CHAPTER 6- River Dock

Krishna River, 1538.

By the time the boat approached the river dock of Macherla, the night was over and the sun appeared on the horizon.

The thing that attracted most of Rudra's attention, was not the beautiful scenery and rising sun, but a wooden pontoon bridge of nearly 500m, laid from one shore of the river to another. It was made with anchored longboats as a base, and a wooden footway nailed on top of them, securing them in the process. 

The bridge was built a few years ago by the Golconda sultanate, to secure a proper river crossing. The diplomatic reason they had given out was that the bridge helped them better connect to the territory on the other side of the river. But everyone who had observed them knows that it's for war against Dharanikota, which seems inevitable in the next five years.

Seeing that Rudra was observing the bridge, Sethupathi decided to chime in, explaining what he already knew. "Never seen anything like it huh? Took those people, Three years to construct it. Half of the bridge broke apart and floated away once, while it was being constructed."

Indeed, it was very impressive and he would be quite awed by it, if not for his older memories. Pontoon bridges were also rare in the 21st century because better-constructed bridges existed. He couldn't get why it took three years though. 

As he looked at the bridge, designs for bridges, methods of construction and other related memories stood out from the memories which were probably implanted in him. He had no memory of ever being a civil engineer. He pushed these new thoughts down and looked at the bridge with a tactical eye.

The location of the bridge was quite strategic. Any commander will find it difficult to assault the bridge and use it to attack the Sultanate's main territory, before conquering the Macherla fort. But by wasting the time to siege the fort there, reinforcements from the sultanate's territory could cross the bridge and reinforce the fort.

It's not that this situation will make it impossible, but it will be a lot tricky for any would-be attackers. The whole situation was a mess and if Rudra wants to rule over this area in the future, he has to overcome it.

But now was not the time to think about the future. A few kilometers ahead, in the town, the people who had killed him were there. They were his main target now.

Because of the way the bridge was built, it acted as a barrier to the free movement of traffic. A heavy toll was collected from any ships or boats that wished to travel from one side to the other. Any ship that did not wish to pay the toll could dock and conduct its trade on land.

Because of this, Macherla was emerging as a rising town in this area, stealing trade from Dharanikota, by preventing their traders from accessing the rich markets of the Vijayanagara Empire's capital city Hampi through water. The city was built on the shore of the Tungabhadra River, a tributary to the river Krishna.

Trade through the land still exists of course, but by using that route, the traders have to pay tolls every time the goods pass through the land of a Nayaka, who are the Vijayanagara's nobles. One or two tolls are fine, but they quickly add up when traveling through the empire on land.

Inaction on this matter from Rudra's father was another rallying point for his father's ill-wishers. Every time, someone tries to approach the king about it, the court officials either silence them or the king ignores it after hearing their concerns. He received his gift from the Sultanate, what more reason does he have to care about that matter?

After carefully rowing for a few more minutes, the boat approached the shore. This boat was small enough to not use the dock and thus not required to pay the docking fees. Its security when left on the shore was not the concern of dock authorities, however.

Rudra finally disembarked the boat after a ten-hour journey. He turned to look at the other two people, Sethupathi and Bashir. This will probably be the last time he will meet these two, even if his plan somehow succeeds and he does not die in the coming days.

"Thank you for the ride and the conversation," he said to Sethupathi, who nodded and shook his hands. " I hope you don't mind me saying this, but make sure your son Sathhi gets some education. There is a bright future ahead and we need every great mind to move forward."

Rudra then turned to Bashir, who was now standing at his full height. His guess was correct. The 20-year-old man was easily six foot eight inches, which was a lot taller than the average height of the 16th century. 

Even Rudra himself was only five foot ten, though to be fair he was nearly sixteen in his second life and still growing. He did not remember the details such as age and height from his last life.

"I had a nice time talking with you. I can only hope that I didn't annoy you too much," he said while slowly signing those words to the giant, who was still seeing him with sharp eyes like he did the whole night.

After that, he nodded to the two men, turned around, and left for the town which was a few hundred meters ahead.

Sethupathi watched the kid leave without turning back, and his emotions were quite complicated. His father had warned him that the kid could be a child of someone influential from the Vijayanagara Empire before the boat set out. He had his doubts initially, but the kid almost made him commit treason against Dharanikota by speaking to him and lulling him into a sense of security. The kid then spent a few hours showing weird hand movements along with words to the dumb giant Bashir.

'It's over now anyway. I don't have to deal with this kid now.' he thought to himself. He then turned to Bashir to order him to pick up the goods. The market was a few kilometers away and he alone can't be the one to carry all that stuff.

What he found was Bashir doing the same weird hand movements in the direction of the kid. The big guy had been behaving strangely the past few hours ever since meeting Rudra. It was quite surprising that the big guy didn't give a smack to the kid for annoying him the whole night.

If Sethupathi had known the sign language he would have known that Beema was signing a close approximation of the words "Goodbye, Friend." towards the fleeting back of Rudra Deva.