The Third Thorn

Year 1564, Vijayanagar Empire, Hampi, Royal Palace

Within the meeting hall, Emperor Vasudevaraya and the prime minister was having a private discussion. The Emperor was reading the letter written by count Shamshera regarding the incursion of Mughals into the Khurda kingdom's Deoyakhand county and help from the Vijayanagar Empire as a fellow indu nation. On reading the letter both the emperor and prime minister had a smile on their face. The emperor said that "This King of Khurda is really cunning I mean first using his son as bait to draw the count out and then capture him and force him to write for our help while the king behaving that he is not a part of this request so that we do not ask him to return the favour later, quite clever really and we wouldn't have even known had count Veervadhra not informed us of this". The prime minister nodded and said "I think it doesn't matter your majesty we cannot let Mughals get away with this trickery so a message need to be sent either way". The emperor nodded and said "Send a message to the Mughals in no uncertain terms that we are not pleased and also increase the forces in the small border we have with the Mughals as a sign of posturing".

Five months later, Capital city, Khurda kingdom

Suryasen was sitting in front of the prince and the King in the meeting hall. As Suryasen explains how the divide and rule policy has worked perfectly most of the slamic menace has been neutralized and all the madrassas has been shutdown on acts of treason infact the few barons who are loyal to the crown is also doing the same following the crown example even though the king has not declared any edicts. This surprised both the king and the prince but nonetheless it was a good outcome.

Soon the prince decided to propose to his father a plan for which he visited him and brought Suryasen along. He said "Father now that we have dealt with two thorns its time to deal with the third one the informant that is count Veervadhra". As the king listened to this. he said with a worried expression on his face "Viraja I understand that you want the control of the entire kingdom firmly under the crown's grip but Veervadhra has huge support of Vijayanagar empire if we were to lay one hand on him we may end up making an enemy out of Emperor Vasudevaraya". Hearing this prince had a smile on his face and said "Father who said we will be doing anything infact I think the Mughals will be happy to do the job for us all we have to do is give them a little push".So the prince started describing his plan to the king. As the king listened to his son's plan all he could think back to the past of how his wife did penance to lord shiva to give her a son who will be unmatched both in brilliance and in strength and it seems lord shiva did listen to his wife, they have truly given birth to an audacious son. Finally the king gave acquiesce to the plan with one condition that if there is even a slight chance of failure then he must put a stop to it immediately.

A week later, Deoyakhand county, khurda kingdom

In outskirt of the Deoyakhand county a man was walking through the street of a town as he surveyed the town with a frown on his face. He thought that this town should have madrassas and community of slamic people even lowly converted filth like arzal should be living here but all he could see is the indu people. It seems rumors were true the converted slamics where returning back to indu culture and rest were exterminated for atrocities against the indu Khafirs. His mission was to create unrest using religious doctrine to rile the slamic followers against the indu khafirs. Since this trick will not work here so he decided to move to next town. What he did not know is that he is being followed by another man who was keeping a close watch on him. As he was leaving the town he accidentally bumped into a beautiful women, this led to him putting his guard down seeing such a beauty and it is at this moment of distraction he was hit at the back of his head rendering him unconscious. As the unconscious man remain fallen on the ground the man who rendered him unconscious was an agent of the third eye organization thanked the woman for distracting him. The woman looked with disdain at the unconscious man and said "if our prince did not have need for this filthy Mughal agent then I would have killed him for looking at me in the wrong way".+

After sometime the Mughal agent became conscious of his surrounding what he saw was his hand is tied and in the distance two men was talking to each other. From their talking he deduced that both were men of that khafir traitorous count Shamshera and this men has been hunting Mughal agents all over the county on Count Shamshera's order as he is afraid that their could be assassination attempt on him. By their talk's he also determined that the intensity to hunt for Mughal agent and assassins has increased more lately as the count will be going out of his stronghold to meet another prominent noble called Count Veervadhra at a meeting place called tukula which is a small town near the border of both the Mughal and vijayanagar empire. The agent thought this could a perfect opportunity to kill that khafir count for his betrayal.

