RAMAYANA SERIES Part 4_KING OF DHARMA (72 page)

But this was a new twist on the game. The sons of Sita, tallying deaths by the score, without taking a single casualty for their side. He would not have believed it possible had he not traveled widely enough and seen all the various ways in which men could kill and wage war against one another. Yes, two exceptionally good archers perfectly attuned to one another could keep up a killing barrage such as this for a length of time. But sooner or later, arms would tire, bows would lose their pulling strength, and arrows would be depleted. All he had to do was reduce their accuracy while continuing to force them to keep loosing. Hence the two orders he had issued:
Pull back and use tree cover.
Which would starve the boys of targets, forcing them to shoot at movements behind trees, missing more and more often, wasting precious arrows and energy. Backtrack. Which would send his best scouts scouring around their flanks to find their exact position and mark it. Archers were well and good so long as they were shooting from a distance. The moment the fight came to them, up close and personal, they lost their advantage. And in a close fight, two striplings were no match for his elite Hundred. All he had to do was slip in through their deadly circle of fire and attack man to man. The whole thing would be over in moments. 

He grinned. At last he had an adversary worthy of his talents. 

He waited for the next runner to bring word as he watched the hail of arrows continue. 

SEVEN

When they were each past a hundred-count in enemy fatalities, something changed in the theater of war. 

They found it increasingly more difficult to acquire targets. At first they assumed that the invading forces were retreating. But that would mean moving backwards. Instead, they had simply gone to ground. They glimpsed flickers of movement behind tree trunks or through gaps in foliage but the men were apparently smart enough not to reveal themselves. The two hundred or so corpses with arrows sticking out of their throats probably acted as good motivation. As the seconds turned to minutes and then became a half-hour of the afternoon sun’s westward progress, they realized that this was a stratagem by the enemy. 

Suddenly, a man burst from cover and sprinted to the shelter of another tree. He was visible only partially for perhaps two heartbeats. 

He fell, sprawling, with an arrow through his neck before he could reach halfway to his destination. 

After several moments, another man in another part of the valley moved his position, showing his back and part of his head to them as he leaned against the trunk of the tree he was squatting behind. He was dead before his body hit the ground. 

This continued for another half hour or so, the occasional target showing partially here and there. They took every shot they could get and their aim was true seven times out of ten. The three times they missed were only because the arrows struck armor or sword hilts and that too only because they were risking shots based on guesswork rather than clear acquisition.

After that, the soldiers seemed to grow more disciplined and even these occasional lapses ceased.  

Finally, as a whole hour passed without their acquiring a single target or loosing a solitary arrow, they sighed together as one. 

“We will have to change our position,” Luv said. “It’s the only way.”

Kush nodded. The predator could not simply wait for the prey to come to him: he had to go where the prey went. That was the basis of hunting. 

Still, he was reluctant to leave their carefully chosen perch. Once they climbed down from here they would lose this panoramic view of the valley and be at the same level as the enemy. Which meant that the enemy would be able to see them too. Outnumbered as they were, once the enemy marked their position and attacked en masse, they could not possibly repel them for long. No. Up here, they were unapproachable except up the same crumbling rock face they had climbed to get here. The soldiers burdened with their armor and weapons would have a hard, slow struggle coming up and would make easy targets. Only so many could climb at a time after all. There was no other access by horse or on foot either. They were kings of this hill. Once they climbed down, they would lose their greatest advantage. 

“No,” Kush said at last after weighing all options. “They will still have to come forward and get past us as well as the old veterans in order to get to the canyon. If we wait them out, they will have no other option but to charge. We should remain here.”

Luv nodded. He too had reached the same conclusion. “You speak truly, bhraatr. They are only testing our patience in the hope that we will show ourselves. So long as we wait them out, they will be forced to come to us eventually.”

“Then we are agreed. We stay here and wait.”

And so they waited. They decided to take turns watching the valley, one resting or refreshing himself while the other watched. 

Another hour passed. The sun dipped lower in the western sky. Early afternoon moved slowly towards late afternoon. 

Still, no soldiers advanced. The valley was as still as as a graveyard. 

***

Bejoo cursed. Somasra and the others looked up at him. They had spent the afternoon resting in the shade of the thicket near the rock face as a handful of their number took turns standing watch. It had been a dull afternoon after the action of that morning. More than half their number had died in that first clash itself and many who survived were nicked or wounded more severely. Only about a score remained fit enough to fight and perhaps half that number could lift their swords a time or two in defense. Considering the number of enemy amassed in the valley, it was a pitiful band. But the surviving fighting fit in the canyon were even fewer and once the enemy charged in full force, they would sweep all aside in a single attack. 

The only reason they had survived the day at all was because of the sons of Sita. They had all marveled at the skill with which the boys downed the enemy. Although they could not clearly tell how many casualties had been taken, they were in a position to see the arrows passing overhead and from their profusion alone they could estimate that a lot of the enemy were falling. The very fact that the advance had halted was itself proof of the efficacy of the archers. Bejoo had grinned each time he heard a muffled cry or throaty gargle across the valley, signaling the death of another of Aarohan’s prized King’s Guard. How appropriate that the King’s Guard should be cut down by the King’s own sons! He grinned at the irony of the situation and enjoyed the brief respite.  

Now, he saw something that made him curse and rise to his feet. 

Somasra and the others reacted as well, rising and taking up their swords at once. Old they might be. Wounded and tired too. But they were neither careless nor foolish. Each man was willing to face death today itself but only after he had exacted a great price from the enemy for his life. They had taken their respite but known that no battle could remain suspended for long, not when one side boasted such vastly superior numbers. It was only a matter of time before fighting resumed.  

