RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (42 page)

TWO

Luv fixed a bead on the lead wagon driver and kept his aim steady. The man looked like he had seen violence before, judging from the scar running down the side of his head and neck, and the way he had yielded without argument. Another veteran, for sure. What did they call them, those fellows who dressed up in those funny purple and black dhotis and vastras?

“PF,” Kush said softly beside him. “Tough old men willing to die rather than surrender. Keep your eye on that one. He looks like trouble.”

“I have him,” Luv replied. “You do what you have to.”

Kush disappeared. 

Luv was watching the wagon driver’s eyes. They were looking downwards, at the ground, apparently not looking at anything in particular. Yet Luv clearly saw them widen as Kush vanished. Smart fellow, using his peripheral vision. 

Yes, this one bore watching closely. Luv would have bet his straightest arrow on the grizzled old fellow being the head of the wagon train’s security force. An old ex-PF, retired, making a few cross-border trips like this one to keep busy and earn a little to keep up his sense of pride. There would be others in the remaining wagons, younger stronger men, more eager and less sensible, but this one was the head. Cut off the head and the body would flail uselessly. Or so it went in theory. He watched the old driver without staring directly at him – that was a sure way to ruin your focus and tire your eyes quickly – and didn’t miss the veteran’s veiled glances back up the path. 

He’s expecting the next wagon to come around that curve any moment, hoping to use its appearance as a distraction to leap down to the right, roll quickly and use the wagon to shield himself. 

Luv resisted the urge to grin. The man probably thought he could move pretty fast, even at this age. 

And he probably can. But not faster than an arrow. Watch out, old uncle. 

But it told him the man was an honourable fellow, willing to risk life and limb to earn his coin. And that made him dangerous. 

***

Kush stood in the center of the path, directly in the way of the second wagon. Heavily laden like the first, it had taken a few moments to maneuver around the rock-strewn path. Two men rode in front of this one; an older man handling the reins, a younger one riding beside him with a shortbow laid on his lap. On catching sight of him, this man swore and raised the bow, fitting an arrow to the string. Should have held it loosely in one hand, ready to shoot. Before he could draw, Kush’s first arrow knocked the bow out of his hands. It struck the wooden frame of the wagon, bounced off and fell under the rear wheel of the wagon. Kush heard the sound of cured wood splintering. Waste of a good weapon. 

The man swore again as he snatched up a javelin lying discreetly in a recessed groove beside his seat. He had the upper body bulk of a thrower and Kush had no doubt he had probably won many melas in his day. 

He called out as the man raised the metal tipped wooden pole to shoulder height: “Drop the weapon. Keep your arm.”

The man showed his teeth and continued without so much as a sideward glance or hesitation. Kush sighed inwardly and wondered why they never listened. The javelin clattered back onto the wagon’s boards as the man stared uncomprehendingly at the arrow that had sprouted from his bicep, disabling his arm. To his credit, he didn’t scream or cry out. At least he’s a professional. He hated it when at times the vaisya traders too cheap to hire good protectors enlisted their own over-enthusiastic relatives to guard the trains. Someone always got badly hurt at those times.

Kush had already turned the bow back to the wagon driver, another arrow already strung and ready to be loosed. The older man didn’t need to have the basics of life explained to him. He was already clucking and prodding and yanking frantically at the reins. With an effort he managed to stop the wagon barely inches from Kush. The breath of the lead horses puffed warmly on Kush’s bare hairless chest. 

He bent his head forward and nuzzled the dripping snout of the lead horse, a roan stallion with a white leaf-shaped patch on his forehead, whispering a few words of endearment, while keeping the bow cocked and aimed at the wagon driver. If the man jerked the team forward at that moment…Kush would have to dance merrily to somersault out of the way of the pounding hooves in time. But he trusted horses more than men. The roan’s eyes would flare the instant that happened, giving him the fraction of a second he needed to act. 

He kissed the roan one last time: “Someday, I’ll own a herd of beauties just like you.” The roan whinnied in approval as he walked away. 

He jerked his head sideways at the wagon driver and the protector, indicating to them to get off. When both men were on the ground, the younger one glaring balefully at Kush, ignoring the arrow stuck in the meat of his arm, Kush pointed the arrow at each one in turn, making sure they looked into his eyes and saw he was serious. The younger one still looked rebellious, so Kush shot an arrow past his head, nicking his scalp with the fletch as it hissed past, just enough to open a cut that would bleed without actually harming the man. The man cursed again, tried to clap his injured hand to the head cut, slapped his own cheek instead, then got busy trying to keep the blood out of his eyes. Head wounds never stopped bleeding on their own, and the man would need patching and herbs to staunch the small but troublesome trickle. That, along with the arrow still in his arm would keep him distracted enough. The driver would give Kush no trouble: he could see it in the man’s eyes. He probably had grandchildren in Ayodhya he wanted to get home to and fighting to protect some rich vaisya trader’s summer’s earning did not seem motivation enough to risk his life. 

“Keep your arrows on them, brothers,” Kush called out as he ran past them. “I shall halt the rest of the grama.” 

