Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

saw the soldier’s trigger finger tighten. She wept and closed her eyes.
    The expected detonation never came. She heard a grunt, and when she opened her eyes she saw the soldier slumped on the ground, his head twisted at a strange and unlikely angle. There was a blur of motion and the second soldier screamed as something attacked him, twisted his neck with a snap and discarded him like a rag doll.
    The third soldier backed off, terror in his eyes, as Jelch advanced. The soldier fumbled with his weapon, raised it and tried to find the trigger. He was too slow. Jelch yanked his rifle from his grip, reversed it and, as the Russian stared in horror, the creature stepped forward and drove the weapon through his sternum with a terrible crunch of breaking bone.
    A silence sealed itself over the suddenly motionless tableau, broken after a second by the beautiful singing of a song bird.
    Jelch turned and stared at Jani, its deathly white, flattened face expressionless. Then it took off at speed and was soon lost to sight amidst the wreckage of the airship.
    Jani felt a hot flush spread from her chest and rise into her head. Her ankle throbbed as if someone was prodding it with a red hot poker, and the pain in the small of her back surged.
    Lady Eddington, eyes shut tight, was still reciting the Psalm.
    Jani wanted to tell the dowager that her prayers had been answered, but she felt a sudden and overwhelming nausea.
    Clutching Lady Eddington’s hand, she passed out.

CHAPTER
    FOUR
     

     
    Das addresses his followers –
    The perfidy of the British – The age of Kali –
    “Obey my commands...”
     
     
    D URGA D AS SAT in the shade of the banyan tree, in a square on the outskirts of Delhi, and addressed his followers.
    It was late afternoon on a punishingly hot summer’s day and even the dogs had not yet ventured from the shadows. The only sounds were the distant hum of the city, the occasional thrum of an airship as it passed overhead, and the mellifluous drone of Das’s voice as he stressed to the crowd the iniquitous nature of British rule in India.
    He was a huge man swaddled in the tangerine robes of a high priest, his belly hammocked in his lap. A garland of marigolds hung around his neck, lost in the cataract of his grey beard. On his broad forehead was painted a single word in Hindi, Kali ... For Durga Das was a follower of Kali, the goddess of time and change and the consort of Shiva.
    For two hours he had worked the crowd into a fervour of indignation, and then rage, as he outlined the crimes committed by the British. “They came to our great land,” he said in Hindi, “and posed as traders, beneficent people with only the buying of spices in mind. They persuaded our forefathers with sweet words – but is it not written that the vicious, despite their honeyed words, have poison in their hearts? And very soon they showed their true colours; when their evil agents had gained our trust, worked their wiles on our gullible leaders, then little by little they exerted their considerable powers, dividing and conquering, setting maharajah against maharajah, nawab against nawab; and then they sent in their soldiers – for our protection, they claimed – and the rot had set in. For it is written that the cruel are feared even by the wise. From then on, the story has been one of relentless conquest, rape and pillage, as the British took what is rightfully ours and imposed their decadent ways on our people...”
    They were a simple crowd, composed mainly of stall-holders, street-hawkers and the unemployed; he could get away with half-truths, generalisations, and the occasional quote from holy texts. If challenged, he would say that he would use any weapon in his armoury against the British oppressors, even lies; if lies were the means to a desired end, then so be it. What mattered was that he instil in the hearts of the people the basic truth, that India belonged to the Indians and the British were not wanted here.
    “Down