by John Shors
Able to discern some of the battle, Prak realized that a vessel was heading in their direction. “Is that boat ours?” he asked his mother, who stood at his side near the stern.
“No…I don’t think so.”
“How many Chams are on it?”
“I’m not sure. The smoke makes it hard to see.”
“But are they coming for us? Look closely, Mother. Are they steering in our direction?”
“Yes.”
“Then hand me a spear. When the time is right, tell me what to do.”
She pressed the thick shaft of a spear into his hands. “I have a shield,” she said, her voice quivering. “I’ll stand to your left and hold the shield.”
Despite his surging fear, the thought of her fighting beside him provoked a sense of pride within him. She might have been quiet. She might have doubted herself. But now, in this decisive moment, she was going to stand beside him and face the Chams.
“How far away are they, Mother?”
“Twenty paces…I think. There are six of them.”
Prak yelled at the two remaining Khmer fighters to join him in the stern. He wasn’t sure if they heeded his request, but he thought he heard oars falling onto the deck. “Tell me where and when to strike, Mother. Straight, left, or right. Just say one of those words and I’ll stab away.”
Nodding, she shifted closer to him, grunting as she lifted the heavy shield.
The enemy vessel bumped into theirs. Chams leapt from boat to boat. Prak, who stood still, could see only white blurs, but he thought that the two Khmers rushed forward to face them. There was a sudden and violent clash of swords. Someone screamed. Someone else fell into the water. The fighters grunted and swore and died.
Prak sensed the Khmer children gathering behind him. They wept and pleaded. “How many Chams, Mother? How many remain?”
“Two! And they come now! To your right!”
Prak shifted his position, aware of the approaching blurs. Though his vision was weak, his arms were strong, and he held the heavy spear with ease.
“Left!” his mother screamed.
Without thought he thrust the spear ahead to his left, and felt it bite into flesh. The other blur rushed forward. His mother cried out as something smashed into her shield. Even as he yanked his spear backward, Prak realized that she had saved him. “Where?” he shouted. “Where do I strike?”
A searing pain shot through his leg.
“Straight!” she screamed.
Once again he thrust his weapon forward. It struck wood, not flesh, but now he knew where the Cham was and dropped his spear, rushed forward, and slammed into the body of his adversary. They fell together. Prak felt fingers clawing at his face. Somehow he resisted the urge to protect himself, instead finding the man’s neck and wrapping his right arm around it, squeezing tightly. He had subdued many large catfish in such a manner, and before long the Cham gasped. The warrior tore at Prak’s eyes and mouth, but Prak didn’t change his grip. He simply squeezed until his adversary was silenced and went still.
“He’s gone, Prak!” his mother shouted. “They’re all gone!”
Prak pushed the body from him and tried to rise to his feet. Yet his legs failed him. He knelt on the ground in a state of shock. His mother was speaking to him, but her words no longer made sense. He could barely remain upright, no longer aware of even the sounds of battle or the wound on his calf.
His mother reached for him, and he took solace in her presence, sinking deeper into her embrace, into a place where he knew comfort.
Upon reaching the stern of the Khmer boat, Asal grabbed onto the rudder, the waves lifting and dropping him. Though he wanted to rush into the fray, his lungs heaved, and he forced himself to wait as strength flowed back into him. He looked for Voisanne, but his view was obstructed by the boat’s slippery hull.
A woman screamed. Asal didn’t know who it was, but the sound spurred him into motion. He pulled himself up on the rudder, clutched the gunwale, and fell onto a dead Khmer. Without a moment’s hesitation, he pulled a sword and a shield from the man’s lifeless fingers. Two Khmers saw him and rushed forward, but he called out in their language, saying that he was a friend of Jayavar’s. The men hesitated, and Asal saw that the king lay prone on the deck, surrounded by about fifteen of his warriors. A larger number of Chams were attacking them from the bow, pressing forward in a furious onslaught. Jayavar struggled to his feet and raised his sword, the sight of which provoked cheers from his men. They fought on, as did Jayavar, who to Asal’s surprise moved to the front of their ranks. Farther down the boat, Indravarman shouted at his men as he swung his battle-axe, splintering shields and cleaving flesh.
