The major's eyes crinkled with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Enterprising. Your mother and the man she lives with, did they approve?"

"They died in a fire long before I was shoveling horses.h.i.t."

"I'm sorry for your difficult life. Did you ever consider that you were meant to join the army?"

THE HARDSHIPS OF SURVIVING on London's streets had seemed the worst that anyone could endure, but the artist's new training took him far beyond his former ability to withstand fatigue, heat, hunger, thirst, and lack of sleep. The strange part was, he welcomed it. He proudly developed resources of strength and determination that he hadn't imagined were possible. He learned to ignore the threat of pain and death. Fear became an unfamiliar emotion, even as he vowed to make the enemy suffer fear in the extreme.

He was transformed into one of the warriors that the major had spoken about.

He received better food.

His lodgings were less cramped.

He was given respect.

He loved it.

"Your mission is to guard the opium caravans," the major told the artist's elite unit. "The land distance from India to China is less than the sea distance. In theory, the shorter distance should be quicker, but overland has these mountains"-the major tapped a pointer against a map on a wall-"where marauders attack our caravans and steal the opium. We send heavily armed cavalry to protect the caravans. It doesn't matter. The caravans continue to vanish. Tons of opium have been stolen."

The major directed his attention toward the artist. "We believe that the marauders are Thugs. Repeat what we taught you about the Thugs."

The artist responded without hesitation. "Major, they're a criminal cult that worships Kali, the Hindu G.o.ddess of death. She's sometimes called the Devourer. That's why she has so many arms in paintings of her. The Thugs specialize in stealing from travelers, usually killing them by strangulation."

"Correct as always," the major said.

The artist kept his face impa.s.sive but felt the pleasure of receiving approval.

"The British East India Company wants you to stop them," the major commanded the unit. "No, not merely stop them. Make them understand the unspeakable consequences of challenging the empire."

FORTY NATIVES ACCOMPANIED THE CARAVAN. They managed the oxen that pulled the twenty wagons. They herded goats that were used for milk and meat. All were trusted employees of the British East India Company.

Each day, the artist and two members of his unit walked next to the wagons and a.s.sessed the behavior of the natives. Each night, they stepped into the dark and studied the camp, looking for secret conversations.

The cavalry escort amounted to forty, its captain sending riders ahead to look for ambushes. Villages became widely separated. As the land rose, trees gave way to gra.s.sland and boulders. The higher alt.i.tude made the animals and men breathe harder. Streams rushed from the distant mountains, their water so cold that it made the artist's teeth ache.

"Three days to the pa.s.s through the mountains," the native guide said.

"Any risk of snow?"

"Not this time of year, but anything is possible."

Indeed anything was possible. Two cavalry outriders galloped back in alarm. The caravan crested a plateau. Ravens and vultures erupted into the air, revealing the remnants of a caravan that had departed two weeks earlier. That caravan had included other members of the artist's unit.

Bones lay everywhere, scattered by predators. The bones of humans only. All the oxen, horses, and goats were missing, as were the wagons and their contents. The bodies had been stripped, no fragments of garments on any of the skeletons.

Portions of foul-smelling flesh remained, but not enough to indicate wounds. None of the bones showed signs of violence from firearms or blades, however. If those weapons had been used, at least some of the bones would surely have displayed damage. That forced the artist to conclude that all eighty-three people in the caravan-cavalry, natives, and three highly trained members of the artist's unit-had been strangled.

"I don't see how this is possible," he told the cavalry commander. "Granted, the natives didn't know how to defend themselves, but our hors.e.m.e.n did, and they had rifles as well as swords. The members of my special unit were even more capable. Nonetheless all of them were overpowered."

The odor of decay was strong enough that the artist and the soldiers worked quickly, handkerchiefs tied over their faces, to collect the bones into a huge pile and cover them with rocks. Normally the races wouldn't have been mingled, but because there wasn't any way to distinguish the bones of natives from those of the English cavalry, it seemed better to group all of them together and be certain that the English received a Christian burial. Prayers were said. The oxen, horses, and goats kept reacting to the smell of death, so to quiet them, the caravan moved a mile ahead, formed a circle, and camped near a stream.

