Page 81 of Sumanika

“There is something,” he said. We both knelt down, rubbing the sand off until our fingers felt a three—foot—long and wide iron door to the basement.

“Bastards,” I muttered, trying to feel normal. It was fine. I hated small, hidden places; they shortened my breaths.

I gulped, and gathering my courage, we both opened it and looked at the rope ladder hanging inside.

“We should go inside,” I said, even though I felt scared. We couldn’t see where it would take us.

I entered first, then Eklavya followed.

One after another, we went nearly a full length deep into it. It was small, but when we reached the lowest point, our eyes remained stunned.

We couldn’t see a wall. It was open, wide open. As long as we could see through the darkness and the light of the lamp.

Eklavya suddenly grabbed my hand, and we began to move a little further.

Then, suddenly, we spotted six to seven-foot-long iron tubes, or perhaps cylinders, which were not too wide but tapered from one end to the other.

“What’s this?” I asked as Eklavya touched my shoulder, poking me. Lifting my gaze, I followed his as he asked,“What the hell is that?” I felt shaken. My throat went dry.

My eyes widened in shock and then narrowed to improve my vision in the dim light from the lamp that barely reached far. It was pitch black, massive, dangerous, and something I had never seen or heard of before.

"It looks dangerous," Eklavya said in his slow, frightened voice, and I turned around to see that this wasn’t the only one. There were many, even hundreds.

As I stepped closer to it, I gulped in fear and nervousness. It had wheels and a long tube—the same one I had seen in abundance.

Gazing at its long cylindrical design, I remembered the gun Rashmika had given me. It fired gunpowder, and I sensed this was precisely the same model—just the more dangerous and destructive version, as I had guessed.

"It’s meant to blast gunpowder," I said, looking at Eklavya, who was furrowing his brows at me. "The one you tested, right?"

I nodded. "Hmm."

“But this one would cause major destruction; it could kill many at once,” I stated, and he asked, confused, "How do you know about that?"

I licked my dry lips and looked at him. "Look at their size. Gunpowder is explosive; it detonates like a volcano when it comes into contact with fire. It burns, kills people with ease and brutality, and there are hundreds of them here," I explained in a slow voice, and he nodded, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He looked scared, obviously more than I was.

"But there must be a way to get them out," I said, glancing around as he furrowed his brows.

"What do you mean?" he asked, biting his lips. His cheeks had reddened; the fear was evident in his eyes.

"I mean, they can’t get them out through this secret passage with a rope stair. They’re heavy; they would need people to push them out in large numbers, and there must be a way to slide them out since they have wheels," I attempted to explain. Suddenly, he said, gulping, "Do you know how dangerous this is? These things could blow the whole Kingdom away, and I don’t know what the hell we’re doing—"

"Yes," I interrupted him firmly.

His eyes widened in shock. "What?" he stammered, swallowing hard.

"There are things that could blow the whole Kingdom away."

"No, no, no, no... Agastya. It's too dangerous, brutal, and destructive," he said, stepping closer to me, and I shook my head.

"It's not. It’s our defense. We have nothing personal against Mehrangarh, but they’re assisting those invaders, and this is our response. They’re considering using these in the war, and if we can destroy them, then we’ve already won half the battle," I tried to persuade him, but he shook his head.

"You realize that this whole Kingdom could go up in flames?" He put his hand on my shoulder, his eyes wide.

"Then what do you want? Would it be better if my brothers, family, your family, Pratapgarh, Mahabaleshgarh, all the princely states, and the entire population were at risk? Try to be sensible, Eklavya. We can’t combat these monsters with swords. We either need this gunpowder and these machines, or we fight until we’re all dead individually. If we don’t stop them, they will capture Mehrangarh first, then all the Kingdoms one by one. So it’s better if we blow them all up before they can even strike," I concluded, trying hard to make him understand, but he tightened his jaw and slowly shook his head.

"People are in Mehrangarh, too. We don’t know how dangerous they are. Maybe we’re only considering the Palace, but what if a large population gets harmed, too?" he said, and I took a deep breath, acknowledging his perspective.

"Then we’ll have to wait until they take them out into an open area where we can destroy them," I replied, and he nodded.

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