MAHABHARATA SERIES BOOK#2: The Seeds of War (Mba) (27 page)

Bhishma threw himself over all three girls, embracing them tightly, wrapping his arms and legs over them, ensuring that every inch of their bodies was covered by his own. They squealed in shock, unaccustomed to any man coming into physical contact with them, then somehow implicitly realized he sought only to protect them, and grew still. 

The arrows rained down. 

Bhishma felt them land. They struck the ground, the chariot, and his body. Dozens, scores, hundreds, then it seemed, thousands. 

The barrage continued endlessly. The clattering and thudding of arrows as they struck ground and embedded their metal heads in the packed earth, or in the wood of the chariot, or in the flesh of his body, a variety of related sounds that rang out like a death rattle, playing a ghastly dirge. It seemed to go on forever. 

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain of arrows ended. 

No doubt,
Bhishma mused through the fog of pain and sensation,
Shalva had run out of container missiles.
There was a limit to how many he would have been carrying in the limited space of his chariot. 

He estimated that Shalva would have loosed at least ten or twelve barrages in all. Perhaps ten or twelve thousand individual missiles. Most of them would have fallen around the chariot. Perhaps a tenth of that number would have fallen on the chariot itself. And of that number perhaps a third would have struck Bhishma. 

He unwrapped his body from the princesses, regaining his feet. He stumbled and had to reach out for support. He saw Amba’s face as she looked up, opening her eyes and staring at him in astonishment. She was staring at his back, his arms, the rear of his neck, his legs…She exclaimed in horror, clapping a hand to her mouth. Her sisters simply stared silently in mute disbelief. 

Bhishma felt as if his back had been set ablaze. He could feel a thousand pin pricks of fire burning into his skin, boring through his flesh, some reaching all the way into his organs, touching upon his bones, penetrating his joints, cracking his spine, his neck, piercing his lungs, his heart, even punching through the soft area at the back of his neck to penetrate his brain-case at two points. It felt like nothing he had ever experienced before: to call it pain would be to understate it woefully. To call it agony would be merely a word. The actual sensation was indescribable, and yet it was also much as the reality suggested. He had been pierced by hundreds of tiny barbed arrows. He knew from the wetness that drenched his back, pouring down the rear of his legs, collecting in a puddle on the floor of the chariot, that he was mortally wounded…by mortal standards. In fact, he was probably mortally wounded several score times over! Yet he could still stand, with great effort. 

He looked at the face of the eldest daughter of the king of Kashi. Amba lowered her hand from her mouth, still staring at him in utter disbelief, yet assimilating the fact that he still stood, despite his terrible wounds. He saw in her eyes an understanding, an awareness that he could not possibly survive such wounds, no man could, and yet, if he did, then it meant something. It meant he was more than just a man. He saw also that she understood the most important thing: that he had done this to protect her and her sisters. He could have let them die and saved himself – or even if he could not save himself, he still did not need to protect them by using his own body as a shield. Yet by doing so, he had proved on thing beyond dispute: he deserved to decide their fate far more than that trecherous rat of a suitor Shalva who intended to murder his own beloved rather than let her wed another man. 

He saw also that she now desired him, Bhishma. She was in awe of him. The way she looked at him at that instant was the way he had seen his mother’s followers gaze at her, reverentially, adoringly, devotionally. She looked at him as if he were a god. And she wished to give herself to him. 

He shook his head once, silently denying her. She blinked, startled. He did not speak or explain. This was not the time nor the place. 

He turned, hearing the gasps of horror from the princesses as they saw his back now and viewed the full extent of his injuries. He knew his back must resemble a porcupine, bristling with arrows. Except that he did not possess the power to simply shoot these arrows from his own body and assault his enemy. He would have to remove them the hard way, by tearing out his own flesh and skin and organ tissue. But that was for later, after he finished the task at hand. For now, he had to deliver a rejoinder to King Shalva, one that he would never forget so long as he lived. 

