Eric Flint - An Oblique Approach

There were sounds now, of course. The muffled sound of bodies slumping to the floor, the splatter of arterial blood against walls. Loudest of all, perhaps, the gurgling sound of air escaping. The deep breaths which the torturers had taken in their brief moment of fear were hissing their way out, like suddenly ruptured water pipes.

Ye-tai guards, for all their arrogant sloppiness, would not have failed to hear those sounds. Even through a closed door.

But the priest and the six torturers standing guard in the room beyond that door heard nothing. Or, rather, heard but did not understand the hearing. Unlike Ye-tai warriors, they were not familiar with the sounds by which men go swiftly to their doom.

Other sounds of death, yes. Oh, many of them. Shrieks of pain, they knew. Howls of agony, they knew. Screams, yes. Wails, yes. Groans and moans, it goes without saying. Whimpers and sobs, they could recognize in their sleep. Even the hoarse, whispering, near-silent hiss from a throat torn bloody by hours of squalling terror—that they knew. Knew well.

But the faint sounds which came through the door, those they did not recognize. (Though one torturer, puzzled, stepped to the door and began to open it.) Those were the sounds of quick death, and quick death was a stranger to the men beyond that door.

It would be a stranger no longer.

The full surging fury, now. The door vanished, splintered in passing by the monsoon that wreaked its way into the room.

In its wooden disintegration, the pieces of the door knocked one torturer to the floor, staggered another. The Wind ignored, for the moment, the one on the floor. The one who staggered found the best of all balance—flat on his back, dead. Slain by a truly excellent dagger, which carved its way out of the scrawny chest as easily as it ravened its way in.

The five other Malwa in the room gasped. Their eyes widened with fear and shock. And, most of all, utter disbelief.

Odd sentiments, really, especially on the part of the priest. Had he not himself, time and again, explained to the mahamimamsa that butchery and slaughter were blessed by the Vedas? (Other Indian priests and mystics and sadhus had denied the claim, hotly and bitterly—had even called the Mahaveda cult an abomination in the eyes of God. But they were silent now. The mahamimamsa had done their work.)

And so, when the monsoon billowed into the room, the men therein should have appreciated the divine core of the experience. Yet, they didn't. Scandalous behavior, especially for the priest. The other Malwa in the room could perhaps be excused. For all their ritual pretensions, their desultory half-memorization of the Vedas, the mahamimamsa were simply crude artisans of a trade which is crude by nature. It is understandable, therefore, that when that same trade was plied upon them, they could see nothing in it but a dazzling exhibition of the craft.

The mahamimamsa lying prostrate on the floor never had time to be dazzled. The erupting door which had knocked him down had also stunned him. He just had a momentary, semiconscious glimpse of the stamping iron heel which ruptured his heart.

The next mahamimamsa was more fortunate. The same iron-hard foot hurled him into a corner, but did not paralyze his mind along with his body. So he was privileged. He would be the last to die, after the Wind swept all other life from the room. He would have ample time to admire the supreme craftsmanship of murder.

About four seconds.

The priest died now. From a slash across the carotid artery so short and quick that even Valentinian, had he seen, would have been dazzled by the economy of the deed. Then a mahamimamsa, from an elbow strike to the temple so violent it shredded half his brain with bone fragments and jellied the other half from sheer impact.

Another mahamimamsa, another carotid. Not so miserly, that slash—it almost decapitated the torturer.

Finally, now, a Malwa had time to cry out alarm. The cry was cut short, reduced to a cough, by a dagger thrust to the heart.

Only one mahamimamsa, of the seven Malwa who had been in that room, managed to draw a weapon before he died. A short, slightly curved sword, which he even managed to raise into fighting position. The Wind fell upon him, severed the wrist holding the sword, pulverized his kneecap with a kick, and shattered the torturer's skull with the pommel of the dagger in the backstroke.

In the fourth, and last second, the Wind swirled through the corner of the room where his kick had sent a torturer sprawling, and drove the dagger point through the mahamimamsa's eye and into his brain. The marvelous blade sliced its way out of the skull as easily as it butchered its way in.

Swift death, incredibly swift, but—of course—by no means silent. There had been the shattering of the door, the half-cough/half-cry of one torturer, the crunching of bones, the splatter of blood, the clatter of a fallen sword, and, needless to say, the thump of many bodies falling to the floor and hurled into the walls.

The Wind could hear movement behind the last door barring the way to his treasure. Movement, and the sharp yelps of men preparing for battle. Two men, judging from the voices.

Then—other sounds; odd noises.

The Wind knew their meaning.

The Wind swept to that door, dealt with it as monsoons deal with such things, and raged into the room beyond. The chamber of the Princess Shakuntala. Where, even in sleep, she could not escape the glittering eyes of cruelty.

Two mahamimamsa, just as the Wind had thought.

Unpredictable, eerie wind. For now, at the ultimate moment, at the peaking fury of the storm, the monsoon ebbed. Became a gentle breeze, which simply glided slowly forward, as if content to do no more than rustle the meadows and the flowers in the field.

Only one mahamimamsa, now. The other was dead. Dying, rather.

The Wind examined him briefly. The torturer was expiring on the floor, gagging, both hands clutching his throat. The Wind knew the blow which had collapsed the windpipe—the straight, thumb and finger spread, arm stiff, full-bodied, lunging strike with the vee of the palm. He had delivered that blow's twin not a minute earlier, to the priest in the domed hall.

Had the Wind himself delivered the strike which had sent this mahamimamsa to his doom, the torturer would have been dead before he hit the floor. But the blow had been delivered by another, who, though she had learned her skill from the Wind, lacked his hurricane force.

No matter. The Wind was not displeased. Truly, an excellent blow. Skillfully executed, and—to the Wind's much greater satisfaction—selected with quick and keen intelligence. The man might not die immediately. But, however long he took, he would never utter more than a faint croak in his passing.

In the event, he died now, instantly. The Wind saw no reason for his existence, and finished his life with a short, sudden heel stamp.

The blow was delivered almost idly, however, for the Wind's primary attention was on the final foe, and his demise.

Here, the Wind found cause for displeasure, disgruntlement. Deep grievance; great dissatisfaction.

As was her unfortunate tendency, the imperious princess had not been able to resist the royal gesture.

True, admitted the Wind, she had obviously started well. The swift, sharp kick to the groin. Well chosen, that, from the vast armory the Wind had given her. A paralyzing blow—semiparalyzing, at the very least—and, best of all, paralyzing to the vocal cords. A sharp cough, a low moan, no more.

She had delivered that kick first, the Wind knew. Knew for a certainty, though the Wind had not been present in the room.

Just as the Wind had taught her, when dealing with two opponents. The quick, disabling strike to one; the lethal blow to the other; return and finish the first. (It was a simple sonata form which the Wind itself did not always follow, of course. But the Wind was a maestro, skilled in variations because it was master of the tune.)