Ravana’s grin was visible even at this distance, as was his hand on Sita’s neck. His wrist alone was thrice as thick as her slender throat. Lakshman shook the sword in a wordless threat, and at that, the rakshasa grinned even more broadly, all his faces showing their teeth together. ‘So you refuse yet again. As I expected. Then you leave me no choice. I trust that by doing what I do next, I will show you that your threats and abuses and terror tactics will not move me one whit. For I am the descendant of Pulastya himself, and we are honourable soldiers of dharma. It is in the name of dharma that I commit this execution of a known enemy of the Lankan state.’
And without further ado, he raised a dagger in another fist and, holding Sita’s head backwards in a grip so firm that Rama could see the imprint of the rakshasa’s fingers on her pale neck, Ravana slit her throat from side to side, allowing her lifeblood to gush out in a torrent, staining the railing of Pushpak, and splashing below onto the field of battle, onto the shocked ranks of the vanars of Kiskindha.
***
Lakshman howled his anguish and leaped forward as if he would attempt to spring up onto the flying vehicle. And indeed, as he bounded across the fifty-odd yards to the spot where Sita’s blood had been spilt, he seemed capable of leaping twenty yards high. For both of their maha-shaktis had been activated once more, and Rama could feel the power coursing through his veins. He could not stem it this time any more than he could stop himself from loosing the Arrow of Shiva.
‘Sita!’ he cried. And released the cord of the Bow.
The Arrow shot forward in a blaze of blue light, racing towards the Pushpak where Ravana stood, holding Sita’s lifeless body like a rag doll. It sped over Lakshman’s head even as he roared and leaped high in the air. But in a blur of movement faster than anything Rama had seen before, the celestial vehicle vanished from sight. The last thing he saw was Ravana’s ten heads grinning malevolently at him. But even in that moment of ultimate tragedy, he would recall that one of those ten heads, just one, was neither grinning nor smiling, merely gazing at him with a sincere, almost sorrowful expression. Perhaps it was the preternatural clarity of vision resulting from the maha-shakti awakened within his blood, or the intense stress of the moment, but he knew he would carry that final image with him to the end of his life; and the conviction that that single face, bearing an expression so starkly different from the nine others, was the true face of Ravana.
The Arrow passed through empty air, and not finding a target, halted. It hung there a moment, then vanished, reappearing in Rama’s hand instantly.
Lakshman’s leap carried him through the same space a fraction of an instant later. His sword sliced through empty air as well, finding no opponent. He fell back to the ground, landing easily on his feet, and looked around, seeking out his enemy. Finding none, he howled his anger and frustration.
‘To Lanka,’ he roared at the top of his voice, his words amplified by the power of his shakti, resounding across the battlefield.
As one, the ranks of vanars and bears responded with anger and outrage no less than Lakshman’s. ‘TO LANKA!’
The armies of Rama charged forward.
***
Sita heard the roars of Rama’s armies and heard the reverberation of their charge. She felt a secret thrill ripple through her body: Rama’s forces were attacking! That could mean only one thing. That Rama and Lakshman were alive and leading their armies in a final assault on Lanka.
Her joy was short-lived. A towering shadow loomed across the grassy ground of her exotic prison.
She turned to see Ravana standing beside her. He was uncharacteristically silent and subdued, his faces for once revealing almost nothing of their inner processes. It was the first time she had seen him so subdued. It frightened her more than any display of machismo or power. Still, she would not show him any emotion.
‘My husband’s armies are attacking,’ she said to him proudly. ‘It will not be long now before he comes and frees me, and deals with you.’
He sighed. ‘It grieves me to disagree with you at a time like this, my lady Sita. But I am afraid your husband will not be going anywhere now, or ever again. I intrude upon your privacy only to carry out my promise. As I said I would, I have brought you proof of Rama’s demise. I urge you yet again to accept his death now and make a mutually beneficial pact with me. I will leave you with this evidence and return shortly to have your final answer. This is the last time I will parley with you. The next time I come here, if you are still unwilling to cooperate, I will do as I must. Perhaps even as my son did to your husband.’
