In a small town situated to the east of the count's castle within the boundaries of Duranabad county, the heavy shroud of dusk did nothing to quiet the uneasy streets. Through the winding alleys, a young man flanked by a contingent of heavily armed private guards moved with an air of absolute, arrogant entitlement. Their destination was a known, respectable estate belonging to a prosperous local merchant who lived there peacefully with his family.
The objective of this nocturnal excursion was not coin or political allegiance, but the merchant's beautiful daughter, Megha. Word of her exquisite grace had reached the young man's ears through his network of sycophantic watchdogs—vile informers who combed the territories for any beauty their master could exploit, receiving heavy payouts of gold mudras for their compliance. This predatory youth was none other than Rayan Durani, the spoiled, volatile son of Count Amir Durani.
With a sharp kick, Rayan's guards smashed through the heavy wooden doors of the peaceful household. The sudden intrusion fractured the sanctuary of the home as the soldiers barged inward, drawing their weapons and systematically ransacking each room one by one. It did not take long for them to locate Megha, who was cornered in the back quarters. Ignoring her terrified shrieks, they dragged her out by her hair and threw her violently onto the floor in front of their master.
Beholding the trembling girl, Rayan's lips curled into a sinister, predatory smile. He looked down at her father, the merchant, who stood paralyzed with shock and terror.
"I like your daughter's beauty," Rayan sneered, adjusting his silk tunic. "I will be making her a part of my harem."
Horrified by the casual brutality, the merchant desperately threw himself forward, attempting to block the guards from binding his daughter. "Please, my lord, have mercy! Take our wealth, take everything, but leave my daughter!" he begged.
His pleas were answered with absolute violence. The guards set upon the older man, beating him mercilessly with the pommels of their swords and heavy iron boots until the floor was stained with his blood. Seeing his father broken and his sister weeping in despair, the merchant's young son let out a feral cry of rage. Brandishing a small iron kitchen knife, the boy lunged at the nearest guard to protect what remained of his family.
In the brief, chaotic struggle that ensued, the seasoned soldiers showed neither hesitation nor mercy. A swift, cold blade pierced the son's chest, and a heavy downward strike cleaved into the father's skull. Both fell silent, their lifeless bodies collapsing into pools of deep crimson.
Rayan didn't even flinch; instead, a mocking laugh echoed through the blood-spattered room. He stepped over the corpses, looking down at Megha, who was wailing hysterically over the dead bodies of her father and brother.
"Don't worry," Rayan said, his voice dripping with religious fanaticism and haughty disdain. "It is a great honor for filthy khafirs like them to die at the hands of devout slamic nobles like us."
With a brutal yank, he forcefully dragged the sobbing, broken girl out into the cold night air. On their exit, a guard tossed a burning oil torch into the center of the room. Within minutes, the dry wood caught, and the house was engulfed in roaring flames, torching the structures to bury the evidence of their atrocities.
However, the dark streets of the town held eyes that Rayan's watchdogs had failed to detect. In the deep, shadowy corners of an intersecting alleyway, several obscured figures stood in complete, eerie stillness. They wore black, form-fitting coveralls that melted seamlessly into the darkness, their faces completely masked. They had been waiting for hours, tracking the count's son through the operational intelligence provided by their network.
As Rayan and his remaining escorts marched triumphantly down the street, leading the captive girl, they entered the precise kill-zone.
Twang! Twang! Twang!
The sharp, metallic resonance of multiple compact repeating crossbows suddenly shattered the quietude of the night. Precision-engineered by the industrial foundries of the south, the rapid-fire bolts flew through the air with terrifying speed. Before Rayan's guards could even process the sound, three of his front escorts dropped to the dirt, the tips of the bolts coated in a lethal, fast-acting neurotoxin that seized their hearts instantly.
"Ambush!" Rayan screamed, drawing his saber in a panic.
From the confines of the surrounding structures, the cloaked figures struck from multiple directions. A deadly, chaotic melee ensued. Rayan's personal guards fought with the desperation of cornered animals, but they were entirely outmatched. The attackers moved like synchronized wraiths, utilizing superior close-quarters tactics and absolute coordination.
Casualties mounted rapidly on both sides as steel clashed against steel, but the relentless efficiency of the ambushers quickly wore the defenders down. Within moments, the cobblestones were littered with the bodies of Rayan's men, either dead or heavily incapacitated. Rayan found himself completely isolated, the remaining attackers forming an impenetrable, silent circle around him, their stained blades pointed directly at his throat.
As the count's son opened his mouth to shout a desperate threat, leveraging his father's name, a swift, brutal blow from the butt of a repeating crossbow struck the back of his skull. The world turned black, and Rayan collapsed into the dirt, unconscious.
Megha, who had been thrown to the ground during the skirmish, stared at the scene through tear-blurred eyes. Seeing the monster who had just slaughtered her father and brother lying defenseless and unconscious before her, a blinding surge of absolute rage overrode her terror. Spotting a fallen dagger from a dead guard, she scrambled forward, grabbed the weapon, and lunged downward to plunge it into Rayan's throat.
Before the blade could connect, a strong, iron grip clamped around her wrist. One of the cloaked attackers forcefully wrenched the knife from her hand.
