The Guardians of the Halahala (2 page)

Many Thousand Years Later...

Hriiz

T
he four horsemen of the Frontier Guard stood at the top of a high ridge, watching the dull orange sun edge into the purple haze that obscured the far horizon. Down below them was the Marusthali, flat and parched, a spidery network of cracks on its surface running infinitely westward. Behind them rose the rocky folds of the Arbuda Range, dividing the wasted desert from the fertile vastness of Sindhuvarta, which lay to the east.

And all around was the bleak stillness of the mountains.

The murky haze had smothered nearly half the sun when a bearded vulture swept lazily into the horsemen's field of vision. The large bird circled a couple of times, before angling away sharply toward a far outcrop. As it disappeared behind the rocks, a chill wind suddenly sprang up from the Marusthali, plucking at the men's clothes and ruffling their hair, which was dry and matted with dust.

One of them, a grizzled veteran, wearing a bronze medallion fashioned in the form of a sun-crest, pulled his cloak tighter around himself and cursed under his breath. The other horsemen exchanged sly smiles.

“Cold's already getting to you, captain?” the biggest man in the group derided, his handsome young face twisting in a mocking grin.

“Humph!” the older man grunted, continuing to gaze over the darkening desert.

“Why don't you retire and give the sun of Avanti a chance to warm your old bones, captain?” the handsome lieutenant persisted with his needling. “Leave this business of hunting the Hunas and Sakas to younger blood.”

The captain turned a cold eye on the cocky youngster. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and caustic.

“Count yourself lucky to have the luxury of hunting the Hunas and the Sakas, lieutenant. Because when I was your age,
they
were the hunters – and
we
the hunted. And these bones that you make fun of...” He paused and raised his chin toward the western horizon. “They have grown old pushing the Huna and Saka hordes back into the Great Desert. Don't you forget that!”

A stiff silence followed, broken by the youngest in the group – a reedy lad not a day older than twenty.

“It must have been something... driving the invaders out of Sindhuvarta.” He looked wistfully at the last sliver of the dying sun. “I sometimes wish I was born a decade earlier. Then, perhaps...”

As the boy's voice trailed off, the captain sized him up, shaking his head. “You kids can't cease talking about fighting the Hunas and Sakas, can you? Your heads are just full of stories you heard as little brats. But you have no idea what it was really like.” His uneasy eyes returned to scan the empty desert. “I fear that you might wish them upon yourselves with your eagerness for combat.”

“You speak as if the Hunas and Sakas are more demon than human,” the young lieutenant butted in, still smirking. “Perhaps the fear comes with age.”

“And with ignorance comes bravado,” the captain snorted in reply. “None of you fellows have ever met a Huna or Saka in battle, so what would you know.”

“Let me assure you that the three of us are perfectly capable of dealing with any Hunas or Sakas we find in these hills, captain.” The young lieutenant's voice turned combative as he squared his shoulders and gripped the pommel of his sword purposefully. With a slight jeer, he added, “That should give you all the freedom to deal with the cold.”

“Oh, I'm sure you must be awesome with that sword,” the captain retorted, his voice rising as he picked up the challenge. “After all, you have mastered your craft by hacking at those practice dummies in training school for years.”

The mounting tension hung around them like a sullen mist. But before things could spiral out of control, the fourth horseman, a young man with calm eyes, quickly moved in to defuse the situation.

“It's not like we had a choice, captain,” he chuckled disarmingly. “You old men put the fear of Avanti into the invaders, and brought peace to Sindhuvarta. So now we have to be content with plunging our swords into practice dummies, patrolling these dead mountains and sparring with one another verbally. Yet, we mustn't be judged without being given a fair chance to prove our worth, should we?”

The veteran considered the point before inclining his head. “I guess you're right,” he sighed deeply. “It is in the nature of the bloodied sword to doubt the strength of untested metal.”

“As it is in the nature of the new blade to discount the sharpness of old iron,” the younger man smiled, tactfully acknowledging the captain's climbdown. After the briefest of pauses, he added, “All the same, I'm glad the glory of Avanti has prevailed.”

“The glory of Avanti shall always prevail,” the lieutenant returned to the conversation, but now his tone was sober and placatory, too. “May our kingdom prosper under King Vikramaditya!”

The other horsemen nodded and turned to the desert. Now that peace was brokered, they sat in the dwindling light for a while. The captain spoke again to break the hush.

