The Aryavarta Chronicles Kurukshetra: Book 3 (46 page)

You’re a better man than I, Hidimbya
, Govinda thought to himself as he watched Hidimbya’s life ebb out of him.
But who will die to avenge you?
Out loud he said nothing but closed the dead warrior’s eyes.

‘No!’ Bhim hissed. He let go of Hidimbya’s hand and sank his fingers into the red soil of Kuru’s Fields, his fingers digging into the blood-soaked mud as though he would tear the earth asunder, rip apart the fabric of Time and turn the tide of events to bring his son back. He sprang to his feet, head thrown back, red hands clenched and let out a roar of agony that seem to come from the very bowels of the earth to take audible form in his being. He continued to rant and howl, sometimes swearing vengeance, at other times heaping curses and, most of all, giving wordless voice to the unbearable pain inside him.

Govinda felt an overwhelming need for solitude. Standing up, he headed back towards their rig, oblivious to the fact that Partha was right next to him, calling out his name. In a daze, he climbed onto the vehicle and picked up the reins, but instead of readying his horses he simply stood there, eyes unseeing as he looked at the lightening horizon. Slowly, Govinda became aware of Partha’s voice, of words filling the desolation across the battlefield.

‘See what your so-called compassion has done!’ Partha was shouting. ‘See what you’ve done to us, Govinda. Two sons lost in the blink of an eye, in a single night. The future of the Kurus gone, forever. My son! Bhim’s son! Dead. For what?’

For what?
Govinda stirred, taking in his surroundings. Over two divisions of Syoddhan’s men lay dead. Fighting had stopped. The enemy commanders had retreated. Vasusena was nowhere to be seen.

Govinda laughed.

Throwing down the reins, he laughed out loud and jumped up, shouting with joy, ‘Yes! Yes! We can win this. We can win this now!’ Partha, Dharma, even Yuyudhana stared horrified as Govinda whirled over the field, basking in the rays of the setting moon. ‘Yes! Hah, yes! Hara be praised!’ He appeared to hum a tune, some song as he danced around the corpses that littered the field.

‘He’s gone mad!’ Dhrstyadymn exclaimed.

Shikandin’s cool grey-green eyes gleamed as he said, ‘He
is
mad, brother. Mad enough to love life to death!’

Finally, panting and laughing intermittently, Govinda clambered back onto the rig and took up the reins once again.

‘Govinda…’ Partha began.

‘Ah, Partha! I haven’t been this happy since we began this war. I’ll sleep well tonight or for what’s left of it…’ Without further explanation he drove away, leaving the others to see to Hidimbya’s cremation.

Back at the camp, contrary to his assertions, Govinda did not sleep. He stood staring into the distance, at Hidimbya’s blazing pyre. Next to it, a few last embers glowed from within the pile of ash that had once been a man called Abhimanyu.

26

THE SUN ROSE OVER A FIELD THAT HELD MORE DEATH AND DEBRIS
than it did life. Where it had once seemed that Kuru’s Fields was too large a space for living men, it now felt too small to hold the endless blanket of corpses that was spread around as far as the eye could see. Combat had stopped just a while ago and would recommence soon. Men and medics had come onto the battlefield to clear it of the fallen – an impossible task, for the dead were too many and the living too few. Nevertheless, the weary medics from both camps went about their tasks as best they could, tending first to those who might live and then to those bound to die, so as to ease their suffering. For those who were already gone, only scavengers had time. The carrion birds had got bolder, no longer deterred by the hyenas and jackals that had emerged from the woods to partake of the waiting feast. There was plenty on offer, and none who could still bear to eat needed leave hungry.

Back at the camps, tallies were being kept of the dead and the missing. A number of Dharma’s lieutenants and commanders – Dhrupad among them – were as yet unaccounted for. Chief Virat had been found dead, his tortured end evidenced by the astra-weapon that was still wedged in his flesh when Bhim found him. His son, Sankha, Bhim had found alive, but barely so, and the prince had died on the way back to camp.

Shikandin and Govinda stood on the edge of the battlefield leaning against an overturned supply-cart. Shikandin was wiping his face and hands with a wet cloth. He had just been pulled off the search for his father; he was tired and his injuries from Bhisma’s weapon burned and stung as they healed. He insisted, to whoever enquired, that he was all right but for a limp in his leg that would heal soon – an optimistic view that Dhaumya, in his opinion as a medic, did not share.

