Two Kings

by Neo B.

  Two Kings

  By Neo B.

  Text copyright © 2015 NeoBluePanther

  All Rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever, either electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.

  Cover Design: Nishant Chaudhary @nishant_c

  To Sam

  Acknowledgements

  Nishant Chaudhary, for patiently listening to me and encouraging me to continue writing, and finish the book. He also designed the cover of the book in such a short period of time.

  Samriddhi, my wife, for being the first reader of the book and helping me tie up the loose ends. It was due to her encouragement that this this book is in its present form.

  Supriya, for honestly telling me what she thought of the book. Her words helped me push forward, and publish the book.

  All my friends and family for believing that I can write. I hope I do not betray the trust they have in me.

  Table of contents

  Acknowledgements

  Table of contents

  1. The Attack

  2. The Queen’s Escape

  3. The Witness

  4. The Inner Council

  5. The Evil Rising

  6. The Family Gets Together

  7. The Morning After

  8. The Village of the Seers

  9. The King’s Return

  10. The Dark Clouds Gather

  11. The Soldier Speaks

  12. A Visit to Vidur

  13. Vidur Decides

  14. Another Visit by Dinul

  15. The Birth of the King

  16. Failed Attempt

  17. The Coming War

  18. The Council of the Five Kings

  19. The Seer’s revelation

  20. Brothers Indeed

  21. Dinul’s Lair

  22. The Preparation for War

  23. The soldier’s Tale

  24. Growing Up

  25. Face off

  26. Dinul’s Education

  27. Dinul’s Stay at Agarpur

  28. Love strikes

  29. The Art of War

  30. The King in Exile

  31. The Men in the War

  32. The Secret Message

  33. The War Begins

  34. Dinul’s Plan

  35. The Attack on Pataliputra

  36. Sleepless Karkish

  37. Defence

  38. The Clash of the Princes

  39. The Tides are Turning

  40. Forces Reuniting

  41. An Army of Northerners

  42. The Silence at Pataliputra

  43. Message Goes Out

  44. The Battle to the end

  45. The Final Battle

  46. A Trip to the North

  1. The Attack

  As the king walked down the stairs, he felt a chill run down his spine. The trail of blood in the courtyard told him that something was wrong. He was used to seeing the courtyard clean every morning, and he had often wondered how they managed to keep it so clean, especially when the visitors and the crowd left it so untidy in the evening.

  But that was a thought for another day.

  Instinctively, he reached out for his sword, which wasn't there as he was not dressed yet. He muttered a curse under his breath. The dagger that he kept hidden in his nightdress would have to do.

  With the dagger in his hand, he cautiously took a step towards the trail of blood. The blood was definitely human. What could this mean, and where were his bodyguards, the king thought. His bodyguards had always been around when he woke up.

  Then, he froze in his tracks. From the corner of his eye, he observed a piece of black cloth fluttering behind one of the pillars. This was a pre-planned attack, and he shuddered to think of what might have become of his unsuspecting bodyguards.

  Karkish had been uneasy for the last few days, but his close confidants had asked him not to worry. His worst nightmare seemed to have come true now. Karkish was not worried for himself. He knew he could take on as many assailants as there could be hidden behind the pillars; he was worried for the safety of his wife and child he had left behind, sleeping peacefully in the bed chamber.

  Without letting on that he had sensed something wrong, he stepped back towards the door of his chamber. The attackers seemed to have sensed his unease and an arrow shot past him as he quickly turned around to get back to his room.

  The arrow barely missed the mark as it whizzed past Karkish’s ear. In three long strides Karkish had climbed the stairs up to his room and shut the door behind him. The king’s chamber was a strong room. The windows opened into the valley, and it was impossible for any attacker to climb up through them. The only weak point of the room was the door, which was being attacked ferociously by the assailants.

  Karkish knew he did not have a lot of time. The attackers would soon beat down the door and he had to act fast. He pressed the eyes of the statue next to the bed and a trap door opened in the floor. There was a statue on each side of the bed, and only the king knew which statue was the key to the trapdoor. The presence of the trap door was known only to the king and the craftsmen who had built the door.

  In a second, he was next to his sleeping wife.

  “Shakuntala…,” he muttered urgently.

  Shakuntala was up in no time. She was usually up before the king, and felt embarrassed at being woken up by the king today. As she reached to pull the covers over herself, Karkish said, “Hurry, there is no time, you must leave now.”

  It took a while for Shakuntala to register the meaning of the open trap door, the banging on the door, the dagger in the king’s hand, and the urgency in his voice.

  Shakuntala instinctively reached for their son.

  “Take him with you, hurry,” Karkish said.

  There were a thousand questions in the queen’s mind, but the kings’ demeanour made it amply clear that there was time for none. She quickly got up, put on her royal robes, lifted the son off the bed, and stepped down through the trapdoor. She did not know where it led to, but she would find out soon enough. As the king got ready to shut the door behind her, there was one question that she could not help but ask, “Are you not coming?”

