Chapter 33: Twenty Kilometres
After eighteen days of marching from Lahore, the word passed quietly through the forward lines—
Multan was less than twenty kilometres ahead.
No announcement followed.
No change in pace.
But something shifted.
Men looked forward more often. Officers checked alignment without being told. Even the horses seemed to feel the difference in the air.
The march did not stop.
It refined itself.
The Fauj-i-Ain held tighter intervals, their lines no longer just disciplined—but prepared. The Fauj-i-Khas moved with sharper intent, their spacing exact, their silence heavier than before.
The irregulars rode further ahead now.
Not scouting distance—
Reading presence.
The army had not yet reached Multan.
But Multan had begun to shape the army.
—
Arshdeep did not wait for the main line to close the distance.
He rode back along the edge of the formation, toward where decisions passed without display. Not toward Sher Singh directly—but close enough that permission could be taken without delay.
"The ground ahead needs to be seen clearly," he said.
No long explanation.
No argument.
The officer looked at him briefly.
Then nodded.
"Take a small unit," he said. "You don't go too close."
That was enough.
—
They rode out within minutes.
No banners.
No signal.
Just a small detachment breaking from the larger body without disturbing it.
Among them rode Jawahar Singh Nalwa.
Arshdeep did not look back to confirm it.
He already knew.
"Stay close," he said.
A simple nod answered him.
—
The distance between them and the army grew quickly.
The sound of movement faded—not gone, but distant enough to no longer define the moment.
Ahead—
The land flattened.
Cleared in a way that did not belong to nature.
No scattered debris.
No uneven breaks.
Even the dry channels that crossed the ground had been shaped—not erased—
Aligned.
Arshdeep slowed.
The unit followed instantly.
Good.
"They've worked this ground," Jawahar Singh said.
"Yes."
Not abandoned.
Prepared.
That changed everything.
—
They reached a slight rise.
Not high.
But enough.
From there—
The horizon broke.
And for the first time, they saw it clearly.
Multan.
Not distant anymore.
Not imagined.
Real.
Walls stretching low and wide across the land. Structures behind them rising in layers. No visible movement—but no sense of emptiness either.
It did not look like a city waiting.
It looked like a position held.
—
No one spoke for a moment.
Not because there was nothing to say.
Because everything that mattered—
Was already understood.
Jawahar Singh studied the ground between them and the city.
"They'll make us cross that open stretch," he said.
"Yes."
"And if we don't?"
Arshdeep's gaze shifted slightly—not toward the center—
But toward the edges.
"They'll make us choose worse ground."
That was the answer.
—
No signal came from the city.
No riders.
No challenge.
Which meant—
They had already been seen.
Arshdeep did not linger.
He turned his horse slightly, scanning the land one last time—measuring distance, approach, movement.
Not memorizing how it looked.
Understanding how it would be used.
Then—
"We go back," he said.
No hesitation.
The unit turned with him.
—
As they rode back, the presence of the army returned gradually—first as distant sound, then as form, then as full structure spreading across the land.
Nearly thirty thousand men.
Positioning.
Arriving.
Preparing.
And ahead of them—
Multan did not move.
Did not react.
It simply waited.
As if it had been ready—
Long before they came.
Arshdeep did not slow as they rejoined the outer lines.
Because now—
He understood the distance.
Twenty kilometres was nothing.
The real space—
Was the ground in between.
And that—
Was where the war would begin.
RAAZ.