The Guardians of the Halahala (13 page)

“That's fine, but why didn't you go and dry yourself before coming here?” Vetala Bhatta spoke kindly. “You're completely soaked and you might catch a chill.”

“I thought it was important to deliver the news first, raj-guru.”

Vikramaditya inclined his head in acceptance “What does the Mother Oracle say?” he asked.

“She says that the birds speak of a great wall of dust rising far away in the west.”

“A wall of dust...” Vararuchi looked from his brother to the Acharya. “The Mother Oracle must mean the dust that rises from the desert floor as a huge army rides eastward.”

As all five councilors exchanged ominous glances, Vikram-aditya nodded to Shanku. “We owe your grandmother a debt of gratitude. Thank you.”

The king was about to turn his attention back to the tax logs when the girl spoke again. “There is one more thing, samrat. The Mother Oracle spoke of a more immediate danger to Avanti.”

“What's that?” All four heads turned sharply her way.

“She has warned of a sightless evil that is heading northward to bring terror upon Ujjayini.”

As the men looked at one another in alarm, Dhanavantri spoke. “Northward from
where?”

“The Mother Oracle didn't say,” Shanku replied. “She only revealed that she read the signs in the rain clouds coming from the south.”

“Did she tell you anything else about this... sightless evil?” asked Vikramaditya.

Seeing that she had the full attention of all four men, Shanku nodded. “She said that the sightless evil has been unleashed to recover something – something that was gifted to the king by an ancient god.”

***

It was the most miserable day in the life of the miserable young soldier standing guard on the northern bank of the Payoshni. That, at least, was the soldier's own opinion, as he sheltered under the large banyan tree and cursed.

He cursed the rain hammering down from the gray sky overhead. He cursed the damp cold seeping into his stiff joints. He cursed the marauding mosquitoes hovering above his head and humming in his ears and ravaging his exposed arms, ankles, neck and face. And he cursed his decision to enlist with the army of Heheya.

But of all the things that the soldier cursed that morning, the one he cursed most was the ill-fated day he was ordered to report to the garrison of Payoshni for duty.

Slapping his right cheek in a vain attempt to kill a mosquito, the soldier peered southward through the curtain of rain. Not far ahead flowed the Payoshni, a lethargic swamp of a river, its surface green with water plants and slime – slime so thick that the heavy raindrops bounced off it, instead of penetrating it.

And across the broad river, on the other side of Heheya's border, arose a thick, dark wall of trees, stretching away to the south, all the way to the horizon and beyond.

Dandaka, the Forest of the Exiles.

A limitless expanse of dense, steaming jungle, Dandaka was the most inhospitable region in all of Sindhuvarta, home to the most ferocious of wild beasts, the vilest of pestilence. and the lost race of danavas, demonic forest spirits who, it was believed, ruled the jungle from the fabled fortress town of Janasthana.

Dandaka was also a penitentiary for the lowest scum of human society.

For it was to this forest that the kingdoms of Sindhuvarta invariably banished their worst criminal offenders – traitors, murders, rapists and pedophiles. Because it was said that while it was possible for convicts to cheat death at the gallows, there was no escaping the horrors of Dandaka. Or
the forest of no return,
as some called it.

In reality, this was an exaggeration. The past had seen two instances of exiled criminals fleeing Dandaka – by banding together in groups to increase their chances of getting out alive – and trying to sneak back into civilization. Some of these fugitives had been apprehended and sent back, while others had been killed for putting up resistance. Yet, the rumor ran that a small handful had successfully eluded capture and resettled across Sindhuvarta.

It was to prevent such escapes from becoming routine that the garrison of Payoshni was established at the head of the Payoshni Pass – the only point along the river's cliff-bound northern bank that offered a passage between the kingdom of Heheya and the Dandaka Forest. This had earned the garrison the nickname Gateway Garrison; though given the nature of the southbound traffic it encountered, it was also commonly referred to as the Arse of Sindhuvarta.

The soldier keeping watch under the banyan tree couldn't agree more with that description of the place. Swatting a fat mosquito that had alighted on the tender spot under his elbow, he cursed again and surveyed his surroundings.