And with those words, he laid down an object he had been carrying, turned, and left the Ashoka grove.
She scarcely dared to walk the five or six steps to the spot where he had placed the object. And when she had covered that distance, seemingly miles to her heightened consciousness, she could barely work up the courage to uncover the cloth that concealed the item.
When she did, her entire being froze with shock.
Rama’s severed head lay there, staring up at her blindly, his skin turned blackish-blue and his face covered with numerous snake bites.
***
Rama was lost in the fog of Brahman. It had been fourteen years since the last time he had surrendered himself to the power of the maha-shakti. Then, Brahmarishi Vishwamitra had been there to leash him and help him control himself. Now there was nobody with the power to control or restrict him, only the blinding blue fury that burned his every cell, set his brain ablaze and turned him into a remorseless fighting machine. He was barely aware of his actions, sensing only that he was killing a great number of the enemy, slaying them by the dozen, the score and the hundred, and still the numbers mounted steadily … None could face him, none could survive. He loosed the Arrow of Shiva repeatedly, using it to kill entire companies of rakshasas at once, to blast holes in the walls of Lanka, to smash through the gates of the city, to swat hundreds of rakshasas from the ramparts like ants off a platform.
Then he grew aware that he was within Lanka, and killing more rakshasas, destroying houses, bringing down entire structures with a single loosing of the Arrow. He employed his sword now, for it was not seemly to use the Arrow for such trivial destructions as killing rakshasas. He could slay countless numbers with his blade alone, flashing, swirling, circling, swinging, flying, leaping, severing, hacking, cutting, slicing …
He came to his senses once, briefly, in a scene of such carnage and destruction that he was shocked to the core. It took him a painful moment to realise that he had been responsible for this devastation. All around him his followers were battling rakshasas. He saw Nala and his company fighting a rakshasa in a chariot surrounded by a force of albino rakshasas with long curved spears for weapons. He saw Sugreeva fighting a rakshasa wielding a mace, using the same spear shaft as his weapon. He saw Angad pitted against a trio of female rakshasis who screamed like banshees and sent their young scurrying to nip and claw at Angad from behind, but Angad’s angadiyas, now no longer needed to pass on messages because the time for talking was long past, fought the little rakshasas, meeting them at their own height and matching their ferocity.
He saw houses burning and citizens screaming, children being flung from rooftops by desperate parents, falling to the ground to land injured but still alive, while their parents died consumed by flames. He saw sights so terrible he wondered why men fought wars and whether any cause was worthy of such carnage and horror, whether dharma itself was sufficient justification for such violence. He felt the war lust swell up inside himself again, and fought to control it. But then he remembered his last glimpse of Sita’s face, that look of utter surprise as Ravana cut her throat, as if she had expected him to treat her roughly, rudely, even violently, but nothing as drastic as this, nothing as final as death.
And he submitted to the call of his fury again, hating himself for doing so, but hating even more the one who had driven him to this pass.
Ravana.
He would slaughter every la
st rakshasa in Lanka until he found and fought the king of rakshasas. Where was Ravana?
THIRTEEN
Sugreeva saw Rama resume fighting and almost turned away. It was excruciating to watch the mortal fight in this state: not only because of the sheer brutal efficiency with which he slew the enemy, giving them virtually no chance of reprisal or defence, but because of the anguish that drove him. He felt some of that anguish too, for he knew what it felt like to have one’s wife taken by force and forced to submit to an enemy, but in his case, that wife had been married first to the same enemy, his brother Vali, and so she was only returning to her first husband in a sense. Whereas Rama had lost Sita first to the most dreaded foe of all living races, Ravana; and now, he had lost her to that final enemy of all creatures, the lord of death. From whose cold embrace, she could never be returned.
Sugreeva fought on with anguish as well, but in his case it was tempered with experience, age and wisdom. He grew slowly aware that while their forces had entered Lanka and were in occupancy of the capital city, the rakshasas were still fighting back with great vehemence. This war was approaching an end very fast, but it was far from won yet.
