RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA

by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker

  And then the volley changed course.

  Almost at its target, it passed over the rock face, missing the two boys by a yard, then turned sharp right and descended into the valley, retaining the same velocity and intensity of momentum.

  Aarohan lost his grin as he gaped.

  The volley of arrows flew down like a flock of birds descending with ominous intent, like a murder of crows hellbent on violence—and parted into a hundred individual arrows, each seeking a different target.

  The arrows flew at the advancing King’s Guard forces charging down the valley at the ragged line of veterans.

  He saw and heard the impossible sounds of the arrows finding their mark, each striking a target with a mortal wound, each punching into breastplate and through bone and sinew and muscle and flesh and blood with as much impact as if it had just been shot straight from ten yards away, not travelled two hundred yards diverting this way and that like a sinuous snake.

  They may have travelled like arrows from a mythic tale but they struck home like normal everyday arrows, each taking a life with brutal efficiency.

  A hundred of his own men died in the valley, downed by his own arrows.

  Upon the rock face, the two boys stood, bows in hand, untouched, unharmed, uninjured.

  Aarohan turned to look at his aides, sitting forward on their own horses, faces drained of blood, gaping and staring with faces as shocked as his own felt. He looked the other way, at the long line of archers, standing and pointing down at the valley, trying to make sense of what had just happened—and how it had happened.

  He was filled with a sudden rage.

  “Archers!” he cried out. “Ready again!”

  He looked left to make sure they had heard his command.

  They had. But they were confused and shaken. Most did not even raise their bows, let alone take arrows in hand.

  “ARCHERS!” he roared, pointing his sword at them threateningly. “OBEY OR DIE!”

  That got their attention. They knew that Aarohan did not threaten punishment idly. If he threatened death, he would in fact kill those who did not obey at once. The threat of death was enough to overcome their bewilderment.

  A hundred bows were raised again, arrows ready to loose.

  “AIM!” he shouted.

  They took aim. This time those who had taken the shot for granted earlier took greater care to make sure their missiles were perfectly targeted, in the event, however unlikely, that the cause had been merely a strong gust of wind or…or something inexplicable.

  “LOOSE!” Aarohan yelled, dropping his sword forward.

  Again the volley flew out across the gap between this hill top and the rock on which the boys stood.

  This time there was no break in time and consciousness. Nothing discernible happened.

  But again, the arrows turned as one—and swooped down into the valley.

  Again they parted ways to seek out their own individual targets. And struck home with unerring efficiency.

  Again, a hundred of Aarohan’s company died with blasted throats and ruptured hearts and lungs and spleens, thrashing and bleeding on the jungle floor.

  Aarohan could not accept it. This was not possible. There was some mischief afoot. He would not condone such treachery—not from mere mindless wooden arrows!

  Again he gave the command to aim and loose. Again, another volley was released. Again the arrows diverted. Again, a hundred men died.

  And yet again.

  And yet again.

  And yet again.

  ***

  Bharat and Shatrugan watched in smiling disbelief as the impossible happened again and yet again. After the first few times, they shook their heads in commiseration for the men in the valley below. “Those poor fools,” Shatrugan said. “They are dying because of the arrogance of that idiot Aarohan.”

  Bharat turned the head of his horse. “I think it’s time to teach that idiot a lesson.”

  Shatrugan grinned. Both brothers rode away, taking the route that would lead them around to where the Captain of the King’s Guard stood, slashing his sword forward and yelling “LOOSE!” over and over again.

  ***

  In the royal camp, Rama emerged from his tent, a strange expression on his face. He looked like a man who had woken from a long deep sleep and strange dreams.

  Strange dreams indeed.

  Lakshman was waiting for him outside.

  Lakshman saw that Rama’s eyes glowed with deep blue illumination from within, the way they had once glowed in the darkness of Bhayanak-van.

  Rama looked at him and saw a fainter illumination of the same ilk in Lakshman’s eyes as well.

