Chapter 236

Chapter 317: The Wrong Goose

The General had nearly determined himself to not go when, suddenly, some unprecedented force tumbled him off the horseback and landed him on the ground with a loud thump.

"What-!!" Startled and enraged, he sat up on the ground and looked around, only to stare in astonishment at the sight of who had thrown him off Lightning.

Standing before him, in her towering height of uncanny magnificence, was the Lady in the Dark Hood whose face, as always, was in the shadow of her cowl.

"YOU!" The appalled word was out of the General's mouth before he could stop himself.

He was afforded only a passive stare.

"What are you doing here?" he growled impatiently.

Though he couldn't see her face, he could sense her smirking conceitedly down at him.

Almost at once, the General shot to his feet, wincing slightly when the pain on his back alerted him to the gravity of the impact with the ground. But he stood his ground resolutely and scowled at her, keeping at a wise distance as she stood leaning against Lightning who seemed to not mind her presence. The General was convinced that the horse couldn't sense her or she would have kicked the furtive being for daring to lean against her snowy side.

The General grimaced, one hand on his back where it hurt, "Why did you do that for?"

"You were long due getting one," mused the Lady casually.

The General was aggravated, "That hurt!" He had difficulty massaging his bruised back while having to make a sane conversation with his attacker.

The Lady in the Dark Hood chuckled lightly, "A little pain can be forgiven, little dragon."

"Don't call me that!" growled the General, "You have no right to mock me after all the torture you let me go through!"

"I was helpless," commented the Lady, shrugging simply, "You had it coming, remember?"

"Well, this has gone too far!" declared the General, "You promised me my cure and when I found her, you let the other one get to her first."

The Lady in the Dark Hood tilted her head to the side, in forged curiosity, "What other one?"

The General frowned, "You know who I speak of."

"I clearly don't see any hindrance to your cure," the Lady replied coolly.

The General's hands fisted from both exasperation and the pain in his back, "You don't see any hindrance?! Really?! Then what do you call that husband of hers if he isn't obstacle enough as it is to the peace of my mind?!"

The Lady in the Dark Hood leaned against the unaware mare again, her tone very calm and casual which peeved him greatly, "Husband? For her? What are you talking about?"

The General grunted, "That"That ARNAV!!"

The Lady in the Dark Hood must have good-humouredly blinked, "Arnav? Our little tiger? How many wives does he have?"

"How many wiv-?!" The General was taken aback and he hesitated a moment before asking, "Are we talking about the same person?"

"I don't know," the Lady shrugged again, "Unless, you are embarking on the bizarre possibility of an infant marriage."

"Inf-?" The General inhaled in shock, "What-?" He was lost of words as his floundered mind drowned in a flurry of senseless thoughts.

"Are you telling me that-" the General swallowed testily, "My cure isn't Miss Kushi?"

The Lady in the Hood sighed, "Sometimes, I really wonder if anything of real sense ever penetrates in your head."

"But-" the General was defensive, his mind a storm of misgivings, "You said I would begin to transform again when I met my cure for the first time!"

"Yes, I did," assured the Lady in the Dark Hood.

"I began transforming after I met Miss Kushi," reasoned the General.

The Lady was silent for a moment and then she spoke in a gentle tone, "Think again, my son. Think back to that time."

The General bit his lower lip as his mind steamed with calculations. He had met Kushi for the first time when he rescued her from the Village crowd at the Harvest Festival and, then again, when he rescued her from the river and it was, in the aftermath of all that, when he'd returned to the war, that he had begun transforming again. It was certainly after he met her! Every other woman he'd met in the week before his transformation were those he'd met before. It could only be her!

The Lady in the Dark Hood sensed the scale of his thoughts and decided to help him.

"Again the dragon rise when the maiden who is your cure comes into your time," she recited from his memory of the night he was cursed.

The General looked at her, his disbelieving mind thrown into a tangle of chaotic theories.

The Lady in the Dark Hood gazed at him silently, waiting for the truth to find his heart.

"Tell me, little dragon," she prodded encouragingly, "Do you remember any other maiden who entered into your time in approximation to the week of your transformation?"

The General swallowed, as a new realization crept into his blinded senses. That week was when he'd last been with his wife before leaving for the war on a span of few months. Next thing he learnt, of course, was of her being...

The blood drained from his face as he stared breathlessly at the Lady in the Dark Hood.

"That week," he whispered tersely in a voice he could not place as his, "That week was when...when Anarkali was conceived..."

The Lady in the Dark Hood had the ghost of a smile playing on her shadowed features, "You really are stupid, you know. You and the little tiger."

And then, in the next blink of an eye, she had vanished and Lightning stood watching her Master, her innocent horse-brain wondering why he had strapped the saddle on her but delayed getting on it and immersed his energy in conversing with the air.

The General was stricken by a tempest of apprehensions and confusions, "If she is my cure, then that apparition is-"

A newer knowledge gripped him and the General felt dizzy where he stood. Too shocked to think it aloud, he squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself.

And then, when he'd opened his eyes, a fierce light had returned into his gaze.

Forgetting the receding pain in his back, he rushed towards Lightning and leapt onto her saddle.

Picking up the reins, he pulled at it and beckoned her to gallop, "You promised you'd take me to my cure!! Well, run, Lightning! Run like the storm!"