and one of the two stretcher bearers grunted as he knelt beside him. “Your time is almost at hand. Be brave. It is an honor,” he said.
“It’s…a…a…gah,” he gasped, his energy spent.
“Your approval is not required.”
“Please. Water.”
The other stretcher bearer frowned. “Why waste it on the likes of him?”
The two men lifted the boy’s frail form and dragged him to the post, where they lashed his wrists behind him so the pole supported him in a standing position. Even in the dark they could make out the stained stone beneath it, the regular rains insufficient to rinse them completely clean. After studying their handiwork, one of the torchbearers walked to an old brass bell suspended from a nearby tree and rang it twice, and then tossed his torch onto a pile of branches and kindling ringed by stones. Orange tongues of flame licked from the fire pit as he raced to rejoin his companions, his expression frightened.
The bell’s last peal echoed through the area as the men rushed back up the path, and soon the faint glow of their torches had dimmed to nothing. The youth’s eyes drifted shut as silence reclaimed the clearing. His breathing was shallow, and his chin rested on his emaciated chest.
A sound from across the field jolted him back to full alertness, and his eyes popped open in terror. A procession of robed figures shambled toward him from out of the darkness. A monotone chant preceded them, one word, over and over, barely distinguishable, but to the youth as clear as the ringing of the bell. The name of the goddess of destruction, the deity that the approaching cult worshipped, the object of their devotion…and bloodlust.
Kali.
He offered a silent prayer and resolved to accept his fate without resistance. His strength had long since abandoned him; his body was nothing but a shell, powerless to fight an unstoppable force older than history. Nothing he said, no plea or offer, would halt the cult’s macabre ceremony, and he wouldn’t spend his last moments demeaning himself. He knew that he was wasting away from the illness that had claimed so many
Drake decided to err on the side of prudence and sat back. Allie squeezed his hand, which was slim comfort as they bounced along to an unknown destination in a country he’d already grown to hate in only a few short hours.
Chapter 10
India-governed Jammu and Kashmir
Two men carried a stretcher down a trail toward a clearing near the ruins of an ancient stone structure, now little more than rubble. Three more toted torches, whose flames provided light in the darkness. Fog curled around them, lending them the appearances of spectral phantoms as they trudged down the path. All wore the traditional garb of mountain peasants: stained, ragged handmade robes and callused bare feet.
At the clearing, they approached a tall post at the center of a flat stone area, perhaps once a terrace or courtyard but now unrecognizable. The men were obviously nervous, glancing around furtively as they set the stretcher on the ground.
A rail-thin young man lay on the coarse canvas, clad only in an orange loincloth, his form so emaciated that his ribs jutted through his skin. He moaned and glanced at his bearers first in confusion and then in growing horror as he realized where he’d been taken. He’d never been to the cursed place, but the legends were of nightmare proportion, and evil seemed to emanate from the ruins like poison smoke.
“No…” he managed, his voice a croak. “Please. I beg you.”
The torch carriers looked away, and one of the two stretcher bearers grunted as he knelt beside him. “Your time is almost at hand. Be brave. It is an honor,” he said.
“It’s…a…a…gah,” he gasped, his energy spent.
“Your approval is not required.”
“Please. Water.”
The other stretcher bearer frowned. “Why waste it on the likes of him?”
The two men lifted the boy’s frail form and dragged him to the post, where they lashed his wrists behind him so the pole supported him in a standing position. Even in the dark they could make out the stained stone beneath it, the regular rains insufficient to rinse them completely clean. After studying their handiwork, one of the torchbearers walked to an old brass bell suspended from a nearby tree and rang it twice, and then tossed his torch onto a pile of branches and kindling ringed by stones. Orange tongues of flame licked from the fire pit as he raced to rejoin his companions, his expression frightened.
The bell’s last peal echoed through the area as the men rushed back up the path, and soon the faint glow of their torches had dimmed to nothing. The youth’s eyes drifted shut as silence reclaimed the clearing. His breathing was shallow, and his chin rested on his emaciated chest.
A sound from across the field jolted him back to full alertness, and his eyes popped open in terror. A procession of robed figures shambled toward him from out of the darkness. A monotone chant preceded them, one word, over and over, barely distinguishable, but to the youth as clear as the ringing of the bell. The name of the goddess of destruction, the deity that the approaching cult worshipped, the object of their devotion…and bloodlust.
Kali.
He offered a silent prayer and resolved to accept his fate without resistance. His strength had long since abandoned him; his body was nothing but a shell, powerless to fight an unstoppable force older than history. Nothing he said, no plea or offer, would halt the cult’s macabre ceremony, and he wouldn’t spend his last moments demeaning himself. He knew that he was wasting away from the illness that had claimed so many
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