‘Maybe,’ Govinda said, ‘it’s time to face reality… We’ve been fighting fourteen days and a night. From seven divisions, we are down to less than two. Most of the elephants and cavalry horses are gone and we have less than fifty chariot-rigs remaining. For all the planning and strategizing, it has come down to hand-to-hand combat, suicide ploys and bloody, heartless masssacre. We’d be dead right now if it hadn’t been for Hidimbya. How long do you think we can go on? How long do you think we can hold out against Dron and Vasusena?’

‘You’d think we’d have called it off already…’ Shikandin grunted.

‘Hah!’

‘I’m telling you, Govinda. Will you call it off?’

Govinda raised a sardonic eyebrow. Few other than Shikandin would have been so incisive with him and got away it. But he ignored the comment, and went on. ‘Dron is giving us a hard time. Bhisma was a benevolent old man compared to this terror, not to mention his astra-weapons were like toys compared to what the Acharya posseses! We can’t let him go on this way…’ He looked up as Dhrstyadymn came running towards where they stood.

‘We found him…’ Dhrstyadymn shouted, as soon as they were within earshot. ‘Father… Dhaumya says it may be too late already…’

The three men ran to the medic’s tent. Panchali was already there.

‘Forgive me, Shikandin,’ Dhaumya said, as Shikandin made to enter. ‘He doesn’t want to see you.’

Shikandin was not at all disappointed. ‘Go on,’ he told Dhrstyadymn. ‘Go. You need to see him. Our laws say he must declare you King. Go.’

‘But…?’

‘Go.’

Shikandin moved away, Govinda at his side. Yudhamanyu, Kshatradharman and Uttamaujas came running up, but Shikandin stopped them from going into the tent.

‘But…but what about Grandfather?’ Yudhamanyu asked.

‘He is your grandfather, yes, Yudhamanyu. But I am not his son, and your brothers are not his grandchildren.’

‘But…’ Uttamaujas protested.

‘Let it be,’ Yudhamanyu said, to everyone’s surprise. ‘If you aren’t a prince of Panchala, then there is no need for me to be one. We are our father’s children; it is more than enough.’

Shikandin felt a lump in his throat. He glanced at Govinda and saw his friend visibly moved by Yudhamanyu’s declaration. ‘I…’ Shikandin began, but before he could say more, Panchali, Dhrstyadymn and Dhaumya came out of the tent, forlorn. Shikandin stepped forward, pulling Uttamaujas along by the arm. With genuine affection in his eyes, he knelt on one knee before his brother and bowed his head. Yudhamanyu and Kshatradharman quickly followed. It took a short while for it to sink in, but soon Panchali and everyone else around them were bowing in deference to the new King of Panchala.

Dhrstyadymn, however, looked at no one but Shikandin and saw nothing but genuine pride in his brother’s eyes.
Someday
, he promised himself,
I’ll do right by my brother and his sons. But, for now…
His voice heavy and commanding, he said, ‘Dron. I want Dron’s head. Help me get him, brother.’

Shikandin stood up. ‘As you command, my king.’

Govinda added, ‘We’ll get Dron. We have to, if any of us wants to stay alive.’

Dhrstyadymn turned to Govinda. ‘The question is how…’ His eyes were red, and his voice shook as he said, ‘For two weeks I’ve given everything I’ve got to get my hands on the Acharya but it has been impossible. And now? He is too well guarded, even better than Syoddhan had guarded Bhisma. Whatever forces they have left, they will now surely use to defend him because they know we will come after Dron, and…’

‘Are these really tears of mourning for the man you called “Father”, Dhrstyadymn?’ Govinda gently interrupted. ‘Or are they tears of fear for the man you’ve loved as a son would his father? No, don’t bother to answer. But now that you know this fear, you know what it is you need to defeat Dron.’

‘I…I don’t understand, Govinda.’

Shikandin added, ‘For what it’s worth, neither do I.’

Govinda smiled. ‘If and when the King of Panchala stops acting like a ridiculously noble warrior and begins to think as a son, he will understand…’

Dhrstyadymn fell silent, and turned to Panchali. His sister, apparently, found no mystery in Govinda’s words. Her eyes already held the answer. He understood.

‘Well, Commander?’ Govinda prompted.

With a deep breath, Dhrstyadymn began issuing instructions.

27

WARS, THEY SAID OF OLD, WERE HONOURABLE WHEN FOUGHT
righteously, and demonical when fought for the thrill of combat. Asvattama Bharadvaja thought of his actions as being in the former category, but he could not deny that the brutality involved in war and the aggression it awakened in him gave him great pleasure. The battlefield was his element, his home. Here, he could do no wrong. Here, he was not the disappointing son, but the consummate, undefeated warrior who made his teacher, his father, proud.

