‘Ra-van-a!’ he roared, pointing his blade at the end of the canyon. The foolish vanars still milled about there, making insulting noises and lewd gestures with their mouths—and other parts of their fur-covered anatomy as well—as if such childish behaviour would dissuade his stout rakshasas. He frowned as he saw that even their leader, an ageing vanar who had appropriated a broken spear rod from some fallen rakshasa and wielded it like a monkey waving a tree branch, was joining in the taunting. As he watched with narrowed eyes from his vantage point on top of the body of his fallen kumbha-sur, gazing above the heads of his lumbering rakshasas, he saw one vanar, either the leader or someone close by, turn around and flash his brightly coloured rear end at the oncoming enemy. In quick succession, several dozen other vanars did the exact same thing, and for a moment, gaily coloured vanar bottoms flashed insultingly at the charging rakshasas, drawing new roars of outrage and fury from the racing Lankans.
Vajradanta frowned. That was no mere fright-response. He could see now that despite the approaching rakshasas being no more than a few dozen yards from their position, the vanars were still holding fast, neither continuing their retreat, nor gibbering nor leaping away in terror. If anything, they were snarling and leering with a savage humour that he knew well from his years on the battlefield. These were warriors in full spate, taunting their enemy to come on fast and furious … encouraging them to race into …
‘A trap!’ he shouted. ‘It’s a trap! Desist! Fall back!’ He repeated the words in several rakshasa dialects, and his lieutenants passed the order on as well.
But the words were barely heeded by the infuriated rakshasas now a good two hundred yards ahead of him at the narrowest point of the canyon, too far away and out of earshot due to the peculiar acoustics of the place. The rakshasas charged ahead towards the leering, mocking, taunting vanars who awaited them below an overhang that arched over the narrow exit of the canyon. As Vajradanta raised his head and waved his weapon to draw the attention of his troops, bellowing at the top of his voice, he saw movement atop that overhang. Glancing up, he saw the reason for the vanar retreat, for the taunting, and for the apparently foolish, suicidal, doomed stand in this particular spot of all places. His shouts died away, cut off in mid-command, as his military mind instantly grasped the enemy’s scheme. A trap it was indeed, neatly sprung, and seeded with the lives of more enemy vanars than he would have thought possible for any commander to sacrifice. Yet the very scale of that bloody sacrifice had been the reason why he had failed to see the trap until it was too late.
He raised his head, scouring the top of the canyon walls to left and right, and suddenly, with a sinking heart, Vajradanta knew that he had sadly, tragically, dangerously underestimated the enemy numbers, by a factor of five or ten, perhaps more.
***
Sugreeva felt a surge of joy akin to nothing he had felt before as he raised his eyes and saw the top of the canyon bristling with countless scampering shapes. The canyon walls on the eastern side were lined with scores of silhouetted vanars climbing up from the far sides where they had lain hidden on Rama’s orders in the dense shrubbery. As each wave climbed into view, it was caught by the garish light of the morning sun’s rays, and then clambered down lithely into the canyon, he was filled with pride and a sense of honour. It was worth it now to have seen so many of his fine Kiskindha vanars sacrificed in that terrible first charge of the Lankans. Worth it to see the trap in which the rest of the Lankan vanguard was now caught, encaged on two sides by the canyon, and on this front by his Kiskindha vanars, and left with only one route open—back to Lanka. His knowledge of war strategy told him that if the rakshasas were wise, they would elect to retreat at once, while they still could; and his knowledge of rakshasas, gained in large part from Rama himself, told him that they would rather die than retreat.
He could see the general with the flashing teeth, standing in the centre of the canyon atop a veritable hillock of corpses, staring up at the waves upon waves of vanars coming down the steep slopes of the canyon sides, raising new clouds of dust as they slid, leaped, rolled down the three hundred yards towards their quarry. Already, some fifty or sixty thousand vanars were in view, with more arriving every instant in endless profusion, streaming over the tops of the canyon sides and carpeting the dusty sand-coloured dust of the terrain until the canyon itself seemed to grow dark on account of the sheer quantity of dark fur coating its walls. Rama and Lakshman had debated how many of the vanars to deploy in this particular action and the decision had been unanimous: enough to not only crush the Lankans, but to wipe them out.