He had just dispatched a particularly troublesome opponent, a burly mace-wielding rakshasa, and had cracked his tree in doing so, when he heard the noise and felt the thunder.
At first he thought it was the killing stones once again, Ravana’s sorcery at work. But what would be the good of using it here? Did the lord of Lanka intend to kill his own people as well as the enemy? For how could mindless sorcery distinguish friend from foe?
Then the afternoon sky darkened.
And he looked up to see a shape looming high above the city spires. So high above in fact, that he thought at first that the rakshasa was floating in the air. For the creature’s head was so far above the ground that he could not even see it clearly. All he could see was a body so enormous it towered upwards endlessly, tapering as it went higher, until its upper body and arms and head were lost against the brilliant blue afternoon sky.
Then the rakshasas all around began crying out triumphantly, ‘Kumbhakarna! Kumbhakarna!’ And he knew that this was the other brother that Vibhisena had warned them about.
***
Angad gazed up in horror as the looming form towered above them all, rakshasa and vanar and bear alike. From the exultant shouts of the rakshasas all around, he knew who this mighty being must be, but even so he could not comprehend the evidence of his senses. Could anything be so enormous, so powerful? And a rakshasa at that? He had thought Hanuman’s expanded size to be unbelievable, but to see a mortal enemy this huge was almost enough to cause him to freeze into permanent immobility. For how could he fight such a mountain of a being? How could anyone fight this creature?
He watched with naked horror as the giant rakshasa stopped and looked down, examining the scene before him. Very faintly he could make out a gargantuan head peering down, tilting one way, then the other. Then the rakshasa seemed to reach a decision, and with a roar that vibrated through Angad’s very bones, he raised one impossibly large foot and brought it down upon a mass of vanars swarming through the city gates.
The giant foot came down upon the closely crowding vanars like Angad’s own foot might come down upon a bunch of grapes. A thousand vanar lives were squashed instantly, along with a few dozen rakshasas. Twisting his foot this way and that, the giant raised it again and grunted with approval at the result. Then he put the foot down and used the other one to step on a party of bears battling a rakshasa in a chariot. This time Kumbhakarna attempted to avoid injuring his own kind, and almost succeeded. But the edge of his heel touched the back of the chariot a brief, glancing blow. That was enough to send the chariot flying end over end, throwing its occupant, apparently a rakshasa general of some importance, so far up in the air that he must surely have been flung all the way to the ocean, like that opponent Hanuman had swung and thrown on the battlefield that …
Hanuman!
He alone could tackle this impossible mountain of a rakshasa. Where was he? Still searching for the mountains of herbs? If only there was some way to let him know they had need of him, that Rama and Lakshman had already been revived and it was he they required now, for without him, this monster would surely destroy them all, even if he killed half of his own forces in the process.
***
But several hour-watches later, as the sun was setting again, there was still no sign of Hanuman. The situation was growing desperate now. Most of their troops had concealed themselves within the ruins and remains of Lankan structures, often only yards away from their rakshasa enemies. For the moment, this seemed to be working. Kumbhakarna was roaring and calling out in anger, his bellows filling the sky and his breath so great that the stench of it wafted down to where Angad stood in the foyer of what was once a grand mansion of some rich rakshasa. The giant’s breath stank of rotting meat and wine on an epic scale.
Angad looked at his father and at Rama. Rama, who had been a whirling dervish of violence until King Sugreeva had called to him to desist as they needed to speak. At first Angad had thought Rama would strike down the vanar king without a second thought, but then he saw recognition cloud Rama’s bright blue eyes—those eerie eyes that would haunt Angad’s dreams for ever—and he lowered his dripping sword. Once Rama had subsided, Lakshman followed suit at once.
‘Use your weapon, Rama,’ Lakshman advised. ‘But be careful not to draw his attention, or he will attack all our friends as well. And they will not all be able to move out of his way quickly enough to avoid being crushed.’
