RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  Both of them paused yet again, lowered their bows completely, letting the drawstrings go limp, and looked at each other.

  Both of them had tears in their eyes.

  “I killed a man,” each of them said at exactly the same time.

  “But I had to,” each one added.

  They cried for a moment, the tears running freely down their faces. Their throats hitched once then they wiped their faces clear with the length of cloth they kept to keep their hands clean and sweat-free during their practice sessions. They knew now that this was no more a practice session. This was the real thing. It was war. They thought for a moment silently, their faces hardening, the tears replaced by a new emotion.

  “They attacked the ashram and slaughtered everyone in sight,” Kush said.

  “They would have killed every last person if we didn’t arrive with the bear-killers to stop them,” Luv said.

  “They were even going to kill the cows and calves.”

  “They killed Sarama and most of her pack.”

  “They wounded Maatr badly, almost killed her.”

  “They mean to kill us all now. And nobody else is going to save us or stop them.”

  “There are thousands of them.”

  “Hundreds of thousands.”

  “Crores and arbo even.”

  “There are hardly any of us.”

  “We have the right to defend our home, our loved ones, and ourselves by any means necessary.”

  “It is the law of survival,” Luv said.

  “It is the duty of a kshatriya to take arms when needed,” Kush said.

  “It is our dharma,” they said together.

  Then they raised their bows as one.

  Tracked and found targets. This was easy because the valley was crawling with hundreds of easy-to-spot targets. While the soldiers might be partially covered by the trees and foliage when seen at ground level, from this vantage point they were as easily visible as carved bone shapes on a chaupat dice board.

  At first they called out targets to one another:

  “North by north east.”

  “Due west.”

  “West by south west.”

  “South by south east.”

  After a while, they stopped calling out targets. It seemed pointless. By then, they were in the grip of battle fever. Their hands, their shoulders, their back muscles, their eyes, their necks, all moved in concert as an unified whole. Like a single organism dedicated to only one function, they aimed and loosed, aimed and loosed, aimed and loosed, over and over again.

  They kept count silently, only because they had been taught that as well by Maatr as well as by Nakhudi. It was part of the lesson on war which began: Know Thy Enemy. Knowing the enemy included knowing his strength in numbers and by extension, how many of that number your forces had succeeded in killing.

  ***

  Aarohan stared down at the Valley, speechless with rage. The runner who had just come up the hill to bring him word stood several yards away, out of sword reach. The man was familiar with Aarohan’s temper.

  “How many did you say?” he asked again.

  The man glanced around nervously, then said, “Over four score dead or dying in the first clash. And now, another three score downed by arrows.” The man paused then cleared his throat. “And as Sergeant Manasvir said to tell you, the arrows are taking lives at the rate of one every few seconds.”

  “Yes, I heard you the first time,” Aarohan said, then seethed silently for a moment. He saw a flurry of movement in a cluster of trees then had an unmistakable glimpse of a man collapsing. The man’s limbs fluttered then ceased movement. That was deadly accurate shooting. Whoever was loosing this barrage of arrows, they had the aim of an eagle-hawk swooping down on prey. Aarohan had once worked for a great lord of the desert who bred eagle-hawks. The desert lord had trained the birds to fly over his city of tents when he camped in an oasis for a few weeks at a time. The birds would fly so high overhead, one had to constantly keep looking up at the sun to spot them, and even then they circumscribed such enormous arcs that one could never locate the camp just by looking up at the birds. But if any stranger made the mistake of coming to close to the desert lord’s camp, and if the stranger and his entourage met certain requirements—such as a large number of men bearing metal weapons—the birds would swoop down on them and attack. The clincher was in how they attacked: the birds were trained to swoop down and pluck out only the left eye of each man then fly back to their master and present him with the ripped-out eyeballs. Aarohan had witnessed the birds attacking a caravan in which he was traveling once and it had seemed as if a gust of wind blew out of a clear sky, tore out a man’s eye and carried it away. The bird itself was barely a blur of feathers and talons and beak.

  Now, for the first time since that day he saw another creature at work with the same deadly efficiency. An archer who possessed the ultimate level of perfection: the ability to spot a target, judge distance, bow-pull, pressure, wind, and then loose a killing shot…all within the space of half a heartbeat. It was impossible. No archer he had ever heard of possessed such speed and accuracy. It must be a platoon of archers. A company of archers, perhaps even a whole regiment, taking turns to loose, while spotters called out targets to them. But he knew that too was impossible: No group of archers could be loosing with such perfect repetition, over and over again. No, this must be a small band of truly gifted bowmen. A handful even. Perhaps even…

  “Two young boys!” he said, and his mouth stayed open with awe and amazement. He felt a rush of excitement such as he had not felt in years. The sons of Sita! They had to be the archers responsible for this killing wave. He had seen them briefly in action and they had certainly been quick enough. He had not thought them capable of such a concerted attack—nor of taking so many lives with such impunity. But apparently they were and could. Yes. It had to be them.

  “Backtrack,” he told one of his aides curtly. The man nodded and rode off downhill to do as he bade.

