Two Kings

by Neo B.

  There was no road in the mountains that they were walking in now and they were trying to tread through a very rough trail that was difficult to walk on. They were making little progress. As they were walking, the night began to set in, Agniputra suddenly stopped, and pointed a few hundred metres ahead of them.

  “Do you see that light?”

  Everyone stopped and became alert. A few hundred metres ahead of them, a light could be seen. Karkish and his men became alert and began a cautious march towards the hut. They were trying to be as silent as possible, but with their armour on and the difficulty in walking on the mountain, it was difficult for them not to make a noise.

  But before they could reach the fire, they heard a voice from behind them, “If any one of you takes one step forward, all of you will be dead men,”

  All of the men froze where they were.

  “So, you decided to follow Dinul here after all?” the man said.

  Karkish was trying to figure out how many men were there behind them and what weapons they had. He wanted to see whether they could fight them or not. But as soon as tried to turn back, and arrow whizzed past him.

  “The next time it won’t miss the mark, trust me,” this time it was another voice.

  “Who are you?” Karkish asked.

  “We are the men of the north and we don’t want your king to come to our side of the mountains and destroy our way of life,” the first voice said.

  “We wouldn’t have come here if you had not attacked us in our homes. You came and invaded us with your armies, while we have come here in small numbers just to talk,” replied Karkish.

  “You are not dressed like you have come to talk,” this time it was another voice and they were laughing.

  “Anyway, we don’t want to talk, just keep moving forward and don't look back. Once you get to the hut, all of you get inside the hut and don’t look back.” It was the first voice and it seemed to be in command.

  Karkish and his men did as they were told. They did not have much of a choice. Their enemy had the upper hand and for now it did not seem like they were going to hurt them. Soon they were inside the hut. The hut was made of wooden logs and was solid. It seemed almost impossible to break out of it. It had windows but they were blocked from the outside by wooden panels. But, between the panels, there was some space through which one could see what was going on outside.

  Vidyutputra quickly got to one such slit and saw that there were five men in all. They were definitely northerners, the kind they had fought back in Pataliputra. Once again they had fallen into the hands of the enemy. They were busy discussing among themselves, but due to the distance and the low volume at which they were speaking, their conversation could not be overheard. Only a few words wafted towards where these men were and Vidyutputra strained to catch them. He could hear words like skill, discuss, ask, angry, but he could make neither head nor tail of the conversation.

  “I think they are discussing what to do with us,” Karkish said as he had come to stand next to Vidyutputra.

  Vidyutputra, realising that his King was standing so close to him took a step back and bowed low.

  “I will kill all these men before they touch a hair of your body,” Vidyutputra pledged. Even in these grim circumstances Karkish could not suppress a smile at his enthusiasm.

  “I am sure you will, but how do we get out of here,” Karkish said.

  In the meanwhile, the five men outside seemed to have come to a consensus. A man went in to the forest behind the hut and came back with a horse. He got on the horse and rode off.

  One of the men from the remaining group started walking towards the hut.

  He stood outside the door and called out. “I hope you don’t cause any trouble and we won’t have to hurt you. You won’t be able to see us but we shall be around.” he said, and with that all the four men disappeared from their sight.

  “We must do something,” Karkish muttered to his men.

  They waited for it to become completely dark before they attempted to move out. Some of them were carrying bows and arrows and Karkish decided that they would have to try and make a formation where five archers would try and find their mark in the dark, while the rest held the shields in such a way that no one got hit. He was sure that the men would not dare to come near as they were severely outnumbered. They would keep walking in their defensive formation, until either they had walked out of sight or had killed all the men.

  As soon as they tried to open the door a volley of arrows was shot at the door. Karkish and his men paid no heed to the arrows and kept on banging at the door which the men had blocked from outside. After considerable effort, the fifteen men were able to break the door down and walk out. They were walking in a rain of arrows. It was impossible to believe that five men could shoot so many arrows in so little time, but it was happening right before their eyes. But their formation was holding and no arrow penetrated any shield.

  The volley of arrows followed them for a few hundred metres, as after that they had reached the top of the mountain, and they could see that after the climb down there was a plain area for as long as the eye could see.

  “I think we have the advantage of height now and we have a better vantage point, we should hold our position here.” It was Dhartiputra this time.

  Karkish and Agniputra looked at each other and conveyed through their eyes that Dhartiputra’s suggestion was a sensible one. They broke their formation and tried to find suitable points where each of them could hold position. If the five men were following them, they would have no chance. Karkish and his men had the higher numbers and they had a better position.

