Scion of Ikshvaku (30 page)

Huge missiles rammed through the Mithilan defences with massive force. Desperate cries of agony mixed with sickening thuds as shields were ripped through and many in the Mithilan ranks were brought down in a flash.

‘What is that?’ screamed Lakshman, hiding behind his shield.

Ram’s wooden shield snapped into two pieces as a missile tore through it like a knife through butter. It missed him by a hair’s breadth. Ram looked at the fallen missile.

Spears!

Their wooden shields were a protection against arrows, not large spears.

How in Lord Rudra’s name are they throwing spears over this distance? It’s impossible!

The first volley was over and Ram knew they had but a few minutes of respite before the next. He looked around him.

‘Lord Rudra, be merciful…’

The destruction was severe. At least a quarter of the Mithilans were either dead or severely injured, impaled on massive spears that had brutally ripped through their shields and bodies.

Ram looked at Sita as he commanded, ‘Another volley will be fired any moment! Into the houses!’

‘Into the houses!’ shouted Sita.

‘Into the houses!’ repeated the lieutenants, as everybody ran towards the doors, lifted them and jumped in. It was one of the most disorganised retreats ever seen, but it was effective. In a few minutes, practically every surviving Mithilan police-soldier had jumped to safety within the houses. As the doors closed, the volley of spears resumed on the roofs of the Bees Quarter. A few stragglers were killed as the rest made it to safety; for now.

Lakshman did not say anything as he looked at Ram. But his eyes sent out a clear message.
This is a disaster.

‘What now?’ Ram asked Sita. ‘Raavan’s soldiers must be scaling the outer walls. They will be upon us soon. There’s no one to stop them.’

Sita was breathing hard, her eyes flitting like that of a cornered tigress, anger bursting through every pore. Samichi stood behind her princess, helplessly rubbing her forehead.

‘Sita?’ prompted Ram.

Sita’s eyes suddenly opened wide. ‘The windows!’

‘What?’ asked Samichi, surprised by her prime minister.

Sita immediately gathered her lieutenants around her. She ordered them to get the surviving Mithilans to break the wood-panel-sealed windows of the houses in the Bees Quarter; the ones that shared the inner wall, or opened into the narrow gaps between some of the houses; like the one they were in. Their window overlooked the ground between the two fort walls. Arrows would be fired at the charging Lankans, after all.

‘Brilliant!’ shouted Lakshman, as he rushed to a barricaded window. He pulled back his arm, flexed his muscles, and punched hard at the wood, smashing the barricade with one mighty blow.

All the houses in this section of the Bees Quarter were internally connected through corridors. The message travelled rapidly. Within moments, the Mithilans smashed open the sealed windows and fired arrows at the Lankans, caught between the outer and inner wall. The Lankans had expected no resistance. They were effectively caught off-guard and arrows shredded through their lines. The losses were heavy. The Mithilans fired arrows without respite, killing as many of the Lankans as they could, slowing the charge dramatically.

Suddenly, the conch shells sounded; but this time, they played a different tune. The Lankans immediately turned and ran, retreating as rapidly as they had arrived.

A loud cheer went up from the Mithilan quarters. They had beaten back the first attack.

Ram, Sita and Lakshman stood on the roof of the Bees Quarter as dawn broke through. The gentle rays of the sun threw into poignant contrast the harsh devastation of the Lankan spears. The damage was heart-rending.

Sita stared at the mutilated bodies of the Mithilans strewn all around her: heads hanging by a sinew to bodies, some with their guts spilled out, many simply impaled on spears, having bled to death. ‘At least a thousand of my soldiers…’

‘We too have hit them hard,
Bhabhi
,’ said Lakshman to his
sister-in-law
. ‘There are at least a thousand dead Lankans lying between the inner and the outer wall.’

Sita looked at Lakshman, her usually limpid eyes now brimming with tears. ‘Yes, but they have nine thousand left. We have only three thousand.’

Ram surveyed the Lankan camp on the other side of the moat-lake. Hospital-tents had been set up to tend to the injured. Many Lankans, though, were furiously at work: hacking trees and pushing the forest line farther with mathematical precision. Clearly they did not intend to retreat.

‘They will be better prepared next time,’ said Ram. ‘If they manage to scale the inner wall … it’s over.’

Sita placed her hand on Ram’s shoulder and sighed as she stared at the ground. Ram found himself being momentarily distracted by her nearness. He looked at Sita’s hand on his shoulder, then closed his eyes. He had to focus, teach his mind to re-learn the art of mastering his emotions.

