The Thirteenth Day (17 page)

T
he elephants had materialized as if from dust.

One moment our men were decimating the Narayanis, the next, their blood was warming elephant feet. Guruji, Radheya and Kritavarma were one simple order away from being killed. Then Dhristadyumna’s Panchala-sized ego thought of asserting itself. Did he really think that he, Satanika, Ketama and Panchalya were going to pose a serious threat to Guruji’s time on earth?

I saw it from a distance. Three of them were dead in the time it took to lift their arrows out of the quivers. Dhristadyumna had his armour smashed and arms run through with arrows. If the Panchala foot soldiers hadn’t pulled him off his chariot, we would have had to hunt the battlefield for pieces of him to cremate. For a moment, I was relieved that Drona was only supposed to capture me, and did not seriously want me dead. A sensation that was quickly replaced by shame.

The elephants came then. And I watched our chances of winning the war that afternoon disappear under their feet. Three of the most important generals of the Kaurava army, who were almost in our hands, were all rescued unharmed. Just because Dhristadyumna wanted a Panchala end for Guruji.

And now Guruji was separated from me only by a few chariots. He was flanked by elephants and had Kritavarma at his side and Radheya at his back.

It was becoming a little desperate. My palms had begun sweating. My javelin stuck to the sea of dew that was my palm. My lips were dry, and my other hand went across the cabinet on my chariot in search of my water pouch while my eyes stood fixed at Drona’s progress.

Satyaki and Shikhandi, supported by Uttamaujas and Yudhamanyu, moved to cut him off. Good, I had more faith in the two of them than Dhristadyumna and his band of Panchala goons.

They formed a diamond and approached Guruji cautiously. While they occupied him, I sent a horseman to call in the reserve. Even Guruji wouldn’t be able to wade through ankinis of fresh soldiers.

To my horror, Kritavarma and Radheya came in front of Guruji and blocked them even as Guruji dodged away from the fight and came towards me increasing his speed.

The neatness of the manoeuvre paralysed me. I didn’t notice the javelin fall out of my fingers and clatter to the floor. Satyajit and Vrika, my protectors, moved to intercept him and were both shot down immediately—Satyajit with an arrow in the neck and Vrika with one that ran through his eye and tore through the back of his helmet.

In the distance, I could see Satyaki and Shikhandi trying to break away from Kritavarma and Radheya. They would not be able to come to me in time. I had to hold off Guruji till the reserve came. I slung a quiver around my shoulder and groped around the floor of the chariot for my bow.

I looked up to see Guruji standing in front of me with his bow arched.

‘It’s over, son.’

I stood there stupidly holding a bow in my hand. I didn’t know how to react. Attacking him would be suicide, but he was supposed to take me alive. He wouldn’t shoot me. Not fatally. I began to raise my bow.

‘Don’t think I won’t kill you if you lift that bow.’

So attacking him was clearly not an alternative. I looked around for Satyaki, Shikhandi, anyone. But the field around me was thick with Kaurava chariots. My mind was clouded and the blood was dancing in my head.

‘Guruji?’

‘Stop wasting time and get in my chariot.’

‘My brothers won’t stop fighting without me, you know.’

‘No one else will die, I promise. All you have to do is come with me.’

I put my bow down and took off the quiver from my back and stepped down from my chariot.

I was about to do the one thing that he had never taught us at the training pit.

Surrender.

T
he man was bald and dressed entirely in white. He looked more like a monk seeking food than a man with a kingdom. He walked slowly to the centre of the neutral ground between the armies and spoke quietly in chaste Sanskrit.

‘My name is Susharma. I am the king of the Trigarta people. We have sworn on blood and holy fire that Arjuna, prince of the Pandavas, destroyer of the cities of Trigartadesa, will not see the end of the war. Make preparations for his passing as we have done for ours.’

Every person in hearing distance looked around for my father, straining to get a better view if his chariot was out of sight. Whispers skittered across the ranks like spiders.

I saw him look gravely at Susharma and nod his head. I could tell he was conscious of the gaze of the army and uncomfortable with the attention.

The silence was broken by the bass drone of my Uncle Bhima.

He comes in white,

this harbinger of fright,

without a hair on his head.

Arjuna, he’ll kill,

his blood he will spill

in his dreams, while lying in bed.

Laughter crackled through the ranks. Susharma didn’t react. He turned around and walked back unhurried. When he reached, an entire contingent of chariots and infantry clad just like him in white came to the Kaurava front and positioned themselved in line with where Father stood.

Father commanded the right flank of the formation and I wanted to bring my chariot closer to his, but he would not have approved. So I stood there, a few chariots to his left, hoping that Sumitra could manoeuvre a place in the front line beside him when we began to charge.

The battle conches sounded for the first time. I looked around. Uncles Nakula and Sahadeva were to my left and Uncle Bhima was to my right. The twins were talking among themselves as they always did before battle. Uncle Bhima was pointing at the Kaurava formation and making observations to his charioteer. I looked behind him for his son and waved at him. He waved back and smiled with his teeth.

We called him Ghatotkacha. If he had a real name, it was known only to his mother, the queen of a large jungle tribe in the eastern provinces who besotted Uncle Bhima during his travels. Not that he needed much provocation. The happy result was my cousin. When he was born, my uncle had jokingly called him ‘Ghatotkacha’ owing to the fact that his head was round like a pot and the colour of baked clay. The name stuck, and Ghatotkacha maintained his dome proudly. He looked identical to his father except he was bald and a deeper shade of brown verging on black. He had brought with him an ankini of tribal infantry who were ingenious fighters. They didn’t wear armour, seeking protection in the feathers of birds and trinkets blessed by their local priest. On the battlefield, they relied on speed and acrobatics and carried short flat clubs and poison-tipped stabbing spears.

