RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA Read online

  That was what found him here this morning, and every morning, routinely patrolling the outskirts of the city in a route so random and individualistic that it was perhaps more effective than the regularly timed quad-sweeps of the Ayodhyan defence system. It was this idiosyncratic loping through the trees—for that was his preferred method of ambulation—in a zigzag pattern completely unpredictable and unique to each new day, that had brought him this glimpse of the traveller on the rise. The traveller who was presently vanishing into the dusty haze that overhung the raj-marg in the wake of his swift progress. The watcher made no attempt to follow the traveller or to seek out the nearest quad of PFs making their methodical sweeps of the area—he scented there was one not three hundred yards away, working its way through a thicket on the same rise the traveller had descended from only moments ago. He knew the traveller would be accosted in moments by either the PF regiment permanently stationed on the raj-marg or the bristling gate-watch who were ever-vigilant under the command of newly elevated General Drishti Kumar. It was not the traveller himself that concerned him now; it was the reason for the traveller’s visit.

  As it so happened, he knew the traveller. Not personally, for he had never had occasion to meet the man face to face. But he had watched him fight alongside his lord and lady for years in the forests of Janasthana, during those harsh years of his lord’s exile, watched him risk life and limb countless times in the service of Rama’s war against the rakshasas of the region. Watched him fight fiercely, despatch any number of the brutal creatures that had plagued Rama and his companions since the feral cousin of Ravana, Supanakha, had maddened her cousins and their clans into declaring war against Rama after he had spurned her. Yes, the watcher had watched as this man, this traveller now come to Ayodhya, had fought as fiercely, brutally, bestially, as any rakshasa himself, driving fear into the hearts of even his own exiled fellows. For while they fought to live, to survive, this one had fought as if driven by some inner demon, a rakshasa of his own making, and inflicted more violence and harm upon his foe than was necessary to simply survive: he fought to decimate, to destroy, to eliminate completely.

  Of course, that was in the past. For the watcher knew that this man had parted ways with Rama after the battle of Janasthana. He had heard that he had dropped the sword and taken up the cloth, so to speak, turning from the physical rigours of warriorhood to the spiritual rigours of priesthood. He had heard of the immensely disciplined tapasya undertaken by this former bandit and bearkiller, of the enlightenment he had received while meditating within a nest of fire ants—a story that was fast becoming a minor legend in some parts—and of the life of peace and philosophy he had taken up with enthusiasm thereafter. But all this had been received in bits and pieces and he had not paid much attention to it, being somewhat preoccupied with a war to wage and a considerable army to manage, several armies as a matter of fact. And he had never liked and trusted the man himself back when he was a warrior in Rama’s camp of outlaws and exiles in Janasthana, had felt the intrinsic distrust and burning hatred of any human who had made a habit of slaying creatures of the land. Bearkiller, the traveller had been at one time, long before he joined Rama’s ragged band of exiles, and his face had borne permanent testimony of ravages wrought by a much earlier attack by one of the same species that had lent him his name and earlier reputation. The ugly face-altering scars that disfigured his visage were now mostly concealed under a dense growth of beard and an unruly head of hair. The muscular body that had displayed the scars of countless conflicts as well as earlier encounters with the furry nemesis that lent him his nickname was now covered with a red ochre garb that flowed from head to foot; along with the wildwood staff he gripped in one hand, it lent him the appearance of a tapasvi sadhu quite convincingly.

  But the watcher was not convinced.

  To him, the man that he had first heard called Bearface, later , and now Valmiki, was not one to be trusted entirely. He did not trust his motives, the extreme alteration in his appearance and vocation, or his reasons for coming here to Ayodhya now, at this particular juncture in time and history.

  So, while he had chosen to let him pass, to be dealt with by the PFs and gate-watch, he intended to race back to the palace ahead of him. To alert his lord, Rama.

  Yes, that was what he would do, must do.

