PRINCE IN EXILE

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  NINE

  ‘Here.’

  Rishi Somashrava crouched down by the peepal tree and pointed to a spot on the ground, near the trunk. A large stain discoloured the leaf-strewn earth, spreading outwards in smaller splotches, the way blood might splash out of a human body if it was slashed open. As the rishi glanced up over his shoulder to see his reaction, Rama was struck by the peculiar similarity between the stain on the ground and the tree trunk, and the discoloration on Somashrava’s face.

  Lakshman moved past Rama and crouched beside the rishi. ‘This is where the last attack happened?’

  ‘Yes, rajkumar. The rakshasa snatched the young boy as he was collecting water at the stream nearby.’ Somashrava pointed back the way they had come, in the direction of the brook they had passed a few dozen yards back, within sight of the ashram walls. Neither the brook nor the wall was visible from here, though. ‘His screams caught my attention. I came running and tried to grab hold of the boy’s legs as he was being dragged away. But the demon was too strong. The boy screamed in agony, and his limbs would have been ripped apart had I held on. So I was forced to let go, and I attempted to strike the demon with my lathi.’ The rishi pointed at some fragments of wood lying nearby. They looked like splinters left over from wood-chopping. ‘As you can see, the creature simply caught the lathi in its teeth and shattered it to bits. Then it roared at me, as if it was taunting me to do anything further, swung around,’ Somashrava turned quickly, reliving the incident; Lakshman and Rama moved back to give him space, ‘and its tail rose up into the air and struck me a blow across my face. It knocked me all the way to … ‘ he ran to a sapling over twenty yards away, ‘this place. I fell unconscious. When I awoke, I found only these bloodstains spattered here by this peepal, and no sign of the monster or even a trail.’

  Sita asked, ‘And that caused your skin to … change colour?’

  Somashrava touched his discoloured face, now an angry reddish-brown. ‘Yes. Nothing will remove it, neither ayurvedic herbs or remedies, nor invocations and penance.’

  And perhaps you are secretly proud of that. For the rishi clearly wore the mark like a warrior’s wound now, an exterior symbol that revealed the inner rage that burned within him. Rage like that often didn’t end with revenge, Rama knew; it ate away at the person until he became a facsimile of the very thing he hated. But he kept his thoughts to himself. Somashrava had enough on his mind without needing unsolicited advice.

  ‘Very well, Somashrava,’ Rama said. ‘We will deal with this matter now. You may return to the ashram. Thank you for showing us the place where the demon was last seen.’

  Somashrava hesitated. ‘I wish to stay with you here tonight. To help … hunt the beast.’

  Rama saw Lakshman glance at him over the rishi’s shoulder. Lakshman shook his head once, meaningfully.

  ‘Rishi Somashrava,’ Rama said, ‘perhaps it is best if you leave this part to us. This will undoubtedly be a night fraught with great peril. My brother and I, as also my wife, are trained at the art of the hunt—’

  ‘So was I,’ Somashrava said quickly. ‘I was born in the Kshatriya varna, raised and trained in the calling of a Kashi spearman. But my father had sworn an oath to surrender his eldest son to the pursuit of Brahman. When my brother was killed in these woods by the same rakshasa, my father then sent me in his place, to fulfil the promise. He was visiting me once when he decided to try and hunt the rakshasa himself. He was killed as well.’

  Rama raised his eyebrows. ‘The spearmen of Kashi are renowned across the Arya nations.’

  Somashrava nodded proudly. ‘And I was a front-runner. I am in my fortieth year now. I trained until I was a score and five years. I was told I would be taken as an Indradhanush-man in another two years.’

  Lakshman nodded slowly, impressed. The Indradhanush unit of Kashi was similar to the Vajra of Kosala, an elite fighting squad which hand-picked only the best of the best warriors. Rama re-assessed the Brahmin. This explained the man’s emotional demeanour, and the greater leeway Sage Agastya had allowed him.