The night sky was brilliant. With so much natural illumination, the wagons were already exposed, so there was no reason not to build cooking fires.

The cavalry commander a.s.signed sentries. As the natives and the soldiers prepared food, the artist and the two members of his unit hoped that so much activity would conceal them from anyone watching. They crawled from camp and established their own sentry posts at three equal compa.s.s points, northeast, northwest, and south. They each took a packet of biscuits and a canteen filled with stream water.

Away from the fires, the night was bitterly cold. The artist lay among rocks and used force of will to keep from shivering. I can withstand anything, he told himself, remembering the sergeant's words. What doesn't kill me makes me strong.

The fires didn't last long, their fuel coming from gra.s.s, animal droppings, spa.r.s.e bushes, and the branches of a solitary, long-dead tree.

The artist kept scanning his surroundings.

A shadow moved among the wagons, perhaps a guard coming back from his watch while another man took his place. A later shadow might have been a native relieving his bladder beyond a wagon.

The camp settled into sleep.

Another shadow appeared, detaching itself from the circle of wagons. Close to the ground, it came in the artist's direction.

As the artist drew his knife, the moon cast a shadow of someone behind him.

The artist rolled an instant before a figure leapt toward him. The moon's illumination was enough to reveal that the figure had a rope with a knot in it and that the figure looped it over where the artist's throat had been. The artist stabbed him, stifling his moans. He surged up to meet the second figure, surprising him, thrusting under his rib cage while pressing a hand against his mouth.

The artist didn't allow himself even a moment to exult in his victory. What he felt now were the tightened nerves and compacted muscles of an animal confronted by an enemy. Something terrible was happening to the camp, and he had the even more terrible sense that he might not be able to stop it.

He crawled silently in that direction, then stopped as he realized that just as he had seen the shadow crawl toward him, so an enemy in the camp could see him approaching. That shadow had been a decoy, drawing his attention while the true a.s.sa.s.sin had come from behind him.

Are there others behind me? he thought.

He hugged the ground, trying to a.s.sess which direction posed the greater threat. Three clangs from an oxen bell puzzled him. Soon, he noticed silhouettes moving among the wagons. They bent and tugged at various objects. His stomach hardened when he realized what they were doing-stripping clothes from corpses. The silhouettes put the clothes in the wagons, along with various objects that had been unpacked to prepare the night's meal. They hitched the oxen to the wagons. They herded the goats together and tied the horses to the backs of the wagons.

The artist had no doubt that everyone in the camp was dead.

He had no doubt about something else as well. The silhouettes moving among the wagons would soon want to know why the two men sent to kill him hadn't returned.

He crawled away from the camp, scanning the horizon for threats. The two members of his unit who had established their own sentry posts-had they possibly survived? When he judged that he was far enough away, he moved in a circle, searching for where the other men had taken their positions.

Now he again saw moving shadows-two silhouettes tugging clothes from a body that could only belong to one of his comrades.

Loyalty fought against common sense. So far, he had counted at least twenty silhouettes. He knew that one man in his special unit was dead. What were the odds that the other man had survived? If so, what would that man decide to do? There was no way to save the caravan. The mission now became to determine how the caravan had been overwhelmed and to pa.s.s that information to the next caravan that would come through here in two weeks.

The artist knew that his comrade wouldn't be foolhardy. If the man was alive, he would back away and hide, as the artist now planned to do. They were trained to be self-reliant. They would survive to defeat this enemy another day.

Hide? Where? The landscape was barren, except for boulders and the stream. Using the cavalry horses, the marauders who overwhelmed the caravan would easily be able to search the area for miles in every direction.

The artist made a wide semicircle. Staying low, he retraced the route that the caravan had used to arrive here. He didn't know if the attackers had the skill to follow his tracks. To eliminate the risk, he walked backward where the animals and wagons had crushed gra.s.s and torn up the ground.

A glow over the eastern hills warned that the sun would soon rise. No matter how low he stayed as he ran, he would soon be visible. Hors.e.m.e.n could easily catch him. He needed to conceal himself.

