“Do you really think this is going to work, my friend?”
Vararuchi turned to see that Manidhara had elbowed his way through the crowd to join him.
“If we fight like lions, yes.”
Manidhara was silent for a moment. As the ships pitched over a deep swell, he grabbed a rope for support and spoke into Vararuchi’s ear. “The men are of the opinion that this is an omen.”
“What is?” Vararuchi turned to the chieftain.
“The sea,” Manidhara indicated the surging mass of water around them.
“It must be an approaching storm,” the councilor shrugged. “I would think your men should be fairly used to this.”
“If it’s a storm, where are the storm clouds and the wind?”
Vararuchi examined the sky through the smudges of smoke. He saw a heavy sprinkling of stars, the Milky Way a rich vein of silver to the southwest. There were no clouds, no wind, the sails overhead hanging limp from the masts and the crosspieces. The air scarcely stirred, the breeze that had blown inland and fanned the fires in Dvarka all evening only a memory.
“The men are right,” said Manidhara with a doleful shake of his head. “It is an omen.”
“If it is one, it must be a good omen,” the councilor had to raise his voice over the creaking of the ship’s timbers. “Your men have sea legs, whereas the Hunas don’t. Your men are far more adept at dealing with such tricky conditions than the enemy is. The rougher the sea, the more the odds tilt in our favour.”
“You may have a point there, my friend.” The councilor’s logic didn’t seem to cheer the chieftain much. “Except there are a hundred of us here and a hundred more there…” He jerked his thumb at the second Anarta ship following them"…while the Hunas have many, many times that number. Such odds can’t be easily evened.”
“In battle, it is not the strongest or the bravest or those with the greater numbers who win,” said Vararuchi. “Victory belongs to the side that best understands the price of defeat.”
“You might want to tell the men that,” Manidhara looked at the councilor hopefully.
Vararuchi cast a quick glance at the Huna ships. They still had some distance to cover, so he climbed onto a chest meant to store mooring ropes.
“Warriors of Anarta,” he faced the soldiers, modulating his voice so it would carry to the last man on the deck. “The task we have set ourselves might seem impossible, and in all honesty, I don’t know if we will succeed in overcoming the Huna archers.”
The men on the deck shuffled nervously. Manidhara shot Vararuchi an apprehensive glance, not sure where the councilor was going with this.
“But remember that it took just fourteen men to put an end to the agnikantakas,” the councilor’s arm went out toward the sinking Huna ships. “Those fourteen did what they did not because they are brave and skillful fighters, but because they once had everything taken from them – their lands, their families, their self-respect. It took years and countless lives to win all that back. Those men know the cost of giving in to the invaders. They and I will challenge fate to keep the Hunas’ shadows from darkening our lands again. You have been more fortunate, but the barbarians are now at your doorstep. Will you stand by and watch them take what is yours by right? Your sea, your land, your freedom? Your wives, your pride and your dignity?”
Manidhara could sense the mood shift along the deck. Shoulders were squaring, heads were holding up with greater firmness, and there was more steel in the men’s eyes.
“The outcome of battle is never in a warrior’s control. What is in his control is how he chooses to fight and what he chooses to fight for.” Vararuchi raised his hand high so his coiled urumi was visible to all. “Today, I choose to fight to keep the Anartas and Sindhuvarta free of the invaders – and I choose to fight such that the enemy will speak of me in their legends for generations to come. What will you do, brave warriors of Anarta?”
“We will fight likewise, your honour,” a soldier shouted back. Heads around him nodded in vigorous agreement.
“We will fight for the Anartas, for Sindhuvarta and our freedom,” screamed another, raising his spear skyward and shaking it. Spears, swords and axes lifted into the air in response, the soldier’s mates picking up his words and relaying them in an impassioned battle cry.
“For the Anartas and Sindhuvarta and freedom,” shouted Manidhara, locking grateful eyes with Vararuchi.
