'Stop!' the man called out in an urgent whisper. 'Just because I have been away for a few days, this is no way for you to greet an old friend!'
Indra, who'd been readying to push forward his attack, now hung back with a relieved smile.
'Soma! Had I known it was you, I would not have stopped with one punch. I suppose you didn't think my coronation was an important enough event to attend?'
Soma took his friend's hand, got to his feet and embraced Indra.
'I'm sorry, I was busy working on something.'
'Well, whatever it was, it better be good, because apparently you did find time to visit Nira's whores on several occasions. They have been going around town talking about your newfound sexual prowess.'
Soma grinned sheepishly.
'They were a necessary distraction, I'm afraid. Now I must ask you to follow me, I have something of importance to share with you. Oh! Just one more thing--please try and keep up.'
He ran out of the tent and leapt nearly five times his body length onto the branch of the oak tree and began to retrace his journey. Indra groaned loudly and then proceeded to follow his friend. Oblivious to the Deva patrols below them they leapt from tree to tree and made their way deep into the forest.
They made rapid progress through the canopy and soon they were in a region of the forest that Indra had never seen. The thick undergrowth made progress on the ground impossible. In the middle of this dense jungle was a clearing in which sat a log hut. Soma jumped down from a branch in front of the building.
As Indra leapt to the ground, he felt a dull throb in his head. He had not practised the mental exercises that Mitra had given him and the unfamiliar usage of his divine powers had weakened him. He was a bit surprised to see that Soma did not seem to be affected.
'Soma, you were warned not to use your powers unless absolutely necessary. Don't you realise it can destroy you?'
Soma grinned like the cat that had just got the cream.
'Give me a moment, my friend, I think I may have the solution to that very problem.'
He entered the hut and returned shortly. In his hand, he bore a cup made of the finest crystal. As he held it up to the sky, Indra saw in its depths a pale gold liquid that shone in the moonlight. Soma chanted a mantra and offered the cup to the young raja.
'For you, my king, the elixir of the gods.'
Indra held it to his lips and drank. The liquid had a sharp taste and burned his throat a little. Then he began to feel a warmth in the pit of his abdomen. Slowly it spread to other parts of his body and it was not long before he felt his entire being pulsate with divine energy. All his fatigue disappeared. He shivered in excitement as he hugged Soma.
'I cannot wait for Agni, Varuna and Vayu to return. This is the greatest weapon that you have given us. Thanks to you and this potion, which shall henceforth be called "soma", we are not just going to be great warriors. We are going to be gods.'
***
Varuna stood on a newly-built guard tower and looked out into the night. From experience, Bhrigu had told them that attacks usually came an hour before dawn. Agni and Vayu were already up in the hills where they kept watch on Tajak's horde. They were two-hundred strong and holed up a few hours' march away, ready for the final assault.
The last few weeks had been a hectic scramble to put up defences for the ashram. They had shifted the entire community at least a mile away from their previous location in the shadow of the mountain. The place had been a death-trap and a nightmare to defend. Now they had built a ten-foot high wooden stockade and six guard towers around the new ashram with pine logs taken from the hillside. Every man, woman and child had worked themselves to the bone, and now they finally had a defendable position.
When the attack came, the enemy would have at least a mile of flat ground to cover before they hit the stockade wall. The three warriors had made plans to whittle down the odds considerably by then.
Quivers full of arrows, axes, clubs and hammers were passed around the camp. The villagers lined up, courage and determination writ large on their faces. Every one of them down to the smallest child knew that defeat would mean a very painful death or a lifetime of torture and slavery.
Vayu had trained the men under Shukra, the oldest surviving son of Bhrigu, in close combat. Varuna watched them now, bunched together, hands clasped tightly around their weapons. These people were strong, honest, hardworking folk, but Varuna had his doubts about their skills as warriors. It was one thing to practice weapon drills for long hours, but quite another to apply it in actual combat and kill a man. Varuna hoped the men had the stomach for it.