Their nakedness and rudimentary weapons marked them out in the early days of the battle where many of the enemy had gone after them foreseeing an easy kill. Not many had returned in triumph. Inspite of all this, the most peculiar thing about the tribals was not the way they fought.

They sang.

A lay of their tribe. They sang in words none but their own understood. An upbeat melody which the entire troop belted out with gusto, miraculously enough, in tune. They sang while advancing towards the enemy. They sang while killing them and by some accounts, choked out the words while the spirit escaped their own body too.

The rest of the army would cluster around their rustic tent enclosures at night to see if reckless courage could indeed be fed to an individual. The tribals had even caught the fancy of my Uncle Bhima who was threatening to teach them a line or two in Sanskrit from his own compositions.

They were warming up now, by the sound of it…humming with closed mouths in preparation. Ghatotkacha was checking the timbre of his voice too. It was an unusual way to divert one’s mind before battle, but was effective, nonetheless.

The battle conches sounded for the first time and the entire army stiffened uneasily. I looked at the Kaurava formation. A Garuda, just as Dhristadyumna had predicted. He was all charts and logic, our commander. Pompous fart, crying to the council because I refused his rubbish order. I would return the favour soon.

The Kaurava front looked impressive. Guru Drona, Radheya, Suyodhana and Bhagadatta. Behind I could even make out old Shalya, looking even more like a dry stick after Uncle Bhima’s pounding. It was a miracle he could stand, much less hold a spear on a chariot. Maybe Uncle Bhima had gone soft on him. Earlier on, so the rumour went, even Grandsire had looked reluctant to kill my father or any of my uncles; instead, expending his talent on kings he had never gotten along with. In hindsight, being brought up in Dwaraka, away from my cousins and Kaurava uncles, made killing them a little easier for me. I still felt a pang at times while fighting the Narayanis, many of whom I had even recognized as I released their souls with my arrows.

The battle conches sounded again and then for the third time, signalling the armies to advance. The Kaurava Garuda shambled towards us. A sharp, tapered front with the rest of the army spread out behind it, looking like a python that has just swallowed a very large animal.

The Trigartas broke off from the main army. Their king came out in front of them and roared, ‘Trigartadesa, Samsaptaka!’

Their chariots started at a leisurely pace while the infantry rushed, arms at the ready, almost causing a stampede in their frenzy to get to us. Strange tactics…normally, chariots made a breakthrough and infantry followed up.

We readied ourselves for the impact. Our infantry had their shields ready and spears raised. In the chariots, we had our bows arched. Behind us, lines of bowmen awaited the command to fire protected by infantry carrying short-range weapons like maces, axes, swords and stabbing spears.

Father’s voice was heard over the trembling earth.

‘Archers, let them come. On my call.’

Uncle Bhima was less subtle, ‘I’ll kill the bastard who shoots before his time.’

The front line laughed nervously. The tension dissipated for a moment before springing back into our limbs.

Father spoke again, now a little louder, ‘Archers. On the count of three. One…two…’

A couple of arrows flew into the path of the Trigartas, harmlessly sticking into the earth before them. Father ignored the error and waited for his moment. Uncle Bhima glared behind and bellowed, ‘Three, not two, you illiterate fools!’

Father’s hand came up. And he swung it down sharply, raising his voice for the first time that day. ‘Three …Fire.’

Our arrows made a bridge in the sky as they arced towards the Trigarta soldiers. A good number of them were hit, some killed instantly. But they kept charging.

Something was different.

It was almost as if they were possessed. I saw one soldier with a dismembered arm, blood sluicing out of the stump, holding a shield in his good arm, running with a loud cry into our front. Many of them kept running after being hit by three or four arrows. It was like they didn’t care. Like they were making a conscious effort to get themselves killed.

The Trigartas washed into our line like the ocean’s froth on a beach and pushed back our front line immediately.

I was halfway through my first quiver already. The infantry around me was pushing back furiously. The chariots around me were being swept by waves of Trigartas. I saw a chariot archer dragged out of his chariot by the one-handed warrior who used his shield to crush the archer’s face.

They were slowly clustering around my chariot now. Our soldiers were stubbornly holding their own, but the sheer force of the Trigarta rush was overwhelming them.

I put an arrow through a soldier who tried clambering onto my chariot and another into a mace fighter who was closing in on Sumitra. As more soldiers surrounded us, the bow was fast losing its effectiveness. This would have to be done the old-fashioned way.

I pulled out an axe from the armoury and stepped off my chariot. A swordsman slashed wildly at me. I blocked the strike with my axe and plunged its handle into his gut. The blow winded him, giving me enough time to raise my weapon and split his face in two. Bits of skin and skull and hot blood sprayed on my face. I tasted the bitter saltiness of his life streaming out as he slunk to the ground like a snake in a trance. The kill rejuvenated me and I swaggered foolishly out of my chariot’s vicinity, straight into the arc of a mace.

The blow cracked my breastplate. I felt my ribs bend and fell down heavily, blinded. I blinked and the world wheezed back around me. A silhouette raised the mace to swing it down heavily on my face, I coughed and tried to rally my limbs into motion.

And then, his head fell off.

A pair of hands pulled me up. The world spun and then came to a sharp halt in front of my eyes. I coughed and retched. Blood mixed with sputum coloured the ground. I blinked and watched my spit writhe in the dust. A hand came into view and thrust a pouch of water into my face. My mouth found the sipper and I sucked slowly. Now a pair of hands guided me towards the back of a chariot and made me sit. The battlefield came together like pieces of a puzzle.

I looked up and saw Bali grinning at me. His hands spoke in their slow, calm sweeps.

‘Time to get up, prince.’

I nodded.