Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress (5 page)

“What’s that?” Lucky pointed at something upstream.

It looked like a half-submerged log, wrapped up in cloth. The current brought it closer and Ash swung the lantern towards it.

A woman’s face gazed at him. Her mouth was partially open and filled with weeds. The skin was sallow and waxy, her eyes misty, and a damp thread of white hair hung over her wrinkled skin. She’d been wrapped in a rice sack: Ash recognised the Elephant logo of the Varanasi Best Rice Company.

Anita turned Lucky’s face away from the corpse, but Ash just stared, in spite of the tightness of his throat and the accelerated beating of his heart.

“Why didn’t they cremate her?” Ash asked. His uncle grunted as he strained with his strokes, eager to get them away from the dead woman.

Vik sighed. “Not everyone can afford the wood, Ash.”

So they just dumped her in the river.
Ash watched the woman float away until she was lost in the darkness.

The boat bumped against the bank. Trousers rolled up, Ash helped his uncle haul the boat out of the water. Uncle Vik pointed up the slope. “We’ll head up to the Seven Queens. It’s a good place for a picnic. You’ll have a great view over the countryside.”

Ash stopped as a sudden rush of coldness spread over him. “The Seven Queens?” What had Savage said about them?

“You’ll see,” said Uncle Vik.

The four of them clambered up the slope and on to the flat terrace of fields. The countryside was divided by shallow dried-out riverbeds that would only fill during the monsoon. A few bare trees dotted the landscape, and ahead were huts and tents, a few parked vehicles. They were all white Humvees, bearing the poppies and crossed-sword emblem of the Savage Foundation.

“The Seven Queens,” said Uncle Vik.

A row of seven white marble platforms glowed like pale bone in the bright moonlight. Over each stood a gently sloping marble canopy held up by slim columns.

“They’re beautiful,” said Aunt Anita. She stroked the marble with her fingertips. “Why are they called the Seven Queens?”

Uncle Vik gestured down-river, towards the palace. “They were the wives of the old maharajah. This marks the spot where they were cremated.”

Aunt Anita stopped and looked around. “You do pick the most romantic places, Vikram.”

hat are you working on, Uncle?” asked Lucky. “And when can I have my pony?”

“We’ll see about that,” said Aunt Anita.

“I want a black and white one.”

“Lucky…”

Uncle Vik took something from his pocket. As he held out his hand, Ash saw the glimmer of what looked like small square silver and gold coins.

“Get the magnifying glass and have a look,” Uncle Vik said, pointing at the tool-kit.

Using the glass Ash inspected the minute images stamped on the coins: long-horned cattle, bearded men, lithe women,
and shapes that seemed either distorted or a weird combination of human and animal.

“These are seals from a new dig out in Rajasthan,” Uncle Vik said.

Ash picked one up. “Where, exactly?”

“Savage is keeping most quiet about that, but I suspect Jaisalmer, in the Thar desert. There’ve been a few Harappan finds there over the years.”

“What finds?” Lucky asked as she arranged the seals on the picnic rug, checking them out with the big lens.

Vik took off his glasses and rubbed them with his shirt. He coughed as he put them on, going into professor mode.

“The Harappans were an incredibly advanced civilisation that prospered between six and four thousand years ago. They traded with the other civilisations of the age, the Old Kingdom Egyptians and the Mesopotamians. Then, overnight,” Vik snapped his fingers, “they disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Lucky put the seals down and wrapped her arms round her knees, her attention now on her uncle’s story.

Vik continued. “It was like they wanted to be forgotten. India went from being a great kingdom with links to all corners of the world to a cluster of illiterate villages, just
like that. The cities were consumed by the sands within a few decades. Uncanny.”

“War, then?” said Ash.

“No,” said Uncle Vik. “From the places we’ve excavated we’ve found no signs of weapons, burned buildings or broken walls, the usual signs of military conquest. The Harappans simply vanished from history. It’s only in the last hundred years that we’ve started uncovering their cities. Now Savage believes he’s found the capital.” Uncle Vik’s smile broadened. “Think what we might find there.”

“Maybe more treasure?” said Lucky.

Ash laughed to himself. She was no doubt hoping there would be an entire stable of ponies on offer if there was.

“To be sure there will be palaces, libraries, royal tombs and temples. Treasures in gold and in knowledge. The city hasn’t been disturbed for thousands of years. Whatever was buried there, still remains.” He picked up one of the seals. “I’ll probably go out there once I’ve finished Savage’s translations.”

“What are you translating?” asked Ash.

“An ancient royal treasury list,” said Uncle Vik. “Savage believes there’s treasure buried here, near Varanasi. It has some connection to the works out in Rajasthan, I just don’t quite know what yet.”

“Enough work. Eat,” said Aunt Anita as she opened a box and handed out fresh samosas. Uncle Vik fiddled with his old radio. The plastic box was held together by tape and elastic bands, but eventually he got some kind of Indian music station. The soft chords of a sitar strummed out, rising above the crackle of static and the whispers in the wind.

“Come on, Lucks.” Ash got up. He picked up one of the spare torches and flicked it on. “Let’s have a nose around.”

“Ash—”

“We’ll be careful, Uncle.”

They climbed about the ruins that dotted the northern fields of the old palace grounds. The walls were in poor condition. Local people had been steadily pilfering the bricks over the years to help assemble their own houses. There were rows of pits too, each neatly marked out with red string. Vik had told them how sites were searched: each area was divided into neat ten-metre-square packages and dug to an agreed depth, usually between three and five metres deep. Picks, shovels and trowels were neatly stacked up against the various huts and temporary offices, little more than awnings, with light and power fed by thick black electric cables that branched out from a rusty generator like a network of tentacles.