  Somashrava added quietly, ‘I heard my father’s screams after he was taken by the beast. They continued almost all of that night. The next day, I found parts of his body scattered across several miles.’

  His tone was the opposite of anger. Now that action was finally being taken, he seemed calmer, more able to deal with the past. Rama saw Lakshman shrugging, deferring to him, and came to a decision.

  ‘In that case, you may stay, Somashrava,’ he said. ‘Another pair of eyes and hands is always welcome.’

  ***

  Sita knew that smell. It was the fragrance of temple flowers. She had placed a garland like that around the deity of Sri, the Mother-Creator, every morning since she could recall. The smell of those saffron-hued blossoms was imprinted indelibly on her sense-memory. She sat up straighter. She was on a plain wooden platform on the peepal tree, one of two such that Lakshman and Rama and the rishi had rigged. Lakshman and Somashrava were on the other platform, while Rama and she sat on this one. Rama was behind her, facing the other way. They sat back to back, to cover every direction. She turned her head slightly, lowering her sword. She could feel the warmth of Rama’s breath on her cheek as he turned his head, sensing her movement. She knew better than to turn around or speak loudly, despite her certainty that the creature they were hunting was nearby.

  ‘Temple flowers,’ she whispered.

  There was no response at first. Then Rama said softly, sounding perplexed, ‘Where? I don’t see them.’ He added, ‘Or smell them.’

  She turned around fully then. It was so remarkable that Rama couldn’t smell the flowers, she couldn’t believe it. Was he teasing her? No. He wouldn’t do that. Rama took combat very seriously, she knew that already. Lakshman had sauntered and joked and chatted with Somashrava before nightfall, but Rama had grown deathly still and sober as the hours passed, almost as if he was preparing himself for the act of taking life yet again. Because he doesn’t like killing. Even when it’s righteous.

  ‘It’s so strong. How can you not smell it?’ she said, keeping her voice just low enough for him to hear her. She glanced around cautiously. ‘It smells as if it’s right below this very—’

  She looked up, realising suddenly, too late, that the smell wasn’t coming from below as she had foolishly assumed. This wasn’t some temple maiden walking home after her visit to the nearest mandir for darshan. It was an asura, a rakshasa no less, and they could as easily attack—

  ‘From above, Rama!’ she cried as the dark, grotesque shape fell on her like a jungle cat from the high branches. She tried to get the sword up in time as the apparition enveloped her like a flying bat out of hell. It was swatted aside by a powerful clawed forelimb and vanished over the edge of the platform. Then the beast had her by the throat, choking her so she couldn’t speak or breathe, and by the waist, and by the thighs as well, clenching her in an enormously powerful grip with sharp-clawed limbs that dug into her flesh like pincers, drawing blood, and she was lifted as easily as a rag doll, horizontally at first, then up and away. She felt a moment of shocking weightlessness and felt wind billow at her face, the tips of branches raking her arms and ankles, and she knew that the beast had leapt to another tree. That’s how it hunts without ever being seen. It uses the trees to move around! No wonder the rishis had said it always appeared from nowhere and disappeared with its victims. It took them up into the trees. The tigers of the mangroves in southern Banglar hunted this way. Fishermen who trawled the creeks of the mangrove forest in that region were used to tigers leaping from trees, snatching away a grown man from the boat in which he was seated, and disappearing into the trees before his companions had time to even emit a cry. The beast that carried her felt more powerful even than a Banglar tiger.

  She heard Rama’s voice, shouting commands to Lakshman and Somashrava. She heard the zip-zip sound of two arrows being loosed in quick succession, and knew that Lakshman had fired. Immediately she heard Rama’s voi
ce admonishing his brother: ‘It has Sita!’ The creature carrying her swerved to avoid the arrows, in mid-air literally, and twisted its body around, slamming sideways into a thick trunk. It clung on tenaciously for a moment, growling, then was away again, leaping through the air, travelling from tree to tree far faster than even a very swift runner could cover by sprinting across the same distance. They’ll never be able to catch us if it moves this fast, she thought, then something hit her temple with a sound like a stick snapping, and she lost consciousness.