Again Asal remembered Indravarman’s threats to Voisanne. He imagined the king beating her, and the image filled him with such rage that he ignored the two Khmers’ orders to stand back. One of them swung at him with a sword, but Asal cast the strike away with his shield and charged past them, howling at Indravarman to come forward and die. He knocked aside several other Khmers, oblivious to the threat of their weapons. Suddenly he was next to Jayavar. The king was engaged with a Cham officer, and Asal brought the man down with a backhanded stroke of his sword. Jayavar, already wounded in several places, recognized Asal and called out that he was a friend.
Indravarman must have seen Asal at that moment, for he shouted at his men to kill the traitor, pointing in Asal’s direction. Chams surged forward. Much of the fighting was too close to use spears, so men on both sides attacked with swords, knives, and axes. Asal stood beside Jayavar, beating away those who sought to kill a king. His sword had never felt so light and free, falling and rising in great arcs, opening the enemy ranks. Men dropped before him, creating a shield of bodies. Still, compelled to attack by Indravarman, Chams came forward, swinging swords and axes, trying to thrust their weapons past Asal’s shield. One warrior might have succeeded, but Jayavar caught the descending blade on his own sword hilt. The combatants cursed and struggled, and Asal pulled his sword from a dying Cham and thrust its blade deeply into Jayavar’s adversary. A spear darted forward from the second line of Chams, nicking Asal in the shoulder. The blow didn’t have much strength behind it, but the blade produced a searing pain, which only increased his rage. He screamed the battle cry of his own countrymen yet attacked them without pause or thought, his sword now a living thing of steel. Men stepped back from him, dominated by fear, and he pressed forward, deeper into the ranks of the enemy. Suddenly he was alone, nearly surrounded, and fighting for survival. He killed two men but would have fallen if Jayavar hadn’t pressed ahead to reach his side.
Khmer king and Cham officer fought together against the enemy. They protected each other and slew each other’s foes, but Indravarman’s men were too many. And the Cham king himself was coming closer, his axe blurring as it swept forward to claim lives.
The shaft of a spear smashed into the side of Asal’s head. His vision dimmed, but he still fought on, trying to get to Indravarman. Screaming, he stepped over men downed by his sword and waded deeper among the Chams. He now saw the king as a demon that would rob the world of light and beauty. Asal charged at him like one of the Gods on the walls of Angkor Wat, his sword held high, his face contorted with fury.
Asal met the demon. The blades of their weapons struck, the strength of the blow numbing Asal’s arm. Around him, Khmers and Chams struggled and died, and Po Rame crept forward, but to Asal, nothing except the demon existed. He threw himself against it, trying with all his might to bring it down, but it stood tall, resisting his every strike, empowered by its own malice and evil.
Vibol wasn’t sure how his father had been knocked down. One moment he was battling a Cham spearman, and the next he lay on the deck, blood oozing from a wound on his forehead. Their boat was swamped, and water sloshed back and forth atop the deck, pushing his father’s limp body from one side to the other.
At first Vibol thought his father was dead, and after killing an older Cham, he fell to his knees in despair
. But Boran opened his eyes and tried to sit up. The fighting raged around them, and legs knocked into them as men screamed and fought. The deck was covered in bodies.
Vibol had seen too many injured Khmers speared where they lay to leave his father alone. Grunting with effort, he dragged him toward the side of the boat that had sunk nearly to the waterline. Struggling warriors stepped on them and fell in their path, yet Vibol continued to pull his father, weeping at the sight of his wound, which was swelling quickly. The man who had always loved him, who had followed him into this hell, was as helpless as a child.
Someone stepped on Vibol’s hand, and he grimaced but didn’t draw attention to himself. Smoke wafted over them, perhaps obscuring them for a moment because the fighting seemed to ebb. Vibol reached the edge of the boat and pushed his father overboard. He rolled over the side after him, positioning himself behind his father, holding his head out of the water and supporting his body with his own.
