✵ I. 1821 – The Year Masks Grew Thicker
By the time the year 1821 settled over Rayalaseema like a hot, shimmering veil, the world believed several comfortable lies:
The East India Company told itself the south was "pacified."
Local petty lords told themselves the Company was unshakeable.
Villagers told themselves that if they kept their heads low enough, storms would pass over them.
And many in the region told themselves that Uyyalawada Narasimha Reddy was just:
a clever young heir,
good with trade,
soft-hearted toward widows,
and perhaps a little too fond of maps.
They did not know that:
Trinetra's threads now reached from near Lahore in the north to Lanka's waters in the south,
from the salt-biting winds of the coast to the courtly dust of Hyderabad,
and that, beneath that web, a small circle of shadows had begun to move with purpose.
Narasimha was around sixteen by local counting now.
Old enough to carry a blade without anyone laughing.
Young enough that most British officers still mentally filed him under "boy."
He used that.
Every day.
But even as his outer mask grew smoother, the night had begun to demand more of him.
There were men now who understood that he was not just another estate brat.
And at least one of them had decided:
"If I cannot own him, I will break him."
That was how Assassins of the Night were born.
❖ II. A New Kind of Enemy
The first clear sign came in a Trinetra report from a market town two days' ride away.
On a palm leaf, written in hurried, cramped Telugu, a temple drummer reported:
"New man in Company's favour here. Local Brahmin-turned-agent. Name: P. Ramalingam. Charming tongue, sharp eyes. Recruits informers with money and fear. Has already arranged arrests of two men who spoke too loudly against Company tax. Rumour says he wants to 'bring all southern chiefs to heel' by feeding Madras stories of their 'disloyalty.' He asks many questions about Uyyalawada."
Narasimha read it twice.
"Ramalingam," he murmured. "Our first spider working for their web."
Ramu frowned.
"We've had collaborators before," he said. "Men who sold grain, land, favours. Why is this one different?"
"Because he is building eyes, not just hoarding coin," Narasimha said. "A man who steals gold can be crippled by breaking his vault. A man who steals secrets… must be dealt with more carefully."
He spread other leaves around it.
Patterns emerged:
petty goons in certain villages suddenly emboldened, bragging "the Company stands behind us";
small local leaders silenced after private conversations that only a few had heard;
one travelling storyteller beaten in a roadside ditch for "spreading seditious tales."
Trinetra's scribbles converged on one name.
Ramalingam.
"He plays respectable Brahmin by day," an informant wrote. "At night, he meets with rough men and Company sepoys. He speaks of building a 'new order' where anyone who defies British will first be broken by their own neighbours."
Narasimha's jaw tightened.
"So," he said softly. "He wishes to turn our villages into tools against each other. Clever. Efficient. Poisonous."
Ramu spat to the side.
"We can have Chhaya Mandal pay him a visit," he said. "Like we did with Sattanayaka. Wake him with a cold hand on throat. Whisper. Show missing papers."
Narasimha shook his head.
"Sattanayaka's power rested on forged numbers and local fear," he said. "Ramalingam's power rests on Company trust. He wraps himself in their coat. If he smells danger and screams 'native conspiracy,' Madras will send more troops, more spies."
He looked up, eyes dark.
"This is not a man we can simply frighten," he said. "This is a man who will escalate if threatened. Like a snake that, when stepped on, bites even its own tail."
Silence stretched.
Finally, an elder asked quietly:
"Then what do we do, Dora?"
Narasimha drew in a slow breath.
"We must cut his roots, not his head," he said. "His informers, his secret books, his hired knives. Until he stands exposed even to his own masters. And… we must consider that, if he still persists after that…"
He let the sentence hang.
They all understood.
Chhaya Mandal's work so far had avoided final death.
This might not remain possible.
✢ III. Heaven Watches a Hard Line Approach
In Vaikuntha, the scene in the hall shimmered up to the gods.
Parvati's brows drew together.
"He is drawing near the edge," she murmured. "The day he decides another's death is preferable to risk will mark him."
Lakshmi's expression was sober.
"Some powers will only stop at death," she said softly. "Shastra and śāstra both teach this. Yet… each sanctioned death leaves a weight on the killer's soul. Even when just."
