‘How—?’ she started to ask, then stopped.
Bhishma’s face had turned as dark as a stormcloud.
‘He meant to kill you as well!’ he roared. She recoiled at the sound of his voice. It was louder than any voice she had heard before. She had heard men bellowing before but never so loudly. She had not thought it possible for any man’s voice to be this loud! ‘He was able to judge my ability from that single catch and counter strike and because of my reputation he assumes that he will not be able to defeat me fairly. Therefore he continues to strike from behind in violation of kshatriya dharma and attempts to slay you innocents as well! This is unacceptable!’
Amba felt her sisters clutch her arms for comfort, frightened by the anger and intensity of Bhishma’s roaring. Amba herself more frightened by the knowledge that he was right: Shalva had meant to kill them, or else he would never have used the Hailstorm.
‘Kill him then,’ she heard herself say, her voice barely a croak lost in the thundering of hooves and wheels.
Bhishma turned his head towards her and she had a moment when she felt as if he would surely kill her. He possessed the power and rage to do it. But she saw his eyes and they were not filled with hatred for her, only curiosity.
‘Kill him then!’ she repeated, loud enough that he could hear her clearly. ‘He has already forfeited me by targetting my sisters and myself. So do what you must to save us. I will never accept him as my husband now.’
Bhishma’s face cleared as suddenly as it had clouded. It reminded her of a time when she was younger and had been looking down at her reflection in a lotus pond, wondering if she really was as beautiful as everyone said she was. A cloud had passed across the sun just then and she had been startled, thinking something had changed in her face, then realized it was only a passing cloud. The way her own reflection had clouded then cleared as the cloud moved across the sun was exactly the way Bhishma’s face clouded and cleared. He is as transparent as water itself if you know how to guage him, she thought, and the insight moved her deeply for some reason.
Bhishma smiled at her. ‘I did not ask for nor need your permission, milady,’ he said, in a tone that mocked her lightly. At once her anger flared again and she hated him once more.
But she watched with new interest as he raised his bow again, shut his eyes, and loosed another arrow.
She watched the arrow rise at the same instant as Shalva loosed another arrow as well. Because she was watching so intently, she knew that Bhishma had loosed his own arrow a fraction of an instant before Shalva had loosed. She knew also that Bhishma had his eyes shut and was facing forward, one hand still gripping the reins even as it gripped the bow – another impossible feat she would not have thought possible if she had not witnessed it herself – and so he could not possibly have seen Shalva loose his arrow.
Yet when she looked back she realized that Bhishma must have known Shalva was about to loose and that he was about to loose that precise arrow at that instant. For he had performed the perfect counter attack.
Shalva’s arrow rose at a sharp angle, as if climbing a mountain gradient rather than sketching a rainbow curve. She knew what that meant as well: it was Acidfire. The arrow that passed directly above its intended target, showering droplets of powerful acid as it went. Even a single drop of that acid was toxic enough to burn through skin, flesh and bone itself, causing unbearable agony. If it fell on a delicate organ or area such as the face or eyes, it would mean the end of the targetted enemy.
But because Bhishma’s arrow had been loosed an instant earlier, it arrived while Shalva’s arrow was still rising sharply, at its slowest point, before the ventricles had opened to release the acid. Bhishma’s arrow burgeoned like a sheet hung to dry on a windy day, spreading outwards in all directions to completely envelope Shalva’s arrow.
Shalva’s arrow struck the enveloping folds of cloth and instead of ripping through, was enfolded in the fabric and plumetted groundwards. It fell with a useless plop to the ground and was trampled underfoot by Shalva’s own team of horses.
Amba gazed at Bhishma in amazement. He grinned at her. ‘A good warrior always knows the enemy’s next move.’
Then his face darkened again. ‘This time he meant you not merely to die, but to suffer.’
