Crossing this rope bridge was no easy affair. The men couldn’t use a torch for fear of burning the whole contraption down, which meant they formed a human chain and held on to the sides of this precarious rope way, feeling their way forward to the other end. Once the greater body of infantrymen had crossed over, the trickier business of carrying the horses across had to commence. For this, Harisena positioned his best swimmers along the rope bridge to help steer the rafts. Each carried no more than two horses, blindfolded and with their riders in tow, so that the animals wouldn’t feel skittish mid-stream. The men used long stakes to row across, steered and helped by those already in the river. We didn’t have enough rafts so each one had to go back and forth several times to carry across not only the horses but also the pack animals.
Harisena and I were the last to cross over, and by the time we were on the other side, the moon had already set. It took us close to eight hours to complete this task but apart from one pack mule and a nervous archer who had lost his footing, everyone had made it to the other side safe, but half frozen.
My first order once was to light a few fires and warm up before we started marching along the river towards the city gate. The carpenters, among the first to come across, had already started reassembling the catapults and the archers were busy sharpening their arrowheads and covering them up to protect them from getting soaked by the dew. A soggy arrow is no good to anyone, and today the archers needed to fire a veritable hail.
I remained frozen on the saddle, straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of the city’s skyline in the far distance. We had more than an hour’s march ahead of us and since the fog wasn’t going to thin out before the second prahar gong, it gave us plenty of time to take in the lay of the land and plan our move. Bhasma stayed by my side, silently shivering on his saddle, the usual smug sneer wiped off his face. He was beginning to get an inkling of what we were planning and he didn’t seem to have much to say about it. This was going to be a lose-lose situation for him anyway – if the Nagas were defeated, he’d lose his most powerful supporters in the empire. If we lost, he would find it very hard to explain why he was part of an attack against his own kinsmen.
We gave ourselves just enough time to get our bearings right before we set off again. The frontline, consisting of archers and cavalry soldiers, had already left and were expected to wait close to the city gate. Like earlier, we staggered the platoon and marched in a single file; Harisena up ahead and me bringing up the rear, with Bhasma by my side. My tiger pennant and the Garuda Dhwaja were now up, fluttering in the night wind, though we still marched mostly in the dark punctuated by as few torches as possible. We had fog cover and nothing but starlight above, yet we needed to be careful. Surprise was key. And so was stealth, till our catapults started raining fire on the sleeping city. Then we would storm in and pummel the enemy. At least that was the plan.
Unlike Ahichhatra, Mathura’s defences were so watertight that our spies were unable to enter the city, despite several attempts. And those who were inside could neither leave nor send word out for fear of being discovered. Also, unlike Ahichhatra, Mathura was expecting an attack. Its boundary walls were well patrolled with archers and swords men taking turns to march up and down the rampart. Any attempt to break in was sure to be a bone-crunching nasty business. My primary concern was not to lose too many men while trying to breach the boundaries. The catapults would hurl fiery balls into the city causing a diversion big enough for the ladders to go up and our men to scale the walls. If we didn’t hurry, the enemy would pour boiling oil or hurl boulders down at us. I needed this battle to be quick and decisive, otherwise we didn’t stand a chance.
I had discussed the battle plan in detail with Harisena just before we set out but we both knew no attack ever goes exactly according to plan. In the hurly-burly of a charge, men behave irrationally and even the best-laid plans can go awry. That’s why big armies often end up losing – it’s impossible to coordinate the movements of 50,000 men. My 1800 were seasoned fighters; cool-headed and battle-hardened. They would follow instructions as much as possible. That and morale were my biggest advantages – Ahichhatra was down and my men were baying for battle glory and loot. If we kept our cool, this would be our greatest victory yet. I looked up at the sky, intending to offer a small prayer to Chakrapani Vishnu. But it was Datta’s face that I saw in my mind’s eye – wide set eyes, brimming with tears, even as that small nervous mouth forced itself to smile. My plucky little tailor bird I called her, tiny and unremarkable till you caught a glimpse of her magnificent heart. She will build her nest no matter what, tail up and twittering away all her fears of tomorrow.