Sita turned around and looked towards her city. Her eyes rested on the steeple of the massive temple dedicated to Lord Rudra, which loomed beyond the garden of the Bees Quarter. Fierce determination blazed from her eyes, resolve pouring steel into her veins. ‘It’s not over yet. I’ll call upon the citizens to join me. Even if my people stand here with kitchen knives, we will outnumber the Lankan scum ten to one. We can fight them.’

Ram could not bring himself to share her confidence.

Sita nodded, like she had made up her mind, and rushed away, signalling other Mithilans to follow her.

FlyLeaf.ORG

Chapter 25
FlyLeaf.ORG

‘Where have you been, Guru
ji
?’ asked Ram, in a polite voice that belied the fury that defined his stony face and rigid body.

Vishwamitra had finally arrived in the fifth hour of the first
prahar
. The early morning light sharply outlined the frenetic activity in the Lankan camp. Sita was still trying to rally a citizen-army. Arishtanemi stood at a distance, strangely choosing to remain out of earshot.

‘Where were the Malayaputra cowards, actually?’ growled Lakshman, who did not feel the need for any attempt at politeness.

Vishwamitra cast Lakshman a withering look before addressing Ram. ‘Someone has to be the adult here and do what must be done.’

Ram frowned.

‘Come with me,’ said Vishwamitra.

In a hidden section of the roof of the Bees Quarter, far from the scene of the Lankan attack, Ram finally confronted what the Malayaputras had been busy with all night: the
Asuraastra
.

A simple weapon to configure, it had still taken a long time to set up. Vishwamitra and his Malayaputras had worked through the night, in minimal light. The missile and its launch stand were finally assembled and ready. The stand was a little taller than Lakshman and was made of wood. The outer body of the missile was made of lead. Its components, along with the core material that had been mined at the Ganga
ashram
, had been brought along by Vishwamitra and his party to Mithila. The core material was now loaded in the detonation chamber.

The missile was ready but Ram was unsure.

He looked across the outer wall.

The Lankans were hard at work, clearing the forest. They were building something.

‘What are those people doing at the far end of the forest line?’ asked Lakshman.

‘Look closely,’ said Vishwamitra.

A group of Lankans were working with planks fashioned from the trees that had been cut. At first Lakshman thought they were building boats, but a careful examination proved him wrong. They were linking these planks into giant rectangular shields with sturdy handles on the sides as well as at the base end. Each shield was capable of protecting twenty men, if they were lined up two abreast.

‘Tortoise shields,’ said Ram.

‘Yes,’ said Vishwamitra. ‘They will return once they build enough of these. They will break the outer wall without any resistance from us; why scale it? They will move towards our inner wall, protected by their tortoise shields. Successive waves of attacks will breach our walls. You know what will be done to the city. Even the rats will not be spared.’

Ram stood quietly. He knew that Vishwamitra was right. They could see that fifteen or twenty of these massive shields were already ready. The Lankans had worked at a prodigious pace. An attack was imminent, probably as early as tonight. Mithila would certainly not be ready.

‘You need to understand that firing the
Asuraastra
is the only solution available,’ said Vishwamitra. ‘Fire it right now, when they’re still not ready, and are farthest away from the city. Once they launch the attack and breach the outer wall, we will not be able to do even this, without risking Mithila; the detonation would be too close.’

Ram stared at the Lankans.

This is the only way!

‘Why don’t
you
fire the weapon, Guru
ji
?’ asked Lakshman, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

‘I am a Malayaputra; the leader of the Malayaputras,’ said Vishwamitra. ‘The Vayuputras and the Malayaputras work in partnership, just as the Vishnus and the Mahadevs did over millennia. I cannot break the Vayuputra law.’

‘But my brother choosing to do so is okay?’

‘You can also choose to die. That option is always available,’ Vishwamitra said caustically. Then he turned and spoke to Ram directly, ‘So, what will it be, Ram?’

Ram turned around and looked in the direction of the Mithila palace, where Sita was probably trying desperately to convince her reluctant citizens to fight.

Vishwamitra stepped close to the prince of Ayodhya. ‘Ram, Raavan will probably torture and kill every single person in this city. The lives of a hundred thousand Mithilans are at stake. Your wife’s life is at stake. Will you, as a husband, protect your wife or not? Will you take a sin upon your soul for the good of others? What does your
dharma
say?’

I will do it for Sita.