Her heart was chilled by the knowledge that once again, he was right. The Acidfire was an arrow Shalva would only use if he felt personal animosity towards the enemy. She looked back with sudden growing hatred at the chariot of the man she had been prepared to marry that very day. ‘How could you, Shalva?’ she shouted, shaking her fist at the pursuing chariot.
In response, Shalva loosed another arrow. This one aimed directly at them, not at an angle. She watched in horror as the missile sped towards them at the speed of wind, and reacted to the sight of it splintering to a score of tiny metal fletches, each sharp enough to tear through flesh and cause great pain and damage.
Before the shower of metal fletches could reach their chariot, an arrow shot from beside her raced to meet them, splitting itself into as many pieces, each of these pieces obstructing the fletches and dropping them harmlessly to the ground. She turned back to stare at Bhishma, who was lowering his bow, still looking ahead to watch the road. She understood that his aim had been perfect but how could the metal pieces in his arrow have perfectly blocked every single fletch coming at them? Could anyone loose an arrow with such a precise degree of skill?
That was when she first began to realize that Bhishma was no mere mortal. And when she first fell in love with him.
5
Bhishma grew steadily angrier with Shalva as the suitor continued pursuing them and continued to loose deadly arrows at them, each more ingenious and malevolent than the one before. He dealt with each missile in turn, shooting back a suitable counter-attack, but after this had progressed for a while he began to resent the attack. It was now no longer a question of escaping with the princesses, it was a matter of Puru pride. He could keep this up all day, and counter everything Shalva threw at them, but it would encourage the other kings following and give the impression that Shalva harried him all the way to Hastinapura. It was important that he prove his superiority once and for all and end this game. He was incensed by Shalva’s repeated attempts to kill the princesses rather than merely stop Bhishma. This was a direct challenge to Bhishma’s manhood and family pride: Shalva was effectively saying that he would rather see the girls dead than married to his ward and what the devil was Bhishma going to do about that, hey?
The first chance Bhishma got, finding an open area with dry baked earth and almost no foliage or tree cover, he turned the chariot around. He did not bother with a wide wheeling arc and a genial approach. He slowed his team, then executed a smart turning maneuver, then coaxed them back up to speed and charged directly at Shalva. Before he did this, he had gained a good mile or so on the forerunner. This gave him an excellent approach and he picked up speed as he drove towards his pursuer. He was pleased to see Shalva’s chariot slow as the suitor reacted to the sight of his prey turning upon him, and behind the fore chariot, he saw the other pursuers arriving in quick succession, drawing up their chariots and horses and fanning out in a wide arc to enable a better view of the coming duel. He knew that none of them would interfere since Shalva had taken first strike and was entitled to the first duel as well. That too was a matter of kshatriya dharma. So long as two champions fought single-handedly, none other could interfere, no matter what the outcome. Entire armies sat and watched and waited until champions finished their bout, leaving one dead and the other victorious, and often these duels lasted for hours or days, or even longer – as in the case of poor Chitrangada who fought his opponent for three years! Bhishma had no intention of letting this bout last more than a few minutes.
He saw that Shalva had opted to remain standing while Bhishma approached. It was a sensible move. This way, Shalva would presumably have better aim and stability while Bhishma, having made the first move, was entitled to take his be
st shot. Shalva intended to survive this shot and then make his own counter-attack against Bhishma, this time using the closer range to finish off his targets. Bhishma would not give him that chance.
But as Bhishma had expected, Shalva deviated from custom. Instead of letting Bhishma have the first shot as was traditional in such a situation, he loosed first. This time, he used the advantage of stillness and stability to unleash what must be one of his most powerful weapons.
The princesses screamed in alarm as the javelin-thick arrow shot by Shalva burst into a veritable cloud of arrows. It seemed as if the arrow split and split again and continued to divide itself infinitely, producing an impossible number of missiles that filled the air and darkened the sky itself! Bhishma knew that Shalva had used a cannon-bow, an oversized bow fixed to the chariot itself that loosed a container missile as thick as a pole. Within this container missile were the individual barbed arrows, released in stages as the pole split apart at different times during its short flight. Due to the power of the cannon-bow and the relatively lengthy flight time, Shalva was able to loose a second and a third container missile in quick succession, and now, even before the first shower of arrows arrived at its destination, he was loosing a fourth.