  “A king can’t run, my dear. I have to stay, but I will join you soon enough.”

  The expression on his face made it clear that no amount of pleading would help, and every second wasted was a second less for the king to prepare himself against the threat at the door. So, Shakuntala bowed her head and let the king close the door behind her.

  The first drop of tear fell from Shakuntala's eyes only when her back was turned to the king. She quickly wiped it off and held her son closely against her.

  Karkish wasted no time after the queen left. He knew it was a matter of minutes, even seconds, before the door would be broken down and if he was not prepared by then, he would be a dead man.

  He cursed under his breath as he put on his armour. The thing was difficult to put on, but he knew that with his armour on, he had a better chance of survival than without it. Usually there were two men who helped the king put on his armour, but today he had to do it alone and do it in half the time. Karkish was one of the finest warriors in the kingdom, but in a close battle, it is only a matter of chance and luck, and even the finest of warriors must take all precautions before a battle. Just as the king picked up his sword, the bicchu, the door burst open and eight men dressed in black rushed in.

  They were not prepared for the sight that welcomed them. The bed was empty, and the king was standing facing them, his sword ready for blood.

  “Attack, and show no me
rcy,” the leader of the group yelled, as loudly as he could.

  The voice sounded familiar to the king, but he did not have time to think about it as he braced himself for the attack. It was obvious that the eight assailants were well trained in the art of war, but they were no match for Karkish, whose training and natural abilities made him a fierce warrior.

  It was evident that the attackers had counted upon taking the king by surprise and had not expected a fight. The king’s bed chamber was of such shape and size that manoeuvrability was difficult. Not all of the attackers could attack the king at the same time. For the king, it was familiar territory, and he seemed to have the upper hand in that regard.

  The sound of sword clashing against sword reverberated in the bedchamber. The king cursed the day when he had asked the workmen to make his room completely soundproof, or someone could have heard the din and come to his rescue. But, thankfully, the door was open and the king was sure that some sounds would be going out through the open door, and someone would come soon. He wasn’t sure if that would be soon enough.

  Till now he had successfully managed to ward off the attackers. He had his back against the wall and was facing the soldiers. It was lucky for him that all eight of them could not attack him at once. Karkish had managed to gauge the expertise level of the eight attackers. He realised that except for the leader, who seemed to be an expert in sword fighting, the others were no match for him.

  Karkish focused his attention on the leader. Not only did his voice sound familiar, but even his fighting style seemed familiar to the king. If he got him, Karkish thought, it would be easier to beat down the others.

  Breaking his chain of thoughts, the king suddenly realised that his defensive stance was pushing him into a corner, and it would become difficult for him to fight from there. He uttered a loud battle cry and burst forward into the group of soldiers. This move took the attackers by surprise, and as the king burst into the group he was successfully able to cut down two of the eight attackers. Karkish’s sword had severed the neck of one of the soldiers, while it had passed clean through the chest of the other. The room was suddenly filled with the smell of blood. For the first time, the assailants took a step backwards.

  For a brief moment, there was silence as both parties assessed their chances. The sun had begun to shine through the windows and things didn’t look as bleak as they had a few minutes ago. Karkish uttered another loud battle cry, and fell upon the six men standing. He was successfully able to injure some of the soldiers, but the leader of the group was turning out to be a bit too much for the king. The leader’s sword had managed to get through Karkish’s armour a couple of times, but it did not do a lot of damage, except draw a little blood. In the heat of the moment, Karkish did not feel the cuts at all.

  Karkish was, however, beginning to feel tired. For the past twenty minutes, he had been warding off attack after attack. Karkish was used to fighting battles for hours, but this was one of the most brutal attacks he had ever faced, and it was taking its toll on him. His thoughts turned to his son and his wife, and that gave him the energy to attack his opponents with renewed vigour.

  Suddenly, a loud sound from a soldier’s conch filled the room. A soldier who had somehow managed to hear the hue and cry coming from the king’s chamber had come to find out its origin. He was still blowing the conch when a dagger flew through the air and swiftly brought him down.

  But, the damage had been done. The king as well as the attackers knew that other soldiers would be there in a minute. The attackers were desperate now. They had a few minutes in which they had to do what they had come to do. Retreat was not an option.

  There was an intense battle for the next fifteen minutes. The soldiers had arrived at the door, but with the noise and the blood in the room, they could not make out who was attacking whom. They had moved into the room, and were looking to help the king, but before they could even lift their swords, the king was the only man standing in the room. The bicchu, covered with blood, had won another victory. Eight bodies, wounded and disfigured, were lying on the floor. A couple of the bodies were still moving and the soldiers quickly ensured that they would never move again.

  The king walked to the body of the leader, and took off his mask. It was his turn to take a step back, for the face that he had unmasked was of the head of his bodyguards, Ajatshatru.