  Karkish and his men waited the night with bated breath. They were not sure from which side the arrows may come. The northerners were familiar with the terrain and they could have circumvented them. Therefore, they were looking in all directions.

  It was a while when the sun rose and Karkish and his men welcomed the sun with thankful eyes. They would have to decide what to do next, whether to go forward or return back.

  I think we need to be careful. Vidyutputra climbed the highest tree that was there on the hilltop and tried to see on both sides of the mountain. He could clearly see that the four men had returned to the hut. On careful observation he realised that the hut had been built at a very strategic location. There was no other way to go back without passing the hut. If they had to go back, they would have to pass those men again.

  He looked towards the other side and he saw that around five men on horseback were coming up the mountain side. They did not seem to be in a rush, as they thought that the men from the south were safely imprisoned.

  He quickly got down and informed the others climbing up.

  “I don’t want to kill these men, but we should capture them without hurting them. I want them to know that we are here to talk not fight,” Karkish emphasised again as the men got ready with their weapons.

  The men did not share Karkish’s passion for peace and they were itching to get their hands on the men. Vidyutputra was asked to climb back on the tree and keep a lookout on both sides and keep them informed. Karkish decided that they would try the same strategy as the northerners had used to capture them. They had the additional advantage that they had enough soldiers to surround the enemy on all four sides.

  As soon as the men neared the top, Karkish said in a loud voice,

  “Rein in your horses, men,”

  The northerners were surprised and they were not even in a position to fight. And within minutes two men were on each side of each horseman. The horsemen had no choice but to give up. They were quickly unarmed and tied. The ropes that they had brought with them for their tents came in handy.

  “I told you we have come here to talk, and not to fight,”

  The northerners snarled. The one who had gone to get the others said. “We should have killed you, when we had the chance.”

  It angered Karkish but there was no point in being angry at this point.

 
; “We have come here in search for Dinul?” Karkish asked, “Where can we find him?”

  “Oh him, I am Dinul,” said one of the men.

  “No, I am Dinul,” said the other.

  One after another, each of the five men said that he was Dinul. Karkish smiled, “I appreciate your loyalty to Dinul and I don’t blame you for that, but you are not in the safety of your group now. If you don’t tell us what we need to know, my men will force it out of you. They are not as patient as I am and as you may have noticed they are more than ready to hurt you.”

  Karkish’s words did not have any effect on the men and they laughed at the idea of being hurt.

  “You can try and see what you can get out of us,” said one of the men.

  Karkish realised that force may not be the best option to get anything out of them, but he decided to try anyway. He asked Agniputra and Vidyutputra to use any means possible to get them to talk.

  It took a while but after a few hours, Agniputra came to Karkish and told him that they had managed to get something out of the men.

  “How bad was it?” said Karkish.

  “It was bad but not as bad as we had expected it to be,” Agniputra said.

  “That’s good. What did we find out?” asked Karkish.

  “They told us that Dinul knew that we would be coming to find him. He has managed to get a few northerners together and set up a village, like the ones we have in our lands. The northerners have one weakness and that is their families, and Dinul assured safety and comfort for the children in return of their help and loyalty.”

  “Where is this village of theirs?” Karkish intervened.

  “The village is at a distance of three days walk from where we are. We can find the village that they have set up, but these soldiers feel that the fifteen of us will stand no chance against the strong force that is camped at the village.”

  “We are not looking for a fight, we are looking for Dinul, and we have no other quarrels with the northerners,” Karkish said,” we should try and see what happens at the village.”

  “As you say, my lord. What do we do with these men?” asked Agniputra.

  “After three days, just as the men had told them, they saw a cluster of huts made in odd shapes, at a distance. They approached the huts cautiously and when they were near enough, they hid behind a huge rock to observe what was going on without being seen. To their surprise there was no movement in the huts for many hours.

  Karkish decided to investigate this strange phenomenon and motioned for his men to move forward. Silently and ready for any attack, they moved forward and when they reached the huts they realised that no one was living in the huts anymore. Dinul and his men had left the huts. As they were looking around various houses, one of the men came back carrying a scroll. Written across it were the words “For Karkish, the King.”

  Karkish quickly took the scroll and opened it. Inside there was brief message for him:

  “Dear Brother,

  You may have won this time, but don’t think it will be that easy to get rid of me. I will be back. I hope you are ready for me then, like you were now.

  Your Brother,

  Dinul”

  Karkish folded the letter back and smiled. It sunk in for the first time. He had beaten Dinul and won. Dinul was smart, but he had proven to be the smarter one, the smarter brother. He decided to go back to his kingdom and rule like he always had. Only they had to build the strongest walls towards the north, for there was where the danger lay. When the time came he would deal with Dinul too.