A great roar of approval rose from the gathered crowd of princes and kings. Naturally their support was for Shalva who was fighting for all of them. In Bhishma’s view that made all of them equally culpable for his actions and transgression of the norms of combat. Even now, what Shalva was doing was unethical in the extreme: it was one thing to use such weapons against superior forces such as a larger army, but to do so against a single kshatriya enemy, with innocents in harm’s way, that was unacceptable.
‘Bhishma!’ cried the eldest daughter of Kashya, appealing to him. She was staring up at the approaching cloud of arrows with abject horror. He saw that she expected to die this time. For how could he possibly counter such an attack? Even if he loosed an arrow to stop the first barrage, the second barrage was already following close after – and the third and the fourth and the fifth…and Shalva would continue to rain down arrows until his goal was accomplished. It was impossible to escape such an attack in theory and impossible in practise as well, for any mortal warrior.
Bhishma had adjusted the pace of his charge to match the trajectory of the approaching arrows. He only desired that his horses escape unhurt. They were most innocent of all in this conflict and did not deserve to be injured or killed. He rode until he was certain that the team had passed ahead of the shower of death that rained down from above, then released the reins and turned to the princesses. It did not matter if the team went off course slightly, there were no impediments or obstructions here to fear. The princesses were his only concern now.
Bhishma threw himself over all three girls, embracing them tightly, wrapping his arms and legs over them, ensuring that every inch of their bodies was covered by his own. They squealed in shock, unaccustomed to any man coming into physical contact with them, then somehow implicitly realized he sought only to protect them, and grew still.
The arrows rained down.
Bhishma felt them land. They struck the ground, the chariot, and his body. Dozens, scores, hundreds, then it seemed, thousands.
The barrage continued endlessly. The clattering and thudding of arrows as they struck ground and embedded their metal heads in the packed earth, or in the wood of the chariot, or in the flesh of his body, a variety of related sounds that rang out like a death rattle, playing a ghastly dirge. It seemed to go on forever.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain of arrows ended.
No doubt, Bhishma mused through the fog of pain and sensation, Shalva had run out of container missiles. There was a limit to how many he would have been carrying in the limited space of his chariot.
He estimated that Shalva would have loosed at least ten or twelve barrages in all. Perhaps ten or twelve thousand individual missiles. Most of them would have fallen around the chariot. Perhaps a tenth of that number would have fallen on the chariot itself. And of that number perhaps a third would have struck Bhishma.
He unwrapped his body from the princesses, regaining his feet. He stumbled and had to reach out for support. He saw Amba’s face as she looked up, opening her eyes and staring at him in astonishment. She was staring at his back, his arms, the rear of his neck, his legs…She exclaimed in horror, clapping a hand to her mouth. Her sisters simply stared silently in mute disbelief.
Bhishma felt as if his back had been set ablaze. He could feel a thousand pin pricks of fire burning into his skin, boring through his flesh, some reaching all the way into his organs, touching upon his bones, penetrating his joints, cracking his spine, his neck, piercing his lungs, his heart, even punching through the soft area at the back of his neck to penetrate his brain-case at two points. It felt like nothing he had ever experienced before: to call it pain would be to understate it woefully. To call it agony would be merely a word. The actual sensation was indescribable, and yet it was also much as the reality suggested. He had been pierced by hundreds of tiny barbed arrows. He knew from the wetness that drenched his back, pouring down the rear of his legs, collecting in a puddle on the floor of the chariot, that he was mortally wounded…by mortal standards. In fact, he was probably mortally wounded several score times over! Yet he could still stand, with great effort.
