The Aryavarta Chronicles Kaurava: Book 2 Page 16

  ‘That is of no consequence,’ Vasusena roared from his seat. ‘The wager was made, clear and loud. It was accepted by Dharma without objection. The stake was then declared lost, and that too was accepted by Dharma without objection. You were accepted by the princes of Hastina as their property and sent for. Again, Dharma did not object. When the one who made the stake has conceded you as lost and the winner has accepted you as newly won, what question then of the propriety of the wager?’

  Panchali shook her head. ‘The gambler may dream in his sleep and in the course of his dream believe that he’s playing at dice. He might proceed to lay a wager as he wishes, and even concede the stake as lost. Yet another may dream that he has won at dice and claim the stake as his rightful due. In the sane light of morning, however, neither is the stake relinquished, nor is it claimed. Such is the case here, for a wager made without authority, no matter how unambiguously declared, accepted and admitted, is simply not a valid one. I await the assembly’s judgement. Grandsire Bhisma, you have always led this gathering in delivering justice. I ask you, what is your decision?’

  Throwing herself on to her knees, Panchali awaited justice. Bhisma’s expression, however, was far from cheering. By and large, the elder remained impassive, but there was that particular way he thrust his chin up, as though irked at being involved in such sinfully human affairs. Panchali was familiar with the posture, for she had seen Dharma adopt it often enough, as she did the words that went with it: It is fated. Destiny is willed by the gods, and we are all powerless against it. It is fate that you must suffer. Let the gods do as they will. Panchali had no doubt that similar thoughts were going through Bhisma’s head.

  Finally, Bhisma stood up. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘morality is a subtle thing, and what is considered moral often depends on the situation. Laws are crafted so that we may live noble, honourable lives. Your question isn’t an easy one to answer.’ Clearing his throat, he declared, ‘If anyone here can answer you, my child, it has to be your husband, Dharma, the very embodiment of justice. For he alone can truly say what authority he has, or had, over you, and whether or not you are now a slave. It is for Dharma to speak and set you free.’

  In the expectant quiet that followed Bhisma’s declaration, Dharma said nothing. Dharma said nothing at all.

  ‘Well then,’ Vasusena’s words cut through the void that surrounded her. ‘Dharma’s silence speaks for itself. Dussasana…’

  All sound died, replaced by an ominous stillness. Panchali knew that stillness. It was the soundless anticipation that filled the air when a sacrificial animal was brought in, the eager calm when humans, for a short while, believed they were no less than the gods, for the power of life and death that was in their hands. It was the instant before the axe fell, blood splattered in wanton worship and the crowd rose with a roar to celebrate the raw might they held as though each one had struck the killing blow with his own hand, the unmistakeable tumult of life that was a blood sacrifice. And then, like animals at a feast, they would pounce on her to consume her alive, her body left bloodied in more ways that one. She tried to look into their eyes, to find reason, but there was none left in them to find. A mob, no, a pack: a feral pack that worked as one to serve the singular command of brute instinct.

  It was all she could do to not bleat in fear as Dussasan advanced towards her. His eyes held an inhuman pleasure and his face was contorted in evil satisfaction. Yet again, Panchali tried to resist his grasp, only to be thrown painfully to the ground for her efforts. She tried to edge away. He mocked her feeble defiance, pretending to tease and bait her. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his leg and brought it down on her thick, flowing tresses. Pain shot through Panchali as he pinned her down, but she tried hard not to show it. As far as she could, she would deny this animal its sadistic pleasure.

  But the hunter was not done. His eyes were locked on hers, his gaze that of a predator paralysing his prey. Enjoying every moment of Panchali’s torment, he leisurely bent down to grope at her flesh, in the process grabbing hold of the single length of cloth that covered her body. Then, his breath heavy and ragged, eyes bulging with the anticipation of ecstasy, Dussasan pulled at the cloth.

  21

  ‘MIH!’ DARUKA CURSED. ‘THESE MEN ARE NOT GOING TO GIVE up without a fight, Commander.’

  ‘Then a fight is what they will get, Daruka,’ Govinda replied, his eyes fixed on Saubha’s flagship as he remained at the wheel.