Acknowledging the chieftain’s appreciation, Vararuchi returned his attention to the Huna fleet. The ships with the archers were less than hundred yards away, and the councilor noticed that a couple more were moving in from the sides to intercept the Anarta ships. The sea, however, had turned even rockier, waves rising almost up to the rails and sending water sluicing across the deck. The Huna oarsmen were struggling to keep their ships on course, and the sight of the enemy vessels lurching and fishtailing in the pale half-light of dawn relieved Vararuchi. The Hunas outnumbered them by a huge margin, but for now, there probably was greater disarray in their ranks. He couldn’t count on it, but the thought offered hope.
As they drew closer, the Huna archers unleashed another volley of arrows. Owing to the uneven movement of their ships, the shots were poorly aimed, and not more than two dozen arrows even hit the Anarta ship. Still, Manidhara saw the threat clearly.
“Draw your shields together and get behind them,” he issued instructions to his men, pointing and shouting. “Once we are close enough, they won’t miss. Keep your shields closer, cover every point… quick. You there… get down on your knee. And you… cover the shoulder of your mate in front.”
Vararuchi slipped into line, raising his shield and placing it square next to the shield of one soldier. All around him, soldiers assembled, their shields knitting together and forming a single shell of metal behind which they crouched or stood, heads lowered, hands gripped tight on their weapons. The archers launched another volley, better aimed this time, but the formation withstood the attack, the arrows glancing harmlessly off the shields.
Slowly, ploughing through the turgid and resistant water, the Anarta ship hove toward the Huna vessels. Arrows flew thick over the narrowing stretch of sea, but the Anarta formation held fast. Nearer and nearer their ship edged, maneuvering around until its side bumped hard against one of the ships with the archers.
“Attack!” Manidhara hollered at the top of his lungs.
The warriors from the Anartas broke cover, shields parting to reveal heavy battle-axes, curving swords and long lances, all pointing and thrusting toward the Huna ship, an avalanche of keen blades, thirsting for blood. The warriors burst into a run, feet pounding across the deck, weapons waving in the air, their shouts drowning out the crash and fall of the waves. They hurled themselves over the ship’s side at the Huna archers, just as the first light of dawn touched the sky behind Dvarka.
* * *
The second-floor window overlooking the bath opened so softly, even the parakeets nesting in the jamun tree growing by the window barely stirred in their sleep. It was still dark outside, though a faint brushstroke of light low in the east signaled the birth of a new day.
It was even darker within the room, and the Acharya was nothing but a shadow as he leaned out of the window and peered down at the bath and the path that led to it from the palace. He searched, in particular, for the black rectangle of the pool, but when his eyes failed to discern clear shapes, he strained his ears to catch the distinctive swish-splash of water being displaced by a bather. No sound came from the direction of the bath, though, and apart from the deep coop-coop-coop of a coucal calling from across the lake, the morning was steeped in silence.
Pinching his eyelids together, the raj-guru wished the Healer would put in his appearance only once there was sufficient daylight. He had been awake practically all night, going over everything that Shanku had told him, playing every little incident connected to the Healer back in his mind, and now he felt the fatigue pulling at him, a leaden weight, slowing his faculties, dull
ing his mind. The councilor feared he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to focus on the Healer’s mind if it was too dark to see properly.
The room was situated diagonally above the palace’s northeastern bath, hidden from below by the spread of the jamun. Reserved as a studio for visiting court artists who wished to sketch or paint in privacy, it was rarely in use, and suited Vetala Bhatta’s purpose nicely; he did not want anyone getting an inkling of what he was up to, at least not for the time being.
Dawn crept in on a grey sky smeared with clouds. An easterly wind herded more clouds over Ujjayini, but near the ground, the air was warm and stuffy. As time passed and there was no sign of the Healer, Vetala Bhatta began wondering if he had misjudged the man’s routine. He knew the Healer favoured this bath, but perhaps he had chosen one of the others in the palace that morning.
Nearly half an hour passed, and the raj-guru was on the verge of calling off his vigil when he heard the clacking of wooden padukas on stone. He edged forward and peeked to find the Healer approaching. Sighing with relief, the councilor waited for the bearded figure to descend the bath’s steps, take off his padukas and enter the pool. He then stretched for his spear, propped against the wall nearby.
