“And then we kill them with our bad breath,” said another oldun with only one arm and one eye. He had lost the limb in the Last Asura War and the eye in a childhood fight, and while he had once been able to wield a sword with his good arm better than most men with two good arms, he now had to use a lighter shortsword because it was all he could manage to lift. The man would probably not survive his first clash with the enemy yet here he was, tossing off a quip as if he were teaching new recruits on the training field.
“You do that, Yuddhajit,” said one of the others, stuffing a fresh plug of tobacco in his mouth. “You’re armed for it!”
Guffaws all around. Then they disbanded and descended into the valley. Barely had they entered the tree line when Bejoo made out the distant thunder of approaching hooves. Soon after, he had turned back and peered cautiously through a gap and saw the familiar half-shaved half-bearded face of the Captain of the King’s Guard. See you at the end of my sword, he thought, then continued working his way through the undergrowth with greater stealth. The element of surprise—if even that—was about all they had on their side.
That, and two young boys with big bows and even bigger hearts.
But he had fought and lived long enough to know that even the biggest of hearts couldn’t overcome odds like these.
It’s just not possible, he thought morosely. Once they knock us down, there’ll be nothing to stop them barging into that canyon and finishing the slaughter they began yesterday.
All the more reason why his olduns and he had to do whatever damage they could. Perhaps if they caused enough casualties, Aarohan would withdraw and leave the regular army to flush out the rebels. If they did that, then at least there might be a chance, however slender, that the commanding officer would honor kshatriya dharma and not cut down brahmins, women and children out of hand.
It wasn’t much but it was all that he could think of and hope for.
And die for.
Time now, he thought, as he glimpsed and heard the frontline of Aarohan’s Guard approach his position. He glanced to right and left. Somewhere over there in the shade of those trees was the old gatewatch Somasra. Yes, there he was, a hulking shadow no less a tree trunk in his own right. The man must have been formidable in his youth. Bejoo nodded at the shadow, not sure if Somasra saw him.
Then he raised his sword and launched himself at the nearest trio of approaching King’s Guard.
FIVE
“Jai Shree Shaneshwara!” Bejoo cried as he launched himself at the closest trio of King’s Guard.
Somasra had seen the grama-rakshak’s sign and was prepared. Even as Bejoo leaped out, shouting loud enough to send cockatoos screeching in panic from the trees overhead, Somasra stepped from his hiding place and began slashing with his double-sided sword at the next trio.
They were momentarily distracted by Bejoo’s cry—which was the reason why the grama-rakshak had shouted a battle cry in the first place. It served to inform his own men that the attack had begun, and to distract the approaching enemy frontline for that brief instant. Somasra took full advantage of the distraction.
He leaped into the center of the triangle formed by the three King’s Guard, slashing sideways at the first. He caught the man completely unawares and had the satisfaction of striking aside the man’s drawn sword and feeling his own blade bite deeply. The man collapsed, gouting blood.
But that was all the advantage Somasra got. The other two immediately moved to take up positions on either side of Somasra, forcing him to fight on two fronts at once. That was a deadly game. It had been a long time since he had seen active combat. Most of his decades on gatewatch had been spent breaking up brawls, dealing with angry traders and offensive foreigners who thought it their birthright to enter any city they pleased and act as they desired. But there had been a fair share of good fights as well, mostly with armed and dangerous men, some drunk, others just mean enough to take satisfaction from gutting a guard or two, even though they knew they would be caught at once and thrown into the dungeons. Casualties among gatewatch guards weren’t high but they did occur and Somasra had seen a fair number of fellow gatewatch guardscut down on the job. Enough to make him stay relatively well enough in shape and practice every chance he got.
Now, he had to work for his life. The two King’s Guard were shrewd and young and experienced enough to have taken down men like him before. They made him dance, toying with him, one coming in and pretending to get past his guard, forcing him to turn and swing to defend himself, the other doing the same on the other side, until all he was doing was swinging this way and that like a dancer at a king’s court. He would tire soon like this and sooner or later, one of them would get a point in and then the other would finish the job. Already he felt his old lower back injury protest as he swung from the hip, trying to keep both in sight at once and failing because they were smart enough to know just how far apart to stand.
There was only one way to end this dance and he resorted to it. When one of them feinted, grinning with the knowledge that he was a foot closer than the last attempt, Somasra lunged at the man. They were prepared for this move—it was the cue for the other fellow to step in fast from behind and run his sword through Somasra’s kidney—but what they weren’t prepared for was what he did next. He grabbed the first man’s sword hand, then the man’s neck and shoulder, turned and swung the man towards his oncoming comrade. The other man, rushing in to aim at Somasra’s kidney from behind, realized what was about to happen and tried to turn away but was too late. His thrusting blade punched into his own fellow’s belly, running the man through. The first man collapsed on the ground, heaving in his death throes. The second fellow’s sword, trapped in the man’s stomach, required a moment to be pulled free. That moment gave Somasra’s aging muscles and feet enough time to cover the few yards of ground and hack at the man’s exposed neck with the power of his bunched arms. He nearly took the man’s head off.