  Saubha’s archers rained down a torrent of arrows, catching those on the Yadu warship who failed to take cover in time, or were not in a position to leave their posts. Their cries of pain and dying prayers made Govinda’s eyes blaze, though he neither turned around nor offered help. Before their bodies hit the deck, he knew, another one of his sailors would take their place. Each man now fought, not for glory but for their city and their loved ones.

  ‘Get the oarsmen to abandon ship, right now!’ he commanded. ‘And as many of the crew as we can spare. Get our ships to pick them up.’

  The orders left no room for doubt. Daruka gave the signal and the men lowered themselves into the sea. At the same time, the anchored ships sent out rowboats. Keeping well beyond the reach of the current, the soldiers on the boats threw out ropes to the men as they treaded water against the current. Realizing that a collision was inevitable, a few of the Salwa soldiers, too, began to abandon their vessels in fear, taking their rather dismal chances with the raging tides.

  ‘Look at them scurrying to hide like rats!’ Daruka gleefully noted.

  ‘You know what needs to be done now, Daruka?’

  ‘Yes, Commander.’

  ‘Go on, then…’

  Bowing to his commander, the captain made for the sheltered space below the deck. There, he thrust a few oil-soaked torches into the glowing embers of a brazier. Then, as an afterthought, he kicked the brazier into the depths of the hull, which was now empty of oarsmen. He understood why Govinda had insisted on carrying as few men as possible on this ship. Making his way back up to the deck, Daruka called out to the crewmen for help. Three of them rushed to take the torches from him. The flames spluttered in the strong wind, but did not go out. Acting quickly, the four of them moved to different parts of the ship, setting the sails and the dry wood on fire. Like their own vessel, the men knew, nearly every part of the enemy’s ship was easily flammable. Fire ships were an old and dreaded means of naval warfare. They seldom failed to destroy their target, especially when piloted by willing and brave men till the last.

  An alarm rang out on board the Salwa command vessel as the enemy realized what was going on. In a desperate attempt to avert the attack, King Saubha’s men relentlessly launched arrows at the burning ship. Many of Govinda’s crewmen fell, pierced by the black-tipped arrows, but the fire ship did not swerve from its course. Govinda kept his place at the wheel of their infallible weapon, the faithful Daruka at his side. Propelled by the mighty northern wind, it smashed through the side of King Saubha’s craft, and remained wedged there.

  Govinda held on to the wheel with one hand, and with the other kept Daruka from falling down from the impact. The two men watched as the fire spread across the two vessels caught in their ghostly embrace. Barely moments later the towering mast of the Yadu ship fell, shattering as it hit the other vessel’s iron-clad stern. Like bolts of lightning, burning shafts of wood shot out across the water. The Salwa navy’s close formation now proved to be its downfall. Fuelled by the wind and the debris, fires began to break out on many of the vessels.

  The task done, Daruka readied to abandon ship but realized that Govinda was standing rooted at the wheel, staring across the mangled decks of both ships at a group of similarly unmoving men about thirty feet away. The war was over, but one battle remained.

  ‘Commander…’ Daruka called out, hoping to defray what he considered an unnecessary altercation.

  Despite all their naval preparedness, Saubha and his men were in no position to swim to safety. Trusting in their ships, they remained a
ttired for intense battle, clad in a shining array of mail and metal, grotesque masks covering their faces. To Daruka’s eyes, they appeared veritable monsters. Saubha himself was discernible by his large helmet, shaped in the form of a snarling beast, some strange mythical being from legends native to Salwa. It broadly resembled a bear, though its maws were longer and extended outwards at the king’s chin, making it look like he had teeth of shining black metal. Horns rose long and sharp over the bear’s head, forming a diabolical crown. The armour on Saubha’s body matched the visor, and spiked shoulder plates and claw-like protrusions from the gauntlets on his arms and hands gave him the look of a metallic monster. Slowly, the king removed his helmet to reveal his face, repugnant not for its features but for the malice that lined every bit of it.

  Govinda defiantly met his enemy’s gaze, uncaring that time was running out. To remain on board the floundering vessel was to face certain death, either by burning alive in the spreading flames, or drowning as the sinking debris created whirlpools impossible to swim out of.