  She woke to the sight of temple flowers. They were littered around her, on the clean-brushed platform on which she lay, fresh and fragrant. She waited for the throbbing in her head to slow. Trying not to give her wakeful state away before she had to, she pressed her hands to her body, trying to feel her condition. Her limbs felt intact, and there were no wounds on her midriff as might have been expected. If the creature fed on its victims, as most rakshasas did, then this one hadn’t taken a bite of her yet. Or not that she could make out. She became aware of a peculiar yet intensely familiar sound from above her. Slowly, cautiously, she opened her left eye very slightly, for she was lying on her right side, curled up, and through the slitted eye she glimpsed the source of the sound. It was so surprising she almost sat up at once.

  They were temple bells, swaying softly in the wind, tinkling together. She was lying on a temple altar, before the deity. From the damp, closed feel of the place, and the cold rock slab beneath her body, she felt certain it was some kind of cave.

  She took three shallow breaths and released them very slowly, careful not to let her chest heave, or blow away any dust on the floor beside her. Though there wasn’t much of that to speak of. The ground had been cleaned so painstakingly, it would have passed muster in her father’s palace. She opened her right eye this time, just a fraction, and saw the familiar black stone effigy with its top flattened on four sides, representing the four faces of the Creator. Brahma. She was in a temple devoted to Lord Brahma.

  ‘I know you are awake, stree.’

  The voice was a cultured one, delicately nuanced with a classical accent, the kind of Sanskrit Sita had heard the older sages speak in her father’s religious councils. It’s maya, she warned herself. Asura illusions.

  But she turned to look at the speaker anyway, unable to resist.

  It was her abductor. As she had suspected during the flight through the trees, the asura was no simple rakshasa. Its head and limbs - all six of them - were closer to a feline predator, while its torso, the back of its head, spine and tapering tail

  resembled a large lizard. She estimated its length to be perhaps twelve feet from head to tail-tip. Its overall colouring was a dusty rust-black mottled with greenish patches, an effective camouflaging in the trees. It sat in the centre of the cave, the roof curved above it like a roughly shaped upturned bowl. Behind it was a low-ceilinged, narrow passageway that she guessed led outside. The sound of water dripping steadily came from somewhere behind her - beyond the shrine, which meant that the cave probably went further inside. For a moment, just a fraction of an instant, she thought she heard voices as well: a faint distant whispering. Then there was only the touch of the wind on her right cheek and the fragrance of temple flowers, beneath which she smelt her own hair, in which leaves and bark had entangled in her abduction through the treetops.

  She raised herself, not speaking, just examining the asura with watchful eyes.

  It showed its large fangs in a leering expression. ‘Do not fear, stree. He will come for you soon. Already I sense him approaching the other side of the mound in which this cave is set. I made sure to leave a trail even a blind Kshatriya would be able to follow, snapping branches and stalks off all the way home. And he is as excellent a hunter as I expected.’

  Keep it talking. Until you think of some way to escape, keep it engaged in conversation. ‘What manner of being are you?’

  It made that leering face again. Slobber dripped from its jaws. ‘I thought that was obvious, woman. An asura! Just don’t ask what species or race or varna. The ones who cursed me into this condition weren’t very particular about my fitting into the social order!’

  She found its impeccable language and manner more disturbing than if it had simply behaved the brutish way most rakshasas were expected to behave.

  ‘What is this place? Some ancient Brahma shrine you chose to desecrate?’

  It issued a coughing sound that was probably laughter. ‘Desecrate? Look again. I built this shrine myself. I alone maintain it. I am the pujari of this temple.’

  She was taken aback. ‘Pujari? If by pujari you mean the temple attendant, then tell me, what kind of pujari slaughters Brahmins and brahmacharyas and abducts women?’

  It nodded its lizard-lion head. ‘An excellent question. But now your consort approaches the cave entrance. The time for dialogue is past.’