‘To the last beast,’ Lakshman had said fiercely.
‘Or till they retreat,’ Rama had added.
Sugreeva bared his own teeth now at the rakshasa general, in mock imitation of his toothy grin. But the rakshasa commander’s attention was still turned upwards, staring in mute horror at the enemy pouring down towards his position. Already, the charging rakshasas had almost reached the spot where Sugreeva and his warriors had halted to lure them on with jeers and taunts and that classic vanar gesture, bottom-flashing. Now, as the sound and smell and sight of the new threat penetrated their thick rakshasa skulls, they slowed their charge, coming to a lumbering, puzzled halt. They began raising their snouts and muzzles and horns and tusks and gazing in all directions, scenting the change in the atmosphere before they saw or heard anything amiss. Even Sugreeva could scent the massive increase in vanar odour, for the wind was blowing down from the east. At first, the stunned rakshasas seemed unable to comprehend what was happening—or more likely, were unable to believe the sheer numbers of the enemy pouring down towards them. Then, one by one, they began grunting, squealing, howling, roaring and raising their rakshasa voices in outrage and protest. There was nothing a rakshasa hated more than to be foxed, for their advantage lay in brute strength, not wits.
The ones closest to Sugreeva, barely a few dozen yards away, stared up directly at the overhang beneath which he stood, the exact position prescribed for him by Lakshman. He glanced up as well. The overhang, barely three yards in thickness and curved across this narrow part of the canyon from side to side like an arch designed by a builder in a hurry. It was thick with vanars, crowding it, hanging from it, tails coiled around the narrow fingers of protruding rock that stuck out at all angles, a massed group of several hundred of his kind staring down with glinting, hungry eyes, claws and teeth flashing angrily at the sight of so many of their fellows lying dead on the canyon floor. They issued a sound not unlike a clutch of snakes hissing angrily, the sound that vanars made when gathered in great numbers and confronted with a natural predatory enemy.
As more and more waves continued to roll down the sides of the canyon, the walls grew thick with gathered vanars, all issuing the same deathly sound. Sugreeva heard his own vanars echo them as well, until the canyon was filled with the unearthly sound. He saw rakshasas gaze up in bewilderment, and guessed that the Lankans had never seen such a sight nor heard such a sound before, and knew that this too would become part of rakshasa lore and vanar legend for ever more. The hissing built up to a crescendo, then faded away slowly. In the utter silence that followed, he heard a wounded vanar somewhere in the awful pile in the middle of the canyon cry out Hanuman’s name, then Rama’s, then fall silent.
Sugreeva drew himself up as tall as possible, preparing to fall upon the prey. For this time, it was the vanar who was the predator, making up in sheer weight of numbers and an ingeniously chosen geographical position what he lacked in strength and size and weaponry.
He raised his wooden pole, which he preferred to think of as his tree now. The eyes of nearly a lakh of vanar warriors turned to look at him, waiting for his command. And still the numbers continued to swell as more waves continued to roll down the canyon sides.
With a sharp ferociousness, he stabbed the pole in the direction of the surrounded Lankan army. ‘For Rama!’ he shrieked.
This time, the response was loud enough to fill the entire canyon,
echoing like booming thunder.
‘FOR RAMA!’
Like dark honey wine freshly brewed from the choicest grapes of the Madhuvan gardens, the vanar forces poured down the walls of the canyon. As they reached the end of the slope, they paused to brace themselves briefly against the knobbly edge of rock, then using it to give themselves greater momentum, they leaped, hurling themselves with frenzied ferocious energy at their foes. The air was so thick with flying, leaping vanars that for a moment, Sugreeva’s view of the sky and the sun, just emerging over the eastern wall of the canyon, was almost completely obscured. Denser than the dust cloud which had obscured them all during the first battle, the vanar cloud filled the air for long moments. Then, as the first vanars landed on their enemies, and on the canyon floor, the sound of slaughter began anew.