  ‘There’s no way they can swim with all that armour, they’ll just drown. Commander…let’s go!’ Daruka shouted.Govinda ignored him, and drew his sword.

  Saubha rushed forward, his own sword drawn, a fearful yell renting the air. Govinda’s actions mirrored Saubha’s. The two men met over an uneven, smouldering surface formed by the wood of both ships mingled in eerie conjugation. Smoke and flame added a curtain of confusion; screams of pain and terror filled the air. But neither of the two commanders seemed to care.

  Daruka stood ready, his own sword drawn, but none of the other soldiers came forward. This was, he realized, a different sort of fight. Saubha knew he was going down. And he wanted to take Govinda with him. The thought only made the captain worry more. King Saubha’s feared reputation as a ruthless slayer was a well-deserved one, and he would be all the more vicious if he had no concern for his safety. In fact, if he kept Govinda engaged long enough, both of them would burn and drown together.

  Saubha knew this. He prowled around, biding his time. He was fast on his feet and used his curved, whip-like sabre to good effect, keeping his opponent out of striking range but still engaged. Daruka cried out in alarm as Govinda rushed in recklessly. For a while, all the soldier could hear was the soothing rhythm of the waves against the shattered hull of the ship, punctuated occasionally by the whiplash sound that meant a dodge or the clang of metal hitting metal.

  Saubha drew first blood. He aimed for his opponent’s neck, but Govinda deflected the blow. Relentlessly, Saubha whipped his sword round to catch him on his upper arm, inflicting a deep gash that began to bleed profusely. He stepped back, satisfied, and once again the two men began circling each other, oblivious to the flames and smoke around them.

  Sensing that his opponent would be weakened by the loss of blood, Saubha moved in. His next stroke came down hard. Instinctively, Govinda brought his sword up in a double-handed counter. It was just the opportunity King Saubha had been waiting for. He pulled out a thin dagger, coated with a distinct, brown liquid, from a secret compartment set inside his metal gauntlet. A smile curving one side of his mouth, he struck hard to drive it in between Govinda’s ribs. In an instant, his delighted expression changed to one of panic. Mortal terror filled Saubha’s eyes as he realized what had happened. He had stepped in close to stab Govinda, but it was a bit too close.

  Govinda had switched his sword hand and used his now-free right hand to grab Saubha’s wrist and pull him in closer still. Saubha tried to thrust the smaller, poisoned blade in where he could but the pain in his arm from Govinda’s grip was unbearable. Not one to give up so easily, Saubha slashed wildly with his curved sabre. But at this proximity, the thin whip-blade was no match for the unyielding Nandaka. Govinda deflected Saubha’s attack and in a left-handed sweeping thrust caught him from the side, finding a gap in his armour between his shoulder and chest plates. The white metal blade ran clean through the king’s chest and stayed wedged in his flesh. Saubha looked down at it, his mouth stuck in a disbelieving, idiotic grin. He staggered back a few steps and fell.

  Govinda wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword and pulled it out of the dead king’s body, sending a spray of blood and fine flesh through the salty sea air. He would have thrown himself at the rest of Saubha’s warriors, who stood paralysed with awe and fear, but for Daruka’s insistent calls.

  ‘Commander! Now! We need to get off the ship now!’ The captain pulled at Govinda’s arm, gesturing wildly to another wayward Salwa ship that now bore down on them, no longer under the control of its crew. The two men had hardly climbed over the edge of the deck, when the vessel ran into theirs. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, for the impact of the collision threw both Daruka and Govinda into the water, well away from the huge swirling eddy that was created by the three battleships sinking in unison.

  The two men watched the ensuing chaos as they treaded water, waiting for the Yadu rowboats that were already heading in their direction. Their plan had worked

  ‘There’s just one thing…’ Daruka said ‘Where are our other ships? The ones you moved during the night? The ones Saubha thought you’d bring back in a surprise attack?’

