Dakshin Bhartiya Empire, a forest near Madikeri.
A large convoy travelled through the gravel road that had been newly constructed, connecting the Madikeri town to the main road of the capital. Vijay and Kavya were in a carriage adorned with beautiful patterns and that was larger in size. After finishing Hey Ram's marriage in Madikeri, where the family god's temple of Hey Ram was situated, they both left for the capital.
Inside the carriage, Vijay had closed his eyes and was enjoying the company brought by Kavya, who held his hand and slept on his shoulder. Unbeknownst to Vijay, 1 km ahead, a group of 50 black-clothed men were waiting for Vijay's arrival. Surprisingly, among those men, two faces were recognizable.
One was Naveen, who tried to form a secret society inside the secret service and military of the Empire, who later escaped and joined the Mughal Empire.
The other person was the same individual who received the hand signal from the flower boy in the temple. Naveen waited with bated breath for Vijay's arrival, recognizing that this was his only chance for revenge. He had exhausted all means to gather information about the emperor's schedule and whereabouts, even going as far as using all his connections.
Naveen harboured no hope for Mughal Emperor Mohammad to grant him a second chance. He believed that Mohammed had already played his cards in the Bhartiya Empire, leveraging all the pawns he had developed in the last two years to introduce assassins and the Ottoman Cannon within the defence line. Though Naveen didn't comprehend how Mohammad achieved this, he knew he had a simpler time of it.
Contacting his colleagues in the secret service who hadn't been apprehended due to their lower profiles, Naveen provided them with the names and the stolen amounts of their gold in the secret society. He also issued a threat: cooperate or face exposure to the police chief.
After this threat, most of them were convinced, as they still remembered what happened to the people who stole money from the empire. They did not want to die suddenly in some alleyway. Moreover, this time they were not actually stealing anything but just conveying the information they knew to this person.
It is also stated in the letter that they would get a certain amount of money for their service. This tilted the fragile balance in their hearts. As the war had stopped, they were facing money shortages. When they were in the war, they were earning a lot of money.
Now, suddenly, their streams of revenue became singular, making them very uncomfortable who were used to an affluent life inside their homes. However, with the tightened watch of Roshan, they had no chance to act up. But now, With the promise of gold and silver, they became greedy, so most of them agreed.
Vijay, who was sitting in the carriage, arrived near a canyon. The guards around him were vigilant, looking around for wild animals. However, Vijay felt that something was off; he had an uneasy feeling. He looked around, but seeing that there was no unusualness around him, he was in doubt, 'Could I be thinking too much?' Vijay thought to himself. Despite this, the feeling did not leave him.
He stiffened his back, leaned forward, raised his head, and looked around again, this time more carefully. Kavya also was alerted by Vijay's movement. "What happened?" she asked with a worried expression after seeing Vijay's serious face. She gripped tightly to Vijay.
But Vijay did not know how to answer the question, as he himself did not know what happened; he just felt very uneasy, and the feeling was increasing in magnitude. He tried to calm down, but the uneasiness did not go away; instead, it increased as the convoy moved forward.
Vijay leaned back into the seat again, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. But, Out of nowhere, an unbearable feeling hit him; he sensed that some huge monster was about to devour the carriage. The sensation permeated each and every cell of his body. It was a visceral feeling that he couldn't choose to ignore.
Taking this feeling seriously, he immediately hugged Kavya, opened the door of the moving carriage, and jumped outside. The maid in the carriage was surprised by what His Majesty suddenly did, but the next moment...
A loud bang erupted from somewhere in the north as a cannonball came hurtling towards the royal carriage, blasting right through it and obliterating everything in its path. Unfortunately, the maid was also ripped apart, and debris was scattered everywhere. Blood from the maid stained the wooden debris.
The guard captain was scared out of his wits when the carriage exploded, but he soon felt relieved as he noticed that his majesty and the queen were all right in a patch of grass a few meters beside the carriage.
Vijay's face drained of blood just thinking about the event that had just happened. He and Kavya were almost killed, and the thought of what would happen to the empire after his passing filled his mind with rage. He got up and moved Kavya to the back of the defensive formation. At the same time, Vijay kept counting the seconds, calculating how long it would take to reload and fire a second round.
Vijay felt uneasy again, knowing that the cannonball was getting reloaded, but this time he chose to trust his instincts more. He focused.
Right after the aim was finalized and the fuse was lit, Vijay intuitively felt that this was the right time. He suddenly yelled, "Run to the right quickly," as he bolted towards the right, carrying Kavya on his shoulders as fast as he could. The guards also followed his instructions and ran towards the right.
* Bang * The cannonball hit the spot where they were previously standing, although most of the guards escaped. Unfortunately, there were still two casualties.
Seeing the bodies, Vijay immediately realized that he couldn't keep doing this. He felt lucky for himself, his wife, and the guards that the cannon was placed at a farther distance, and arrows couldn't reach that far. If cannons, along with archers were used, maybe there would be a bunch of dead bodies in the forest. Looking around, he saw a boulder and decided to hide behind it.
Vijay waited for the next cannonball shot, gauging the timing with his intuition. He yelled, "Behind the boulder to the left, run now!" Everyone reacted instantaneously and ran towards the boulder. Fortunately, there were no casualties this time. As Vijay got behind the boulder, he heaved a sigh of relief.
The guard captain also got the chance to send the fire signal, and simultaneously, a cannonball was fired towards the boulder. * Bang * Fortunately, the boulder held on, But there were still some cracks on it.
Seeing the cracks that almost made it a quarter of the way through the boulder, Vijay knew that this couldn't go on. "God dammit," Vijay exclaimed as he unsheathed his Talwar. His eyes turned red as he ordered, "100 of you form a defensive formation around the queen.
If something happens to her, it will be your heads that will roll." Vijay was in an irrational rage as he was about to let the remaining guards follow him. The guard captain, noticing this, wanted to dissuade Vijay from doing such dangerous things, but his pleading was taken as nothing, as Vijay's decision did not change.
So, he tried to ask Kavya to convince His Majesty, "Your Highness, the queen, Please try to convince His Majesty not to do such dangerous things." Suddenly, Kavya's hand held onto Vijay's clothes. When he turned around, Vijay saw that Kavya had recovered from the shock of the explosion and the death of the maid, putting on a brave posture.
She touched the wound on her hand, took some of her blood from it, and drew a Tilak on Vijay's forehead. She said with a brave expression, contrary to what the guard captain expected, "Come back victorious."
Vijay felt encouraged by his wife's words as he quickly ran parallel to the boulder. After reaching a certain distance backwards, Vijay circled towards the place where the cannon shots were fired from. Some 80-odd guards, along with the guard captain, joined him. Vijay spearheaded the formation himself as he gave fast orders about the dodge patterns for the cannon shots.
The boulder was halfway crumbled when the attention of Naveen, who was overlooking the operation, caught on to Vijay running towards him from a different direction. He swiftly ordered the cannon to change its aim and shoot towards Vijay.
Naveen felt very happy, as he was quite depressed that Vijay managed to escape the first shot and the numerous shots after that. He was questioning himself about how it was possible, but ultimately, he did not know and let the thought go. The only thing he knew was that Vijay's death was confirmed as he himself was running towards it.
Even if, by some miracle, all the cannonballs missed him, the arrows would not.