Before him stretched the marshy riverbank, on which was drawn up an old boat that was used to ferry the exiles across the river. To his right and left, the land rose sharply to form the vertiginous, sheer-faced cliffs that ran along the northern bank for miles and miles – a formidable wall capable of deterring the stoutest of outcasts looking for a way out of Dandaka. Behind him was the narrow defile of the Payoshni Pass, a natural bottleneck.

On the other side of the pass the soldier could discern the buildings of the godforsaken garrison, hidden amid a forest which had once been a part of the Dandaka, ages before the Payoshni had carved the terrain, setting it free. It now extended north a couple of miles before yielding to the flat, arable lands of Heheya.

The guard returned his gaze to the river, lazily wondering when his replacement would arrive to relieve him. The thought of returning to the relative warmth and dryness of the garrison distracted the soldier to the extent that he missed observing the figures creeping along the edge of the forest, on the other side of the Payoshni. It was by sheer luck that at the last moment a movement caught his eye, as the last of the figures slipped into the river.

Suddenly on alert, the soldier watched the gray-green waters carefully.

While it was too far to be certain – and the rain was intense enough to impair visibility – he thought he saw what looked like a row of heads bobbing in the water amid the hyacinths. Knowing that the Payoshni was infested with crocodiles, he was on the verge of dismissing the whole thing when he noticed the line begin moving toward the northern bank.

A moment later, as the rain unexpectedly let up, he saw the unmistakable movement of arms splashing in the water, as the figures began swimming.

Slipping out from under the tree, the soldier ran headlong toward the garrison. A few soldiers were standing guard outside the buildings, and as soon as he was within calling distance, the soldier began hollering to get their attention.

“Sound the alarm, sound the alarm,” he shouted frantically. “Some exiles are trying to escape from the forest.”

Even though this wasn't a common occurrence at the garrison, within a couple of minutes, roughly fifty soldiers and a dozen cavalrymen had assembled and begun moving efficiently toward the river. As they crossed the Payoshni Pass and approached the river, the men drew their weapons and fanned out with drill-like precision.

On reaching the river crossing, however, the soldiers saw no sign of human activity – neither in the sluggish river, nor on either of its banks.

“Surrender immediately,” ordered one of the horsemen, a young commander. Scouring the area around, he added, “Resistance is useless. You are surrounded by the army of Heheya – there is nowhere to run. Show yourselves.”

Nothing happened.

The rain had now reduced to a steady drizzle. A few soldiers scouted the trees nearby, while some others, led by the commander, moved warily to the river's edge and inspected the water and the docked boat. The commander then studied the opposite bank for a while before shaking his head.

“There's nothing here. Where's the soldier who raised the alarm?”

The commander's horse suddenly whinnied and shifted skittishly, but no one paid it much attention. The sentry stepped forward.

“Are you sure you saw someone trying to cross the river?” asked the commander, twitching the reins to control his horse. “Or were you just hallucinating?”

“I saw some figures swimming in the river, sir. I'm quite certain.”

“Well, there's no one here, soldier,” the commander made a broad sweep with his arm. “The only way anyone could have got out of here is by heading toward the garrison. We know that didn't happen because we came that way.”

“Maybe they retreated back into the forest,” the soldier tried defending himself.

“Maybe...” chuckled another of the horsemen. “Or maybe you had too much firewater last night and the effects haven't fully worn off.”

The soldiers had just begun sniggering at the remark and lowering their weapons when there was a loud, turbulent splash in the river, followed by a most hideous roar.

The next moment, a large, horned ogre rose out of the Payoshni, shaking the water plants off its black, hairy body. As the soldiers stood rooted to the ground in terror, the beast lunged at the commander and grabbed him by the shoulders, plucking him off his horse.

Then, in one single movement, it opened its large gaping mouth, bristling with sharp jagged teeth, and bit the commander's head clean off his torso.