  His mind made up, the vanar named Hanuman uncurled his long, muscular tail from the branch on which he had sat perched contemplating until now, and with one supple surge of his powerful muscles, propelled himself from that sala tree to the next. In moments, he was a blur loping and swinging through the trees, moving not unlike the smaller, less-muscled simians that his kind were often mistaken for by foreigners, yet with a sinuous grace and sheer power that no monkey could ever emulate, moving faster through the trees than most land animals across the ground.

  As he raced through the trees, startling squirrels and confusing birds by flitting past them even before they were able to burst into flight, the sun crested the top of the craggy northeastern ranges and shone its golden beam into the valley of the Sarayu, sending its message of warmth and brightness into crannies and crevices, stirring sleeping reptiles and compelling creatures of the earth to emerge blinking sleepily in the light of a new day.

  FOUR

  Bharat saw the sword turn at the very last instant.

  His mace was already deployed, held in an overhand grip and swinging downwards and to the right, aiming for his opponent’s right shoulder. It was impossible for him to stop the momentum and swing it again in time to thwart the oncoming sword thrust. Nor would the bulbous head of the mace make contact with its target in time to prevent him, Bharat, from being pierced. His opponent had gambled his own right shoulder, possibly more, on delivering this thrust; Bharat’s mace would meet its mark and certainly wound, maim, disable, perhaps even permanently cripple the man. But not quickly enough to prevent him from sticking Bharat in a vital organ. For by turning that blade at the last instant, he was aiming precisely at the fleshy area between Bharat’s ribs and hipbone. And from the angle at which the blade was aimed, the point would enter Bharat’s flesh just below his lowest rib, penetrating sharply upwards, deeply inwards, slicing through his liver. A fatal wound. All the vaids in Ayodhya would not be able to save him from succumbing to that one. Bharat had seen enough men struck in the liver to know their fate from just the shade of blood that seeped out: rich, liver-dark blood, fecund with the body’s densest nutrients and life-energy.

  All this he realized in the flash of an instant when he glimpsed the sword turn: it unreeled before his mind like a long scroll abruptly unfurled, the permutations, combinations, possibilities. It all added up to one simple conclusion, reached almost instantly: Bharat was a dead man.

  Even as his veteran warrior’s instincts flashed this conclusion on the unrolling reel of his thoughts, the prince of Ayodhya still found himself admiring the audacity of the move.

  It was a bold, impudent action: the man was willing to have his own shoulder, possibly even his collarbone and part of his rib cage, shattered by a direct, brutal blow from a twenty kilo mace. All in order that he might despatch Bharat with a fatal wound. Even in that split second it took him to size up the threat, to weigh the possibilities and outcome, Bharat found himself admiring the man’s gumption. A mace blow to the shoulder was nothing to shake off; it would be far more painful than Bharat’s own wound, if considerably less life-threatening. In short, the man had won the fight. He had put himself out of action, but he had finished off Bharat. No question about it at all.

  Or at least, he would have done so. If he had been able to follow through on his bold action.

  To the men watching the fight—several dozen of them, all burly, powerfully muscled macers and swordsmen, all sweaty and mud-caked from their own sessions in the fighting field, for they had been at it since before dawn—there was no conceivable way that Bharat could avoid the lethal sword strike now. Several of them winced, grimaced or otherwise failed to co
nceal their distaste at the sight of a fellow kshatriya suffering such an awful blow, that too their own prince as well as their guru in warcraft—even as they admired the swordsman’s brilliant last-second twist and turn. None of them, certainly not Bharat himself, had seen that sudden twist of the sword coming, or deemed it possible. But that was because no hale and hearty soldier willingly risked certain bodily harm to his own person, possibly even permanent disability, merely to despatch a single opponent. It was one thing to be brought down by a superior opponent; it was a completely different thing to bring down an opponent by a manoeuvre that caused grave bodily harm to oneself. If this had been a battlefield bout, after wounding Bharat fatally the man would have been down on the field, gravely injured, unable to move or fight thereafter. For him, the battle would be over, possibly even the war. There was no point to such a desperate manoeuvre. It was not the way of a kshatriya.