Bhishma was relieved to see that the horses were unharmed. He had used those precious seconds to ensure their safety and then the safety of the princesses. He had not cared about himself. He could survive this. He could survive far worse than this, he knew. Although at this instant, with arrows piercing every part of his body, he could not imagine what could be worse. 

He coaxed the team into starting forward. They smelled his blood and whinnied angrily, upset. Animals responded well to him, sensing his affinity. He knew they could still smell the river in him, even if mortals could not. It was not a fish smell, but something deeper. An atavistic link to other animals of all species that bonded them at the deepest level. 

‘Ride,’ he urged the beautiful Kambhoja mares, great powerful glossy giants all of them. ‘Ride, my beauties! And trust in me.’

They did trust in him. They would ride off the face of a cliff if he commanded them – because he never commanded, merely coaxed, urged, requested, asked lovingly. It was sufficient. When there is a bond of love, even selfish mortal men lay down their lives for one another. Animals? They are born loyal. Dying for one another is part of life for them. 

The cheers and roars of approval from the large gathering of watching kings had continued all this while, celebrating what they believed was the extinction of the impudent Puru abductor and the saving of their honour. It died down now as they saw his chariot pick up speed, resuming its charge directly at the chariot of Shalva. They watched with surprise and renewed interest. He saw many hands raised to point and many voices raised in consternation as they saw the brindled fur coat of arrows he had sprouted. 

‘Today you face Bhishma in battle,’ he roared, loudly enough to be heard by even the farthest pursuer, still half a mile distant and approaching steadily. ‘Those of you that survive, go home and tell them this tale!’

He saw many of them look at one another in panic, some taking up weapons, others reaching for their reins then dropping them as they realized that flight was useless: they were gathered too closely together to escape easily. Easier to stand and fight. Shalva too was raising a weapon, his longbow again. No doubt he intended to demonstrate some new ingenious kind of arrow. 

Bhishma uttered the mantras he had learned when still a boy, the ones he had been taught in the heart of the deepest ocean, where the sun had not shone for arbada years and where only one deva ruled supreme. Varuna. It had been Varuna-Tau himself who had taught Bhishma the mantra, back when he was still Youngun or Gangeya to all his family, friends, and gurus. Varuna had taught him the arts of fighting war in watery environments, arts which Bhishma later realized he might never have occasion to put into practise during his life as a mortal on dry earth. But some of what Varuna taught him was applicable on land or sea or sky, like this mantra, and he used it now. 

In response to the mantra a bow appeared instantly in his hands. The moment it appeared a thunderclap sounded in the clear sky, deafeningly loud. The bow itself was immense, the size of a lance from tip to tip, and the only way it could be held was by standing it on the floor of the chariot. Even so, it towered above him. The texture of the bow itself was not wood but water, for it was made of water held in solid form; not ice, but simply water held rigid by the power of the mantra. The arrow that appeared, accompanied by a flash of lightning was white as a vajra. It was made of densely packed ocean salt, as hard as lohitwood and as heavy. Hard enough to penetrate armour and bone and punch through flesh with the same impact as any wooden missile. Yet when it penetrated flesh, it would dissolve to its natural state, filling the wound with pungent ocean saline. 

He was within a hundred yards of Shalva’s chariot now and could see Shalva berating his sarathi. The charioteer was panicking, and in the confusion, their horses were rolling their eyes and whickering restlessly, unnerved by the thunderclaps and Bhishma’s chariot, which was bearing down on them at relentless speed. Bhishma loosed the first arrow from Varuna’s bow and watched it slash through the reins and rigging of the team. Freed of their harnessing, the horses milled about a moment, then realized they were free and began to race away. 

The chariot itself settled to the ground with a rude thump, spilling the sarathi out and onto the ground where he sprawled. 

Shalva shouted with anger and raised his bow again to fire back at Bhishma. He loosed an arrow which spread into a wall of fire that raged towards Bhishma’s horses. The team whinnied, unable to control their natural terror of fire, but Bhishma’s next arrow turned to water, dousing the wall of fire before it could come close enough to harm his horses. 

What followed then was a humiliation and a rout. 

Bhishma snapped Shalva’s bow with his next shot. Then shattered his chariot wheels. 