Saraswati's voice was thoughtful.
"He has already learned to bend greed, redirect bandits, shame cheats," she said. "This Ramalingam is… of a different category. An architect of cruelty, not just a user of it. How he handles this will shape his future codes."
Maheshwara's eyes were calm but intense.
"Let him walk the argument," he said. "A warrior who never questions his right to kill is a devil. One who forever refuses to kill, even when dharma demands, becomes a coward. Our child must be neither."
Vishnu smiled faintly, but not jokingly.
"Besides," he added, "in future ages he will stand beside men and women who make choices about nations with the press of a button. Better he learns early that some decisions will always taste of ash, no matter how correct."
Brahma wrote:
1821 – First approach of sanctioned killing for dharma. Critical node.
❖ IV. "We Need a Night Wing"
They gathered again in the inner hall.
Not the full council.
Only those who knew how deep Trinetra's river ran:
Ramu,
Sri and two other core members of Chhaya Mandal,
one senior elder,
the temple priest who oversaw Suraksha and Beej accounts.
On the floor, Narasimha had sketched another map.
This one wasn't geography.
It was a web:
Circles for Ramalingam's known contacts:
a bully in one village,
a greedy headman in another,
a half-bribed sepoy,
a scribe willing to copy "special" reports.
Lines showed how information flowed from them upward.
"Until now," Narasimha said, tapping the lines, "Chhaya Mandal dealt mostly with single-node rot. One man, one core operation. In, disrupt, out. But this… this is a network. If we frighten one, the others contract and hiss."
He straightened.
"We need a… night wing," he said. "A smaller circle inside Chhaya Mandal—trained to handle threats that cross districts, touch Company directly, and may require… harsher final acts."
Sri's eyes narrowed.
"You want assassins," she said bluntly. "Not just whisperers."
Narasimha met her gaze squarely.
"I want options," he replied. "I will still prefer fear over blood, exposure over corpses. But I cannot pretend that men like Ramalingam will always be deterred by whispers. If he builds a chain that will drag hundreds into ruin, and the only way to break it is to remove him… then my dharma may demand it."
The elder frowned.
"This is the slippery slope we warned of," he said. "First one death, then ten. Today only for big threats, tomorrow for anyone who irritates you."
"I know," Narasimha said quietly. "That is why this night wing will have stricter rules than any other part of my house—even on me."
He drew three circles, nested:
Trinetra (Eyes)
Chhaya Mandal (Hands)
Nisha-Prahari (Night Sentinels)
He wrote the new name in neat script:
निशा-प्रहरी – Nisha-Prahari – "Those who guard the night."
"These," he said, tapping the innermost circle, "will be few. They will answer directly to me—and to a code written and sealed in front of the gods. They will act only when three conditions are met:
The target's continued actions cause harm on a wide scale.
All other remedies—exposure, fear, economic isolation—have failed or will clearly fail.
Their removal will not unleash greater chaos than leaving them be."
He paused.
"And even then," he added, "they will try to cripple rather than kill first—ruin position, sever alliances. Only if the man persists like a plague despite that, will the final step be considered. Never as first resort."
Sri studied him.
"Who watches you when you decide?" she asked softly.
Narasimha's voice dropped.
"You do," he said. "All of you. If ever you believe I am using Nisha-Prahari to settle ego, not protect dharma, you will stop obeying. And you will tell my father. And if that fails…"
He looked up, toward the temple spire visible through the hall's opening.
"…the gods will have their say," he finished.
Ramu let out a breath.
"So," he said. "We teach a handful to move more dangerously than anyone else in this region… and we ask them to remain more bound than any soldier."
"Exactly," Narasimha said.
The elder shook his head.
"You are building a sword and its sheath in the same heart," he muttered.
"That is the only safe place for it," Narasimha replied.
✢ V. Training the Night Sentinels
From Chhaya Mandal's existing nine, Narasimha chose three for Nisha-Prahari:
Sri – for her cold clarity and refusal to worship violence.
Devudu – the former bandit who had once refused to rejoin the shadows until he was sure of his own restraint.
Raghava – a quiet, unremarkable-looking man with eyes like still water and a talent for disappearing in crowds.