  “Pull back and use tree cover. Lay low until I give further orders,” he barked to another aide. This man too rode downhill at once. His aides were the men who had stayed the longest with him in service. And nobody stayed in service with him for long if they were prone to arguing or debating his orders.

  Aarohan leaned over the rock on which he had been standing, peering down at the far end of the valley. It was too far to see clearly but he thought he could faintly glimpse the thin lines of the arrows as they streaked down towards their targets. He could certainly see patches of foliage where the arrows cut through leaves and twigs to reach their mark. He estimated the shooting range to be at least four hundred yards, perhaps even five hundred. For arrows to cover that distance and still punch through armor and bone…no, he corrected himself…not armor and bone, merely flesh and cartilage. That’s why they’re aiming only at throats. So long as it arrives with enough force to punch through the larynx and sever the main blood vessels, it would be fatal everytime. He admired the strategy and the execution both. They must be firing from a high position, someplace from where they can see the whole valley and glimpse my men moving through the forest. And they must be standing and aiming downwards, with heavier-weight arrowheads, to give their arrows sufficient momentum and accuracy to cover such a long distance. But no amount of calculation and positioning was worth a pie if the archer’s hand and eye were not perfect enough. To shoot ten or twenty times in a row with such accuracy was impressive. To do so three score times and more was unheard of. And that had been the tally several moments ago when the runner was despatched up here to bring me word. In this much time, their tally must be twice as much!

  Even if they missed occasionally, which was inevitable, it still meant that they were reaping a terrible toll. The olduns had put up stiffer resistance than he would have expected—not that he had been expecting them at all. Their very presence in this fray was a surprise. But the fact that they could hold their own against his Thousand was even more
surprising. Still, more than half of them had been killed or severely wounded in that first clash. The second wave of attack would have finished them off. They would have been rolled up and packed away without further ado and his men could have taken the canyon thereafter.

  But this was a new twist on the game. The sons of Sita, tallying deaths by the score, without taking a single casualty for their side. He would not have believed it possible had he not traveled widely enough and seen all the various ways in which men could kill and wage war against one another. Yes, two exceptionally good archers perfectly attuned to one another could keep up a killing barrage such as this for a length of time. But sooner or later, arms would tire, bows would lose their pulling strength, and arrows would be depleted. All he had to do was reduce their accuracy while continuing to force them to keep loosing. Hence the two orders he had issued: Pull back and use tree cover. Which would starve the boys of targets, forcing them to shoot at movements behind trees, missing more and more often, wasting precious arrows and energy. Backtrack. Which would send his best scouts scouring around their flanks to find their exact position and mark it. Archers were well and good so long as they were shooting from a distance. The moment the fight came to them, up close and personal, they lost their advantage. And in a close fight, two striplings were no match for his elite Hundred. All he had to do was slip in through their deadly circle of fire and attack man to man. The whole thing would be over in moments.

  He grinned. At last he had an adversary worthy of his talents.

  He waited for the next runner to bring word as he watched the hail of arrows continue.

  SEVEN

  When they were each past a hundred-count in enemy fatalities, something changed in the theater of war.

  They found it increasingly more difficult to acquire targets. At first they assumed that the invading forces were retreating. But that would mean moving backwards. Instead, they had simply gone to ground. They glimpsed flickers of movement behind tree trunks or through gaps in foliage but the men were apparently smart enough not to reveal themselves. The two hundred or so corpses with arrows sticking out of their throats probably acted as good motivation. As the seconds turned to minutes and then became a half-hour of the afternoon sun’s westward progress, they realized that this was a stratagem by the enemy.

  Suddenly, a man burst from cover and sprinted to the shelter of another tree. He was visible only partially for perhaps two heartbeats.

  He fell, sprawling, with an arrow through his neck before he could reach halfway to his destination.

  After several moments, another man in another part of the valley moved his position, showing his back and part of his head to them as he leaned against the trunk of the tree he was squatting behind. He was dead before his body hit the ground.

  This continued for another half hour or so, the occasional target showing partially here and there. They took every shot they could get and their aim was true seven times out of ten. The three times they missed were only because the arrows struck armor or sword hilts and that too only because they were risking shots based on guesswork rather than clear acquisition.

  After that, the soldiers seemed to grow more disciplined and even these occasional lapses ceased.

  Finally, as a whole hour passed without their acquiring a single target or loosing a solitary arrow, they sighed together as one.

  “We will have to change our position,” Luv said. “It’s the only way.”

  Kush nodded. The predator could not simply wait for the prey to come to him: he had to go where the prey went. That was the basis of hunting.

  Still, he was reluctant to leave their carefully chosen perch. Once they climbed down from here they would lose this panoramic view of the valley and be at the same level as the enemy. Which meant that the enemy would be able to see them too. Outnumbered as they were, once the enemy marked their position and attacked en masse, they could not possibly repel them for long. No. Up here, they were unapproachable except up the same crumbling rock face they had climbed to get here. The soldiers burdened with their armor and weapons would have a hard, slow struggle coming up and would make easy targets. Only so many could climb at a time after all. There was no other access by horse or on foot either. They were kings of this hill. Once they climbed down, they would lose their greatest advantage.

