Upon a Burning Throne

by Ashok K. Banker

  For several agonizing moments, they drove through dense smoke so thick and foul smelling that even Adri suffered a moment of self-doubt. If they continued through this and found a line of rebel chariots waiting with drawn bows beyond the haze, this would be his first and last battle tactic ever executed.

  But then, with a sudden thrill, he sensed that the smoke had cleared and they were on the other side—and most importantly, that there were no enemy chariots waiting to greet them with arrows.

  Adri heard his charioteer shout, “We are through, my prince!”

  And then he heard his brother shout from behind.

  “Attack!”

  And the message was passed on from mouth to ear to mouth as the Krushan charioteers followed their princes’ lead and drove their vehicles through the breach.

  Moments later, they were spotted.

  Adri heard the sounds of enemy captains shouting at their forces, ordering them to “close that breach!” In another moment, he knew, the enemy would realize that the Krushan penetrating the breach were none other than the princes themselves—their main target. And then, the entire might of the rebel forces would descend upon this part of the battlefield. They would be assaulted on all sides by insurmountable forces and would go down in a hail of arrows, spears, javelins, elephants, cavalry, and the stone gods knew what else.

  But for now, they were heroes.

  They were princes.

  They were brothers-in-arms.

  They were Krushan.

  “Krushan!” Adri yelled forcefully, drawing his bow and taking aim. He let loose, directing his arrow by sound at the thickest cluster of enemy he could sense.

  He heard the thwa-thump of the arrow punching through armor and piercing flesh and bone, heard the startled cry of the man, and heard him fall to the ground, crushed under the wheels of the chariot behind him.

  My first kill.

  “Krushan!” he cried again, and loosed a second arrow.

  Adri heard Shvate echo the battle cry and loose an arrow as well, at the same instant as Adri’s second arrow found a home in the throat of another rebel charioteer. The man emitted a gurgle and fell back in the well of his own chariot, spasming as his heels drummed out the rhythm of death. Adri was already loosing a third arrow before the man died, then a fourth, and a fifth, as rebel charioteers converged on him from all sides.

  Then he was in the thick of battle, being shot at and attacked and fighting back and loosing arrows and yelling until he was hoarse and his fingers bled from the bowstring and his hand found only an empty quiver as it reached over and over, instinctively, for the next arrow that was no longer there.

  Shvate

  “Krushan!”

  Shvate loosed arrows in rapid succession, feeling a thrill of satisfaction each time he saw an arrow find its mark and an enemy fall. His gurus had taught him that the taking of life was a serious matter not to be glorified or gloated over. But to him right now, it was not the satisfaction of killing that thrilled him; it was surviving. His first battle, his first actual experience of mortal combat—surrounded and overwhelmed by enemies more numerous than any yoddha could ever hope to overcome, unsupervised and without his protector to shield him . . . and yet here he was, not only surviving this calamitous turn of events, but actually fighting back, eliminating enemy charioteers by the fistfuls.

  He had loosed almost his entire quiver already, close to threescore arrows, and he had counted more than half as many strikes. It was impossible to tell if those thirty men had been killed instantly or merely wounded, but even so, that was thirty rebel warriors that he himself had taken out of the fight. What had the charioteer captain said earlier to his cadre? “Ten for one”? By that measure, Shvate had already done the work of three charioteers, and if he only had more arrows, he could yet continue to bring down many more.

  Even as this thought occurred to him, his arrows ran out. His hand continued to reach into the empty quiver, feeling the rim of the container, desiring just one more arrow. But there were none to be found.

  “More arrows?” he called out to his charioteer.

  The man glanced back, noting Shvate’s empty quiver. His eyes flashed up at his prince, and in that look, Shvate saw respect, admiration, pride.

  “I’m sorry, Yuvraj,” he said. “I did not expect you or Prince Adri to engage the enemy, or I would have stocked more. But we have those.” He jerked his head at the back of the chariot as he maneuvered it past a rebel vehicle turned on its side, wheel spinning. The rebel charioteer lay half crushed beneath the car, an arrow through his throat.