He added a fourth from outside:
Ayyappa – a one-time sepoy who had deserted after watching his officer order a massacre over a misunderstanding. He had come to Uyyalawada as labour, but Trinetra had noticed the way his hands moved, the way he never flinched at talk of blood but always changed the subject when others glorified it.
They gathered in the ravine at dawn.
Narasimha stood before them, in simple clothes, no ornaments.
"Chhaya Mandal fights injustice," he said. "Nisha-Prahari fight consequences. You are not above the rest—you are more restricted."
He moved a small lamp to a rock, its light weak in the growing dawn.
"This lamp," he said, "is dharma. You will often be far from it, in dark. Your actions must always, somehow, still be for its sake. If you ever find yourself using your skills to protect only your pride, your purse, or your comfort… you have left this circle, whether you admit it or not."
He made them swear oaths:
never to kill for coin,
never to harm children or those unarmed who had not themselves ordered violence,
never to accept a mission from anyone but him or his designated successor,
and to accept judgement if they broke these rules.
Then he trained them harder than he had trained anyone.
Not just in:
climbing,
silent movement,
weapon use,
but in decision games:
He described hypothetical situations:
"A corrupt headman beats villagers, but fears Company. You have chance to kill him or to steal his ledgers and expose him. What do you do?"
"A British sergeant is cruel, but his superior secretly detests him. Do you strike the sergeant, or feed proof to the superior?"
"A dacoit leader protects one village but bleeds others dry. If killing him will make that protected village suffer raids from worse men, what then?"
He challenged their answers.
Sometimes he shouted.
Sometimes he laughed bitterly.
He always returned to one point:
"You cannot cleanse the world with blood alone. But… sometimes blood must be spilled so that many more do not drown later. Your job is to know when that bitter medicine is truly needed."
At night, alone, he sat on the temple steps and asked the murti quietly:
"Deva, if I misjudge, put your hand on mine. Tight. Break my wrist if you must. Better that than letting me become the thing I hunt."
The darkness did not answer with words.
But somewhere deep in his immortal core, the Ichha-Marana flame pulsed in agreement.
❖ VI. First Operation: Cutting out a Tongue of Poison
They decided not to go for Ramalingam himself first.
Instead, they targeted his tongue—the stream of reports that flowed from his network to Madras.
Trinetra informed them of:
a trusted messenger who carried Ramalingam's compiled notes twice a month to a larger town,
a small house outside that town where these were copied neatly for dispatch,
a clerk there who thought himself clever for adding "spicy details" to impress his superiors.
Narasimha's plan was simple:
Intercept the chain.
Replace poison with altered poison.
Turn Ramalingam's own information against him.
On a moonless night, Nisha-Prahari moved.
Sri and Devudu waylaid the messenger on a forest path—not like bandits, but like ghosts.
A soft rope, a cloth with herbal fumes, a controlled fall.
He woke the next morning under a tree, saddle sore, with his pouch beside him and no memory of the missing hours.
Inside that pouch, the reports had been copied and subtly amended.
In the small house outside town, Raghava slipped in later that week as an assistant's cousin, "just here to help."
He watched how the clerk copied.
He learned his hand's rhythm.
Then, one night, when the clerk was drunk, Raghava wrote under his nose:
In Ramalingam's reports, he inserted:
small exaggerations of successes that hadn't happened,
contradictions about dates,
mentions of meetings with men Ramalingam had never actually met—particularly one senior officer known to be touchy about his reputation.
Narasimha's genius lay not in obvious forgery, but in lighting slow fuses.
When these reports reached Madras, they did not scream "conspiracy."
They whispered:
"This man either lies or cannot control his own informers."
Within two months, one of Ramalingam's superior officers had written a chilly note:
"Your recent dispatches have contained inconsistencies. Until further proof of reliability is provided, your recommendations will be treated with caution."
Ramalingam felt the chill of distance.
His pride, however, did not cool.
He began pushing harder, trying to produce more dramatic results to reclaim favour.
That was when he made his first truly fatal mistake.
He ordered the elimination of a village elder who had been quietly mediating between angry peasants and a reasonable tehsildar.
The killing was staged as "banditry."
Trinetra saw the truth.