‘My brave love,’ I had told her. ‘Build us a nest so strong it will keep tomorrow safe for us.’
The men were wet and hungry, shivering from the drizzle that now dripped into our padded clothing and leather armour and made our teeth chatter.
‘It’s raining … Can we set the fireballs alight?’ asked Harisena, sounding worried. ‘Without a diversion we will have a tougher time scaling the walls.’
The head carpenter chuckled. ‘We have dry wood. We wrapped them well because wet wood is heavier and more difficult to plank up. You will have your fireball. Maybe not as many as planned earlier though,’ he said.
‘Ask your archers to start scaling the walls,’ I told Harisena. ‘We need some arrow cover when we breach the gate.’
‘They are already on the job, Majesty,’ said Harisena. ‘As planned. Since we don’t hear any sounds of a scuffle, I am hoping they have made it across. As have my band of guards who followed them.’
‘Then it’s time for the diversion,’ I said. ‘Fire the catapults and let’s prepare for the charge.’
The rain was a dampener but seven out of the ten fireballs hit home. We heard a series of tremendous booms followed by screams and howls, and saw the flames licking the sky with delicious abandon. It was still dark but the inky black horizon was now aglow as the air filled with the smell of charred wood and flesh. In that ear-splitting din, we also heard the clear hooting of an owl. This was our secret signal that our men were in position. It was now time to push, shove and hack our way into the golden city of Mathura.
We positioned a few more fireballs, this time aiming them directly at the huge wooden city gates. ‘Start hacking away at the wood, use ghee swabs and set them on fire,’ screamed Harisena at those around us. This was my idea. As we hadn’t carried battering rams, the next best option was to use axes to split parts of the surface of the gates, slather them with ghee and set them on fire. With the city also up in flames, the fire outside the gates, I reasoned, would not attract too much attention.
And it didn’t. What did however were our men trying to force the side gate open.
I could hear a brawl of swords and spears, of men shouting themselves hoarse, of battle roars too mixed up to make any sense beyond a tremendous clangor. I heard sharp breaths and grunts, the crash of axes and the clang of swords against each other, even as arrows hissed through the air. ‘They will shoot fire arrows too, Majesty,’ whispered Harisena, as we stood motionless before the gate. ‘My best men are inside. It won’t be long.’
It wasn’t. Inch by inch, the side door opened and I signalled our frontline to push through and create enough space for the cavalry charge. These were our bravest men, the spearhead of our attack, the first ones to charge into the enemy line, swinging their axes and maces around. That’s how you hack your way through the enemy. It’s a death trap and only the bravest or the most foolish dare attempt it. Battle after battle. Without them, a cavalry charge is impossible – the infantry always cuts a way through first.
As we pushed ourselves inside, I saw how greatly the odds were stacked against us. A greater mob was pressing down against the much smaller body of our infantrymen, bodies bumping against bodies, axes clashing, bones splitting, skulls cracking, ribs crunching, limbs ripping and bowels emptying in the great cacophony of death. Men roared and howled, vomited and whimper
ed. Blood spurted, brains and intestines spilled out, tongues lolled, sweat dripped and mouths frothed. The enemy was crazed with fear and they pushed forward for all they were worth. But their greater numbers were their undoing. As our men pushed back against them and the fire arrows rained down on us, those in the front tried to take cover, turning back and crushing others in their way. And so began the stampede.
Men ran helter-skelter, mangling others underfoot, focused only on the fire that rained from the sky. My men knew each other by face but the enemy, in their great multitude, couldn’t tell friend from foe and in the resultant confusion, the side with the greater numbers stumbled first.
I led the initial charge, riding into this frenzied multitude, slashing our way through and spearing those our swords couldn’t reach. The archers had positioned themselves on the ramparts and were now shooting non-stop, not bothering to aim since it would have been impossible to pick out targets in that melee. The charge was a furious one – it needed to be for we did not have enough men to mount too many attacks but it did the trick. Inch by painful inch, the gates swung open and then, Harisena led a swarm of his best horsemen through that narrow slit towards their bloody destiny.