‘We will warn them first,’ said Ram. ‘Give them a chance to retreat. I have been told that even the Asuras followed this protocol before firing any
daivi astra
.’

‘Fine.’

‘And if they don’t heed our warning,’ said Ram, his fingers wrapping themselves around his Rudraaksh pendant, as if for strength, ‘then I will fire the
Asuraastra
.’

Vishwamitra smiled with satisfaction, as though Ram’s compliance was a trophy he had just earned.

The giant bear-man moved among the men, checking the tortoise shields. He heard the arrow a second before it slammed into the plank of wood close to his feet. He looked up in surprise.

Who in Mithila can fire an arrow that could travel this distance with such unerring accuracy?

He stared at the walls. All he could make out were two very tall men standing close to the inner wall, and a third, a trifle shorter. The third man held a bow; he seemed to be staring directly at him.

The bear-man immediately stepped forward to examine the arrow that had buried itself into the tortoise shield. It had a piece of parchment tied around its shaft. He yanked it out and untied the note.

‘You actually believe they will do this, Kumbhakarna?’ asked Raavan, snorting with disgust as he threw the note away.

‘
Dada
,’ said the bear-man, his voice booming even at its lowest amplitude, due to his massive vocal chords. ‘If they fire an
Asuraastra
, it could be—’

‘They don’t have an
Asuraastra
,’ interrupted Raavan. ‘They’re bluffing.’

‘But
Dada
, the Malayaputras do have—’

‘Vishwamitra is bluffing, Kumbhakarna!’

Kumbhakarna fell silent.

‘They haven’t retreated an inch,’ said Vishwamitra, with urgency. ‘We need to fire the weapon.’

By the end of the third hour of the second
prahar,
the sun had risen high enough to afford good visibility. Three hours earlier, Ram had shot the warning message to the Lankans. It had clearly made no impact.

The Malayaputras had already rolled the missile tower to the section of the rooftop that faced the main body of the Lankan troops.

‘We gave them a warning of one hour,’ continued Vishwamitra. ‘We have waited for three. They probably think we are bluffing by now.’

Lakshman looked at Vishwamitra. ‘Don’t you think we should check with Sita
Bhabhi,
first? She had clearly said that—’

Vishwamitra suddenly interrupted Lakshman. ‘Look!’

Lakshman and Ram immediately turned in the direction Vishwamitra had pointed.

‘Are they boarding their boats?’ asked Ram.

‘They could be testing them,’ said Lakshman, hoping against hope. ‘In which case, we still have some time.’

‘Do you think we should take that chance, Ram?’ asked Vishwamitra.

Ram did not move a muscle.

‘We need to fire now!’ said Vishwamitra, forcefully.

Ram lifted his bow from his shoulders, brought it close to his ear, and plucked the bowstring.
Perfect.

‘Bravo!’ said Vishwamitra.

Lakshman glared at the maharishi. He touched his brother’s shoulder. ‘
Dada
…’

Ram turned around and began walking away. Everyone followed him. Most
daivi astras
were fired from a distance by shooting a flaming arrow into a target on the launch pad. This protected the people igniting the weapon from getting incinerated in the initial launch explosion of the missile. Only a skilled archer could fire an arrow from a great distance and hit a target that was no larger than a fruit.

Vishwamitra halted Ram when they reached a distance of over five hundred metres from the
Asuraastra
stand. ‘That’s enough, Prince of Ayodhya.’

Arishtanemi handed him an arrow. Ram sniffed its tip; it had been coated with a combustible paste. He examined the fletching and was momentarily surprised. Arishtanemi had, clearly, used one of Ram’s own arrows. He didn’t stop to think too deeply if Arishtanemi had learnt Ram’s secret of the spinning arrow. This was not the time. He nodded to Arishtanemi and faced the missile launch tower.

‘
Dada
…’ murmured Lakshman. He was visibly distressed at what he knew would take an immense toll on his law-abiding brother.

‘Step back, Lakshman,’ said Ram, as he flexed forward to stretch his back. Lakshman, Vishwamitra and Arishtanemi moved away. Ram slowed down his breathing without forcing the process; it reduced his heart rate in tandem. He stared at the missile launch tower as his mind drowned out the sounds around him. He squeezed his eyes as the rhythm of time slowed down, as if to keep pace with his heart beats; everything around him seemed to shift into slow motion. A crow flew over the
Asuraastra
tower, flapping its wings as it attempted to fly higher. Ram followed the movement of the crow’s wings. It seemed to require less effort for the bird to gain height; it had wind beneath its wings.