Their eyes flicked one way then another, attempting to seek out where Kush’s fictitious companions might be placed. Kush grinned as he turned the corner. Good. That would keep them well-behaved till he returned. 

He rounded the corner just as the rest of the wagon train trundled into sight. He wondered what the Sanskrit highspeech word was for a train carrying only produce and goods for barter and sale. A grama was strictly speaking a travelling clan or extended tribe. These wagon trains that rolled through this neck of the woods were purely carrying loads of trade items guarded and ferried by hired hands from one market town to another. There were no families here, no kith or kin. Just male kshatriyas of every background possible, all armed to defend these goods. A vaisya-grama, it should be called, he thought scornfully. Not because there was anything wrong with the vaisya merchant class, but because a grama so wholly devoted to naught but the pursuit of wealth and individual profit was unnatural, an abomination. Then again, these were city gramas, and cities were corrupt places, breeding grounds of venial vices. These men probably thought they were merely fulfilling their dharma; not that they even knew what dharma truly meant. 

“Halt!” he shouted in a voice far greater than seemed possible for one of his small frame and slender torso. His voice carried the conviction of a man who would enforce his own command with the unleashing of weapons if need be. Never mind that he was less than 10 years of age. It took more than years or kilos of muscle to make a man a man. 

The line of laden wagons continued to approach without slowing down. The riders had to have seen Kush but they were urging their teams on regardless, chins tucked low, eyes narrowed. From the hunched, tensed way they sat, Kush sensed that they had either expected something like this to happen or were prepared for it. He also knew what they intended to do: ride over him. The foremost wagon rumbled at a steady pace towards him, just about twenty yards away now. He could see the colours of the eyes of the men riding on the rider’s bench. They looked grizzled and tougher than the ones on the front two wagons. Grama-rakshaks. Luve and he had heard of them, kshatriyas who travelled with gramas like this one, guarding them for a fee. It was the first time he was facing one. 

He raised his bow, aiming it at them. They seemed to hunch a little lower but made no other move. The man beside the driver already had a bow in his hand with an arrow fitted to the string, stretched and pointed downwards. As Kush raised his bow, the grama-rakshak raised his own, both arrows ready to loose now. Other than that, there was no reaction to his shouted command. 

He didn’t entirely blame them. A single bowman barring their way, that too one of his obvious physical appearance, probably seemed unworthy of any response.

He would just have to prove them wrong. 

“Halt or I shoot!” he called again. The wagon was barely fifteen yards away now. 

In response, the man beside the driver loosed his own arrow. It was well aimed and Kush felt the heated wind of its passing tickle his chest as he swung his body just enough to make space for the arrow to go by. His arrow was already loosed before he swung around, a fraction of a second after the grama-rakshak’s arrow. 

The man cursed once, and stared down at the arrow sprouting from his muscled shoulder. It was not a serious wound but it rendered him incapable of using a bow for the time being, which was all Kush had intended. 

The wagon driver cracked his whip and the team of horses lurched forward, breaking into a steady canter. The speed at which they moved startled Kush. It could only mean the wagon was not as heavily laden as Luv and he had thought. They covered the remaining ten yards to him in a trice and he barely had time to sling his bow before the towering Kambhoja stallions thundered down on him, fully twice his height and each weighing a half ton. More than two tons of horse and wagon pounded over him relentlessly. 

THREE

Luv knew Kush was in trouble even before he heard the whinnying of horses and shouting of hoarse voices from beyond the outcrop. He wasn’t startled in the least but the old PF with the scar probably assumed he would be and made his move. He leaped off the wagon with surprising speed and ought to have rolled to the right, behind the cover of the wagon; instead he rolled left, grabbing the team’s rig, using the horses as a shield. Luv’s first arrow whizzed harmlessly through the gap where he had expected the man to be and his second remained notched and ready but unloosed. Firing under the team’s bellies would certainly startle them and with that lead roan stallion already impatient and restless to be on his way again, that would only result in a runaway wagon. Not part of the plan. He didn’t bother to call out to the man either: the fellow knew what he was doing and obviously still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Instead, Luv aimed at a new target, a slender leathery one, and fired off three quick arrows in succession. Then he grinned, pleased at the result, and loosed a fourth one directly behind the lead roan’s rump, close enough that were he to go collect that arrow it would probably smell of horse’s droppings!

The roan stallion snorted in response, kicked out once, then suddenly realized what had just happened. Somehow, by some miracle, he and his equestrian companions had been set free of their burdensome load. Without further ado, he lowered his head like a charging bull and started down the path. Startled, the rest of the team had no choice but to follow, and with the burden of the wagon gone, they broke instantly into a canter that turned quickly into a cheerful gallop as they went around the last abutment and disappeared from sight. 

In the trail of dust left by their passing, the aging wagon driver lay sprawled on the ground, staring in dazed surprise after the fleeing horses. Before he could get back to his feet, Luv had leaped off the boulder, using a series of lesser stones to hop, skip, jump to the path. He aimed the bow at the man again, who started, convinced he was about to be killed. 