  My arrow, Shvate thought proudly. He felt a twinge of remorse for having taken the man’s life, but in battle there was no time for such humane consideration. Kill or be killed. Besides, the enemy had violated the rules of war. Shvate was only doing what he had to in order to survive.

  He looked in the direction his charioteer had indicated. At the back of the chariot, hooked to the well rim, was a clutch of spears and javelins. Shvate unhooked a spear and hefted it.

  Around him, the chaos of battle reeled and screamed.

  Chariots of both sides were driving every which way, the rebel forces tripped by their own ingenuity. Their attempt to ring in the Krushan forces had left their numbers relatively thin at the outer ends of the chakra. Shvate saw that he was barely two or three hundred yards from clear ground. If he could fight his way through the last lines of enemy chariots, it might be possible to break the chakra altogether, enabling the Krushan chariots to turn back and attack the enemy from the other side, forcing them to fight on two fronts at once—inside and out.

  “Dhruv,” he said to his charioteer, “do you see yonder flag?” He pointed with the spear.

  “Aye,” his charioteer replied, turning the heads of his horse team to dodge a volley of arrows from a cluster of chariots racing toward their position from the east.

  Shvate ducked down behind the well of his chariot, feeling the thwack-thwack-thud of the volley striking the outer wall. One arrow fell into the well itself, skimming his shoulder and drawing a tiny spurt of blood. “Make for that flag, but don’t let the enemy see that we’re making for it.”

  The charioteer, a middle-aged man with a bristling red beard flecked with grey, furrowed his lined brow. Abruptly, his battle-experienced mind glimpsed the tactical significance of Shvate’s order. He grinned, displaying yellow teeth with a double gap in the lower line. “Prince, you are a born warrior. A brilliant maneuver! I will pass the word along to the rest of the company.”

  “Do that,” Shvate said as he sought and found a target for his first spear. A rebel chariot cutting out of line and racing toward them at a sharp angle, the man aiming a longbow straight at Shvate. There was an instant when Shvate was taking aim at the same time as the enemy charioteer and their eyes met across the expanse between them. Shvate saw that the arrow was aimed directly for his throat, and from the intense calm of the archer, he sensed it would hit its mark. He heaved the spear a kshana before the archer loosed his arrow and watched his missile fly through the air, quivering and shuddering as all spears do when thrown with such force, as the arrow shot toward him—and Shvate shifted, twisting his head and neck just a few inches to the right, and saw and heard the arrow whick past with deadly accuracy, passing through the empty space his throat had occupied just an instant ago. Still bent over, Shvate saw his spear strike the chest of the archer, punching through his breastplate and driving the man back against the well of his chariot. The mortally injured archer gazed across at Shvate, and Shvate saw the Look in those eyes—that look that acknowledged that the better warrior had won the bout, before the man tumbled backward, falling out of his chariot and into the dust of the field, dead.

  Shvate heard the pounding of the blood in his ears as he reached for another throwing spear. The man he’d killed had been a veteran from the looks of it, a man who had trained and fought and survived many battles before this, yet one who now lay dead on this very field, less than seven
ty yards away, felled by the first spear thrown by the hand of a young boy in his maiden battle. Shvate was humbled by the knowledge of what he had just done, saddened by the thought that he had taken yet another life, and simultaneously also proud that he had survived yet another brush with death—not by hiding behind walls of soldiers dedicated to protecting his life, but by looking another man in the eye and matching his weapon with his own, by fighting and winning the right to live. What a privilege it was, this life—to breathe, to walk Arthaloka freely, simply to exist here and now. Freedom was a privilege dearly won by the brave and the unbowed. Compared to most, Shvate knew he had paid but a fraction of the price of his own freedom and right to live. He vowed then and there that he would earn the right to the rest of his life himself, by fighting for it every minute of every day.