This was the most frantic charge I had ever seen. Harisena and his men rode hard, straight into the enemy ranks, slashing with their swords and battleaxes in a blindingly fast dance of death. The enemy guards fell back as our frontline chopped clean through them, swinging and swerving madly, each horseman wielding more than one weapon and backed up by an archer riding pillion. At such range, the archers had a field day and they picked their targets well, letting lose volley after volley, forcing the mob to fall back, causing problems for their own cavalry that was now stuck, horse and man, in the middle of a hysterical stampede.
Whoosh, boom, sputter. The rampart guards seemed to have finally woken up, and the boiling oil and boulders were now coming down the south side to prevent any breaches from that end. They needn’t have worried though. I did not have the numbers to launch a multi-pronged attack and now that we had a foot inside the door, our men were safe from being crushed under those boulders or scalded by the boiling oil. The guards could not risk targeting our men in a melee where their own compatriots swarmed all around.
I watched as this teeming mass of men – dead, wounded, bloodied, screaming, grunting, lunging, flailing, hacking, reeling – pressed against each other and willed themselves to go on. Blood lust, I thought, more potent than the most soul-stirring battle speech. Once the killing begins, bloodlust takes over. Kill or be killed, and battle strategies be damned.
I saw two of our riders go down, their horses crippled by stray arrows and the muddy ground made slippery by the earlier drizzle. The horses stumbled and as they came down in a heap, they trapped their riders below. It was a messy business. It’s the worst fate that can befall a horseman – to be hauled to the ground, swarmed and hacked down by a frenzied mob. I saw Bhasma trying to ride across to help but signalled him to stop. In the battlefield, it was each man for himself. I couldn’t risk more horsemen, least of all my half-brother, rushing into a situation that was already beyond help.
As our charge pushed through the melee, we finally came face to face with the enemy cavalry, already somewhat battered by the earlier stampede. The dead and wounded were now so thickly strewn at the mouth of the gate, and the muddied ground beneath us so slippery with tangled limbs, blood, faeces and mauled horse flesh that the terrain was more treacherous than the enemy waiting for us in the city square. ‘Get out of here,’ I shouted to Harisena. ‘Push towards the city centre. We need clean, firm ground to fight. Push ahead. Hack your way through. Kill. Finish them.’
Harisena took the cue and spurred his horse ahead to ride cleanly over a group of six enemy soldiers who were crowding around in an attempt to haul him down. The horse, already maddened by the clamor of clanging swords, whinnying animals, death shrieks and battle cries, first bucked and then reared, its hind hoof hitting one of his attackers square in the face while the front hooves hit another in the chest. Both were reduced to a howling heap on the ground, and the rest scattered away so he could ride through. For myself, I had to hack and lunge my way forward, wielding both my Asi and Khadaga relentlessly to keep the enemy from crowding around. Pushpak rammed through the mob, kicking and snorting as I ran my sword into an enemy infantry man, cut down another with a mighty sweep of the Khadaga, cleanly cut open the gullet of a third and ripped open a fourth man’s belly.
I saw the enemy cavalry fall back, drawing us into the bowel of the city. ‘Could be a trap,’ said Harisena, coming up next to me.
‘We have no choice but to follow them,’ I replied. ‘We cannot fight here. We need to go in there and finish this. As cleanly as possible.’
‘Yes, Majesty,’ he said, and in a swift motion took out his battle conch shell and blew on it. He called it the Panchajanya – named after Lord Krishna’s own conch used in the battle of Kurukshetra – and it rang loud and clear, cutting through the hurly-burly of that pre-dawn scuffle. It was a signal to his horsemen to gather and attack, a fierce final charge to flush out the enemy cavalry and take over the city. It had to be now or never.
