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A buffalo cart loaded with sugar cane creaked across the rough track ahead. ‘Namaste!’ Nick called to the driver. ‘What place is that, brother?’ He pointed downriver. ‘Is it a big town? Can we find a boat there?’
‘It is Kalpi, brother, and only one or two kos away,’ the man said and pondered the other questions. ‘Yes, it is big, for they make sugar there and there is much trade. Assuredly you will find many boats.’
Nick waved his thanks and turned Pavan to take the track downstream. ‘Almost there, then. Have you been on a river before?’
‘No, only the lake. Is it pleasurable?’
‘It can be,’ Nick said with some caution. Goodness knows what they would find to hire or buy. Something with separate sleeping accommodation for Anusha, that was certain. He wasn’t spending more than a week cooped up at night with this woman, her big, questioning grey eyes and soft, inquisitive hands and his own aching loins. Not if he could help it.
They were closer to the river now and it spread across perhaps half a league, its numerous channels braiding into loops and sandbanks. They would have the current to help them down, but he’d need someone who knew the river over a good distance, not simply a local boatman—
What is that? In front. Movement jerked him from a mental list of things to be done and back, with a jolt, to the present. Three men came out of the trees to the right, two on foot, one on a horse. Nick twisted in the saddle: two more men on foot behind them. The river cut sharply into the bank to their left, to the right the land rose to a heavily forested bluff. They had ridden right into an ambush.
‘Dacoits.’ He drew his sabre. ‘Stay behind me and don’t stop, whatever happens. I’m going to ride them down.’
One of the men on foot knelt, lifted something to his shoulder.
‘And keep low—they have guns!’ He sent Anusha a rapid glance, saw the dagger in her hand and then kicked Pavan straight at the man with the musket. It would spoil his aim, he would get up and run—
The blow, the pain, came before the sound of the shot. Nick reeled in the saddle, grabbed for the pommel, his left shoulder on fire. He hung on grimly, locked his fingers and raised the sabre. Pavan, trained to battle, rode right into the gunman, lethal hooves slashing, then turned, answering the pressure of Nick’s knees, to charge the horseman. A sweep of the sabre and the man was screaming, clutching his face where blood streamed down, before spurring for the forest.
There did not seem to be any sound. As if time had slowed, Nick hauled on Pavan’s reins and the excited horse spun again. Anusha had ridden Rajat straight at the third man and the black was rearing, lashing out. Behind them the remaining dacoits were running for cover.
Rajat’s front hooves hit the ground and the terrified man scrambled to his feet and dived into the brush. Anusha turned, her face white, the dagger clenched in her raised fist. There was blood on it. He saw her lips move, but he could not hear what she was saying. The pain in his shoulder was monstrous, a beast dragging at nerve and muscle with savage claws.
‘Go!’ he managed to shout. ‘Ride for the town!’ But she paid no heed. Perhaps he had made no sound, Nick thought as the forest tilted. Something was wrong, the ground shouldn’t be...
Chapter Nine
We have done it! With a cry of triumph on her lips Anusha twisted in the saddle, brandishing her knife. Five dacoits and she had helped Nick rout them!
Then she saw him fall across Pavan’s neck, the dark blue of his coat stained black over his heart, and her own heart seemed to stutter and stop. ‘No!’ She spurred Rajat forward. ‘Nick!’
The gelding reached its stable mate before Nick toppled to the ground and the horses seemed to know what to do, perhaps trained for this, she thought distractedly as she reached for the limp body that Rajat’s shoulder was supporting. With a heave, and strength she did not know she possessed, she got Nick back in the saddle and breathed again when he moved under her hands.
‘Thank you, Lord Krishna,’ she gasped as she steadied him. ‘He lives.’ She gave him a little shake. ‘Nick, can you hold on? I dare not dismount, they might come back.’
‘Yes.’ He dragged his eyes open with a visible effort. ‘Stop the bleeding...’
Anusha tore open her saddle bag and pulled out a linen shirt, worn for two days, but the best thing she had within reach. The horses stood like rocks while she fumbled Nick’s coat open. There seemed to be blood everywhere, but when she put her hand on his back it was dry. ‘The bullet’s still in there,’ she said as she stuffed the linen under his shirt. ‘Can you hold that?’