Vibol began to swim, though coordinated movement was difficult as he shuddered uncontrollably. He didn’t know where to go, so he simply headed away from their boat, from a place of death and despair. He continued to weep, thinking that his father would be safe and well if he hadn’t forced his family to follow him to war.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“No need…for that,” Boran replied, his voice low and deep, as if he had woken from a long slumber.
“Don’t die, Father. Please…you can’t die.”
“I won’t.”
A spear splashed into the nearby water, prompting Vibol to swim harder. “Leave him be!” he screamed. “Just leave him be!”
Boats loomed in the distance. Some were on fire. Others teemed with warriors. Vibol kicked away from these sights, though at times they seemed to surround him. He wouldn’t bring his father to such a place even if he had to swim with him all the way across the Great Lake.
“I want to go far from here,” Vibol said, kicking awkwardly, pulling his father away from the madness. “And not ever return.”
“Just swim…my brave son.”
Vibol did as his father asked, heading for a stretch of the horizon that was free of boats and men. He swam into the deep, still supporting his father. The waves had diminished, he realized. The wind had stilled. Yet he felt so overwhelmed. His father’s body dragged him down.
Onward he swam. He longed for silence, to listen to the water, to breathe untainted air. Nothing mattered to him now but to be with his father, to hold him as fish passed below, as memories of their companionship unwound behind his closed eyes.
* * *
Jayavar twisted away from the spear thrust, wincing as the blade impaled the Khmer behind him. Bringing the hilt of his sword down hard on his adversary’s head, the king glanced at the nearby boats, praying that help would arrive soon. But everywhere he looked, Khmers and Siamese fighters were being overwhelmed by Chams. The enemy numbers were simply too great.
Believing that they were doomed unless Indravarman fell, Jayavar pressed toward the Cham king, attacking a stout warrior with a sudden burst of fury. The man was quick, however, parrying his thrusts, counterattacking with a series of swift sweeps of his sword. Jayavar was forced backward, nearly slipping once again on the bloody deck. Another Cham joined in the assault and Jayavar desperately protected himself with both his shield and sword. His foes came at him again and again, and it took all of his strength and savvy to stay alive. He knocked aside one sword stroke only to find that the stout man was lunging forward, his blade parallel to the deck. The thrust would have disemboweled him, but Asal disengaged from his fight with Indravarman so that he could parry the blade of Jayavar’s attacker, smashing the Cham’s sword down with his own. Jayavar stumbled. Two of his men stepped in front of him, and as he got to his feet, he couldn’t help but watch Asal fight against the stout Cham.
Though Jayavar had prayed for strength, it seemed that if divine intervention had taken place then surely the power had been given to Asal, for he fought with extraordinary fury and skill. He screamed a battle cry, his sword a blur, his shield battering men aside. The stout Cham was struck twice before his face even registered shock, and as the dying warrior hit the deck, Asal engaged his next foe, pressing forward like a storm assailing a forest of old trees. The trees split and shattered, swayed and fell. Asal dodged them as they toppled, shouting Indravarman’s name, once again fighting toward him, the dead and dying in his wake.
Jayavar offered a prayer of gratitude for Asal’s delivery. He then tried to reenter the melee, but a line of his own men moved to separate him from the combatants. Swords clanged, smoke drifted, and arrows whistled. Yet Jayavar had eyes only for Asal, because the Cham continued to fight as if he were not one man but five, scattering his enemies, barely pausing when a spear thudded into his battered shield.
The Khmer king pushed his men aside and fought forward to reach his new ally, longing to help him. But in his haste to reach Asal, Jayavar didn’t notice the tall Cham with the trident held aloft. The trident was bloody, and held high, pointing at Asal’s back.
Jayavar finally spotted the threat. He started to cry out a warning, but something hammered into his side, knocking the breath from his lungs. He gasped, managed to kill his attacker, but his voice was gone.
The threat went unchallenged.
When Asal had first seen Indravarman, all reason had left him. His sole thought was of revenge, not for his own torture, but for the threat against Voisanne. He had fought in a way that he hadn’t known was possible, his sword and shield vicious predators that seemed to act on their own volition. Men faced him and died. Others leapt from the boat rather than endure the steel in his hand. Though he had always been a fierce fighter, on this day his fury had made him much more lethal.