Keeping the spear carefully concealed from view, Vetala Bhatta clenched a fist to his chest while his gaze fixed on the back of the Healer’s head, bobbing half-submerged in the water. As the Healer immersed himself in the pool, the councilor closed his eyes and began reciting a silent mantra.
The two skulls hanging from the Acharya’s spear glowed and smouldered at their cavities.
Then, in a breathless rush, two images flooded the raj- guru’s mind, one after the other – a complex mandala; and a vast, sunlit ground with a single banyan tree at its centre.
* * *
The dawn that broke over Dvarka was rich and glorious, the colour of molten gold, but it went sadly unnoticed. Those who had fled the city and sheltered in the countryside were too scared and broken to look beyond their misery and misfortune, while those who had stayed behind were too busy trying to beat the fire back – or salvage what they could from the encroaching flames. And those out in the bay had other thoughts to occupy themselves with. Thoughts like how to make every swing of the axe, every cut of the sword and every thrust of the spear count, and how to make it out of the bloody battle alive.
For the battle that was underway that morning was the bloodiest that had been fought, at least in the collective imagination of Anartas’ soldiers.
The Hunas were wild and brutal warriors, and displayed an incapacity for fear – and a disregard for death – that was unnerving. They came at Dvarka’s troops with swinging axes and cleaving swords, screaming curses, their eyes crazed with bloodlust. They came in groups, mowing into their adversaries, their swords plunging into chests and stomachs, their axes burying into heads and shoulders; and they came in ones and twos, throwing themselves at knots of Anartas’ soldiers only to be impaled and torn apart in a matter of seconds. Strong and majestic, they fought like lions; savage and ruthless, they brawled like rabid dogs.
Yet, the troops from the Anartas did not quail. They stood firm and fought, matching blow for blow, giving as good as they got. If fear did lay a finger on any among them, the soldier only had to look at Vararuchi to draw courage and face the Hunas anew. For the councilor from Avanti was seemingly everywhere, from one end of the ship to the other, in the thick of every fight.
One moment his urumi was flaying a Huna who was about to behead a fallen Anarta soldier; the next, he was fending off a withering blow from a battle-axe before ducking under his attacker’s arm to slit his throat with a katari. Suddenly he was leaping and scrambling up the ship’s rigging to escape half a dozen Hunas coming after him; a moment later, he was swinging over the deck on a rope, ambushing the same six men with the skill of a predator. Vararuchi moved along the deck like a spectre, weaving away from lunging blades and sidestepping lethal lances, leaving those Hunas who crossed his path hopelessly crippled and mutilated. Or lifeless.
At some moment during the course of the battle, a couple of the other Huna ships moved in to disgorge reinforcements, and the scales began tipping rapidly in favour of the invaders. Outnumbered four to one and pressed on the back foot, the soldiers from the Anartas began falling, one among them being Manidhara, who was brought down by a spear driven into his left thigh, just above his knee. With a yell of pain, the chieftain buckled and went down, his good leg slipping and giving way on the deck slick with blood.
As Manidhara teetered on one knee, his injured leg trailing behind him, a Huna raised his axe with the intention of splitting his head in two. The Anartas’ soldiers were too busy battling for their own survival to notice the fate that was about to befall their chief. However, with fractions to go before the Huna brought his axe down, a form leaped at him from over the heads of the men fighting all around. The figure rammed into the Huna warrior, throwing him off balance and sending him crashing to the deck.
By the time the Huna’s shoulder hit the deck, he was dead from the katari buried in his chest, its blade driven through his ribs into his heart.
A stunned Manidhara looked at Vararuchi climbing off the fallen Huna, wresting the katari from the dead man’s torso as he spun around to meet an attack from the other Hunas nearby. However, neither the councilor nor the chieftain was in anyone’s sights at that moment, so Vararuchi threw a quick backward glance at Manidhara.