“Our watch is over. It's time to return to the outpost.”

Turning his horse around, he made his way back toward a jagged cleft in the mountains. The others filed after him quietly.

Fifteen minutes later, the patrol rode into a small basin surrounded by cliffs. Night had fallen, but the horsemen picked their way with practiced ease, the noses of their horses pointed toward three flickering points of light that gradually grew to reveal small torches.

The torchlight also threw the contours of three small wooden buildings into focus.

As the quartet approached the buildings, the captain, who was leading the way, observed the outpost's cook and an off- duty guard seated at a verandah, hunched over a
chaturanga
board spread out between them. Both men sat still, immersed in thought as they devised their game strategies.

The captain swore silently at the cook. Silly oaf, still at his bloody game when he should be in the kitchen getting dinner ready!

Deciding that the cook needed a ticking off, the captain dismounted, tethered his horse to a nearby rail and marched briskly toward the verandah. He was still ten meters from the house, when he sensed something was wrong.

The two men had not moved a muscle since he'd spotted them – surely they must have heard the horses trotting in. And even if they had missed that, the noise of his leather sandals crunching on gravel was loud enough to wake the dead. One of them ought to have noticed
that.
But both men just sat staring at the
chaturanga
board as the torch threw shadows around them.

It suddenly dawned upon the captain that the outpost was strangely silent. Yes, the stationed unit was small, and some soldiers were probably still out on patrol... Yet, there ought to have been
some
degree of activity, but there wasn't any.

Something else was odd, too. No smell of burning firewood anywhere. Not from the kitchen, not from the fires that should have been lit to fight the chill.

Working on instinct, the captain drew his sword, dropped to a crouch and pussyfooted forward, his eyes darting from the verandah to the shadows lurking behind the building. Somewhere behind him, the lieutenant and the boy were laughing at some joke, but the captain's mind barely registered this. He was preoccupied with the two men on the verandah.

As he drew closer, the captain's eyes grew wide in horror as he noticed the hilt of a large knife protruding from the cook's back, plumb in between the shoulder blades. Circling cautiously, the captain came in full view of the guard seated opposite the cook – and the first thing he saw was the guard's tunic, soaked in blood from a neat slash that had opened the guard's throat. The two men were propped up by spears that dug into their sides, preventing the bodies from keeling over under their weight.

In a flash the captain knew that the whole thing was a trap.

“Everything okay, captain?” hollered the horseman who had prevented a flare-up on the ridge.

Choking back waves of nausea and panic, the captain turned and stumbled away from the building, flailing frantically at his men, who were now approaching him tentatively.

“No...” he croaked. “No... we're trapped. They are back.”

The three soldiers stared at the captain. “Who are back?” the lieutenant asked sharply, drawing his sword. The other two did likewise, peering at the verandah in confusion.

“They...
the Hunas and the Sakas,” the captain's voice rose a pitch and quavered.

“What?”

The captain turned, raised his sword with both hands and scanned the darkness. Instantly, the three others, too, turned to face the dark, their swords on the ready. Slowly, facing outward, they stepped back toward one another to form a tight protective circle, their eyes peeled for danger.

Suddenly, a thin whistling noise filled the air. Before the soldiers could even make sense of it, a heavy arrow smacked into the thin boy's head, cracking his skull and burying itself an inch above his left temple. The boy was dead before he slumped to the ground.

The other three had just about realized what had happened when a second arrow skewered into the lieutenant's neck, ripping through muscle and tissue, its head emerging from the other side. The lieutenant coughed in surprise and blood gurgled from his lips as he fell on his face with a heavy thud.

The fourth horseman, the peacemaker, wasn't so lucky. The arrow that was shot at him was aimed at his neck, but owing to sudden movement on his part, it smashed into his left jaw, splitting open his cheek and breaking his jawbone. The young man howled in agony and dropped to his knees, before toppling sideways and convulsing in the mud.

The captain whirled around a couple of times, sword waving drunkenly as he waited for the inevitable fourth arrow to claim him. However, nothing came out of the dark. The seconds went by, and the captain felt the alarm rising inside him as the pounding of his blood filled his ears.

Then he heard another sound – the gentle clip-clop of hooves.