  “Bhraatr,” Rama said, holding out his hand to his brother.

  “Ride with me.”

  Lakshman took his brother’s hand without hesitation.

  They strode towards Rama’s chariot together.

  ***

  Bejoo whooped and cheered as the corpses piled up. Beside him to either side, the ragged line of veterans cheered as well as another volley of arrows swung by overhead, zinging through the trees, even zipping around tree trunks and over obstacles to reach their intended targets.

  One shot by Bejoo’s right arm, pursuing a soldier of the King’s Guard who ran screaming for mercy. The arrow caught up with him and punched through his armor backplate with enough force to send the man flying several yards to crash into a tree.

  Bejoo laughed, unable to believe that he had survived yet another stand where merely walking away had seemed impossible. The arrows had not touched him or his men—it was almost as if they knew which men to avoid and which to strike.

  The valley was littered with corpses now. He had estimated that each volley consisted of around one hundred arrows. Thanks to Aarohan’s arrogant insistence on loosing volley after volley, he guessed that almost a thousand men must have died by now. The entire King’s Guard was wiped out, all except the archers on the hill top and the elite One Hundred that sat on their horses beside their Captain, staring down in disbelief at the mayhem caused by their own company’s arrows.

  Somasra was chuckling beside him too, sitting on a tree trunk and swigging from a leather skin. From the odor that wafted to Bejoo, it was definitely not water though the old gatewatch guard was drinking as if it was. Bejoo held out a hand. “A taste for a comrade?” he asked.

  Somasra grinned and handed the skin to Bejoo. “Go ahead. Finish it.” He pulled out another small skinbag from somewhere in his garment. “I have another. It’s Chandra Pujari’s best.”

  Bejoo paused in the act of raising the skin to his lips and laughed. Somasra watched him, his own grin widening. “Ah,” he said. “A fellow worshipper at Chandra Pujari’s temple?”

  “Ever since I was weaned off mother’s milk,” Bejoo said, then drank long and deep from the bag. Soma had never tasted this good in his entire life.

  ***

  Luv and Kush watched as the Captain of the King’s Guard lowered his sword at last. Even from a hundred yards away, it was evident that the man was burning with frustration and anger. He pointed his gloved hand at the rock and issued a string of curses and threats.

  “Methinks the good Captain is a little upset,” Luv said.

  “Methinks you may be right,” Kush replied.

  “Let us give him something to really be upset about, shall we?” Luv said, raising his bow.

  Kush was already raising his own bow. “Yes, bhraatr, let’s.”

  They loosed together.

  Both arrows rose up into the sky, then converged, joining together into a single arrow. The single arrow curved downwards then raced ahead with renewed speed, flashing like lightning towards the archers on the hill top. The archers saw the arrow and some started to turn away to run. They had barely turned when the arrow struck. The arrow turned at the last instant, punching into the chest of the man to the far right. It passed through his breast on the right, entering just beneath his armpit, and emerged from the other side, out his other a
rmpit. It passed through bone and flesh and muscle as if passing through air. It emerged from the breast of the first archer—then struck the second. It emerged from his breast too, moving with as great force as before, and struck the third. It continued down the line, taking the lives of every last archer in that row. Finally, barely a moment after it had been loosed, it emerged from the armpit of the hundredth archer, the man nearest to where Captain Aarohan sat astride his horse.

  The horse reared and neighed in fright, sensing a supernatural force at work.

  The arrow hovered in mid air, rose and floated before Captain Aarohan. His aides reacted more violently than he did, turning their horses and riding away. The Captain himself sat frozen, staring at the arrow hovering in mid air before him. He clutched his sword tightly, his knuckles turning white as he gripped it harder but he made no move to raise it or strike out. He tilted his head an inch to the left and the arrow adjusted its angle just enough to account for the tilt. He tilted it the other way, experimentally, and the arrow turned that way an inch as well. Realization grew upon him that no matter what he did or where he moved, the arrow would follow. Slowly, as the moments stretched out, his rage melted into fear and then into stark terror as he stared at the blind unseeing pointed tip of the arrow.

