“Veer!” She shook him.
“Quiet!”
“What?”
Some of the clarity returned to his eyes, and he placed a finger on his lips, motioning her to be quiet. He carefully eased out his hunting bow and pointed it toward achitaldeer. It had appeared silently, and stood in the clearing, its neck craned as it picked the choicest leaves from the lower branches of a tree.
Veer pushed her aside and crept stealthily, but the doe turned its head and, spotting danger, bounded away.
Veer dashed through the foliage, giving it chase.
“Veer! Wait.” Hastily, she threw the utensils into her satchel, cursing when she forgot his machete and had to go back to retrieve it. She followed him as best as she could, picking her way through the devastated vegetation.
By the time she found him later in a small grass clearing, under the shadow of a towering eucalyptus, it was already too late. His back was to her, and she heard sounds of munching through wet flesh. His hunting bow was on the ground, the arrow not too far; he hadn’t used it. Dread sat in her heart. Something was very wrong. A few feet away thechitallay on its side, dead. Its foreleg was torn away.
“Veer?” she called cautiously, a hand on her sword.
He turned to her, and Chandra took an immediate step back. Blood smeared the lower part of his face and teeth. The ridge of his brow bone was an unbroken line of prominence, and his cheekbones stood out in sharp relief. A steady gleam of red shone through his pupils, the black of his irises expanding to eclipse the whites of his eyes. He didn’t look human but rather a beast of a man.
The eyes that stared back at her seemed unfocused, like he didn’t recognize her.
“What have you done?” she whispered, shocked.
Some recognition crept into his eyes and the hand holding the bloody haunch of the slain animal lowered.
“I was too hungry to wait for it to be cooked.” he replied, and Chandra jerked back in shock at how guttural his voice sounded.
“Do you feel any better now?” she asked, her hand still gripping the handle of Veer’s sheathed machete.
Veer lowered his head; she watched his hand drift to the animal carcass once again. Was it her imagination or did he really have claws on his fingers? Nausea rose in her throat as he tore another of its limbs, blood spraying on his clothes, which she realized were shredded.
She unsheathed the machete. “That’s enough. This is making you sick.” She strode over and dragged away the animal’s body.
Veer snarled at her, his mouth dripping with blood. What terrified her more, though, were the elongated canines, like that of a beast of prey, that replaced his teeth.
She stumbled back, shocked. Shadows seemed to hug his crouched form. A dark miasma seemed to coalesce around him.
Chandra backed away slowly. “Veer? Are you channeling an animal or something? You are beginning to scare me,” she said, her heart in her throat. She knew, even as she asked the question, that this wasn’t his animal wizardry. This was probably what he had been warning her about. “Say something,” she pleaded, when all she heard were low growls.
The growls stopped. He lifted his head.
“No…No. No. No.” She backed away some more, shaking her head, stumbling a little in her haste to get away.
Veer rose to his full height, and she saw he had grown a couple more inches. This creature, whatever it was, no longer resembled her husband. A ghastly smile stretched the lower part of its face. She flinched at the rows of razor-sharp teeth that filled his mouth. Its nostrils flared, as if drawing in her scent. She watched as the thing closed its eyes as if savoring it.
It stiffened suddenly, fists clenched, and Veer momentarily looked back from the creature’s eyes.
“Run.” The growled word was barely recognizable.
She leaped into action. Not pausing for thought, she crashed through the vegetation, slashing her way with the machete, trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and the thing her husband had turned into. Her back prickled, but she didn’t dare slow down or look behind. A loud roar sounded a minute later.
Chapter 34: Guruji’s Dilemma
Guruji sat on his favorite wooden swing outside, in the small courtyard of his modest dwelling in Devarakonda. He was fortunate enough to be granted a place in the royal quarters here in the temple city.
A half-finished chess game was arranged in front of him on a small stone table opposite his swing. He moved a token and gave a wistful sigh as he stared up at the sky—burned in crimson flames of dusk at the edges. Not a stray breeze of the sedate Narmada would put his swing into motion.
Although he liked the creature comforts of the capital city well enough, he much preferred to be here, in this peaceful temple city. But really, if you were to ask him his wish, he would choose to go back to his retirement, where he could return to teaching his pupils, writing treatises, perhaps finally giving his scheming brain a rest.