And now that time had come. 

Bejoo cursed again and peered through the trees. The high afternoon sun threw the trees into deep shadow, making it difficult to penetrate the gloom of the thick undergrowth. 

Somasra looked at him laconically. “You want to tell us what you’re cursing at or is it a private matter you wish to keep to yourself?”

Bejoo gestured with a jerk of his head at the rock face behind. “They’ve tracked them back, the bastards. They must have gotten a fix on their position by using their men as bait to draw their fire. Now they’re moving in for the kill.”

Somasra peered through the shadows of the thicket. His old eyes glimpsed a flicker of movement that could have been a ladybug leaping onto a leaf but his warrior’s instincts told him that it was no ladybug that caused that leaf to stir. “You’re right, Vajra Captain. They are moving forward again but stealthily, seeking to circle around the surround the rock face.”

Bejoo shook his head. “Even so, what good will it do them? The boys will only cut them down as they come, unless…”

Somasra waited for him to go on. When Bejoo stopped and looked up and then back again, thinking intently, Somasra finished for him: “…unless this advance is only meant to be a distraction. The real attack on the boys will come from another position. That what you meant to say, Vajra Captain?”

“Yes, yes,” Bejoo said impatiently, “and stop calling me Vajra Captain. I haven’t led a Vajra for decades.”

Somasra grinned, revealing teeth flecked with fragments of the betelnut he chewed incessantly. “This is a Vajra you lead right now, in a manner of speaking,” he said. 

Bejoo looked around at the old tired men leaning against tree trunks and on the hilts of their own swords, white-bearded faces and balding heads gleaming with perspiration, and he grinned back at Somasra. “I suppose it is, in a manner of speaking.”

Somasra laughed softly and clapped Bejoo’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, Vajra Captain Bejoo. Would have liked to have fought with you in a real battle back in the day.”

Bejoo smiled, acknowledging the compliment. “What do you call this?”

Somasra looked at the valley scornfully. “This? I call this wiping our backsides with poison leaves, that’s all! Not a real battle, oh no, sir!”

Bejoo shook his head, laughing softly. “Well. If they’re advancing again, we won’t be wiping ourselves for long. Get ready, men. If they’re doing what I think they’re doing, they’ll be rushing us again and this time, they won’t stop or slow down. This is likely to be our last stand.”

The men got to their feet wearily, faces suggesting they would rather be in a tavern swigging large containers of soma or any cheaper alcoholic fluid they could afford to buy in great quantities. “At my age,” said one ancient fellow who looked as if he had already died twenty years earlier, “every time I stand is the last stand. It shall be a relief to finally lie down at last!”

They stood together and shuffled forward, swords at the ready, prepared to die fighting. 

***

Luv and Kush watched with guarded expressions as the enemy advanced man by man, tree by tree, gauging the pattern. So attuned were they to each other’s minds they did not even need to glance at one another to share a thought. 

“Ready,” one said. 

“Ready,” replied the other. 

They began loosing. This time the rhythm was completely different from before. No longer was it a non-stop barrage. They could only shoot when they visually acquired a target and so they were limited by the appearance of targets. In only a few moments and about two dozen arrows loosed, it became evident to both of them that this itself was being carefully controlled and monitored by someone. No. Not by someone. By the enemy. The manner in which the enemy soldiers appeared and ran from tree to tree, advancing down the valley in twos and threes rather than all at once, the pattern in which they ran forward, not two or three in the same place but at different spots across the valley, made it very clear that the enemy was trying to keep them shooting in all directions at once. 

“They are testing us,” one of the boys said. 

“Yes,” replied his brother tersely, loosing an arrow. He saw a tiny spurt of crimson against the dark green backdrop of the dark afternoon shadows and was already turning in search of the next target. 

But after another half dozen arrows, a suspicion began to form in their minds. 

And slowly, it grew until it became a realization. 

Then that realization coalesced into conviction. 

“They know our position,” said Kush, turning to his brother for the first time in over an hour. 

Luv lowered his chin, brooding briefly. His dark eyes flashed. “Yes,” he said. 

“They are keeping us busy without actually launching a full-scale attack,” Kush said. 

Luv loosed another arrow, saw another man fall. “Yes,” he replied without looking up this time. “They are trying something…this forward movement is just a diversion.”

Kush agreed but could not think of the next logical conclusion:
What were they trying? If this was the diversion, what was the main action? 

The answer came a moment later in the form of an arrow whickering sharply past Kush’s left ear. He blinked, missing his first shot of the day so far—the ones that had struck hilts and armor didn’t count as misses—and his arrow went a whole foot wide of the mark. The soldier who had run from tree to tree glanced back at the arrow embedded in the ground with an expression of disbelief then fell to his knees, clasping both palms together in supplication. 

The arrow that had narrowly missed Kush struck solid rock a few yards further, then clattered to the hard stony ground. Both brothers stared at it for a moment. 

Then they turned as one, tracing back the arrow to its origin. 

The hillside nearest to the rock face was less than a hundred yards away due to the narrowing of the valley at this end. Arrayed along that hilltop was an entire company of archers, bows drawn and arrows notched. It was an astonishing sight to see that many where there had been not a single man only moments earlier. They knew because they had been checking, expecting something like this sooner or later. The enemy had been smart enough to wait until the last possible moment, then move the entire company of archers forward the last few yards up the slope until they were visible from the rock face, and immediately give the order to string and pull. Now, the leader of the enemy appeared in view, atop his horse, light-skinned face grinning widely as he raised his sword, preparing to give the final signal to the archers.