He suddenly realized where he was-near the mound that contained the bones of the previous caravan. As the light increased, the artist sprinted toward the rocks, removed some, made a tunnel among the bones, crawled in, pulled the rocks back into place, and arranged the bones so that they concealed him.

The stench of the rotting flesh made him vomit the biscuits he'd eaten while watching the caravan. Willpower wasn't enough to keep him from throwing up. The odor was so disgusting and visceral that his body took charge. Buried by death, he fought not to shiver from the cold of the rib cages and skulls above and below him and all around him. Tense, he listened for the sound of approaching horses and voices.

They came soon. Although the artist didn't understand their language, their tone was urgent and angry. Evidently the marauders had found the bodies of the men who had tried to kill him. They knew that at least one member of the caravan remained alive, and they were determined to find him.

The majority of the horses galloped past. Some did not, however. The artist heard the animals shy from the stench, making it difficult for their riders to control them. Someone seemed to suggest that they pull the rocks off the mound and search through the bones. The others protested in disgust. The horses became more upset.

The hors.e.m.e.n finally galloped on, following the caravan's tracks down the slope. The artist a.s.sumed that other searchers pursued in other directions.

Feeling crushed by the bones, he took shallow breaths, working to control his nausea. His muscles ached from tension and cramps because of not being able to move.

He thought about the knotted rope with which an attacker had tried to strangle him. The weapon was favored by the Thug cult. But that didn't explain how they'd been able to overwhelm forty cavalry soldiers, forty natives, and one, if not two, members of his highly trained unit. Surely one of the soldiers could have fired a shot before being strangled, or else one of the natives would have cried in alarm. But all of them had died silently.

How was that possible?

The artist lay among the bones, shivering and brooding, trying to understand how the attack had occurred. Presumably the Thugs had watched from a distance and approached the wagons after dark.

But how had they soundlessly overwhelmed so many so quickly? Had some of the natives rebelled? But those natives had worked for the British East India Company many years. Why would they suddenly have become traitors?

The artist's mind retraced the route of the caravan. At one point, they had allowed a one-legged old man to join them so that he could travel to reach his son's family in a mountain village. Later, a wizened grandmother with a little girl had also joined the caravan. The little girl had needed a doctor's attention, and now they were returning home.

The artist had objected, but the natives had told him that it was customary to allow the helpless to join a caravan, and after all, how could a one-legged old man, a wizened grandmother, and a little girl be threats?

Rethinking the decision to let them come along, the artist couldn't disagree with that logic. There was no way that those weak people could have overcome so many natives and soldiers.

That took him back to his initial thought, that some of the natives had betrayed the caravan.

The vibration of hooves brought his mind to attention. He heard the rumble coming closer. Returning, the attackers sounded even more angry and frustrated. How he wished that he could understand what they were saying. Had they decided to stop hunting him? What were their plans? If he survived, he swore, he would learn as many local languages as he could.

They galloped back in the direction of the wagons. Soon, the artist heard the distant clatter of the caravan departing. Wary, he didn't move. Even after he could no longer hear the animals and wagons, he didn't move. Someone might have been left behind to study the landscape and see if he crept from cover.

The morning became silent. His arms and legs demanded to be allowed to move, but he remained immobile beneath the cold bones and the heavy rocks. The small amount of sunlight that reached him changed direction as morning turned to afternoon.

But he didn't move. He occupied his mind by trying to understand how the caravan had been overwhelmed.

The specks of light dimmed as the sun changed direction, afternoon turning to twilight.

Then everything was dark.

The artist had long since urinated on himself. His mouth was so dry that his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

He remained in place.

When he realized that despite his discipline and determination, he had fallen asleep, he bit his lower lip, drawing blood to rouse himself, and decided that if he didn't take the chance of leaving his burrow he might lapse into unconsciousness there.

Slowly, silently, he pushed rocks away from the bones. His arms didn't want to work. With small, careful movements, he emerged from the ma.s.sive grave, but no matter how deeply he breathed, he couldn't clear the odor of decay.