  Govinda managed a tired, but irrepressible grin. ‘Under water, in the cove north of Dwaraka. Saubha saw the ships leave the habour and assumed that I was just hiding them there. He planned to turn the trap against me with his naval formation. But I didn’t hide those ships, I sank them.’

  Daruka laughed out loud at the matter-of-fact declaration. By sinking the ships, Govinda had created an artificial barrier that had the same effect as shoals and sandbars had in nature. As the natural flow of the landward tide was barred by the submerged wreckage, it pooled near the shore eventually becoming a narrow but strong rip tide that flowed away from land, into the sea.

  Amidst the clamour, the shouts of victory and the desperate cries of drowning men, the destruction by fire and water, the two men looked fondly over the waters at their beloved crystal city. Trumpets and horns blared from the towers of Dwaraka, and thousands raised their voice in a united war cry. Spurred by the victory on sea, Balabadra and Yuyudhana were leading what remained of their soldiers against Saubha’s landward forces.

  ‘What…?’ Daruka frowned.

  Govinda said, ‘I told him to. There is no way those mercenaries will fight without their paymaster, nor will the Salwa soldiers fight without their king. Once they are gone, the rest of the forces – Damagosha’s men and the others – will scatter and disclaim all involvement. The blame for this will fall on Saubha and his ambition alone.’

  ‘So…it is over?’

  ‘Yes,’ Govinda replied, with a content sigh, ‘it is over. Dwaraka is safe.’

  22

  DUSSASAN’S TOUCH SEARED, VIOLATED. PANCHALI FELT ANGER prick the back of her neck and she pulled her shoulders back in instinctive defiance. The sensation lasted for just a moment and then fell heavily to the pit of her stomach, turning into a cold, clammy, desperate trepidation that became an incomprehensible sorrow. She no longer felt his touch, no longer cared where he touched her. The pain inside her was incorporeal and endless, as though the most sacred part of her being, the core, which held love and hope and happiness, was being ravaged into a bloody pulp.

  It did not occur to her to beg for mercy. She felt her rage to fight tamed into numbness by shock and fear. She willed her hands to move, her legs to kick and her voice to scream, but they did not. Thoughts swirled through her mind. Words, voices, images – she was racing through them, in search of something. Some meaning, or an anchor. Lucidity came in torturous bursts, and she realized that the screaming in her head was not against her aggressor but against her own sense of helplessness and despair, the petrified stillness that had taken over. Her being was hers, every pore of it, to always own and give as she wished. And that was precisely why Dussasana wanted it. His was not an act of lust. It was an act of dominance.

  Pleasure was something any one
of these men could easily have in greater measure and at a lesser cost. Dussasana hungered for power, as did Vasusena and the rest. Over her body, her will, and over those they considered the owners and protectors of her being. To take her was to destroy Dharma, his brothers, the empire; to burn to cinders their hearts and will and reduce them into tiny specks of shamed subservience. It did not matter that she was not anyone’s to own or protect. She was no longer a woman, a person, a human being. She was simply the embodiment of everything they wanted for their own, a thing – not unlike the land they wished to conquer, to plunder in the name of right, duty and morality in perverse proof of domination. Like soldiers in the heat of battle, like hyenas that had scented blood, the entire hall seemed to her a mammoth, slithery creature of legend, with many sharp-fanged heads but a single body and collective will driving it. She was no longer aware of Syoddhan or Vasusena, or the crazed Dussasan, the silently acquiescent Bhisma, submissive Dharma or maddened Bhim. There was neither friend nor foe, just one fell, foul creature, a mindless mob that sought to affirm its own being.

  Some things are defined only by their property to destroy another. Every antidote is defined by its poison.

  She could not remember where she had heard those words or who had spoken them. It was strange that they came to mind at a time such as this but she knew why they did. It was because she felt now what she had felt when she first heard them – a debilitating fear that left her with no strength to fight, no will to protest, given the futility of it all. She remembered fire and screams, though the screams were not hers, and she remembered thinking that to be burnt alive was far better than to survive, that pain lasted longer and did not always bring death at the end of it. And that was what it had come to – the thought of one doom being better or worse than the other, because doom was all that was left to come. For that which gave meaning to the world as she knew it had collapsed, utterly and completely.