  It was the way of an assassin.

  A fanatical attacker with one mission and one only: to slay his opponent. Whatever the cost.

  That was the reason why the attacker didn’t care about being injured, crippled even. He was here to die anyway: to sacrifice his life in order to achieve his mission, to kill Bharat.

  All this happened in the blink of an eye: the turn of the blade, Bharat’s grasping of the inevitable consequence of this tactic, the watching crowd’s realization of the same deadly fact, and Bharat’s realization of what this implied.

  And then the blade struck. Flesh.

  Bharat’s flesh.

  Pierced. Blood. Spurting. Skin. Tearing. Pain. Blazing. Muscle. Crying Out.

  Time fragmented into shards, like shattered glass frozen at the instant of explosion. A stream of water being poured from a skinbag into a horse trough seemed to stay suspended in mid-air. A bird in flight, overhead, glimpsed from the corner of Bharat’s eye, seemed locked into immobility. A horse neighing and starting to buck, froze motionless. The wrangler pouring water into the trough, staring wide-eyed, mouth parted to reveal gawky, misshapen teeth. A bar of sunlight, reflecting off the armoured shoulderpiece of one of the mace-men watching from the sidelines, seemed to halt before touching the ground. Motes of dust dancing in the bar of sunlight, a horsefly, particles of bloodspray—my bloodspray, he realized with a distant, dim detachment—hung in the stunned silence of the moment, and Bharat felt the cocoon of pure, perfect warlust grip the universe itself in a tight godlike fist, slowing down time to a crawl, freezing nature herself, until he felt as if he alone could move through this silent tableau at will, slicing sunlight into strips if he desired, piercing a drop of water with the tip of a blade, sending an arrow whirling into the eye of a bird…felt in this sacred moment of moments as if he ruled time, gravity, and all forces of nature, and was master of atoms and elephants alike, lord of creation—and destruction.

  It was sorcery, pure and simple.

  Yet it had not been achieved by the recitation of any ‘magic’ mantra. Or by the infusion of any potion, the recitation of any spell, the casting of any runes.

  It was a feat he had acquired mastery of through fourteen long years of hardwon practice, combat, warfare…fourteen long, hard, bitter years.

  Even more, if you counted the years of training under Maha-guru Brahamarishi Vashishta in the gurukul as a young boy, the adolescent years of constant practice in the palace courtyard and fighting fields. The years he had spent struggling to keep pace with, match, and then outmatch the undisputed champion of Ayodhya, winner of every individual event in every sporting contest he participated in, his own brother. Rama. And struggle he did, not because he resented his brother’s inherent superiority in all warriorlike activities and sport, but because he desired to be Rama. To see the same light in his father’s eyes when he looked at the eldest of the four sons of Dasaratha. To hear the crowd roar as deafeningly as it roared for Rama. It was not that Maharaja Dasaratha, or anyone else, loved Bharat, Shatrugan or Lakshman any less than they did Rama, it was simply that they adored Rama more than they could possibly adore any other being. The irony was, so did Bharat himself. How could he not? Rama was perfection incarnate, or as close to it as it was humanly possible to be and yet call oneself human.

  And so he had striven to become more than human. In all things, but most especially, in the realm of the warrior. Not just on the playing field, but on the battlefield.

  And in these past years, since Rama’s exit into exile, as Bharat had resided at Nandigram, preferring to manage the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom of Kosala from that humble village rather than from the great seat of political power that was Ayodhya, he had had occasions innumerable to hone those skills, to polish the edge of that blade into perfection. For the time for playing fields had passed with the passing of Rama into exile. And Ayodhya had entered into a new age, a darker, more daunting age of constant threat, fears, doubts, internal strife, external assaults and more physical threat and challenge than was usual for an apparent time of peace. It had been the hardest fourteen years of Ayodhya’s existence, even harder than the time of the Last Asura War, because the threat was not as obvious and externalized as it had been then. It was an insidious, internalized, constant and unceasing stress that had at times threatened to tear apart the very fabric of this great city-state and the kingdom at large. The enemy within.