Once again Indravarman met him near the center of the boat. The Cham king held a shield in his left hand and the massive war axe in his right. The shield was barely marred, while both sides of the axe were bloodied. Indravarman cursed Asal, boasted that he would have his woman, and then attacked, swinging his axe in a blow that would have felled a horse. Asal blocked the strike, but his shield splintered and his arm went numb. Still, he didn’t pause or back away, but chopped down with his sword, surprising Indravarman with his speed and strength. The king managed to knock the blow aside with his own shield. Chams pressed forward to help Indravarman, but Jayavar and a few men engaged them.
Asal threw himself at his larger adversary, his sword striking from unexpected angles, his half-ruined shield managing to keep the big axe at bay. The combatants forced all other men aside. No one wanted to interfere; to engage either man would be to die. Asal and Indravarman fought and raged, both strong and quick, experienced and wise. Not a warrior on either side could have wielded the axe as Indravarman did, for he swung the heavy weapon as if it were a child’s toy. His shield in tatters, Asal tried to avoid the axe rather than cast it aside. He spun on his toes, seeming to dance on the bloody deck, twisting to one side or the other as the steel pursued his flesh.
His breath now ragged, his chest heaving, Asal tried to counterattack, but Indravarman was amazingly quick. The two warriors came together, weapons locking. They strained against each other, their heads and shoulders banging, their sweat and blood mingling.
“You betrayed me,” Indravarman said through clenched teeth.
“Gladly…Lord King.”
“Your whore shall—”
“No!” Asal shouted, thrusting himself forward, smashing his forehead into Indravarman’s nose. Blood sprayed and the king howled in pain, stepping back. Asal disengaged his blade from the axe and stabbed it forward. His lunge missed, but he continued to press against Indravarman with all of his strength, forcing the king back. Asal struck again and felt his weapon bite into flesh. Indravarman screamed.
Seeing that their king was in mortal danger, other Chams jumped into the fray. Asal countered one sword stroke, heard Jayavar shout a warning, and managed to turn aside
Po Rame’s trident with a desperate flick of his shield. One of the trident’s barbs stuck in the wood, gouging Asal’s forearm.
Indravarman regained his balance and smashed the flat of his axe into Asal, who stumbled, his back striking the gunwale. Pinpricks of light danced in his vision. His breath seemed to catch in his throat. He felt himself tipping toward the water.
Po Rame leapt through the air, a dagger in his right hand. Somehow Asal caught his wrist, halting the blow. Yet the assassin’s momentum pushed Asal backward, over the gunwale. Both men twisted head over heels and then struck the water.
Asal clutched Po Rame’s wrist. But he was deep in the brown water, unable to see or think or breathe.
Po Rame smashed his knee into Asal’s belly. Involuntarily, Asal cried out, water entering his lungs. He choked and gagged, thrashing desperately now, the end approaching more quickly than he had imagined.
Though distracted by the battle raging around her, Voisanne managed to maintain a nearly constant supply of arrows for the queen. Ajadevi wasn’t a great archer, but she had been pouring a steady barrage of arrows onto a nearby vessel dominated by Chams. The enemy fired back, and arrows thudded into the wood near the two women. When the bolts didn’t bite deeply enough into the deck or hull, Voisanne was able to wrench them free and hand them to Ajadevi, who promptly took aim and fired. Since she had so many men to target, her strikes often resulted in curses and screams.
Ajadevi seemed fearless of the arrows that whistled past her, but Voisanne was unnerved by the danger. She had insisted that Chaya remain with the children, who crouched behind a wall of shields. Several of the children had already lost mothers or fathers, and Voisanne was proud of Chaya as she tried to comfort the young.
Whenever she ran to retrieve an arrow, Voisanne glanced at the ship that held Asal. She hadn’t seen him yet but couldn’t stop looking for him, even when her queen shouted at her to hurry. Ajadevi was also desperate for news of the fight, as Jayavar was in the thick of it. But if she didn’t keep the nearby boat at bay with her arrows, its men would board their craft and either cut their throats or ravish them. So Voisanne collected arrows, gave updates on the fighting, and tried not to notice her queen’s tears.