Ayyappa came into Narasimha's hall one evening, face grim.
"He crossed the line," he said. "He is no longer just a spider. He is venom now."
Narasimha's fingers curled.
He did not answer immediately.
He went to the temple that night.
Knelt.
Spoke into the darkness:
"If I stop him now with finality, fewer will die later. If I hesitate, more innocent blood may flow. But if I choose death too easily, something in me dies also. Tell me, Deva… which loss do you prefer?"
The only answer was the steady light of the oil lamp.
After a long time, he stood.
His face was set.
He knew.
✢ VII. The First Death by Choice
Ramalingam travelled with minimal guards.
He believed his Brahmin cloth and Company contacts were armour enough.
He was wrong.
On a journey between two towns, his palanquin passed through a narrow, rocky gully.
The bearers joked quietly. One hummed.
Crickets shrilled in the scrub.
At the gully's midpoint, a stone rolled down from above.
The lead bearer stumbled.
The palanquin lurched.
"Careful, fools!" Ramalingam snapped from inside. "If you drop me, I—"
The rest of his sentence was swallowed by a sudden silence.
Not just the hush of men holding breath.
A deeper quiet.
Devudu dropped from the rocks above like a shadow given weight.
He moved fast:
One blow to the back of a bearer's neck—unconscious, not dead.
A twist of a staff to knock another aside.
A sharp whistle—the signal.
From the other side, Ayyappa appeared, sword glinting.
The remaining bearers scattered, dropping the palanquin.
"Bandits!" one screamed, running.
Let him.
The story of "bandits" would be useful.
Inside the tipped palanquin, Ramalingam flailed, tangled in cloth and rage.
"What is this?" he shouted. "Do you know who I am? I serve the Company! You will hang for this—"
The palanquin curtain was yanked aside.
Narasimha stood there.
No royal ornaments.
Just a simple warrior's dhoti, a short blade at his waist, and eyes that held no mirth at all.
Ramalingam's tirade died.
"You," he whispered. "The boy-chief."
"Not a boy," Narasimha said quietly. "Not to you."
For a heartbeat, they simply looked at each other.
Behind Narasimha, the ravine walls loomed.
Above them, the sky stretched, empty and merciless.
"You have caused the death of innocents," Narasimha said. "Not by accident. Not in panic. Calmly. Deliberately. To please men who do not know their names."
Ramalingam's eyes darted.
"If you kill me," he hissed, "Company will hunt you. They will call you outlaw. Rebel. Terrorist."
"Yes," Narasimha said. "They will. In time, they will anyway. With or without your help."
He stepped closer.
"I will not pretend your death will be clean," he said. "It will have consequences. So would your life. The difference is… with you gone, fewer of my people will die at crossroads for speaking the truth."
He drew a slow breath.
"I offer you one chance," he said softly. "Tell me the names of those above you who encouraged your… zeal. I may let you live as a broken man, watched, harmless."
Ramalingam laughed suddenly.
A brittle, ugly sound.
"You think I am traitor because I help the stronger hand?" he spat. "You and your dharma… you cling to a dying world. The British will rule this land fully. Men like me will be needed. Men like you will hang as example. I would rather be remembered as the one who helped bend the knee than as the fool who resisted and died in a ditch."
Narasimha's jaw tightened.
"So be it," he said.
For a moment, his mind flashed:
He could wound Ramalingam, leave him scarred, fearful, whisper shadows in his room.
He could also let him go, hoping exposure would neuter him.
But he saw, with the cold clarity of his combat foresight:
Ramalingam using any mercy as weakness.
Ramalingam adapting, hiding deeper, becoming harder to touch.
More "bandit attacks" disguising murders in his wake.
The line had been crossed.
Ichha-Marana burned in his chest, not hungry, but steady—reminding him he chose his own death.
Today, he chose another's.
"I do this," he whispered inwardly, "so that many more may live. May the cost come to me, not them."
Outwardly, he moved.
To Ramalingam, the world narrowed to:
A flash of steel.
A sudden, devastating strike to the throat—precise, killing, almost gentle.
No hacking.
No rage.
Just… decision turned into motion.
Ramalingam gurgled, eyes wide.
For a moment, horror and disbelief fought in them.
