MAHABHARATA SERIES BOOK#2: The Seeds of War (Mba) (26 page)

Now, she watched with wide eyes as he shot a single arrow upwards, this time not even glancing back once. 

What impudence!
How could anyone possibly aim an arrow without seeing? By sound alone? What if he misjudged? There were so many factors to consider, it was not remotely possible that he could hit his mark. Even if he didn’t care whether or not he hit – even if he was simply shooting blindly to dissuade the pursuer – what about the arrows shot by Shalva that were now falling towards him, only an instant away from killing him. 

Yes,
arrows
. Plural. 

For Shalva had loosed his legendary astra, the Hailstorm, as he called it. A single thick arrow that split open during flight to divide into numerous smaller darts, each deadly enough to punch through armour and deal a serious injury if not a mortal blow. It took great strength to simply loose such an arrow, and a special bow that required three men’s strength to bend and string. And once shot, Shalva had claimed, it never failed. He had downed entire companies of enemy soldiers with that arrow. He had even demonstrated it once to her, showering an area three yards square with scores of tiny deadly black darts. 

Amba had never expected to see the same weapon deployed at her. 

If even one of those strikes me or my sisters in a vital organ,
she thought as she watched the hail of missiles descend towards her,
we will surely die. 

She realized that Shalva must know that. Which meant that he had chosen to loose it anyway, risking her lives and the lives of her sisters, in order to stop their abductor from getting away. 

Stupid man,
she wanted to scream. 

But then Bhishma had loosed his single arrow. 

And as it shot up, she found herself unable to take her eyes off it, even though the Hailstorm would strike down in an instant. 

Bhishma’s arrow rose up and burst into a hundred fragments. 

Each of the fragments flew sideways, parallel to the surface of the earth, like a flock of birds that rose upwards then suddenly split off to go their separate ways. 

The fragments of Bhishma’s arrows sliced through the Hailstorm. 

Amba watched in disbelief as the fragments cut each of the several black missiles into half, rendering them harmless as well as halting their progress. 

The chariot thundered on, and the pieces of Shalva’s fabled Hailstorm clattered to the dusty road behind the chariot, useless pieces of metal and wood. 

‘How—?’ she started to ask, then stopped. 

Bhishma’s face had turned as dark as a stormcloud. 

‘He meant to kill you as well!’ he roared. She recoiled at the sound of his voice. It was louder than any voice she had heard before. She had heard men bellowing before but never so loudly. She had not thought it possible for any man’s voice to be this loud! ‘He was able to judge my ability from that single catch and counter strike and because of my reputation he assumes that he will not be able to defeat me fairly. Therefore he continues to strike from behind in violation of kshatriya dharma and attempts to slay you innocents as well! This is unacceptable!’

Amba felt her sisters clutch her arms for comfort, frightened by the anger and intensity of Bhishma’s roaring. Amba herself more frightened by the knowledge that he was right: Shalva had meant to kill them, or else he would never have used the Hailstorm. 

‘Kill him then,’ she heard herself say, her voice barely a croak lost in the thundering of hooves and wheels. 

Bhishma turned his head towards her and she had a moment when she felt as if he would surely kill her. He possessed the power and rage to do it. But she saw his eyes and they were not filled with hatred for her, only curiosity. 

‘Kill him then!’ she repeated, loud enough that he could hear her clearly. ‘He has already forfeited me by targetting my sisters and myself. So do what you must to save us. I will never accept him as my husband now.’

Bhishma’s face cleared as suddenly as it had clouded. It reminded her of a time when she was younger and had been looking down at her reflection in a lotus pond, wondering if she really was as beautiful as everyone said she was. A cloud had passed across the sun just then and she had been startled, thinking something had changed in her face, then realized it was only a passing cloud. The way her own reflection had clouded then cleared as the cloud moved across the sun was exactly the way Bhishma’s face clouded and cleared.
He is as transparent as water itself if you know how to guage him,
she thought, and the insight moved her deeply for some reason. 

Bhishma smiled at her. ‘I did not ask for nor need your permission, milady,’ he said, in a tone that mocked her lightly. At once her anger flared again and she hated him once more. 

But she watched with new interest as he raised his bow again, shut his eyes, and loosed another arrow. 

She watched the arrow rise at the same instant as Shalva loosed another arrow as well. Because she was watching so intently, she knew that Bhishma had loosed his own arrow a fraction of an instant before Shalva had loosed. She knew also that Bhishma had his eyes shut and was facing forward, one hand still gripping the reins even as it gripped the bow – another impossible feat she would not have thought possible if she had not witnessed it herself – and so he could not possibly have seen Shalva loose his arrow. 

Yet when she looked back she realized that Bhishma must have known Shalva was about to loose and that he was about to loose that precise arrow at that instant. For he had performed the perfect counter attack. 

Shalva’s arrow rose at a sharp angle, as if climbing a mountain gradient rather than sketching a rainbow curve. She knew what that meant as well: it was Acidfire. The arrow that passed directly above its intended target, showering droplets of powerful acid as it went. Even a single drop of that acid was toxic enough to burn through skin, flesh and bone itself, causing unbearable agony. If it fell on a delicate organ or area such as the face or eyes, it would mean the end of the targetted enemy. 

But because Bhishma’s arrow had been loosed an instant earlier, it arrived while Shalva’s arrow was still rising sharply, at its slowest point, before the ventricles had opened to release the acid. Bhishma’s arrow burgeoned like a sheet hung to dry on a windy day, spreading outwards in all directions to completely envelope Shalva’s arrow. 

Shalva’s arrow struck the enveloping folds of cloth and instead of ripping through, was enfolded in the fabric and plumetted groundwards. It fell with a useless plop to the ground and was trampled underfoot by Shalva’s own team of horses. 