  Suddenly, the arrow darted at him directly. He cried out and slashed out in panic with the sword. He missed the arrow—and the arrow missed him too. It nicked his ear, drawing blood in a small splatter on his left shoulder, then zipped on past him. It took him a moment to realize that he was not mortally struck. When he did, he turned to follow its course and saw that it was chasing after his aides who were riding away furiously. The arrow punched into the back of the nearest one and emerged from the man’s chest. The man fell off his horse, spewing gore. The arrow continued onwards, reaping another bloody harvest. By the time it was done, every last man under Captain Aarohan’s command lay sprawled dead on the hilltop. Their horses milled about in confusion, then began to ride away, glad to be free at last of their ill-tempered masters. Several corpses stuck in the stirrups were dragged along for miles, their heads bouncing along merrily.

  Captain Aarohan saw his chance when the arrow was killing his men and turned to ride away. He broke into a gallop with expert ease, racing alongside the hilltop with the desperation of a man pursued by demons.

  He glanced back from time to time to see if the arrow was following. He saw it finish off the last of his elite One Hundred and turn around, seeking him out. He rode faster, yelping like a dog in pain, as the arrow spun after him, making a buzzing sound like a bee at work on a honeycomb.

  He had not gone far before two riders appeared before him, riding as hard towards him as he was riding in their direction. “Help me!” he cried. “Mercy!”

  Bharat and Shatrugan stared as they approached the King’s Guard Captain riding desperately towards them. They saw the sprawled corpses of his archers and men lying on the hillside behind him. Then they saw the arrow chasing the man.

  Captain Aarohan saw their faces, recognizing them from a distance.

  He stopped crying for help.

  He looked back and saw the arrow come flying at him like a flying demon from the lowest level of Naraka.

  Crying out in pitiful terror, he turned the head of his horse…

  And rode off the hill top, straight into thin air.

  Moments later, his neighing horse and he crashed to the floor of the valley, landing in the rocky wadis behind the rock on which Luv and Kush still stood, watching.

  Bharat and Shatrugan slowed and looked down at the dead horse and man below. Captain Aarohan had landed with his horse on top of him. His body was broken in a hundred places. He lay sprawled like a drunk, eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky.

  Bharat shook his head. “It seems he has learned his lesson after all.”

  “And a bitter one it was,” Shatrugan said.

  They turned their horses and rode back the way they had come.

  ***

  Luv and Kush ran to their mother, embracing her fiercely. Sita gasped, her wounds still fresh, but smiled through her pain as she embraced her sons, tears spilling from her dark-underscored eyes.

  “My sons,” she said. “What have you done?”

  They looked up at her. “What we had to, Maatr. They left us no choice.”

  Behind them, Bejoo and Somasra both nodded, supporting the boys. Nakhudi and the other survivors of the ashram massacre as well as the bear-killers who had been protecting them, heard details of the battle from various members of Bejoo’s group and marveled.

  Maharishi Valmiki rose to his feet wearily, leaning on his staff. The great guru had aged another decade that day itself. “Time to return home,” he said.

  TEN

  The thunder of hooves and chariot wheels overcame the crackling of the chandan wood as the cremation pyres consumed the dead. The royal chariot was preceded by PFs in their familiar purple and black uniforms, the original and true king’s guard. The ashramites who were clustered around the cremation pyres with Maharishi Valmiki at their head looked up with hostility as Rama and Lakshman dismounted.

  Sita was standing with her sons before her. At the sound of the approaching hooves, they had immediately wanted to take up their bows but she had stopped them, indicating the pyres. It would be disrespectful to leave the ritual half-done. They subsided but still kept their eyes on the pathway down which the intruders arrived. The instant they saw the soldiers with spears and swords, their backs tightened and it was only their mother’s hands, firmly squeezing each boy’s shoulder, that kept them from racing for their bows and rigs.