  He aimed his second spear at a chariot racing alongside him, the archer aboard it aiming a shortbow at him and loosing a series of arrows in quick succession. Shvate dodged the arrows easily—the archer’s aim was wide, and his speed too desperate—but then saw the man’s true intent was not to hit him but to distract him while two other chariots came at him from the other direction. Shvate smiled to himself, acknowledging the ingenuity of the tactic, yet now he had three enemies racing at him from different directions, all loosing arrows, and closing in fast.

  Shvate contemplated the situation for a kshana, ignoring the whistling arrows flying past, the cacophony of battle all around, the dust and heat of the battlefield, and focused on the problem at hand. He closed his eyes and saw himself and the other chariots as if from a great height, three-dimensional miniatures moving on a tabletop field. Everything else faded away to a white drone.

  Without thinking, he picked up another spear and a javelin and kept them in his right hand as he hefted the first spear in his left. He aimed and threw the first spear, and then, in the same motion, and without waiting to see if it struck true, he spun about and threw the second spear and then the javelin, both in quick succession. As the javelin left his hand, he heard the sound of his first blow and turned to view the result.

  The first spear struck the wheel of one of the two chariots coming at him from behind. The chariot upended and tumbled end over end, causing the one behind it to collide with it. Both vehicles went crashing in a jumble of shattered wood and screaming horses and men, the driver and archer of the first chariot lost in the crush, the driver of the second also killed instantly. But the archer of the second had time to see the disaster coming and leaped off his chariot, rolling with the expertise of a veteran and returning to his feet, shortbow and arrow ready to loose. The javelin struck him through the belly—not the chest as Shvate had intended, but then, the man was shorter than he had appeared when standing in the chariot—and the archer crumpled with a shocked look on his face. He had seen the spear and the crash and anticipated it; he had not anticipated the javelin to come so soon after, nor the accuracy with which it was thrown.

  The second spear had been aimed at the archer of the other chariot, the one trying to distract Shvate. That bowman lay slumped over the rim of the well of his vehicle, Shvate’s spear through his chest, as his charioteer raced pointlessly alongside Shvate’s battle car. He registered the death of his officer and veered away, useless without his archer.

  Shvate was reaching for another spear when he felt a piercing agony in his eyes. He moaned and crouched down in the well of his chariot, shielding himself. He had been so caught up in the success of his first combat, he had completely forgotten his primary weakness: light. Until now, he had been able to fight without any restriction because the day was young and the early morning sunlight was soft and slanted, but now, as the sun rose a hand higher in the east, the light was growing stronger, brighter—too strong and bright for Shvate’s sensitive colorless eyes. He realized now that his skin was also feeling the effect of the stronger sunlight. Soon, the light would be too strong for him to function at all. In the hermitage he had been shielded by the dense jungle. Here on the open battlefield, he was naked and unprotected.

  “My prince,” Dhruv asked with concern, glancing back at him, “is all well? Are you struck?”

  Yes, I am crippled by infirmity, and wounded by light, Shvate wanted to tell him, although it was well known and fairly obvious to see that his albinism was his great weakness. Instead, he held his tongue. Mother Jilana had cautioned him against talking about it openly to anyone: Not anyone, she’d said. Let your enemies and detractors say what they will. Never acknowledge or comment on it yourself.

  “I will be fine,” he replied to Dhruv. “Continue with the maneuver.”

  The charioteer did as he was told, glancing back only occasionally to check on the well-being of his prince.

  Shvate suddenly realized that in the excitement of his own first combat, he had completely forgotten not only about his condition, but also about his brother. It was as if, for the past half hour, his entire world had been reduced to himself and the enemies trying to kill him. He had not even thought of Adri for that entire time.

  He stood up in the well, ignoring the shooting pain from the intense rays of sunlight that struck him in the face. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the direct light. “Where is my brother?” he said. “Where is Prince Adri?”