Leaning on his bloody sword, gasping for breath, he heard the cries and shouts of outraged men from all across the valley. It seemed the element of surprise had worked for them after all. Those sounded like King’s Guard dying to him—the olduns would just grunt and die, they wouldn’t waste their fading breath trying to shout. Some of them probably couldn’t shout, their throats hoarsened by over-use and chewing too much supari. They were old enough to know when a man died he died alone even if he was on a battlefield surrounded by a dozen akshohini of his own. Only the young mercenary fools would shout to warn each other and call for help. Somasra grinned at the screams that rang through the noonday stillness. Maybe old gold was as tough as young steel after all.
He heard a sound behind him and turned to see two men in King’s Guard uniforms approaching. They had blood on their anga-vastras and swords and since there were only two of them, he could only presume they had met one of his comrades and come off victors. They approached him cautiously but confidently, secure in their youth and knowledge of superior numbers. He sighed. Now he would be obliged to kill these two in order to avenge his fallen fellow as well as defend his own life. Oh well. If he hadn’t wanted to dance he wouldn’t have come to the wedding feast.
“Come on, littleuns,” Somasra said, forcing his tired shoulder and back muscles to heave and raise the lowered sword. “Time for your bloodbath. Don’t forget to wash behind the ears.”
***
Bejoo finished cutting down his second trio of enemy and took a brief moment to catch his breath. He leaned against a tree trunk spattered with the gore from a slashed throat. He looked back and found himself unable to believe that those six corpses were his work. Six young men of the King’s Guard? Really? Either these mercenaries were out of practice or they had grown too accustomed to easy pickings. Although, he admitted ruefully as he worked a broken tooth loose from a socket and examined it, they hadn’t seemed out of practice when he was surrounded by them, three at a time and fighting for his life. In fact, come to think of it, they had been quite good. Perhap
s he simply had more experience and knowledge of swordcraft? Or perhaps—and this was more likely—he had more reason to fight than they.
The cries and shouts from across the valley had ceased. Only the cries of the birds remained in the still afternoon air, calling out in plaintive tones as they circled the valley, wanting to return to their roosts if the wretched humans below had finished killing each other. Not yet, winged brothers, but soon it will all be over. Very soon. He was old and experienced enough to know that killing those six men had taken everything he had. Now, he would be lucky if he was able to keep the next trio at bay for more than a few minutes before succumbing.
A sudden silence fell upon the valley. He frowned. That was odd. Then he tilted his head and listened. The faint sounds of clashing weaponry had ceased as well. That could only mean one thing: the enemy had retreated. And since he knew that his old veterans, however bravely they might have conducted themselves in the first clash, were not enough cause for a force of a thousand King’s Guard to retreat. No. They were simply regrouping and changing tactics. They would attack again soon and this time, they would cut through Bejoo and his dirty dozens in a matter of minutes.
He wiped his face clean and held his sword ready, taking up a position which afforded him cover on at least one side. It meant he would be boxed in if they came at him in numbers but this was likely to be his last stand anyway. He would rather be taken from the front than from behind.
A sound came to his ears.
He frowned but it was gone as quickly as it had come.
He waited and listened.
There it was again.
And again.
And yet again.
Then it continued almost non-stop, a rhythmic repetition. The same, or similar sounds, repeated over and over again, like some distant drummer’s beat. For an instant, he wondered if it was a drummer’s beat. But that was no drum beat. It was…something else. Something he had heard infinite times before and knew intimately well. He clenched his free hand, frustrated at not being able to identify the sound.
Then a man sound came on the still afternoon air. A choking wet cry, as a man might make if struck in the throat with a blade. A quick explosion of air before the blood rushed up and spurted out the hole.
A few minutes later, there was another man’s sound, this one a distinctive death rattle in a dying man’s throat. As if he had been cut down but the message that he was dead had yet to reach his flailing limbs. It ended with another repetition of that sound. The first sound.
After a few more moments, Bejoo understood that men were dying across the valley. Not his men, not the dirty dozens. The sounds of dying men were coming from several yards further out, from the enemy frontlines. So the men who were dying were King’s Guards. No mystery to that. The question was: Who was killing them and how?
He didn’t think his olduns would have gone after the retreating frontline. They wouldn’t have had the energy for one thing. And they might be suicidal but they were not stupid: at best, they had dealt with four score or five score of the enemy. There were still the better part of a thousand more out there, across the valley. To hold them off was madness enough: to try to push them back was ludicrous. No. Bejoo was dead certain that all his men were to his left and right, spread out in a long ragged line across this end of the valley. The sounds and death rattles were coming from farther down. It had to be King’s Guard men dying.
Then it came to him.
The sound.
It was the sound of a weapon being deployed. One so familiar he berated himself for not recognizing it at once.
“Arrows!”