As the Mughal agent struggle to get out of the binding his eyes fell on the two horse standing nearby, he slowly pull out a small 5 inch sharp knife from a hidden pocket of his coat and started cutting the rope. Once the rope was cut he sprinted directly at the two horses followed by the two men who was sitting in the distance who also seeing him escape sprinted after him. Once the Mughal agent was atop one of the horse and has the rein of both the horses firmly within his grasp he quickly galloped to escape his kidnappers and towards the direction where he will meet up with his fellow agents and give them the news of count location so that an assassination can be attempted.

Few days later, Tukula town near boarder region, khurda kingdom

Shamsher choudhury was being escorted to the meeting place where he is to meet the count Veervadhra regarding the help and safeguard that Vijayanagar can provided to the kingdom especially to his county. Though it was all a farce but he can do little to avoid it as he is firmly under the grip of the prince. Whenever he thinks of the prince it sends a shiver down his spine, a boy who is only ten years old how can he be so ruthless and cunning it was beyond him to understand. Either way he have no choice but to follow the prince orders. As he reached the town called tukula his carraige moved towards the small mansion where both the count would meet.

An hour later both the count were seen sitting at the table face to face with each other. As the discussion was about to start there was crashing and fighting sound came from outside soon a guard came running in and said "My lord there is multiple intruders who is attacking the mansion and trying to break in and it seems that they are Mughals". Hearing this both the count stood up and ordered their men to evacuated immediately, it was at this moment that multiple intruders barged in the room and a fight started between the count's guard and the Mughal intruders. As the Mughal attackers aim were count Shamshera they concentrated on him so this gave chance to count Veervadhra to slowly escape the situation. But unfortunately for him hidden within the mansion was also third eye agents whose main target was to kill the count in this chaos and pin the blame on the Mughals and so right at this moment wearing the same garb as the mughals the third eye agent attacked Count Veervadhra. In the ensuing fight both the count was killed, though the third eye agent made sure some of count Veervadhra men escape unharmed so that they can report what has happened here thereby placing the blame solely on the Mughals. The Mughals attacker themselves also withdrew along with the third eye agents when they succeeded in killing count Shamsher.

A weeks or so later 

In the Vijaynagar Empire, as the news of count Veervadhra's death at the hands of the Mughals including the details of the incident reached emperor Vasudevaraya he was furious at the Mughals audacity and this resulted in him ordering an attack on the mughals army at the borders to teach them a lesson. Similarly in the Mughal Empire, as the emperor Aktar heard about the count shamshera's demise he was quite pleased but death of count Veervadhra has also resulted in increasing the tension between his empire and the Vijayanagar empire and even result in multiple times Vijayanagar empire attacking his boarder forces and wiping them out. Basically now his empire is at war with another nation on another front.

Within the capital city of Khurda kingdom, both the prince and the king was listening to the report of successful execution of the plan to kill the count Veervadhra and it seems the blame squarely fell on the Mughals and now both the Mughals and Vijayanagar are at war with each other. The prince said "Father this is a perfect time to take control of the Gajapatipur county by sending the royal army and turn the count family into just figurehead by using the excuse of the war that is happening between the two empire which could spill over into our borders". Hearing this the king nodded and immediately ordered a division of royal army and a governor to take over the administration of the Gajapatipur county on the excuse of spill over effect of war between Mughals and Vijaynagar.As the time progressed the crown's grip over the Gajapatipur county became firmer and the next in line count who was son of Veervadhra became just an figurehead who was later forced to renounce his title and land in return for a compensation. Soon a reforms were made which forced all the other few barons left to also renounce their title and land and give the crown full control over it governance thereby completing the prince first goal of crowns total control over all the lands of the kingdom.