  Adri

  Adri listened for the sound of his javelin hitting its mark: not the charioteer nor the archer, but the ground immediately before the rolling wheel of the enemy chariot. The javelin bit the ground at a sharp angle, obstructing the oncoming wheel just enough to force the vehicle itself to veer sharply. That brought it into the path of the half dozen other rebel chariots coming at Adri’s. The charioteers all struggled desperately to control their teams and avoid a collision, as Adri’s charioteer urged his team and drove them forward through the outermost gap. Adri felt a thrill of excitement as his senses told him that they had done it, they had broken through the last line, they were now outside the enemy chakra!

  “Breakthrough!” his charioteer shouted.

  Adri heard other voices taking up the cry and passing it on. “Prince Adri has broken through!”

  He felt a sensation of deep pride. Today, he had shown the world as well as himself what he could do. Not merely something that a blind man could do just as well as any normal person, but that he, Adri, prince of Hastinaga, heir to the Burnt Empire, could accomplish, even in the heat of battle, fighting an overwhelming enemy against impossible odds. He had shown them that he did not need to be compared to other boys his age who were sighted. If you want to compare Adri, then compare him to the warriors lying dead on this field, the ones killed by his arrows, spears, javelins, and—most of all—his tactics. Match that, if you can!

  “Prince.”

  His charioteer’s voice was suddenly anxious. Gone was the joy of a moment ago.

  “Yes, Adran?” Adri did not share the man’s concern. Whatever the situation, he was ready to deal with it. He was Adri, the Krushan prince who had led the Krushan chariot cadre to what now seemed likely to be a miraculous comeback, if not outright victory. And the day was yet young. The sun barely two hands above the eastern horizon. There was much left to be done today, and he, Adri, was ready and able to accomplish it.

  “From the north and west, my lord,” said the charioteer, his voice deathly serious. “We cannot outrun them, and we are out of weapons. I was not given to expect that you would be required to engage in actual combat, my prince. I only stocked a single supply of arrows and spears.”

  Adri tuned out the man’s voice and focused instead on the approaching rumble of vehicles from the north and west. Yes, there was indeed a small force approaching from that direction. Two chariots. The rest on horseback. Why did they concern Adran so?

  He listened carefully to the sound of the men and women in that group. He could form a picture of the men and women themselves from the sounds they made by interpreting the complex interaction of sounds and effects in and around the actual persons—the displacement of the air that
passed over their bodies, the impact of their horses’ hooves in the dirt, the sounds of their grunts and their voices when they spoke.

  There were only five of them. Just five. What was there to be so concerned about?

  Then he felt it. It was a quality not merely in the sounds themselves, but also in the spaces between the sounds. These were not ordinary soldiers, or even officers. They were master warriors, yoddhas, kings and queens, princes and princesses, or champions of royalty. Master artists of the art of war.

  And they were all approaching with the sole intention of killing him.

  Suddenly, the bravado of the past hour left him as rapidly as water from a sieve. Five yoddhas approached, and Adri was without weapons.

  The pride he’d felt at his kills; the joy at his arrows, spears, and javelins hitting their mark; the exultation of his first tactical victory—all of it faded away, leaving only a stark realization: He was weaponless. Alone. And about to be attacked by the real enemy.

  Not the soldiers, captains, generals, or even the champions of the enemy army. The enemies themselves, the rulers who had united in the alliance against Hastinaga.

  And from the grimness he felt in their hearts even at this distance, he knew that they meant to kill him by any means, whatever it took.

  Suddenly, in a single moment, he was little Adri again, blind, lost, and forsaken in his cold dark world, grasping and groping for someone, anyone—spurned by his own mother, laughed at by his play companions, sneered at by his peers. Alone in a jungle of frightening beasts who would rip his flesh apart without a second thought.

  “Shvate?” he cried out, suddenly afraid. “Shvate, where are you? I need you, brother!”