  Rama’s eyes met Sita’s as he approached. He was raising his palms in a gesture of supplication at that instant and it appeared as if he were greeting her first and foremost, the pain in his eyes speaking volumes. Sita tried to glare daggers at him but for some reason, the very sight of him melted her heart. How tired he looks, how much he has aged, he looks ten years older than his age, why has he become so thin, so drawn…Does he not get enough sleep? Instead of anger and hostility, these were the thoughts that came to her mind in that crucial moment. The heart’s capacity to love always exceeds its capacity to hate. Anger fades in time, genuine affection stays bright forever.

  He held her gaze a moment, then moved on to Maharishi Valmiki. He bowed to the Maharishi, offering the appropriate greetings and gestures.

  “Forgive my intrusion, mahadev,” he said. “I do not mean to disturb you at your time of grief but my business here is urgent.”

  Maharishi Valmiki finished the last part of the cremation ritual without comment. When all was done and the pyres had almost completely consumed the bodies, he turned his tired face to Rama. There was no space left for anger or recrimination in his heart. When he spoke, it was with sadness and regret, not out of a desire to apportion blame. “You know that this was the work of men deputed by you, under your own authority?”

  Rama bowed his head in shame. “I regret that these lives were lost. I am told the men responsible have been killed as they deserve to have been killed.” His eyes searched for and found the two boys standing before Sita like proud cubs defending their mother lioness. “I have heard the entire tale of the battle of the arrows and seen the results with my own eyes.” He turned and indicated Bharat and Shatrugan who stepped forward to greet the Maharishi as well. Valmiki acknowledged them all.

  “And now what business brings you here?” asked the guru. “How have your feet found the way to my ashram after these many years?”

  Rama looked at the face of his old face and fellow exile, the man he had once known as Ratnakaran and whom he had once fought against when he was known as Bearkiller. Valmiki’s mangled face, ruined by the claws of a bear in youth, was mostly covered by his flowing white beard now, and the intense hatred in his eyes had been replaced by an enduring sadness and deep philosophical acceptance of the way of the world, but beneath all that great store of learning and acquired wisdom there was still
the core of the man whom Rama had once stood shoulder to shoulder with in a jungle called Janasthana, battling against impossible foes and unbeatable odds—and winning.

  “I feel as if I have been asleep these many years and have only awoken today. As if the cobwebs of a decade have been washed away and my eyesight cleared suddenly.”

  Valmiki considered this a moment. “And how did this sudden change come about?”

  “A great resonance sounded in the world this day, shaking me out of my slumber,” Rama said. “It was someone using dev-astras in the service of dharma.” He turned and looked directly at Luv and Kush. “The shakti of brahman cascading through creation cleansed my soul of all confusion and doubt. I was as a man refreshed by a cold wave that falls upon him unexpectedly. I remembered things I had not even thought about for years. I saw the mistakes I had made and desired to correct them. I saw the error of my ways and sought to redress those errors. But most of all, I saw the unjustness I had meted out to a loved one and knew I must act quickly and do what was right.”

  “And what exactly does doing right mean?” Valmiki asked.

  Rama’s eyes found Sita, standing proud yet tragic in the stillness of the evening. In the trees above, birds cried out and called as the day approached an end.

  “I intend to beg my wife’s forgiveness and take her and our sons home, if she will agree to come,” he said.

  Sita’s knees buckled. Both her sons looked up in alarm as they felt her weight shift, and they caught her arms tightly, holding her up. She regained control of herself and nodded to them. Still, they remained alert in case she should lurch again.

  Maharishi Valmiki looked at Sita. “What say you, Lady Vedavati? Do you think Lord Rama Chandra deserves forgiveness?”

  She looked at the guru, avoiding Rama’s gaze for the moment. “I cannot say if he does or does not deserve it. I will not judge him. I cannot judge him. I can only speak for myself.”

  “Then will you or will you not forgive him?” the maharishi asked gently.