***
For the first time since the onset of the battle, Hanuman opened his mouth and roared with delight. He watched as the torrent of vanars poured down relentlessly upon the surrounded and outnumbered rakshasas trapped in the canyon. He saw a female, bearing two young ones—for many rakshasis carried their young into battle just as a lioness would take her young on a hunt, to train them in the art of killing—screech with outrage and fling her young up in the air. No helpless babes, the two young Lankans met their vanar foe in mid-air and gnashed and bit and tore with great fury. Their mother grappled a half-dozen vanars at once, ripping one apart into two bloody pieces, crushing another’s head, and almost decapitating yet another, while jabbing and clawing and kicking wildly to keep the others at bay. But more and more vanars kept leaping upon her, and upon her young, and in moments, the three of them were so overwhelmed that only swatches of their bloodied bodies were visible. When they finally succumbed, over two dozen vanars swarmed over the three of them, ululating in triumph. He did not permit himself to feel any remorse for even the young rakshasas: if they were old enough to take lives, they were old enough to die. Such was the harsh reality of war. Still, he could not help wishing the mother rakshasi had left her younguns at home.
Other fights were much less ambiguous. Great, hulking rakshasas with tusked mouths and horned heads or grotesquely malformed orifices went down fighting like mad elephants in masth, taking half a dozen or more vanar lives apiece before they succumbed. Others fought on bitterly, remaining on their feet, or hind legs, or nether limbs and tail, blood streaming from dozens of terrible wounds—for vanars did not just bite or claw, they tore out flesh and ripped out pieces of organs—battling on in the face of impossible odds, refusing to surrender. These courageous rakshasas—and he admired their courage without hesitation, for a true warrior always respected a brave enemy— were treated with different tactics by the vanars.
In one instance, he saw at least two dozen vanars surround one adamant bull-headed rakshasa in a ragged circle, taunting and mocking it, while the ones at its rear bit and slashed, leaping back before the slow, wounded Lankan could turn around and hack at it with its enormous battle blade. The rakshasa turned and swung, turned and swung, until it was dizzy-headed and in agonising pain from countless wounds and nips and bites, and the instant it showed the slightest weakness, vanars leaped upon its back, slashing and tearing it open like a sack of grain, clinging to its belly and lower limbs with claws and teeth working viciously, spilling its innards and organs until, by the time the bull-rakshasa fell, bellowing in agony and disbelief, it was little more than a butcher’s pile of body parts. It was this same tactic that vanars used to fight and kill natural predators like lions or tigers or leopards in their natural habitats and it worked just as well on solitary rakshasas, isolated from their comrades.
The wiser of the Lankans, perhaps aware of this fact, banded together, and fought-back-to-back and shoulder-to-shoulder. But the vanars were wiser and had more warriors to spare and speed to offer. They penned these teams of rakshasas until they were too close to swing out wildly without injuring one another, which a couple did do from time to time, drawing furious protests and retaliatory blows from their own stricken comrades, for in the heat of battle, rakshasas were as wont to strike out at one another as at an enemy. And then, when they were virtually huddled together, jostling each other and on the verge of desperation, the vanars darted in underfoot, slipping easily beneath and between the rakshasa’s lower limbs to strike telling blows. The vanars who did this were mostly killed in the press or chopped down, or simply crushed between massive thighs, or beneath pounding hoofs and reptilian tails, but the instant a rakshasa turned its attention downward to kill the intruding vanar, the other vanars waiting and watching took that opportunity to leap upon it and tear into it savagely.
The battle raged on for another half-watch, and Hanuman’s anger slowly began to ebb as he watched the pride and glory of Ravana’s vanguard systematically decimated, then quartered, then halved, whittled down in a thousand smaller fights and sub-fights, until the few thousand rakshasas left standing, or lurching really, could barely keep their wits about them, let alone offer real resistance. The vanars were gibbering and chattering by now, as vanars do when gathered in huge numbers and confident of superiority over a larger, greater predator. The sound of their victorious cheering and taunting rose into the air to reach Hanuman, and he laughed, filling the sky with his booming glee. As more rakshasas continued to fall, he saw a few sorry Lankans nearest to their own side of the canyon, lose heart and attempt to race for their lines. With that, the stubborn pride that had cost the rakshasas so dearly finally broke and the battle turned, as all battles do eventually.