He and Agni had trained the women and the older children in archery; they had taken to it quite well and learned quickly to work as a team. The younger children, who could not wield bows, had been trained to ferry supplies and retrieve fallen arrows. He knew in his heart that they had done all they possibly could. With a little bit of luck they just might be able to teach Tajak's raiders a lesson they would not forget in a hurry.
The screech of a falcon pierced the still night. It was the signal he was waiting for. Varuna alighted from the guard tower and Bhrigu went to him. The sage, save for his staff, did not carry a weapon.
'It is time, Master. Call your people to arms.'
***
As Tajak led his men down the mountainside, he lost some of his confidence. Something about the scenario troubled him. He had expected to charge down with his men and wreak havoc on the ashram, but it had disappeared. He looked around at the fields: the crops were being tended to, which meant the sage and his people had not moved far. Then he heard the hunting call of a falcon from the slope of the mountain behind him. It added to his discomfort: the bird did not hunt at night.
Agni and Vayu followed at a safe distance as Tajak led his men forward in a tight formation through the fields of corn. The horde soon crossed the fields and came upon a patch of bare land. In front of them was a ditch covered with dry wood, leaves and grass. Tajak laughed. 'Fools,' he thought to himself as he looked at the clumsy trap and leapt over it. As he climbed a gentle rise, the wall and guard towers of the ashram came into view.
Tajak stopped in surprise. His man who had survived the previous raid had told him--before he had been decapitated-- that Bhrigu and his people had help. However, Tajak had not expected to encounter fortified resistance. He ordered his men to stop while he plotted his next course of action. Ahead he saw another ditch: it was covered clumsily much the same way as the one he had passed. He heard the call of the falcon again, this time it came from within the walls.
Varuna lit up an arrowhead that was covered with an oil-soaked rag and shot it high into the air. Tajak watched the flaming arrow as it came towards them from within the walls. He stood his ground and was about to laugh when he saw that the arrow was falling short of its mark, when the enemy's plan suddenly dawned on him. He screamed, 'Run! It's a trap!'
The arrow struck the ditch in front of him and it exploded into flames. Tajak turned to see two more flaming arrows land in the ditch behind them. Vayu took a deep breath, chanted a mantra in his mind and blew gently. A gust of wind caused the flame to fan out in an arc. Agni roared in delight. He and Vayu had prepared a ring of fire: it gave Varuna and his archers a perfect kill zone.
'Archers! Ready your bows.'
Varuna stood once again on the guard tower and gave the command. The women and older children notched arrows and raised their bows.
'Shoot!'
They released their bowstrings and forty arrows flew in an arc over the wall and landed right in the middle of the enemy force. Varuna whooped in triumph.
'Archers! Shoot at will!'
He watched as the arrows fell among the panicked horde. For days and hours on end he and Agni had concentrated on training them to land their arrows on that bare patch of earth, and today the villagers did not fail them. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Tajak realised very quickly that to linger there would mean certain dea
th. He ordered his men to charge forward. The men who could still move responded and followed Tajak as he leapt through the wall of fire.
Vayu and Agni ran along on either side of the fiery ring, their bows busy as they shot arrow after arrow into the savages. From his vantage point, Varuna saw what the enemy planned and ordered Shukra and his men to charge. If they could take the head of Tajak, their troubles would be over permanently. Shukra and his men opened the gate and charged at their enemy.
Tajak saw them come and looked around. About twenty of his men had been able to keep pace; the others struggled with their wounds or the flames. He himself had an arrowhead lodged in one shoulder. His face was a bloody mess from another arrow that had ripped open his cheek till it hung from a piece of skin and flapped against his chin as he ran. His hair and beard had been burnt away in patches. He looked like a demon from hell.