That was the sound of an arrow whickering through the air across a long distance. It should have been almost silent except to the bowman himself but the sound was amplified by the bowl-shape of the valley, which was why he heard it at all. And those death rattles were the ones that hadn’t killed their targets instantly. Which meant all the others had struck home dead to rights. It had to mean that because if the arrow passing overhead was so clearly audible then the same bolt striking the wood of a tree trunk or passing through a clump of bushes. This was the sound of arrows being shot from somewhere behind him and at the King’s Guard soldiers spread out across the valley. Being shot with deadly accuracy and lightning speed.
He began to count the rhythm of the loosing and was astonished to find himself unable to keep up. How fast were they shooting? How was it possible to shoot that fast and with such accuracy? Then he understood: there are two of them. They shoot alternately, so at any given instant, there’s always an arrow in the air. That way, they cover each other during the moment between shots.
He marveled at the skill and training that had gone into perfecting such a system.
Then, after he had mulled over that for a moment, he wondered how many enemy soldiers they were actually hitting.
SIX
Luv and Kush were a single being and that being’s entire existence was dedicated to a single task: Destruction. They had found a position on the top of the rock face above the box canyon, overlooking the valley yet still high enough to cover most of the low-lying basin. It had taken them time to climb up here carrying their heavy burden for they were carrying their entire store of arrows. Ever since they had learned to loose and Maatr had taught them the importance of replacing what they used, they had taken to crafting at least a certain number of arrows each day. They used many during their practice play each day, developing their own methods for various angles of attack, for shooting from low positions upwards and from high to low, through leaves and foliage, across water, into water, against the wind, downwind…every imaginable situation in which it was possible to fire arrows, they experimented with, mastered and then perfected. Whenever possible, they reused their arrows. But many were damaged in use or not retrievable. That was when they thought of the possibility of someday requiring a store of arrows for defending the ashram. They would require perfectly made and stored arrows, not reused ones chipped or bent or damaged in any way. And when that day came, it would be too late to start making and storing.
So they had taken to making a certain number every day for their practice…and setting a fixed number aside. They made the best arrows they were capable of making, honing the fletching and shaft and head after much experimentation and use in various situations. Finally, they had begun saving their store carefully in bales of straw to avoid warping from moisture and then stored the bales themselves in the box canyon. They had retrieved the bundles earlier and then carried them up here to this position chosen months earlier in case of just such a contingency. At the time they had never seriously thought that they would literally be fending off an army. But just in case, they thought it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared. Besides, arrows could be sold at the city markets or to the occasional grama-train—the ones they didn’t waylay—for a small profit. If nothing else, they had intended to sell their store and buy Maatr something from the market or a trader. A new veena perhaps to replace the old molding one she played on. Luckily for them, Maatr’s naming day was a good few months away and their store was intact.
Now, they depleted that store at a prodigious rate. They were loosing faster than they had ever loosed before, and for longer, and across greater distances and with unerring accuracy. For one thing, they had never actually aimed to kill before. They loved the creatures of the forest and could never dream of killing them for sport—or for food, which was, in a sense, worse. They had always practiced on inanimate objects, resorting to clever tricks to increase the challenge when practicing. One of them would spin a stone in the air, for instance, and the other aim at it. Or a piece of driftwood rushing down white waters served as a moving target. Or objects hung from trees a hundred yards distant. Over time, the stones flung in the air had become smaller, the driftwood reduced to a mere chip, the objects hung from trees merely dots and painted leaves. The use of natural challenges had only sharpened their skills over time.
But killing actual li
ving beings was a different experience. They had not anticipated the shock they felt when their first arrows punched into the throats of the first two men. This had happened immediately after the clash with Bejoo’s men, when the King’s Guard frontline had retreated to regroup and prepare for their next attack. Luv and Kush had seen their opportunity and fired their first two shots, aiming at two men standing in a clearing with drawn, bloody swords, hacking at a badly wounded but still alive veteran. The veteran wasn’t making any sound or crying for mercy and that was probably what irked the two Guardsmen. So they had taken to chopping and poking at the fallen man in a bid to evoke some response. Luv had pointed out the men using the terse short form they had developed over the years when practicing together.
“South-south-west, one and one,” he said, naming the direction in which the targets lay when viewed from their position and the individual targets themselves.
“I see them,” Kush replied, his bow already turned and aimed, string taut and ready to fire. “You first?”
“Loose,” Luv said and released his arrow. As he bent his hand back to pluck another arrow from the rig over his shoulder, Kush released his arrow as well. By the time Luv’s second arrow was notched and strung and ready to loose, Kush’s hand was reaching for his second arrow.
That first time, they had paused and looked at the results of their shots.
Both the Guardsmen clutched their throats, blood spurting brazenly between their fingers, and collapsed on the ground, the first dying instantly, the second shuddering once then laying still.
The wounded veteran sat up slowly, staring at the corpses with arrows standing from their ravaged throats and looked around in grim amazement. He seemed almost disappointed to be alive as he staggered to his feet and hobbled towards Luv and Kush’s side of the valley. The twins lowered their bows and followed him until they saw three or four of his comrades emerge from their hiding places to assist him. Then, moving as one, they raised their bows again to seek new targets.
RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA Page 61