“Easy,” Luv said. “We never hurt anyone unless he tries to hurt us first.”

The man showed Luv his open palms. “I’m not looking for a fight, yuvraj. Just an old wagon driver. I leave the fighting to the grama-rakshaks.” He jerked his head backwards, indicating the path behind the stranded wagon. 

Almost on cue, a fresh burst of yells and horse sounds came to them from beyond the outcrop. Judging by the sounds, Luv estimated that it wasn’t the second wagon Kush was having trouble with but the rest of the grama. I should go to him, there might be too many for him to handle. 

He saw the old driver watching him closely during the few moments it took him to think this and consider the options. Old man may not want to fight, but he’s still a shrewd one. 

“What’s your name, oldun?” he asked. 

The old driver frowned, his forehead wrinkling in a way that reminded Luv of the bed of the Sona river when it had dried up in last year’s drought. “Why do you need to know that?” he asked. 

Luv raised the arrow a fraction. 

The man shrugged. “All right. It’s Bejoo. Used to be Captain Bejoo of the Vajra—”

Luv cut him off. “Bejoo. I don’t need your atmakatha. Listen carefully. I’m leaving you alone here for a moment. I could tell you that I have companions watching you from the woods but I won’t do that because you seem like a sharp man. So I’m just going to ask you to stay here till I get back, and not run away. You do that and I’ll let you walk away unharmed. Run and I won’t. Clear?”

The man looked at him suddenly with a peculiar expression. 

Luv raised the arrow another fraction. “Clear?” He couldn’t keep the tone of impatience out of his voice. Kush was definitely in trouble by now, or he would have been back. 

The man swallowed, then nodded. “Aye. Ayuh, youngun. Clear as the Sarayu in spring.”

Luv looked at him sharply. “Remember. I know these woods like the back of my hand. Run and you die.”

The man nodded again. Again that same peculiar look. He looks like he’s just recognized me and we were long-lost friends. But Luv had never seen the man before in his life. 

Luv turned and sprinted up the path. 

“Kush!” he yelled as he went. “I’m coming!”

***

Kush heard the men laughing even over the thundering of the horse’s hooves and the racket of the wagon. They meant to run me down! By kshatriya code, that meant he was free to use mortal violence against them. When someone openly attempted to kill a warrior, he in turn was justified in killing the aggressors to defend his life. Even so, Kush scornfully discarded the idea: men who used a wagon to run down a solitary boy were not worthy adversaries. What was the phrase Maatr used? ‘Don’t soil your arrowheads with cowardly blood!’ He grinned. Maatr was always saying things like that, Vishnu bless her.  

He whispered affectionately to both the horses whose rigging he was clinging to, their warm breath on his neck and face tickling him and making him giggle involuntarily. He had been ridden over before and had learned at an early age how to let the horse take you rather than resist and fight the onward-rushing force. Flesh, sinew and bone could be destroyed by that onrushing weight as easily as a footfall would snap a twig. But if a kshatriya was trained and prepared, it was like a wayward puddle being collected by an onflowing stream of water and just as effortless. He had simply let the pounding horses bear down on him, crouched down at just the right angle, and grabbed hold of the rigging between the two lead horses at precisely the right moment: the warrior’s moment, as he and Luv liked to call it. On the raj-marg, one either moved aside – often at breakneck speed to avoid some of those hot-riding royal contingents – or got crushed under pounding hooves and chariot or wagon wheels. Ever since they could remember, they had seen people killed thusly, often old folk too weak or slow to move aside in time, poor unfortunate carrying too heavy a load to toss aside in time and most heartrending of all, children as small as themselves, tiny bodies mangled from the hooves into a shapeless heap of shattered bones and oozing flesh. After viewing one particularly nasty aftermath of a visiting royal procession with an armed escort, Luv and he had begun to teach themselves how to survive such encounters without ending up as battered blood-mash. By the age of 5, when they were old enough to reach the rigging of the tall horses that thundered down the king’s road, they had mastered the art of letting the horse take them. Now, it was easy as clinging to Maatr’s breast. 

He had began working his way down the length of the rigging almost immediately after being picked up. Now he looked up between a crack in the floorboards of the driver’s seat at the two men riding there. The one with the arrow in his shoulder was still cursing, but his indignation at his own pain was outweighed by his amusement at having run over the ‘brigand’. They were tough grizzled old veterans, probably ex-PFs like the one in the lead wagon. Luv didn’t waste more time on them. He was more interested in finding out what cargo they carried that had made them too nervous to halt. It was the work of only another moment to haul himself under the wagon itself, then up the side where he found enough space under the flap covering to slip into the vehicle itself without those in the following wagon seeing him. 

Inside the wagon, the noise of the grama oddly muted by the heavy canvas covering, he stared around at the consignment for a long silent moment, stunned. 

Of all the possible cargoes he had expected, this was not on the list. 

Just then he heard the men shouting and the wagon slowing and knew that could only mean one thing: They had reached the stranded second wagon. And most likely, Luv as well. 

Now, the fun would begin.