Shukra saw Tajak approach and his courage failed him. Tajak spat, showering him with blood. Then he let out a terrifying yell and raised his club. Shukra dropped his weapon and ran. The men who had come up behind him were taken completely by surprise by the flight of their leader. They slowed to a halt, unsure of their next move.
Varuna screamed at them to fight. His quiver was empty and he looked around desperately for an arrow. Tajak did not break his stride as he threw his club. The heavy weapon twirled through the air and struck one of the men on the head. It split his skull and scattered his blood and brains on the others next to him. That was it. The men lost their nerve and fled towards the fields, away from the action.
Tajak gave a roar of triumph and charged towards the open gates of the ashram. He and his men burst through the gates as Varuna leapt off the guard tower to challenge them. Tajak barked out instructions to his men.
'Kill the warrior first. The rest are sheep waiting to be slaughtered.'
He walked over to where the children cowered in fear.
'Look at them, like frightened deer. Perhaps they'll taste just as good. I think I will roast one of them alive.'
Before he could carry out his threat, a figure threw itself at him and landed squarely on his back. It clawed at his already mutilated face and caused him to scream in agony as he shook it off his back. It was Maha. Tajak dragged her to her feet by her hair and thrust his dagger into her side. Maha screamed in pain, but she did not let it deter her. As she twisted towards him, the knife laid open the side of her belly. Maha gritted her teeth and with her dying breath brought her hand up. In it, she held her last arrow. She called on her final reserves of strength and drove the shaft right through the soft flesh under Tajak's chin, into his brain. She went with a smile on her face, comforted by the knowledge that her enemy had died before her.
Outside the stockade, Agni had gathered the men together and finished off what remained of Tajak's raiders. Only Shukra did not participate. He sat on the ground and stared out into the distance. He knew he had failed his people. Agni looked around for Vayu, but did not find him. He called out to the men to fan out and search for him. They found him unconscious on the field and brought him into the ashram.
Bhrigu was remarkably calm as he knelt beside the corpse of his daughter. Varuna stood by in support. Thanks to Maha, their victory had been comprehensive. Only two dead and about half a dozen wounded. The enemy had been comprehensively routed, slaughtered down to the last man. Bhrigu stood up and looked at Varuna who paid his last respects to the fallen girl.
'She had the spirit of a warrior within her.'
The father looked away into the distance with a wry smile.
'I never imagined such a warrior would spring from my loins. Perhaps it is best then that she died such a glorious death. Life might not have been kind to one such as her.'
Varuna knew the sage was right. Her spirit would have never been able to live the life of servitude that was expected from women in an ashram. Just then, Agni rushed in carrying an unconscious Vayu over his shoulder. Bhrigu asked for the warrior to be brought to one of the huts where he could examine him.
It did not take long for Bhrigu to find the reason behind Vayu's mysterious condition. There was no external sign of any wound or injury on him. Yet his heartbeat was so faint, a novice might have presumed he was dead. The sage turned to the two warriors.
'Did he use his divine powers during the battle?'
'Yes, Master. It was necessary.'
Bhrigu led the two of them outside.
'These powers that have been bestowed on you are like a double-edged sword. You must train and strengthen yourselves before you use it, or you could do yourselves irreparable harm.'
Agni looked at his own muscled body and then at Varuna's and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
'But we are Devas. We are strong.'
The sage laughed.
'I have no doubt of your physical prowess, but you must strengthen yourself from within. Goodnight for now, your training begins tomorrow.'
The next day, after the dead had been cremated, the boys lined up, ready for their first lesson. Vayu had made a speedy recovery and was able to join the other two. Bhrigu found a spot for them under an old fig tree and asked them to sit down cross-legged.
'Now, for one hour I would like you to sit down and empty your mind. Remove all thoughts from it.'
The three boys closed their eyes and began what was to become the hardest exercise they had ever done in their lives.