"Empire… will… swallow… you…" he tried to choke.
"Maybe," Narasimha said softly. "But it will not swallow this village elder's blood. Not through you again."
Ramalingam sagged.
Fell.
The gully held its breath.
Ayyappa bowed his head.
Devudu exhaled slowly.
Narasimha looked at his hand.
It shook.
Only slightly.
"Make it 'bandits'," he said hoarsely. "His own arrogance gave us that cloak. Scatter rumours of old enemies seeking revenge. Leave the pattern ambiguous. Company will suspect something—but they will also see that their 'agent' had made many enemies through his cruelty."
He turned away.
As he walked up the path, each step felt heavier.
He had killed before, in battle, in defence.
But this…
This was the first time he had looked into a man's eyes, weighed future harm against present act, and chosen death as instrument of dharma.
The weight settled into his bones like wet clothes.
❖ VIII. Aftermath: The Lion's First Scar
Back in Uyyalawada that night, Narasimha did not sit in the inner hall.
He did not touch ledgers.
He went straight to the temple.
The priest, seeing his face, quietly withdrew.
Alone in the sanctum's flickering light, Narasimha knelt.
His hands, scrubbed clean, still felt phantom warmth.
"I have taken a life deliberately," he said, voice low, raw. "Not in heat of battle. Not in blind rage. After thought. After planning."
He bowed his head to the floor.
"If I erred," he whispered, "let the sin come to me. Let my path be heavier, my burdens greater. But… spare my people. And if I did right… then do not let my heart grow numb to this. I do not want killing to feel easy."
Above, the Trimurti watched.
Parvati's eyes filled.
"He still trembles," she breathed. "Good. Let him never lose that."
Maheshwara nodded.
"The first scar is always sharpest," he said. "It will remind him, in later centuries, not to become like those who kill as if signing papers."
Lakshmi murmured a blessing.
"Let every life he ends," she said, "be countered by thousands he helps live. And let him remember faces, not just numbers."
Saraswati touched her veena string gently.
"This act will echo," she said. "It will shape how he advises others in future wars—how he whispers caution to men who treat soldiers as chess pieces."
Vishnu's voice was soft.
"From this day," he said, "he is no longer merely a clever boy with shadows. He has become, truly, a kshatriya in the dark. Let us hold him close."
✢ IX. Empire Flinches, Just a Little
News of Ramalingam's death travelled quickly.
Officially:
"Killed by bandits on the road. Such a shame. Dedicated servant of the Company."
Unofficially:
Some laughed—quietly.
Some of his victims lit small lamps in gratitude to nameless gods.
Some collaborators in neighbouring regions abruptly became more cautious in how far they twisted law.
In Madras, Edwin Cavendish read the report with narrowed eyes.
"Bandits, is it?" he murmured.
His colleague shrugged.
"What else?" he said. "Man like that steps on enough toes, someone will swing at his head."
Edwin tapped the paper thoughtfully.
"He also made himself useful," he said. "Our superiors will be… displeased."
"But not enough to send a punitive expedition," the colleague said. "Officially he irritated wrong locals. Unofficially, maybe someone decided he was more trouble than worth."
Edwin folded the report.
Inwardly, he thought of:
a boy with ancient eyes in Uyyalawada,
a promised code of power, courage, and restraint.
"Did you have a hand in this, old lion?" he wondered silently. "Or are you merely taking advantage of your enemies killing each other?"
He did not know.
Part of him didn't want to.
But a new line etched itself deeper in his mind:
"There are forces here, native and unseen, that can remove our instruments without touching us directly."
One day, years later, he would teach a young English aristocrat:
"Never assume violence belongs only to those who shout. The quietest men in the room often decide who lives or dies."
He would remember this file when he said it.
❖ X. The Night Sentinels Take Shape
Ramalingam's death was not the end.
It was the threshold.
In its wake:
his most rabid informers found themselves suddenly vulnerable—with no powerful patron to shield them. Some fled. Some tried to switch sides.
the Company, stung, tightened some procedures—but also grew wary of relying too heavily on any single native agent.
villagers saw, in whispers and rumours, that being the Company's pet did not guarantee long life.
Nisha-Prahari did not celebrate.
They got back to work.