No one’s here
, Ash realised. That was strange. Once word
got out there was a dig going on you got amateur treasure hunters, thieves, who’d creep over the site at night, hoping for some gold or artefacts to sell on the black market. So why no guards?

And no workers either. There were tents, cooking equipment and all the signs of a large workforce, but no one around. They must commute in every day. That too was unusual. What was it about this place that frightened everyone?

And what was Savage looking for?

He couldn’t get the worry out of his head. There was more to this than merely translating the Harappan language and opening some ancient tomb.

“Look, Ash.” Lucky had a stick and was poking it under a rock. “I can hear something.” She put her foot against the stone and heaved. The big lump rocked a bit, and then some more as Lucky worked it back and forth.

“Lucks, I wouldn’t—”

It tipped over and cracked in two.

Scorpions poured out.

Shiny and black, they scuttled rapidly out of their now exposed hole under the rock.

Lucky screamed and jumped back on to one of the yellow
transformers. Ash backed away, kicking sand at the cluster of black shapes spilling over the ground towards him.

“Ash! Look out!”

Twine caught the back of his leg. Ash lurched, spinning his arms as he tried to keep upright. The thick cord tangled round his ankles as he tottered on the edge of one of the excavation pits.

Lucky reached out, but she was too far away. Ash fell backwards as the sandy earth beneath his feet collapsed.

sh hit the bottom hard, backside over elbow, banging the back of his head. A supernova of stars erupted behind his eyes as he lay there, coughing in the dust.

“Ash, are you OK?”

Ash winced as he touched the scratches on his face.

“Ash, say something. Please,” she said.

“This is all your fault.”

Lucky by name, lucky by nature. It was her that had upset the scorpions, but it was him at the bottom of the pit.

Scorpions. Oh, crap.

“Where are the scorpions?” he asked. He didn’t dare move. They could be sitting on him right now. In fact, he could
feel something there – oh, God, were they all over him? “Can you see them?”

“No.” But she didn’t sound that sure. “Dunno. Maybe they ran away. You don’t have any down there, do you?”

“Bloody hope not.”

Cautiously Ash pushed himself up, expecting a sharp stab in his back and the sudden injection of hot poison into his body at any moment. But nothing. He shook the dust off and waited until the dizziness passed. Then he looked around his hole. The pit was four, maybe five metres deep. But when Ash tried to clamber up the sides, the soft, sandy walls crumbled under his fingers.

“Can you see a ladder or anything?” he asked.

“No.” Lucky knelt over the edge. “I’m so sorry, Ash.”

“Just go and get Uncle Vik.”

“OK.” She stood up. “Don’t go anywhere.” Then she ran off, shouting.

Ash brushed himself down. Apart from the lump on the back of his head, he just had a few bruises and scratches, and a soft spot on his butt where he’d landed. He found the torch and, with a shake, a dim glow rose from the bulb. He searched the rest of the pit: there was a pick down here and a plastic water bottle filled with a yellow liquid that probably wasn’t lemonade.

“Lucks?”

Nothing. He couldn’t even hear her shouting. How far had they wandered? No idea. Would Lucky even recognise his hole? There were hundreds. He could be down here ages!

Ash lifted the pick. Maybe if he jammed it into the wall halfway he could use it like a step. He drew it over his head and swung with all his might. Dust and chunks cracked and fell off after a few hefty wallops.

What’s this?
He put his finger against a piece of rubble.

It was a brick. The corners were square and even. He saw that behind a few centimetres of the compact, hard sand was a brick wall, definitely man-made. He tapped it – it gave a dull, hollow sound.

That means there’s an open space on the other side.
He lifted up the pick and struck the wall, his muscles reinvigorated with excitement. He hit it again and again, breaking up the earth, knocking out bricks. Each blow sent a bone-jarring tremor right through him. A brick fell back with a sharp crack. Then another fell away until he was deafened by an avalanche of dust and sandstone.

Coughing harshly, Ash waved his arm at the dense cloud of dust until it cleared enough for him to see what had happened.

The wall had collapsed, showing a space beyond. Even in the weak torchlight Ash sensed the space was large. He dropped the pick and crawled through the hole, torch in hand.

He had to duck; the ceiling was just too low, dangerously bowed by the weight of sand above it. The ground above groaned and dust showered down over him. Not good.

The chamber was rectangular and as he swept the beam of light across the room it fell on a dusty, cobweb-covered statue.

Ash pulled away a handful of cobwebs. Roughly life-sized, the statue was bronze and of a muscular, blue-skinned man. In his right hand he held a curved bow, in his left an arrow.

Rama. India’s greatest mythological hero.

Light shone off the arrow, attracting Ash’s gaze. The shaft was ivory and the fletching white. But the light came from the arrowhead, a broad triangle of gold.

It looked like gold. Real gold.

Ash reached out with trembling fingers.

The ivory shaft crumbled as soon as he touched it. The arrowhead fell away and instinctively Ash grabbed it.

“Ouch!”

He felt the splinter go into his thumb and it stung like
crazy. The tip of the arrowhead had broken off, only a few millimetres of metal, and lodged itself deep in his flesh. Bloody hell, it stung like a scorpion.

How could it hurt so much? His head pounded like there was a drum behind his eyes. The statue seemed to sway, to come alive. Rama’s chest rose as he took a deep breath and he tore the cobwebs off his face.

Ash’s blood went cold. The face was his own.

Thud. Thud. Thud
. Each blow threatened to shatter him. Ash sank to his knees, clutching his head as waves of nausea engulfed him. The drum beat grew louder and louder until Ash could hear nothing more. He closed his eyes and screamed, but his cries vanished in the echo of the drum.