He looked at the face of the eldest daughter of the king of Kashi. Amba lowered her hand from her mouth, still staring at him in utter disbelief, yet assimilating the fact that he still stood, despite his terrible wounds. He saw in her eyes an understanding, an awareness that he could not possibly survive such wounds, no man could, and yet, if he did, then it meant something. It meant he was more than just a man. He saw also that she understood the most important thing: that he had done this to protect her and her sisters. He could have let them die and saved himself – or even if he could not save himself, he still did not need to protect them by using his own body as a shield. Yet by doing so, he had proved on thing beyond dispute: he deserved to decide their fate far more than that trecherous rat of a suitor Shalva who intended to murder his own beloved rather than let her wed another man.
He saw also that she now desired him, Bhishma. She was in awe of him. The way she looked at him at that instant was the way he had seen his mother’s followers gaze at her, reverentially, adoringly, devotionally. She looked at him as if he were a god. And she wished to give herself to him.
He shook his head once, silently denying her. She blinked, startled. He did not speak or explain. This was not the time nor the place.
He turned, hearing the gasps of horror from the princesses as they saw his back now and viewed the full extent of his injuries. He knew his back must resemble a porcupine, bristling with arrows. Except that he did not possess the power to simply shoot these arrows from his own body and assault his enemy. He would have to remove them the hard way, by tearing out his own flesh and skin and organ tissue. But that was for later, after he finished the task at hand. For now, he had to deliver a rejoinder to King Shalva, one that he would never forget so long as he lived.
Bhishma was relieved to see that the horses were unharmed. He had used those precious seconds to ensure their safety and then the safety of the princesses. He had not cared about himself. He could survive this. He could survive far worse than this, he knew. Although at this instant, with arrows piercing every part of his body, he could not imagine what could be worse.
He coaxed the team into starting forward. They smelled his blood and whinnied angrily, upset. Animals responded well to him, sensing his affinity. He knew they could still smell the river in him, even if mortals could not. It was not a fish smell, but something deeper. An atavistic link to other animals of all species that bonded them at the deepest level.
‘Ride,’ he urged the beautiful Kambhoja mares, great powerful glossy giants all of them. ‘Ride, my beauties! And trust in me.’
They did trust in him. They would ride off the face of
a cliff if he commanded them – because he never commanded, merely coaxed, urged, requested, asked lovingly. It was sufficient. When there is a bond of love, even selfish mortal men lay down their lives for one another. Animals? They are born loyal. Dying for one another is part of life for them.
The cheers and roars of approval from the large gathering of watching kings had continued all this while, celebrating what they believed was the extinction of the impudent Puru abductor and the saving of their honour. It died down now as they saw his chariot pick up speed, resuming its charge directly at the chariot of Shalva. They watched with surprise and renewed interest. He saw many hands raised to point and many voices raised in consternation as they saw the brindled fur coat of arrows he had sprouted.
‘Today you face Bhishma in battle,’ he roared, loudly enough to be heard by even the farthest pursuer, still half a mile distant and approaching steadily. ‘Those of you that survive, go home and tell them this tale!’
He saw many of them look at one another in panic, some taking up weapons, others reaching for their reins then dropping them as they realized that flight was useless: they were gathered too closely together to escape easily. Easier to stand and fight. Shalva too was raising a weapon, his longbow again. No doubt he intended to demonstrate some new ingenious kind of arrow.
Bhishma uttered the mantras he had learned when still a boy, the ones he had been taught in the heart of the deepest ocean, where the sun had not shone for arbada years and where only one deva ruled supreme. Varuna. It had been Varuna-Tau himself who had taught Bhishma the mantra, back when he was still Youngun or Gangeya to all his family, friends, and gurus. Varuna had taught him the arts of fighting war in watery environments, arts which Bhishma later realized he might never have occasion to put into practise during his life as a mortal on dry earth. But some of what Varuna taught him was applicable on land or sea or sky, like this mantra, and he used it now.
MAHABHARATA SERIES BOOK#2: The Seeds of War (Mba) Page 24