Amba gazed at Bhishma in amazement. He grinned at her. ‘A good warrior always knows the enemy’s next move.’ 

Then his face darkened again. ‘This time he meant you not merely to die, but to suffer.’

Her heart was chilled by the knowledge that once again, he was right. The Acidfire was an arrow Shalva would only use if he felt personal animosity towards the enemy. She looked back with sudden growing hatred at the chariot of the man she had been prepared to marry that very day. ‘How could you, Shalva?’ she shouted, shaking her fist at the pursuing chariot. 

In response, Shalva loosed another arrow. This one aimed directly at them, not at an angle. She watched in horror as the missile sped towards them at the speed of wind, and reacted to the sight of it splintering to a score of tiny metal fletches, each sharp enough to tear through flesh and cause great pain and damage. 

Before the shower of metal fletches could reach their chariot, an arrow shot from beside her raced to meet them, splitting itself into as many pieces, each of these pieces obstructing the fletches and dropping them harmlessly to the ground. She turned back to stare at Bhishma, who was lowering his bow, still looking ahead to watch the road. She understood that his aim had been perfect but how could the metal pieces in his arrow have perfectly blocked every single fletch coming at them?
Could anyone loose an arrow with such a precise degree of skill? 

That was when she first began to realize that Bhishma was no mere mortal. And when she first fell in love with him. 

5

Bhishma grew steadily angrier with Shalva as the suitor continued pursuing them and continued to loose deadly arrows at them, each more ingenious and malevolent than the one before. He dealt with each missile in turn, shooting back a suitable counter-attack, but after this had progressed for a while he began to resent the attack. It was now no longer a question of escaping with the princesses, it was a matter of Puru pride. He could keep this up all day, and counter everything Shalva threw at them, but it would encourage the other kings following and give the impression that Shalva harried him all the way to Hastinapura. It was important that he prove his superiority once and for all and end this game. He was incensed by Shalva’s repeated attempts to kill the princesses rather than merely stop Bhishma. This was a direct challenge to Bhishma’s manhood and family pride: Shalva was effectively saying that he would rather see the girls dead than married to his ward and what the devil was Bhishma going to do about that, hey?

The first chance Bhishma got, finding an open area with dry baked earth and almost no foliage or tree cover, he turned the chariot around. He did not bother with a wide wheeling arc and a genial approach. He slowed his team, then executed a smart turning maneuver, then coaxed them back up to speed and charged directly at Shalva. Before he did this, he had gained a good mile or so on the forerunner. This gave him an excellent approach and he picked up speed as he drove towards his pursuer. He was pleased to see Shalva’s chariot slow as the suitor reacted to the sight of his prey turning upon him, and behind the fore chariot, he saw the other pursuers arriving in quick succession, drawing up their chariots and horses and fanning out in a wide arc to enable a better view of the coming duel. He knew that none of them would interfere since Shalva had taken first strike and was entitled to the first duel as well. That too was a matter of kshatriya dharma. So long as two champions fought single-handedly, none other could interfere, no matter what the outcome. Entire armies sat and watched and waited until champions finished their bout, leaving one dead and the other victorious, and often these duels lasted for hours or days, or even longer – as in the case of poor Chitrangada who fought his opponent for three years! Bhishma had no intention of letting this bout last more than a few minutes. 

He saw that Shalva had opted to remain standing while Bhishma approached. It was a sensible move. This way, Shalva would presumably have better aim and stability while Bhishma, having made the first move, was entitled to take his best shot. Shalva intended to survive this shot and then make his own counter-attack against Bhishma, this time using the closer range to finish off his targets. Bhishma would not give him that chance. 

But as Bhishma had expected, Shalva deviated from custom. Instead of letting Bhishma have the first shot as was traditional in such a situation, he loosed first. This time, he used the advantage of stillness and stability to unleash what must be one of his most powerful weapons. 

The princesses screamed in alarm as the javelin-thick arrow shot by Shalva burst into a veritable cloud of arrows. It seemed as if the arrow split and split again and continued to divide itself infinitely, producing an impossible number of missiles that filled the air and darkened the sky itself! Bhishma knew that Shalva had used a cannon-bow, an oversized bow fixed to the chariot itself that loosed a container missile as thick as a pole. Within this container missile were the individual barbed arrows, released in stages as the pole split apart at different times during its short flight. Due to the power of the cannon-bow and the relatively lengthy flight time, Shalva was able to loose a second and a third container missile in quick succession, and now, even before the first shower of arrows arrived at its destination, he was loosing a fourth. 

A great roar of approval rose from the gathered crowd of princes and kings. Naturally their support was for Shalva who was fighting for all of them. In Bhishma’s view that made all of them equally culpable for his actions and transgression of the norms of combat. Even now, what Shalva was doing was unethical in the extreme: it was one thing to use such weapons against superior forces such as a larger army, but to do so against a single kshatriya enemy, with innocents in harm’s way, that was unacceptable. 

‘Bhishma!’ cried the eldest daughter of Kashya, appealing to him. She was staring up at the approaching cloud of arrows with abject horror. He saw that she expected to die this time. For how could he possibly counter such an attack? Even if he loosed an arrow to stop the first barrage, the second barrage was already following close after – and the third and the fourth and the fifth…and Shalva would continue to rain down arrows until his goal was accomplished. It was impossible to escape such an attack in theory and impossible in practise as well, for any mortal warrior. 

Bhishma had adjusted the pace of his charge to match the trajectory of the approaching arrows. He only desired that his horses escape unhurt. They were most innocent of all in this conflict and did not deserve to be injured or killed. He rode until he was certain that the team had passed ahead of the shower of death that rained down from above, then released the reins and turned to the princesses. It did not matter if the team went off course slightly, there were no impediments or obstructions here to fear. The princesses were his only concern now.