Empire of India: Rise of the Ruthless Prince

The sun was shining brightly over the huge city of Lahore, located deep in the Mughal Empire. Streets were filled with vendors from different parts of the Empire, despite the huge flocking of merchants. There was rampant poverty in the city; many people lay wasted to the bone in the back alleys of the streets of Lahore.

The stench of stale goat and chicken meat filled the air. crows and vultures alike feasted on them. There were half-eaten carcasses of humans left by vultures, many of whom died due to starvation.

The buildings in Lahore were slowly crumbling to the tests of time. They weren't maintained as well by the people. It was a grim scenario.

"I have seen toilets cleaner than this." A man mumbled. His name was Waseem. He covered his nose with a cloth and walked through the dirty, messy streets of Lahore. He came to Lahore with the help of a few merchants that he met along the way.

He heard stories about the great cities in the Mughal Empire, but this was disappointing. It would be better to call this a pigsty rather than a city.

Apparently, the rampant poverty was the result of the Mughal Empire's horrible tax regime. The recent war with the Marathas burned quite a lot of money for the Empire that it had to increase the tax rate, even at this state of affairs. The plight of the people was just horrible, although mass famines were avoided by the Empire. There were many starvation cases in the Empire, taking the lives of hundreds of people.

Waseem remembered the words of the merchants that headed to Lahore,

"Hey you!" The merchant called out. "You seem new to Lahore."

"Yes, I come from the Amir Sultanate."

"Haish—." The merchant sighed. "So you may not know the ways of Lahore."

"It's a lawless city."

"Be careful."

Waseem nodded and asked out of curiosity. "Don't the nobles rule the cities?"

"On paper, yes," the merchant replied, his gaze fixed on the bumpy and muddy road. The roads were pretty bad and filled with bandits. So it was frequent to get robbed on the way to Lahore. The nobles didn't do anything much to control this lawlessness. It did result in a considerable drop in revenue to the city.

"Umm…It is controlled by a bandit group, actually."

"Bandit group, really?" Waseem exclaimed. "What is the Empire's army doing?"

"That's the problem. The nobles support this bandit group." He sighed.

The merchant explained to him that a year back. An organized bandit group was formed under an unknown individual. It united the unorganized and numerous bandit groups in the region. These began to extort money from small villages and caravans of merchants.

Soon, the bandit group became not only wealthy but also influential in the region. According to the rumors, this group helped the noble currently in control of Lahore to ascend to the position. They managed to kill the previous noble and other local nobles to consolidate the position.

Now they had control over the vast resources of the Empire and the city itself. The merchants quickly began to stop coming to Lahore due to the extreme extortions. The bandit group introduced a solution for this, which was the protection fee. Currently the merchants all pay a protection fee to enter Lahore.

This made goods in Lahore much more expensive than before and the influence of the group grew further.

"What about the higher nobles? Won't they try to snuff them out?"

The merchant shrugged. "They just don't care about the citizens."

"All they want is to fill their own pockets. So as long as the bandit group doesn't do anything too stupid. The Empire won't take action."

"I see, quite a sorry state of affairs." Waseem remarked.

"Yes, we also didn't do well in the war; the Empire also likely wants to hide it as well."

"I see."

Waseem was in Lahore to buy something.

He looked in the most stalls, his money pouch hanging by his waist filled with the currency of the Empire. He could feel someone following him since he entered the city of Lahore. He just went from stall to stall, trying to get them off his back. The people tailing him were quite persistent. Waseem had no idea why he was being tailed.

'Must be thieves.' He grabbed his pouch of coins.

He turned into a busy street to get them off his busy. It was packed with people; the old paved road had potholes and flies loomed over the stagnant water. It was shrouded in a nasty odor. He gripped the cloth on his nose and entered the sweaty crowd.

The ones following him also entered with him. He weaved through the crowd and entered a small alleyway and took a sigh of relief. He ventured deep so they wouldn't notice him from the crowd in the market street.

'Finally. I got them off my back.' Waseem heaved a breath of relief.

"Mister, did you think we wouldn't notice you?" A voice said.

Three men walked from the alleyway beside him.

Waseem turned. "What?"

"Why are you following me?" He asked in a stutter.

The big guy in front of the trio, who looked like the leader, stepped forward and pointed at his hands. It was the pouch of coins that he was carrying.

"Give us everything you have." He ordered.

"HA HA, give us old man." the other two chimed in.

The big guy took out a knife and began to walk towards him. Waseem, scared by the sudden confrontation, retreated. "Please, I will give the pouch. Don't hurt me."

Waseem put down the pouch on the ground and put his hands up. "This is all I have, please." He pleaded.

The big guy came and took the pouch of coins.

"You seem new to Lahore." The big guy laughed. "You should always watch your backs."

Waseem didn't say anything as he learned that it's better to stay quiet than speak and make the situation worse than before.

"Brother, look at his ear." One of his lackeys said. "It's an earring."

The big guy also noticed Waseem's earring and came close to inspect it with his knife pointing at Waseem's chest.

"Oh, it seems to be a precious gemstone." The big guy grinned from ear to ear. "This yellow gemstone will fetch us a lot. Give it to us."

"I cannot do that! It's a family heirloom." Waseem said, pleading. "Nothing but that."

The big guy put the knife at his throat and threatened. "Would you like to go to Heaven, you bitch?"

"Just do as I say."

"Yes, do as Brother says." The other two said in unison.

Waseem tried pleading but to no avail; they threatened to take his life. He had no choice but to give up.

"Fine." He said in a defeated tone, "Let me remove it."

He brought his hands up to remove the earrings.

Waseem, in the same motion, pushed his upper body back and hit the wrist of the big guy with his back. He locked the arm of the man with his other hand and twisted it in an unnatural angle. It was too quick for him to react.

He took the knife the man was holding with one hand and used the locked arm to twist his arm, snapping it like a twig. The man let out a bloodcurdling screech at the broken arm, but to his horror it was cut short as the knife pierced his windpipe. Now all he could scream was blood.

Waseem quickly dislodged the knife and stabbed him in the chest.

It happened so quickly that the lackeys couldn't do anything but watch frozen in fear.

The lackeys turned to run away after seeing the skill of Waseem but it was too late. Waseem threw the knife at the throat of one lackey and charged at the second. It pierced the throat of the first lackey, who began coughing.

Second lackey's fear froze him in place. Waseem's fist connected with his chin, twisting his neck and collapsing him like a ragdoll on the hard, dirty earth.

He kicked the first lackey and pulled out the knife from his throat.

Waseem killed them both and threw the knife aside. He took a piece of cloth from the pocket and wiped his hands of the blood.

"This disguise is gone to shit.," sighed Waseem. "Good riddance, although I did manage to find some information."

"I just came to scout ahead."

Waseem tore his face mask and rummaged in his coat pocket to take his real mask and equip it. Find adventures on empire

He was Chyyasura, one of the pancharakshas, on the mission in Lahore. His unit was yet to arrive as he had given them some days to catch up to him. He could have easily taken them off his back but it seemed like he attracted some attention. So the current disguise would be useless, so he just decided to take out the people that followed him.

Unfortunately, now he had to deal with the aftermath, although it was his decision to fight. It seemed easy to mask this as a conflict between the lackey and the leader.

"Extra work. Now I regret killing them."