The night sky was again brilliant. Crawling so slowly that he hoped his movements would be imperceptible, the artist moved toward the stream. He plunged his head into it, the icy water shocking him into alertness. Like an animal, he looked cautiously around to make certain that he wasn't being stalked. He took a deep swallow. Another. And another. The cold water pained his tongue and throat, and made him more alert.

Scanning the area for moving shadows, he reached into his pockets and nibbled the remainder of the biscuits that he had taken with him the night before. His stomach protested, but he forced down the food, needing strength.

The departing wagons had gone to the west. His own direction needed to be southeast, toward the caravan that would reach this area in two weeks. Staying low, he followed the stream down the slope.

And stopped.

The bodies of the soldiers and natives he had traveled with beckoned him. As much as he wanted to leave, the dead men insisted. He hadn't been able to protect the caravan. That left him with the obligation of learning how so many men had been overwhelmed.

Mustering grim resolve, he turned and approached where the wagons had stopped the previous night. He was ready with his knife, expecting that at any moment a shadow would attack him. In the moonlight, he saw long objects on the ground. Some were pale.

They were bodies stripped of their clothing. Vultures had torn off parts of them. A wolf raised its head from eating, sensed how dangerous the artist was, and skulked away.

Perhaps one of the attackers had remained and pretended to be a corpse. The artist doubted it. The night was so cold that he couldn't imagine anyone being able to lie naked on the ground for hour after hour.

He would know soon enough. Ready to defend himself, he examined each body, eighty of them, plus his two comrades whose bodies he discovered at their sentry positions.

Eighty-two.

He a.s.sumed that the raiders would have taken the bodies of the two men who'd attacked him. But even so, there should have been eighty-five corpses, including the one-legged old man, the wizened grandmother, and the little girl. The latter three were nowhere to be found.

They'd been Thugs.

But it didn't make sense. How could a crippled old man, a bent-forward grandmother, and a little girl have silently overpowered so many people, including soldiers with combat experience?

The beginning odor of death hung over the moonlit field as the artist inspected the corpses to determine what had killed them. But in only two cases was the cause of death obvious-his two compatriots all had marks on their throats that indicated they'd been strangled. As for the others, except for what the wolves and the vultures had started to do, there weren't any injuries.

How is this possible? It's almost as if eighty people fell asleep and never woke up.

Fell asleep? At once, the artist understood what had happened. The crippled old man, the wizened grandmother, and the little girl had poisoned the food that was being prepared, probably adding powder to the pots of water that were boiled for tea. They must have been trained to do it so they wouldn't be noticed. After the poison had its effect, they had rung the oxen bell three times, signaling for the rest of their band to enter the camp and collect their spoils. The only reason that the artist and his two comrades hadn't been poisoned was that they'd put biscuits in their pockets and left while the meal was being prepared, wanting to use the activity in camp to conceal their stealthy movements as they chose their sentry positions.

Poison.

Yes.

The artist crept from the field of death. He ran southeast in a crouch for several miles, then felt safe enough to straighten. By then, the sun was up, adding its warmth to the heat generated by his urgency. Eventually he was forced to moderate his pace, eating a few biscuits from his pockets as he moved. Soon he ran again. When he slept, it was only briefly. At all costs, he needed to reach the next caravan. He couldn't take for granted that the Thugs would wait until the caravan reached this area. They might change their tactics and attack earlier.

He pushed himself to his limit. On the second day, he reached a farm, where he paid for food and a robe. All the while, he kept his wary attention on the farmer and his family, suspecting they might be Thugs.

He hurried on, watching for anyone who might follow him from the farm. He reached a village, but instead of entering, he veered around it during the night, suspicious that Thugs might live there. He descended relentlessly.

On the seventh day, he staggered across a field and found the next caravan. By then, he looked so haggard, windburned, and wild that a cavalry patrol challenged him, believing him to be a native.

"English," he managed to say past his swollen tongue as they aimed rifles at him.

"That's right. We're English. Put your hands in the air."

"No, I'm English." His raw throat made his speech indistinct.

"The beggar can barely talk. Search him for weapons."

"Wait. I think I recognize him. Robert? Is that you, Robert?"