  An hour had passed since the attack had started.

  2. The Queen’s Escape

  Shakuntala walked down the flight of stairs in the darkness. The door had closed behind her, leaving her in complete darkness. Her eyes had soon got accustomed to the darkness and she could see that she was walking down a small stairway, and at the bottom there was a passage, at the end of which she could see light. She quickened her pace towards the light.

  Her mind was full of a thousand fears for her husband’s safety, but she knew that worrying would not help him, so she tried to focus on her own situation. As she turned a corner, the passage changed from a dark, secret one into a well-lighted way. She walked quickly ahead and soon reached a dead end, but, she could not see any door from which to get out.

  She could still hear the faint sounds of the clashing of the swords behind her and she uttered a silent prayer for her husband who was fighting a deadly battle. Then she tried to block the sounds out of her mind, and find a way out of the castle.

  She looked out of the window and saw that there was a drop of more than a hundred meters. It was not possible to go that way. Then, her eyes fell on a statue that was similar to the one that was next to the bed in the king’s chambers. She remembered how the king had once told her about pressing the eyes of the statue to open the trapdoor. She had thought then that the king was joking.

  As soon as she pressed the eyes of the statue, there was a creaking sound and a door magically appeared in one of the walls. As the door opened, Shakuntala quickly slipped into the darkness of another narrow passage. It was a tight space in which she found herself. There was barely any space for one person to pass, and with Kalman in her arms, she was finding it difficult to pass through it. It seemed to last forever. Just when she was beginning to despair, the passage led into an open space, and this time there was a handle on the opposite wall. There did not seem to be a door anywhere in sight. Shakuntala did the only thing she could, and turned the handle. A door opened in the wall and as Shakuntala stepped through it, she found herself standing in the sunlight outside the palace. The door closed behind her, just as noiselessly as it had opened.

  She looked back and saw soldiers running up the stairs of the palace. “I hope all is well,” she thought and quickly walked off. Her only thought was to save the life of her son at any cost.

  After leaving the palace, Shakuntala moved towards Manu’s palace. Manu was Karkish’s minister of law. Manu’s wife was Shakuntala’s friend, and she trusted her more than anyone else. Their palaces were a few hundred metres apart. In fact, the palaces of the five ministers were situated in a semi-circle around the king’s palace. This was both for security as well as quick gathering of the King and his Ministers in times of need.

  Many people were up and about when the queen was walking towards Manu’s palace. The noise and the commotion at the palace had woken up the local residents. The queen had draped a shawl around her head which covered most of her face, but it was easy to see that she was from royalty. People made way for her as she walked through the narrow by lanes of Pataliputra. The queen quickly moved through the crowd. She wanted to reach Ahilya’s palace as soon as possible.

  She was careful to avoid eye contact with people, because most people that lived around the palace had something or the other to do with the palace and knew the queen by face. She did not want to be recognised, as she was not sure whom to trust. Maybe there was someone in the crowd who was out there to kill the Queen and the Prince.

  Ahilya, Manu’s wife, was Shakuntala’s best friend. It was difficult for women of her stature to find other women who they could be frien
ds with. But, Shakuntala and Ahilya had instantly connected during their first meeting. There had been times when the King and Manu were having some differences, but the friendship between Shakuntala and Ahilya had never come under the shadow.

  As she approached the main gate, she realised that she won’t be able to get in without announcing herself. That was the last thing she wanted to do. If the king’s palace wasn’t secured, who could trust the guards at Manu’s palace? Then she remembered the back door of the palace, a road that was usually reserved for the servants but had been occasionally used by Shakuntla and Ahilya to quietly slip out of the palace. But she knew it would be difficult to get in even through that door, because that route was also guarded by the guards, and servants were not allowed to bring children inside. She had to get in somehow, and only then would she feel safe, but how would she get in and to safety. For a moment, she thought about going elsewhere but quickly brushed that thought away.

  After thinking about it for a few minutes, she realised that her only safety lay in announcing herself. As they say, sometimes, surprise can be the best form of defence, as well as attack. So, she took off her cloak as she neared the palace gates. The guards on duty were shocked to see the queen approaching the palace gates, and before they could decide how to react, they heard Ahilya’s voice, “Let the queen in.”

  Fortunately for Shakuntala, Ahilya was also out for her morning walk within the palace grounds, and her eyes fell upon Shakuntala, and she quickly came to the gate to avoid any embarrassment to the queen. Shakuntala felt a huge pressure lift off her shoulders when she heard Ahilya’s voice.

  “Welcome to our palace, my Queen but what makes you set out so early in the morning, and without any guards or servants,” Ahilya asked, surprised. Shakuntala quickly stepped beside her and requested her to ask the servants to stay behind. Then she told her what had befallen her and they went inside for safety, and to decide what to do next.