In moments, a handful of rakshasas—no more than one-fourth of the horde that had riden and raced into the canyon not long before, so proud and arrogant and confident of victory—were stumbling and running back towards their capital city, crying tears of rage and frustration as they went. Hanuman watched as Sugreeva noted the Lankan retreat and called a halt to the vanars seeking to pursue and kill the fleeing enemy. The vanars shrieked and screeched and showed their colourful bottoms to the retreating rakshasas, then danced cartwheels and somersaults and held hands and jigged.
Sugreeva climbed to the top of the piled dead, reaching the very spot where the rakshasa general with the flashing teeth had stood not long before. Standing atop that heap of his own beloved dead as well as enemy corpses that now outnumbered their own by a factor of two or more, he paused and stood proudly, scanning the great army of vanars that thronged the canyon, dancing and calling out with unbridled delight.
He raised the pole that had served him so well in the battle. And the vanars ceased their dancing and antics and looked up at him reverentially. No longer Sugreeva the Exiled One, or Sugreeva the Lost, but Sugreeva the Victor of Lanka, commander of the soon-to-be legendary flying vanars who had confronted a horde of the greatest fighting rakshasa warriors in all existence and beaten them into bloody pulp.
‘Jai Shri Rama,’ he called. Praised be Rama.
The response was deafening, audible even to Hanuman floating three hundred yards above, amplified by the canyon walls to resound for miles around, heard even by the fleeing rakshasa survivors, if not by Rama himself. ‘JAI SHRI RAMA!’
Hanuman smiled. ‘Jai Shri Rama,’ he said softly, then flew north to carry word of the victory to Rama himself. He would check on the progress of other battles en route.
SEVEN
Hanuman arrived at the valley where the Mandaras and the bears were to confront the enemy just as Mandara-devi emerged from the darkling shade of the forest. He slowed to a halt, staying well above the line of sight of those on the ground below, and watched as the tribe-goddess of the silver-miners loped towards what seemed to be a sizeable army of rakshasas. Following her closely were two black-pelted Mandaras that he recognised instantly as the lieutenants and champions Mainda and Dvivida.
He frowned as he watched the three vanars run towards the rakshasas. The battle plan called for Mandara-devi and her vanars to tease and lure the enemy into the forest where Kambunara’s bears would keep them busy, while General
Nila and his troops, along with the rest of the bear contingent, rode down into the valley from all sides, encircling and trapping the rakshasas in the woods in much the same way that the Kiskindha vanars had fallen upon the rakshasas in the canyon. Glancing northwards, he could see and scent fighting in that part of the wooded valley. Using his preternaturally enhanced senses, he could make out bears fighting rakshasas, the bears badly outnumbered but fighting with their customary laconic brutality. At once he grasped the situation. The rakshasas had proved cleverer than expected, leaving the bulk of their force outside the woods, and now Mandara-devi was attempting to finish her given task of bringing them into the forest so that the rest of the battle could be played out as planned.
But the plan had not required that she personally endanger her own pelt by going out alone to face forty thousand rakshasas! Again he felt chagrin and frustration at being able to do nothing but watch. He did not know how much longer he would be able to keep this up. He seethed silently, waiting to see how Mandaradevi and her two champions fared.
***
Mandara-devi knew that what she was doing was foolish, even suicidal. But there was no alternative. There was not time enough to think up another plan, and she was no thinker or planner anyway. This was all she could come up with given the circumstances and limited time and resources. Perhaps she could have sent Mainda and Dvivida out instead of going herself, but she would sooner throw off her jewellery and disdain her calling as tribe-goddess than do such a thing.
The sunlight was warm and pleasing on the back of her pelt. She wished she could spend a little time, rolling in this high grass, sunning herself. How could a land as beautiful as Lanka harbour such demonic species? But then, that was what this war was about, in a sense. After Rama won, Lanka would no longer be a lair of rakshasas. It would be a land of peace and freedom, where even those rakshasas who survived would live in harmony with other neighbouring nations. Or so it was to be hoped.
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 71