Asvattama laughed at the notion. It made the soldiers he faced all the more afraid for it. Six men, all hardy warriors, surrounded him and more men on horses and chariots rallied behind them. Behind those men, he knew, Shikandin, Yuyudhana and a few others held the line, preventing any of Syoddhan’s men from coming to his aid. They did not press in on him, preferring to leave that task to their subordinates. It was, Asvattama noted, a mistake. Not one man who met his eye doubted that he, a lone, blood-soaked man on foot, holding nothing but a sword in each arm, was the more lethal of the two factions.

With a yell, the six soldiers ringing him closed in, at once. It took just a few instants for Asvattama to move, hacking and stabbing, till they all lay contorted and torn on the dirt of the battlefield. Asvattama was not yet done. With a wild yell, he threw himself at the next enemy line, swinging up on to a horse to unseat the mounted solider with a kick, even as he drove his sword through the neighbouring man. Then he jumped off the horse, bodily bringing down the three soldiers who had rushed at him on foot.

An amorphous cry to ‘kill the demon’ went up within the enemy ranks and they came at him from all directions. It was what he was waiting for. He stood his ground, keenly aware of the enemy’s blood as it splashed on his face, soaked his clothes, seeped onto his tongue through his clenched teeth. The salty, metallic taste was an elixir and he could feel himself wanting more, like some vengeful god demanding human sacrifice to sate his hunger. He stopped only when there were no more to be killed and stood reeling in ecstasy, panting hard.

‘Asvattama!’ the voice was dim at first, and then sounded louder, more urgent. ‘Asvattama! Asvattama!’

He turned to see Kripa standing at the periphery of the carnage, an expression of disgusted awe on his face. Asvattama walked over to him, stabbing a thrashing soldier on the way, without breaking his stride. ‘What is it, Uncle?’

It took a moment for Kripa to gather his thoughts, but even that did not help his coherence. ‘I…we…we’ve been looking for you everywhere… Dhrstyadymn…’

Asvattama surveyed his surroundings. Shikandin and the others were nowhere to be seen. Instead of attacking him, they had all withdrawn. Clearly their task had been to detain, not destroy. Suspicion grew in Asvattama, but it was tempered at once by the truth of what he knew.

He said, amused. ‘They tried to lure my father into a trap, did they? I wish I could have seen that ploy play out. What did Father do? Laugh in their face when they told him I was under attack?’

Kripa did not fully understand. ‘They told him you were dead.’

‘Really? Even better. I’m sure my father must have thanked them for it. Who performed the honour? Govinda? Or was it Partha, the beloved son my father never had?’

‘It was Bhim. He said he had killed Asvattama. Your father did not believe him, so he asked Dharma.’

‘Ah, Dharma Yudhisthir the Righteous. Go on, Uncle. This is a most interesting story and we have all day. No man dares come within feet of me while I hold my sword. Well,’ he chuckled, ‘not even otherwise.’

‘You don’t understand, Asvattama,’ Kripa was stern. ‘I don’t know what you think of your father, or what you believe he thinks of you, but I can tell you this: You are all he has ever lived for. You are his dream, his hope, his greatest creation – not just in the fact that he sired you but also in that he taught you and trained you. Partha? Partha is his student and dear to him, no doubt. But you are his son. He never forgot that, though I know he did not show it – not the way you expected him to. If you still don’t believe me…’

Asvattama frowned, a sense of unease stirring in the pit of his stomach. ‘What happened, Uncle?’

Kripa drew a deep breath, forcing evenness into his voice. ‘Your father would never disbelieve Dharma, you know that. When Dharma was deliberately ambiguous, saying things about death being everywhere and who could say whether a man or an elephant named Asvattama was dead, your father was too distraught to think, to wonder why Dharma said what he did. Before I could stop him, he rode right into their hands. I tried to help him, my son, but…’

‘Who?’ Asvattama’s voice had lost all levity. It was low and cold.

‘Dhrstyadymn. He attacked Dron and…’

‘Where is my father?’

Kripa pointed, unable to say the words out loud.

Asvattama ran over to his rig, where one of the two horses and his charioteer lay dead. He used his sword to cut the other steed free of its reins and, mounting the horse, set off in the direction Kripa had indicated. Kripa followed close behind.