  “No,” Kush said at last after weighing all options. “They will still have to come forward and get past us as well as the old veterans in order to get to the canyon. If we wait them out, they will have no other option but to charge. We should remain here.”

  Luv nodded. He too had reached the same conclusion. “You speak truly, bhraatr. They are only testing our patience in the hope that we will show ourselves. So long as we wait them out, they will be forced to come to us eventually.”

  “Then we are agreed. We stay here and wait.”

  And so they waited. They decided to take turns watching the valley, one resting or refreshing himself while the other watched.

  Another hour passed. The sun dipped lower in the western sky. Early afternoon moved slowly towards late afternoon.

  Still, no soldiers advanced. The valley was as still as as a graveyard.

  ***

  Bejoo cursed. Somasra and the others looked up at him. They had spent the afternoon resting in the shade of the thicket near the rock face as a handful of their number took turns standing watch. It had been a dull afternoon after the action of that morning. More than half their number had died in that first clash itself and many who survived were nicked or wounded more severely. Only about a score remained fit enough to fight and perhaps half that number could lift their swords a time or two in defense. Considering the number of enemy amassed in the valley, it was a pitiful band. But the surviving fighting fit in the canyon were even fewer and once the enemy charged in full force, they would sweep all aside in a single attack.

  The only reason they had survived the day at all was because of the sons of Sita. They had all marveled at the skill with which the boys downed the enemy. Although they could not clearly tell how many casualties had been taken, they were in a position to see the arrows passing overhead and from their profusion alone they could estimate that a lot of the enemy were falling. The very fact that the advance had halted was itself proof of the efficacy of the archers. Bejoo had grinned each time he heard a muffled cry or throaty gargle across the valley, signaling the death of another of Aarohan’s prized King’s Guard. How appropriate that the King’s Guard should be cut down by the King’s own sons! He grinned at the irony of the situation and enjoyed the brief respite.

  Now, he saw something that made him curse and rise to his feet.

  Somasra and the others reacted as well, rising and taking up their swords at once. Old they might be. Wounded and tired too. But they were neither careless nor foolish. Each man was willing to face death today itself but only after he had exacted a great price from the enemy for his life. They had taken their respite but known that no battle could remain suspended for long, not when one side boasted such vastly superior numbers. It was only a matter of time before fighting resumed.

  And now that time had come.

  Bejoo cursed again and peered through the trees. The high afternoon sun threw the trees into deep shadow, making it difficult to penetrate the gloom of the thick undergrowth.

  Somasra looked at him laconically. “You want to tell us what you’re cursing at or is it a private matter you wish to keep to yourself?”

  Bejoo gestured with a jerk of his head at the rock face behind. “They’ve tracked them back, the bastards. They must have gotten a fix on their position by using their men as bait to draw their fire. Now they’re moving in for the kill.”

  Somasra peered through the shadows of the thicket. His old eyes glimpsed a flicker of movement that could have been a ladybug leaping onto a leaf but his warrior’s instincts told him that it was no ladybug that caused that leaf to stir. “You’re right, Vajra Captain. They are moving forward again but s
tealthily, seeking to circle around the surround the rock face.”

  Bejoo shook his head. “Even so, what good will it do them? The boys will only cut them down as they come, unless…”

  Somasra waited for him to go on. When Bejoo stopped and looked up and then back again, thinking intently, Somasra finished for him: “…unless this advance is only meant to be a distraction. The real attack on the boys will come from another position. That what you meant to say, Vajra Captain?”

  “Yes, yes,” Bejoo said impatiently, “and stop calling me Vajra Captain. I haven’t led a Vajra for decades.”

  Somasra grinned, revealing teeth flecked with fragments of the betelnut he chewed incessantly. “This is a Vajra you lead right now, in a manner of speaking,” he said.

  Bejoo looked around at the old tired men leaning against tree trunks and on the hilts of their own swords, white-bearded faces and balding heads gleaming with perspiration, and he grinned back at Somasra. “I suppose it is, in a manner of speaking.”

  Somasra laughed softly and clapped Bejoo’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, Vajra Captain Bejoo. Would have liked to have fought with you in a real battle back in the day.”

  Bejoo smiled, acknowledging the compliment. “What do you call this?”

  Somasra looked at the valley scornfully. “This? I call this wiping our backsides with poison leaves, that’s all! Not a real battle, oh no, sir!”

  Bejoo shook his head, laughing softly. “Well. If they’re advancing again, we won’t be wiping ourselves for long. Get ready, men. If they’re doing what I think they’re doing, they’ll be rushing us again and this time, they won’t stop or slow down. This is likely to be our last stand.”

  The men got to their feet wearily, faces suggesting they would rather be in a tavern swigging large containers of soma or any cheaper alcoholic fluid they could afford to buy in great quantities. “At my age,” said one ancient fellow who looked as if he had already died twenty years earlier, “every time I stand is the last stand. It shall be a relief to finally lie down at last!”