"Let me go! Let me kill him! He murdered them!" Megha shrieked, struggling frantically, kicking and scratching against the operative's hold in a desperate bid to exact vengeance for her family.
Realizing her screams would draw the town's garrison and jeopardize the extraction, the operative delivered a precise, controlled strike to the side of her temple. Megha's struggles ceased instantly, and she slumped forward into his arms, rendered unconscious.
These unknown assailants were none other than the elite squad dispatched by Prince Vikramaditya under the direct command of his trusted agent, Vasuki. Operating under total cover of darkness, their primary operational directive had been accomplished: the abduction of Count Durani's heir.
Working with disciplined speed, the operatives gathered their primary target, Rayan, and the unconscious girl. They methodically retreated from the scene of the crime, vanishing into the labyrinthine shadows of the town as quickly as they had arrived. Left behind on the bloodied street was a pile of dead escorts and a single, severely wounded guard who had been intentionally spared. Pinning a heavy parchment envelope to the surviving guard's armor, the strike team dissolved into the night.
A few hours later, inside the formidable stone keep of Duranabad Castle, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense. Count Amir Durani stood before his war table, his face twisted into an expression of raw, unbridled fury. The single surviving guard knelt trembling before him, covered in bandages and dried blood.
In the count's trembling hands was the letter recovered from the ambush site. He read the precise, elegant handwriting of the prince, each word fueling a volatile fire within his noble blood:
Count Durani,
I hope this letter reaches you in good health. Since you sent an entire army to abduct me and kill me, I have sought to return the favor by abducting your son. You have 72 hours to gather your forces and meet me in open battle at the location to the east of your castle near the Bhadrak border. Either you take my head and rescue your son, or I will take yours. If you do not comply with my demand, I will take it as a signal that you do not need your son, and I will send you his severed head.
— Prince Vikramaditya Deva
CRUNCH.
Count Durani crushed the parchment within his fist, his veins bulging against his temples as a guttural roar escaped his chest. He began cursing loudly, unleashing a torrent of absolute rage that echoed through the stone rafters of his keep. The insolent little brat of a prince, whom he had planned to ambush and turn into a puppet, had completely outmaneuvered his household!
"Summon the commanders! Sound the drums of war!" Durani bellowed, slamming both fists onto the strategic map, completely blinded by the urgent desire to rescue his precious heir. "Gather every single soldier in the garrison! We march at dawn! I will personally ride out to the border, crush his pathetic low-born worms, and tear that arrogant child limb from limb!"
Unbeknownst to the seething count, the trap had just snapped shut precisely as the young prince had calculated, and the line infantry of Khurda was already waiting in the shadows of the winter frost, ready for the iron harvest.
As he barged into the peaceful house of the merchant his guards immediately started searching each room one by one and once they located the target they dragged her out and brought her in-front of their master. Seeing the beautiful girl whose name was Megha in-front of him Rayan had a sinister smile on his face. He looked to the merchant and said "I like your daughter's beauty I will be making her a part of my harem". As the merchant tried to stop Rayan's guards from abducting his daughter forcefully he was beaten mercilessly. The merchant son seeing this lunged at the guards to protect his father and sister, in the ensuing fight the guards killed both father and son, seeing this Rayan just laughed and looked at the girl who was crying over her father and brother's dead body and said "Don't worry its a great honor for filthy khafirs like them to die at the hands of devout slamic noble like us". With this he forcefully dragged the sobbing girl with him and his guards torched the house on their exit to bury the evidence.
In the shadowy corner of the town's street figures could be seen hiding and waiting for someone. As the time ticked by soon the count's son and his escorts where passing through the area. Suddenly twang sound of multiple compact repeating crossbow is heard from within the confines of the streets and in the next moment men covered in coverall attacked from multiple direction on the guards of Count's son. Soon a deadly fight ensued between Rayan's escort and the attackers. As the fight continued there were casualty on both sides soon most of Rayan's men were lying dead or heavily injured to even put up a defense against the attackers and finally he was surround by this unknown enemy. As he was about to say something a hit on his head rendered him unconscious. The girl named Megha seeing the object of her resentment and the killer of her family lying defenseless and unconscious, she grabbed a fallen knife and tried to stab Rayan but was stopped by one of the attacker and she started to scream and struggle to get herself free from the clutches of the unknown man in order to kill count's son as result she also received a hit to the head which rendered her unconscious.
This unknown attacker are none other then the elite squads that the prince has send with agent Vasuki to capture the count's son which they have just succeeded in doing. Soon the abductors retreat from the scene of the crime with their prize leaving behind a pile of dead bodies and a single surviving guard with a letter addressed to the count from the prince. A few hours later the count has furious expression on his face as he read the letter addressed to him. The content is as follows
"Count Durani,
I hope this letter reaches you in good health. Since you sent an entire army to abduct me and kill me, I have sought to return the favor by abducting your son. You have 72 hours to gather your forces and met me in open battle at the location to the east of your castle near Badrak border. Either you take my head and rescue your son or I will take yours. If you do not comply to my demand I will take it as a signal that you do not need you son and will send you his severed head.
Prince Viraja"
Reading the letter Count Durani became furious and started cursing loudly and ordered his subordinates to prepare his forces as this time he will personally go and deal with this insolent little brat of a prince.