At the same instant, around thirty reptilian forms with horns on their heads, smaller in size to the ogre but more agile, leaped out of the muddy water with savage shrieks. Running, leaping and scampering on all fours, the smaller beasts attacked the stunned soldiers, slashing at them with long retractable talons and biting into their necks and shoulders with their teeth.

As the sense of self-preservation finally kicked in, some of Heheya's soldiers took flight, while the braver ones drew their weapons to defend themselves. Those who stayed to put up a fight managed inflicting some injuries on the smaller beasts, but they quailed when the monster that had claimed their commander stepped ashore.

Over twelve feet in height, the ogre had the legs, body and head of a goat, the head crowned with a pair of large horns that arced backwards. But its big, muscular arms and face were humanoid – at least partially. The monster had an abominably large mouth, which opened wide by unhinging at the jaw and cheeks. A pair of small nostrils pointed to a nonexistent nose, above which were two dead eyes, devoid of irises. The two eyeballs, white and smooth as marble, stared unseeingly in front.

Yet, blindness seemed to pose no problems to the ramp-aging beast.

Because Andhaka, the rakshasa sent to Sindhuvarta by the asura lord Hiranyaksha, relied on a keen sense of smell, touch and hearing to inflict mayhem.

Spitting the crushed pulp of the commander's head out of his mouth, Andhaka flung the body over his shoulder into the Payoshni. He then caught a couple of soldiers in his hands and squeezed hard, the soldiers' bones cracking and imploding under pressure. One of the cavalrymen immediately charged at the ogre, only to have his head twisted and ripped out of his shoulders. And an archer, who shot two futile arrows at the rakshasa, was punished by being hurled against the side of a cliff, his head splitting open on impact.

The more courageous soldiers of the garrison battled hard, but they quickly began wilting under the brutal assault led by Andhaka. And the last of the fight went out of them when they saw a fresh horde of beasts issue out of the Dandaka Forest and throw themselves eagerly into the river.

The surviving soldiers scattered, running toward the garrison's fortifications for cover, screaming at the top of their lungs for assistance. But Andhaka and his army of pishachas gave pursuit, leaving a trail of carnage that extended from the river crossing all the way inside the garrison of Payoshni.

***

The courtyard was filled with five hundred devas mounted on horseback, standing in five orderly columns. The afternoon sun glinted off their bronze armors and shields, while a light breeze ruffled the hackles on their helmets and flapped at the banner of Devaloka in the hands of one of them. The only sounds were the impatient clink of horse hooves on stone and an occasional murmur from the palace councilors who lined the galleries overlooking the courtyard.

At the head of the five columns were two devas astride their black mounts, both horses significantly larger in size than the beasts behind them. Unlike the rest of the devas in the courtyard, the two commanders were bareheaded – and judging from their straight golden hair, sharp noses and droopy eyes, it was plain that the two were twins.

The somber silence was broken by the hollow sound of a gong struck somewhere inside the palace. As the heavy peal rolled and crashed against the cliffs surrounding the palace, an official appeared at an empty balcony high above the courtyard.

“Indra, king of Devaloka, is here to grant an audience to the Brotherhood of the Ashvins,” he announced, before withdrawing.

A moment later, the towering figure of Indra stepped on to the balcony. He was followed by a lissome apsara of great beauty, tall and pleasantly endowed, her fair face in direct contrast to her vivacious black eyes and rich brown hair that fell seductively on her bare shoulders in great abundance.

As the apsara came and stood by his side, Indra leaned his huge hands on the stone parapet, and gazed down into the courtyard. Immediately, the two devas at the head of the cavalry columns dismounted and bowed their heads.

“The Brotherhood of the Ashvins awaits your permission to ride to Sindhuvarta, mighty king,” said one of the twins, raising his head.

“You have my permission, commanders,” Indra's voice boomed across the courtyard. “Ride to Ujjayini and bring me Veeshada's dagger.” He paused, then added with a scowl, “And remember... if there is even a shred of opposition, show no mercy. The human king doesn't deserve any.”

Bowing once again, the twins mounted their horses. Then, donning their helmets, they turned around and rode out of the large gate at the far end of the courtyard. The rest of the cavalry followed, gathering speed as they rode away from the palace.