They:
quietly warned a few frightened minor informers that if they stopped cooperating with future Ramalingams early, they would be left in peace;
made sure word leaked that Ramalingam had kept secret ledgers of his own, suggesting he might have been cheating Company too—thus muddying any clean martyr image;
watched carefully for the next ambitious snake.
Narasimha refined their code further:
He added:
"If killing one will create many more like him out of anger or desire for revenge, seek other paths first."
He also created a new rule:
"Every time Nisha-Prahari takes a life, they must also undertake a protective mission—no blood without balancing shelter. Save someone next, or rescue something at risk, so that your skills do not become only destructive in your own minds."
Sri approved.
"This will keep us sane," she said. "A hand that only cuts eventually forgets how to hold."
Devudu, who knew what it meant to enjoy the rush of danger too much, was grateful.
"I would rather be tired than lost," he said simply.
✶ XI. A Brief Glimpse Beyond – Mystic Eyes Watching
Far to the north, in lands of snow and stone, there was a place few mortals knew: a sanctuary where sorcerers guarded the world from unseen threats.
In this merged universe, Kamar-Taj already existed.
Its masters watched flows not of grain and coin, but of magic.
One night, as Narasimha struck Ramalingam in that ravine, a tiny flare rippled through the subtle layers of reality over the Indian subcontinent:
A mortal aura, briefly wreathed in:
righteous fury,
deep restraint,
and that peculiar Ichha-Marana blessing that made his soul's thread glow different from others.
In Kamar-Taj, an older sorcerer paused mid-meditation.
He saw, in his inner eye, a lion-shadowed figure standing over a man whose karmic balance was blackened.
"Interesting," he murmured.
A younger disciple, curious, asked:
"Master, what is it?"
"A mortal who carries a death-bargain within him," the sorcerer said. "One who cannot be killed against his will. He walks dharma's path, but in mud. He is bound to this land's fate. Our time has not yet come to touch his. But we will… watch."
He closed his eyes again.
On some far edge of the cosmos, other beings—Eternals, Watchers—also noted the slight disturbance.
A footnote in their endless records:
"Subject: U.N.R. – regional node of unusual dharmic and power significance on Terra."
They did nothing.
For now.
The lion was not yet ready to step into their arenas.
He had his own to manage first.
✵ XII. Closing of "Assassins of the Night"
By the end of 1821, three things had changed in ways most people would never see clearly:
The Company had lost a useful, vicious tongue and gained a faint, uneasy respect for the fact that some places in the south were not as simple as they appeared.
The villages of Rayalaseema had one fewer hidden predator and one more invisible shield: a set of Night Sentinels who would, from then on, occasionally slip in and out of their stories like unnamed ghosts, leaving behind fewer widows and more second chances.
And Narasimha Reddy, Deathless Lion of a future age, had taken his first calculated life in shadow.
He did not grow colder.
He grew… older.
Inside.
He still joked with cousins about sweets.
He still grumbled about ledgers, about Beej Nidhi interest rows, about the never-ending arguments over canal stones.
But on some nights, when everyone else slept, he sat alone on the terrace and stared at the stars a long time.
"Remember this," he would tell himself quietly. "Remember how your hand shook. If it ever stops shaking after such acts, you have lost something you cannot afford to lose."
Then, inevitably, someone would call:
"Anna! Tomorrow the Beej meeting—people are already fighting over who gets loan first!"
He would rub his face, groan, and mutter:
"Even assassins don't have this much work."
And he would get up.
Because that was the truth of his dharma:
Not only to strike in ravines against villains,
but to sit in hot rooms,
listen to petty disputes,
build banks and granaries,
and make sure that when gods and cosmic beings finally turned their full gaze on Bharat—
its people would have a lion who knew both how to kill when necessary…
and how to keep them fed, housed, and laughing in the meantime.
The night had new guardians now.
And somewhere, in the far future, when a man in an impeccable suit would raise an umbrella against a storm of bullets and say:
"Manners. Maketh. Man."
…a faint echo would ripple back through time to a ravine in 1821,
where a young king in all but crown chose a hard path,
and walked it with shaking hands and unbroken heart.
✦ End of Chapter 17 – "Assassins of the Night" ✦