***
Sachi sat by the river, bathed in the light of a magnificent full moon. Though her cheeks were wet with tears, it did nothing to diminish her great beauty. It was the eve of her wedding, and all she could do was wrestle with the biggest dilemma of her young life. Every time she thought of her lover who was soon to be her husband, it was her dead father's face she saw. Nobody understood her plight, she felt, not even her own mother, whose soul appeared to have been drawn out of her. She walked around the house, silent, a living, breathing corpse.
She looked up at the moon; other than as an object of beauty, it held no particular significance for her. Like her people, the sun was all she worshipped. Yet in the last few days, she had felt drawn to it. It seemed to offer her some kind of comfort. Even as she gazed upon the beautiful orb in its full splendour, she saw something appear in the middle of it. It was a face of a woman of exquisite beauty. The face looked at her with a benevolent smile. Sachi bowed her head as she clasped her hands in prayer. Suddenly it became very clear to her what she had to do.
The royal wedding was just the occasion the citizens of Aryavarta needed to put all the sordid occurrences of the recent past behind them. Everyone in the city had gathered outside the Sabha for the ceremony, following which there was to be a grand sacrifice and feast. Nala and Travistr arrived just in time to join the wedding celebrations.
Mitra noticed the stranger and was immediately drawn by his aura. Their eyes met and the stranger nodded courteously. As Mitra returned the gesture, he realised that the stranger was an adept of the highest order. Like him, the man did not touch the wine. This was strange, given his warrior-like appearance and the occasion. He reminded himself to question Nala about him later. As he looked around the room, his eyes went to Madri, who sat still as a statue. Her eyes were vacant as they stared ahead; she did not partake of the food or the wine.
Mahisi more than made up for her friend's indifference by taking on the duties of the hostess. She had served up the choicest food and now had brought out some fine wine that she had preserved all these years for just this occasion. The wine soon got the bards going and the hall began to resound with the old songs of valour. One of them even sang about the duel between Indra and Pusan. Pusan and Vasu were not portrayed in a very kind light in the ballad and finally Indra had to have the drunken bard escorted out from the gathering.
Through it all, Sachi conducted herself with the utmost dignity. Mitra's heart went out to her. He could sense her grief even as she maintained her poise through the celebrations. Finally it was time for the groom and the bride to retire fo
r the night. The gathering cheered and made ribald jokes about the groom's prowess. Indra thanked them and left with his bride.
It was well past midnight when the king made his way to the bridal chamber. Sachi sat on the bed bedecked in jewellery and fine silk as she awaited her husband. The entire chamber and the bed had been decorated with beautiful, fragrant flowers. She looked up as he entered and their eyes met; her beauty took his breath away.
Indra paused to admire the vision that presented itself to him. She continued to stare at him; her face was hard, not betraying any emotion. Gone was the girl who was his childhood playmate. This woman was unrecognisable to him, and he had to admit, eminently more fascinating. He hoped she would pass some sort of cheeky, irreverent remark to break the shadow of solemnity. All he wanted was to take her in his arms and show her how much he loved her. Then he remembered how much water had passed under the bridge since they had last met. He made a vow to himself that he would, in time, with his undying love, heal the wounds that he had caused her.
He went to her and gathered her in his embrace. She buried her head in his shoulder as she tried to control the sob that escaped her lips. He hugged her as tightly as he dared and then slowly broke the embrace. She kept her gaze down so he could not see the sorrow in her eyes; it only served to enhance her fragile beauty.
As Indra looked upon the face of his bride, Sachi closed her eyes and struggled to hold back her tears. However, a drop found its way down her cheek. He held her face in his calloused hands as gently as he could. He was afraid their roughness would in some way blemish that flawless face. Then, he slowly leaned forward and kissed the teardrop away.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. He saw her pain--it stabbed at his heart like a knife. He drew her face to his and kissed her gently on the lips. Her mouth parted and her hands clutched at his shoulders. His breathing quickened as he broke away. Slowly he began to undress her, drinking in her beauty with his eyes.
Rajiv Menon -- ThunderGod Page 20