  And it was that same enemy that had now struck at Bharat again.

  In that instant when the blade penetrated Bharat’s flesh, he slipped instantly into this private space, this shell of invisible armour he had designed and crafted himself over the past near-decade and a half that he had acted as regent of the kingdom in Rama’s stead, withstanding everything a king could be expected to endure, and then some, all without even the privilege of wearing the crown whose thorns pierced his head. He had learned how to do this and had done it over and over again, to great effect. In a way, he was known for it. And feared. They called it “Bharat’s Wall”, and kshatriyas who had watched him fight, even Shatrugan who had watched him at such times, spoke of it afterwards in reverential, glaze-eyed terms, as if wishing they could attain such a lofty level of skill themselves.

  And now, as Bharat moved as easily as a bird through smoke in the extreme superstate of awareness that he attained at such instants, he saw that same glazed look on his opponent’s face. For the man had come so far, achieved so much more than what the other assassins before him had achieved—the closest before had merely been able to fire an arrow from a rooftop ten yards away the last time—and had executed a move so brilliantly conceived and executed that even Bharat had been admiring it ruefully only a moment ago.

  But now, the man knew, and his face reflected this knowledge, he had failed.

  Bharat moved through the silence like a knife through silk, cutting time and space as easily as that polished blade sliced fabric, and felt the tip of the sword pass through the outermost layer of the skin over his ribcage, scraping agonizingly against and scoring his lowest two ribs—a tiny spurt of blood, a searing heat as the tight band of muscle was severed at that point—and emerged without having penetrated through the flesh itself, without having attained its intended goal, his vital organ.

  And the man’s eyes had widened, his mouth opened wide in a dismayed snarl, even as he realized he had been thwarted. Impossible. Undoable. And yet. And yet.

  The moment unfroze. Time unlocked. Gravity reclaimed her rightful power.

  And Bharat let the hand carrying the mace complete its trajectory, the weight of the heavy weapon, specially customized, engraved and tooled for him according to his precise specifications based on years of mace-fighting experience, carrying his arm into an angle impossible for any human body to sustain, and he felt the agonizing wrench of his right shoulder dislocating from its socket, a sensation like hot knives tearing their way out of his shoulder, screaming to break free. The mace lost its momentum and slumped, thumping the assassin lightly on the muscled bicep of his arm, hard enough to hurt and leave a bruise for days, but not hard enough
to smash bone and rend flesh. Then his hand, already falling to hang limply by his side, lost its grip on the handle of the beautiful hand-crafted weapon, made in a tiny hamlet near Nandigram by an old PF veteran with only one arm and one functional eye, and the companion of many combats fell with a dusty thud to the ground. The assassin, who by rights ought to have been sprawled on the same ground with a shattered shoulder at least, remained standing, staring in disbelief at Bharat. For all his shrewd ingenuity and boldness in that manoeuvre, the one thing the man had not come prepared for was the possibility that his target would risk a move as bold, as audacious as his own, and allow himself to suffer injury in order to accomplish his mission: to survive.

  The assassin had turned his blade, risking being maimed or crippled, in order to deal Bharat a fatal wound.

  Bharat had countered his attempt by turning his mace, a far heavier, unwieldier, and more difficult weapon to manoeuvre in such a fashion, and had knowingly dislocated his own shoulder, in order to avoid the assassin’s fatal strike. It had been a breathtaking counter-move, the more so for the speed with which Bharat had seen the unexpected threat—an assassination attempt by a familiar practice partner in the middle of a practice bout—had sized it up precisely, and had then executed a counter-manoeuvre that perfectly thwarted the attempt. It was one the kusalavya bards would be reciting verses about in wayside ashrams for decades to come.