  Sita’s heart skipped a beat. Could it be telling the truth? So then it was using her to lure Rama into its lair. That was why she remained alive and unharmed yet. Over her head, the temple bells tinkled again softly, and she felt a gentle breeze touch her right cheek. It was blowing in from the cave entrance. Then it was not far to the opening. If Rama was really approaching, he would be within hearing distance …

  ‘Rama, beware!’ she cried, throwing herself off the stone slab and on to the rough cave floor. She rolled behind the deity, seeking the passageway she was certain lay there. Her shouted words echoed in the narrow confines of the cave, ringing back and forth, mingling with the tinkling of the temple bells, and a moment later the coughing laughter of the beast. She rose to a half-crouch, and ran forward - stopped dead in her tracks by an unbroken rock wall which tapered up so sharply, she almost struck her head on the curved overhang. She looked around in desperation, but there was no escape this way. She had been wrong. The sound of water was still faintly audible, dripping in some other subterranean chamber, but there was a wall of rock between this cave and that one. Her plan had failed.

  Again the faint whispering sound came to her, louder now than before. She turned a full circle, searching for an aperture, a hole, anything. But only the blank wall of the rockface rose above her, sloping to meet her head.

  She turned back the way she had come, certain she would now face her death. But the space between the rear of the deity and the sharply curving cave wall was empty. The creature had remained where it sat, certain in its knowledge that she would find no escape route that way. She could still hear it, coughing out its odd laugh. The sound of her echoes had almost died away.

  Suddenly the cave exploded with resounding noise, running feet, the metallic sounds of a spearhead glancing off the cave wall, and voices … There would be hardly any point in remaining silent in a cave, after all.

  Sita came out from behind the stone effigy of Brahma just as Rama, Lakshman and Somashrava emerged into the cave. The lizard asura was between her and them, and as he stopped directly before it, Rama’s sightline met here. She saw the flash of relief in his eyes when he took in her uninjured condition.

  Then he charged at the asura.

  TEN

  Rama’s sword flashed in the flickering light of the cave as he struck the asura. Following a beat behind him, Lakshman leapt too, wielding his sword. Both brothers circled the beast, their swords moving as though wielded by the same person. The flashing blades of Kosala steel bit hard into the lizard-beast’s uppermost limbs, slicing easily through their meaty thickness. It roared with agony as both upper limbs were hewed from its body. Reddish-black ichor spurted from the gaping wounds. The severed arms fell writhing to the cave floor, oozing fluids.

  The brothers were followed by Somashrava, his spear raised. The Kshatriya-turned-Brahmin ran the spear into the belly of the beast, piercing it with a sound that made Sita flinch despite her years of training as a warrior princess. So ferocious was the Brahmin’s assault, the spear passed through the asura’s body and burst out from the creature’s back, glistening in the light of the t
emple diyas. Ichor dripped in a steady stream, pooling on the cave floor. The Brahmin roared with fury and tried valiantly to remove the spear, but his effort only resulted in it breaking off at the handle with a resounding crack.

  By this time, Rama and Lakshman had spun around and taken up defensive stances, ready for the creature’s expected retaliation. The look on Lakshman’s face was more a grimace than a grin. He exhaled in perfect unison with Rama, and in that instant Sita envied the brothers their closeness. How many times had she attempted to interest her sister and cousins in the arts of combat, without success? Had they been as inclined as she to be as well-prepared as any male Kshatriya, she would have moved with them at a moment like this one, like four devis at work.

  Both brothers paused, still waiting for the beast to make its next move. Rama’s face was impassive, his eyes glinting darkly, his stance impeccable. Even Nakhudi would have been proud to fight beside him, Sita thought. And felt the twinge of pain that was her heart calling out for her companion. This is your only family now, she told herself sternly, focusing on the crisis at hand. Rama and Lakshman. Be grateful that they are here to defend and fight for you - just as you would fight for them had you but a sword right now.

  After a long moment of inaction, Rama and Lakshman exchanged a surprised glance. Their defensive stances faltered ever so slightly; they had expected instant retaliation after such a brutal assault. So had Sita.