Turning around Shalva’s chariot, he rode in a circle, firing inwards at the suitor, demolishing his chariot piece by piece. Each time Shalva attempted to raise a weapon – an axe, a sword, a spear, a javelin, another bow – Bhishma destroyed it with a single shot. 

Soon, Shalva lay on the ground, the ruins of his chariot around him. He beat his chest and slapped his arms in anger, challenging Bhishma to do his worst. 

Bhishma ripped his clothes off, rendering him naked for all to see. 

Then he sliced off his moustaches and hair, turning him bald-faced and bare-headed. 

Then, unleashing an arrow that turned in mid-flight into a storm of tiny birds, he pinned Shalva down on the ground, arms and legs spread akimbo, naked and bald, and helpless. 

The suitor of Amba cried out with shame and humiliation and begged Bhishma to kill him. 

Instead, Bhishma turned on the watching kings instead. They had stayed to watch Shalva’s humiliation, unable to look away from the denigration of one of their own rivals. The truth was, while they had cheered Shalva on earlier, he had been the prime contender at the swayamvara and most likely to have his pick of the princesses. That earned him a great deal of animosity. So long as he was victorious, they cheered him. Now, they jeered instead. And applauded Bhishma’s skill at arms and extraordinary ability. 

But their jeers did not last long. 

When Bhishma turned his bow on them, they quailed with fear. At once, those that were expecting this, loosed their own volley of arrows. Another storm of missiles shot towards Bhishma. But this time, he had time enough to counter it. He shot a single arrow that exploded with a blinding blue flash in mid air. So powerful was the explosion, the hail of arrows was shattered into fragments which were in turn driven back at the kings who had loosed the arrows. Thrice each king was pierced by his own arrows, and cried out in agony as he fell to the ground or to the floor of his chariot, clutching his wounds. 

Those who remained unharmed applauded Bhishma’s skill nervously, hoping they would be spared his wrath. They were. Bhishma did not harm those who did not attempt to harm him. 

Then Bhishma turned the heads of his horse team and rode away, heading towards Hastinapura. 

This time, he was not followed. 

6

After travelling for the rest of that day, they stopped to make camp for the night. The princesses had been silent after the battle with their suitors, although they held one another close and averted their eyes from Bhishma’s wounds. Bhishma’s terrible wounds, bhishma wounds. 

Once they had a fire going and had eaten the game Bhishma hunted down for them, and the horses had been watered, fed and groomed, he asked Amba’s help in removing the arrows from his body. She agreed readily. It was a long and painful process, the worse for him of course, but no less for her, because she could feel the pulling and tearing of each barbed head as she teased and worked it free of his flesh. His wounds began to bleed again and soon the grass beneath his body was soaked with his blood. She began to weep then unable to help herself. He turned his head to look at her but did not say anything at that time. After a brief respite, she regained control of her emotions and resumed her work. It was late, the night was quiet, the moon was high, and her sisters were asleep when she finished. The pile of arrows laying on the ground was half a yard high. It was impossible to imagine that they had all been embedded in his flesh only hours earlier. 

And yet, even as she washed the last of his wounds clean under his direction, she saw that the first ones, the ones from which she had first removed the arrows, were already closed and starting to heal. It was remarkable. She had never seen the likes of it before. Clearly, his ability to endure pain and injury and to recover successfully from them was beyond human measure. The fact that he could still sit, stand, move and talk was in itself a miracle.

He thanked her quietly and was about to turn over and sleep when she spoke. 

‘Great Puru,’ she said, still too self-conscious of his stature to call him by his name directly. She was a princess born and raised, she could not overlook protocol and etiquette, even under the circumstances. Besides, for all his actions, he was still very much a gentleman and a royal, as was she. ‘I had already chosen the king of Soubha as my husband to be. He had accepted me and made his desire known to my father. It also pleased my father to have him as his son in law. Once he excelled at the swayamvara, I would have declared him as my choice of husband. But now, I can never do so. This is your doing. You appear to be a man who knows dharma. Therefore decide what is the right course of action for me to follow under dharma.’