Sugreeva agreed. ‘For all his bulk, the giant is fast.’
Rama nodded slowly. ‘I must draw him out somewhere in the open, away from you all. Perhaps if I race out into the field and attract his attention, taunting him and forcing him to follow … ’
Angad frowned. ‘But if you do that, you will be exposed and unable to conceal yourself.’
Rama shrugged. ‘It is the only way.’
Sugreeva shook his head. ‘No, Rama. I have seen something of your powers. The maha-shakti you possess, as well as the astras, they give you great power to kill and destroy, but they do not protect you personally against blows or weaponry. If the giant crushes you beneath his foot, you will be killed. It may be more difficult to destroy you or Lakshman than any of us, but you are not completely invulnerable.’
Lakshman glanced at Rama. ‘Then let me go. I will draw him out and you shoot him with the Arrow of Shiva from the safety of a hiding place here in the ruins.’
Rama shook his head. ‘We will both go. Two can dance better than one, and he will not know which of us to chase.’
‘He will know soon enough the instant you fire the Arrow at him.’
‘Once I fire the Arrow, nothing else will matter.’
Vibhisena cleared his throat. Mostly a silent observer, and looking anguished at the sight of his countrymen slaughtered and his city devastated, the rakshasa nevertheless continued to offer his advice whenever needed or asked for. He offered it now. ‘It may not be that simple, Rama. My brother Kumbhakarna was granted the gift of indestructibility by Lord Brahma himself. It is another matter that he fumbled the boon and was cleverly given the gift of narcolepsy as well, compelling him to sleep for half a year at a stretch. I do not believe either the Bow of Vishnu or the Arrow of Shiva, or indeed any other celestial weapon will harm him.’
Rama and Lakshman both stared at Vibhisena. ‘Are you certain of this?’ Rama asked, looking vexed.
‘Absolutely,’ Vibhisena answered. ‘Your astras and your mahashakti will be no match for him. To the best of my knowledge, Kumbhakarna cannot be destroyed.’
Before anyone else could speak, a great crashing sound came from somewhere nearby, perhaps only a mile away. A vanar came leaping in, eyes goggling with fear. ‘The giant is attacking again.’
They came out of the ruined mansion to see Kumbhakarna, his patience lost by now, stamping on houses at random, uncaring whether
they were occupied by friends or foe. Each time he brought his foot down, a house was razed to the ground, with all its occupants crushed to fragments like the rubble of the structure itself, sending up a puff of dust several hundred yards high. Puffs of dust were visible all across the city as Kumbhakarna continued his rampage with a vengeance.
‘He is slightly irritated now,’ Vibhisena said. ‘He has poor eyesight and the failing light is making it harder for him to see.’
Angad stared at the giant pounding lives and buildings into rubble like a child squashing sand mounds on a beach.
Rama called on the Bow of Vishnu and set the Arrow of Shiva to it.
Lakshman turned to him. ‘What are you doing, bhai? You heard Vibhisena. Even dev-astras will not destroy the giant.’
‘We must do something,’ Rama said grimly. ‘Those are our people dying there. I cannot stand by and let him continue killing our troops unhindered.’
Lakshman gripped Rama’s arm firmly, preventing him from drawing back the bowstring. ‘Rama, listen to reason.’
Rama stared at his brother with an intensity Angad had never seen on his face before. ‘The time for reason is long past, Lakshman. It is only time for the madness of war now. Leave my hand and let me shoot.’
Lakshman’s hand remained on Rama’s arm, his eyes returning Rama’s intensity with a fire of his own. Angad felt sick to the stomach at the prospect of the brothers fighting one another, after all they had been through together and endured.
‘My lords!’
The voice of Kambunara turned all heads. The bear was waving at them from the end of the street, from behind a partly destroyed wall that hid him from the gaze of the giant on the far side of the city. ‘I have found Jambavan. Come quickly, he wishes to speak with you at once.’
RAMAYANA Part 3_PRINCE AT WAR Page 86