“Can you use your sword?” he asked tersely. Seeing Manidhara nod, the councilor quickly bent and lent him a hand so he could rise and prop himself against a mast. “I shall be close by, but I won’t be able to watch over you all the while, chief. So hold the sword well – we need every strong hand we can get.”
The councilor had just turned back to take on the Hunas when the ship lurched viciously, sending soldiers on both sides spinning in all directions. Waves crashed onto the deck, and for a moment, the ship’s bow pointed at the sky while its stern gazed into the depths of a dark trough. The next instant, the vessel righted itself and was fully back in the water, and Manidhara looked at the volatile sea and the ships tossing about with a mixture of bewilderment and fear.
Overhead, the sky was clear of clouds, the sun was a hot blaze in the east, and there was still no sign of a wind. The sea’s roughness defied every law of nature.
The turbulence had brought the battle to a brief, stunning halt, and as attackers and defenders alike struggled to their feet, the first of the ships from Dvarka arrived, bringing more of Anartas’ troops to help their beleaguered brothers. The fighting resumed in small skirmishes, but the pluck seemed to have finally left the Hunas. As more and more vessels from Dvarka joined the fray, the invaders were slowly pushed back, their warriors jumping over the ships’ sides into the bay.
“They are fleeing,” Manidhara heard someone shout, and looking over his shoulder, he saw the Huna ships disengaging. A hoarse cheer went up along the deck as Vararuchi appeared by his side.
“We drove them back,” the chieftain clapped a hand on Vararuchi’s sweaty shoulder, grinning and grimacing with pain at the same time. “Our resistance paid off.”
“It did,” the councilor agreed as he examined a cut on his upper arm. Letting his eye rove over the deck filled with dead and maimed men, he said, “Your men fought exceptionally, though the sea played a role as well.”
“The important thing is the barbarians are on the run.” Eyeing the retreating sails, the chief asked, “Shouldn’t we be going after them? Teach them all a lesson?”
“We must confer with Yugandhara first,” answered Vararuchi, scouting the other Anarta ships for a sign of the chief. “If we must go in pursuit…”
The councilor stopped, conscious of a change that had suddenly overcome the ship. The men had ceased talking and shouting, and they stood in small groups, their weapons limp in their hands, gazing wide-eyed in the direction of the Huna ships.
“Sails!” said a soldier in hushed voice.
/> Exchanging a puzzled look with Manidhara, Vararuchi took a few steps forward to see what was in the soldiers’ sight, behind the bulk of the fleeing ships. At first, except for the tumultuous waves rising and falling, their crests frosted with surf, there was nothing for him to see.
Then, as one wave fell and stabilized, he saw the first sail. Then another, followed by a third. In no time, the northwestern segment of the horizon was crammed with black sails, all growing larger and more clearly defined as they drew closer to Dvarka.
“Heaven help us.” Vararuchi heard Manidhara, who had hobbled forward to join him, whisper in his ear. “That’s probably the entire Huna army.”
“How many ships by your estimate, my friend?”
“At least fifty,” the chieftain’s face was pale, his eyes haunted. “We cannot tackle so many of them. We have to withdraw.”
Facing the approaching Huna fleet, Vararuchi felt hopelessness settle on his shoulders and root his feet to the deck. The assault on the agnikantakas, the storming of the Huna ships, the fury of the battle and all those lives sacrificed – everything they had done to save Dvarka had been useless. The city was still going to fall to the Hunas.
* * *
The pool scarcely rippled under the broad, leaden sky. Submerged below its surface, Shukracharya didn’t move a muscle as he held his breath, trying to calm his nerves. But his mind was in relentless churn, thoughts chasing and dislodging one another, frantic and refusing to settle. They harassed him like wayside dogs, tenacious and discordant, tailing him wherever he went, closing in on him when his back was to them, but pulling away the moment he turned his attention on them. They had left him sleepless and drained, inducing a fever that the high priest could sense building in his tired bones.
There was plenty to worry about, Shukracharya conceded, slowly rising to the water’s surface to draw breath.
The Conspiracy at Meru Page 22