In no time, the men arranged themselves into a classic cavalry position, the chakra vyuha, with the infantry in front to bear the brunt of the initial attack. We did not have chariots or elephants, so the archers continued to ride pillion along with the horsemen, aiming their arrows at the enemy horses in an attempt to maim them and create panic in their lines. Then we would plunge in and do the real killing. ‘They have elephants, sire,’ shouted Harisena. ‘Ask the archers to target those beasts,’ I instructed. War elephants are typically given enormous amounts of liquor to make them battle-crazed. This also makes them notoriously temperamental. An elephant running amok in the enemy lines could very well do our job for us but we needed to make sure our own infantrymen didn’t get trampled to death in the process.
‘Jai Garuda,’ shouted my men, as much to rally around our war cry as to drive home that Vishnu’s mount and our patron saint was the traditional enemy of the Nagas. It was responsible, in mythical times, of nearly cleansing the world of Naga presence. The enemy infantry screeched back their battle cry, retreating deeper into the city and drawing us in with them.
I had planned a three-pronged attack with the vyuha in the middle and two smaller groups of horsemen protecting the flanks, interspersed with foot soldiers and archers. ‘Aim your arrows at the elephants,’ I called out. ‘Target their eyes.’
My voice was drowned in a hail of arrows from the rampart and suddenly I understood why the enemy was drawing us into the heart of the city. Their archers were positioned all along the wall, which meant we had to continue our fight with a handicap, using our wood-and-leather shields to protect ourselves. But archers need time to reload and shoot, and my men knew what was expected of them. They used the tiny break in arrow shower to push ahead, keeping the entire formation as intact as possible. I signalled to Harisena on my left to branch out with one group of our horsemen, and using one of the narrow alleyways to the left to take a detour into the city centre. I did the same with the group flanking the right, leaving the main vyuha to move forward in formation, the cavalry offering cover to the archers and foot soldiers.
We galloped to the far end of that serpentine alley, and took a few seconds to take in the lay of the land. Each of the alleys led to the city centre, a large open brick-paved square fringed by the palace at one end, the elephant stables at the other and the southern edge of the rampart on the third. As I expected, Ganapati Naga had brought out his elephant corps who were standing in a neat row in front of the palace with the cavalry ranged before them. I could see one enormous elephant with a silver howdah on it and guessed that was Ganapati Naga’s personal mount. From where I stood, it was at least 450 yards away, safely outside an ordinary archer’s reach. What Ganapati didn’t know was that I was no ordinary archer.
The square was packed with his men and
horses, waiting for us to walk into what they thought was sure to be an impenetrable trap. I knew Harisena and the vyuha would wait for my cue before they charged in. All we needed was a good enough diversion; for this I needed an exceptional longbow, my own trusted weapon. I always carried it slung across my back, the quiver of arrows tucked into my cummerbund. Harisena would often complain that kings did not shoot like archers and my weapon of choice should never fall below the Asi, Khadaga and spear. But I knew how handy a long bow could be, and as I pulled that well-waxed taut string beyond my ears, the cacophony of sound and sight all around me faded away. I saw nothing but the silver howdah and heard nothing but the buzz of my bowstring as it launched the arrow through the teary morning light.
My men understood my plan the moment I aimed my shot. Within a blink, they let lose a hundred more, all targeting the elephants. Whoosh. The arrows, whirring, ripped through the morning air. We saw the volley as if in slow motion, piercing through the fast-melting morning mist as they flew through. And then, all hell broke loose.
My own arrow had hit home, burying itself in the enormous tusker’s left eye. The beast, maddened by the pain, was now running amok as our second and third volleys caught some of the horses and two more elephants. The enemy cavalry, not expecting an arrow shower from such a distance, began to scatter in confusion, the horses terrified by the trumpeting elephants and the infantry trampled by them. The calm discipline from a moment ago exploded into a scene of complete chaos.
‘Jai Garuda,’ I shouted and rode into that deadly disarray with my horsemen in tow. ‘Steer clear of the elephants. Aim your arrows at the horses. Now. Now. Now. Jai Garuda!’
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