Slowly, from the far reaches of the shadows, a ring of horsemen emerged. As they drew near the torchlights, the captain noticed the shamanic
hriiz
branded on the horsemen's foreheads. He hadn't seen the
hriiz
in nearly ten years. The captain raised his sword, blinking rapidly to clear the cold sweat and fear from his eyes.

“Drop your sword, old man. Don't make us kill you.”

The horseman had spoken in fluent Avanti, but there was no mistaking the coarse desert tongue of the Hunas – or the intent behind the words. The captain lowered his arms, his sword dropping with a clatter. At his feet, the young guardsman began moaning again, clutching his face tenderly.

“You are wise, so you will live,” the Huna chieftain spoke again. “You will live so that you can let your king know that we are coming back. And tell him, this time we intend to take Sindhuvarta.
All of it
.”

Three Huna horsemen dismounted. As they approached him, the captain began backing away hurriedly. But two of them grabbed him by his arms, pinning him between them.

“You... you said you shall let me g-go,” the veteran bleated, wriggling in fear.

“I did, and you shall. But we can't let you come back to fight us again, can we?” The Huna chief's eyes gleamed wickedly. Turning to one of the captain's captors, he issued an order.
“Ah'khat waa.”

Right away, two Hunas began dragging the captain toward the verandah, while the third followed, pulling a machete out of his belt. The captain could instantly see the horror in store for him unfolding before his eyes – the Hunas chopping all his fingers off, and him never being able to wield a weapon ever again.

“No, please... no, no. I beg you, please... have mercy... No...”

The Huna chieftain watched the squirming and blathering captain being led away. He then hoisted a spear out of his saddle, dismounted, and walked up to the young soldier still writhing in the dirt. As the captain's screams began shredding the night, the chieftain plunged his spear expertly between the young man's ribs.

The soldier's body heaved once and went still.

Giant

T
he bullock cart trundled through the heavy drizzle, its big wooden wheels squeaking and grinding arduously on the paved limestone road that led up to the darkened palace.

It was the sound of the wheels that first alerted the two guards at the palace gates. They emerged from a makeshift shelter and peered into the rain, their eyes seeking to validate what their ears had already told them. Their vigil was rewarded when the cart slowly materialized out of the darkness and lumbered to a halt in front of them.

“Who's there?” one of the guards demanded, raising a burning torch. His long spear pointed at the figure of a man seated to the front of the cart, huddling from the rain under a thick shawl.

The figure shrugged the shawl off his head to reveal a round, chubby face that cascaded onto his chest in a series of double chins. The man had thick, rubbery lips that easily broke into a smile, and even in the dim torchlight, his big black eyes twinkled with mirth.

“Just a humble cartman making deliveries, sir... though if you ask these two oxen, they'll swear there are seven men on this cart.” The cartman grinned and threw the shawl off to show his broad girth – and a tremendous paunch that defined it. “See?”

“Very funny,” the guard snapped, though not without humor. Pointing to the back of the cart, he asked, “What have you there?”

“Soma,
sir.”

“Soma?”
The second guard raised his eyebrows suspiciously. “For whom?”

“For King Kulabheda, the new king of Heheya. A tribute from the
soma
traders from the north, along with their salutations.” With a wink, the cartman added in a sly undertone, “Not that the two of you can't have a little. It's really good stuff, I assure you. Nicely distilled. Your king would be none the wiser should two small flagons of it disappear.”

While one of the guard's eyes lit up at the suggestion, the other walked around the cart imperviously, studying the six large urns loaded on to its back. Made of earthenware, the urns were each five feet high, their wide mouths covered by lids.

“Why are you making the delivery so late at night?” the guard asked.

“The rains have left the road from the north in bad shape, sir,” the cartman explained. “I had to drive carefully so the
soma
didn't spill over, and that slowed me down. I also lost my way a bit in the dark outside Mahishmati. And, as I said, these blasted oxen... they really move as if they bear the burden of not one but
seven
men.”

“Hmmm... I need to check the urns before I let you through.”

“Go ahead, sir. Satisfy yourself.” With a merry chuckle, the cartman added, “Though I still recommend your flagon as the best way to satisfy yourself.”

The guard hoisted himself onto the cart. Raising his torch, he opened the lid of the first urn and peered in. The rich, fragrant, cardinal red wine, filled almost to the brim, glimmered in the torchlight.

“Don't let too much of the rain get into the urns, sir,” the cartman grinned cheekily. “I'm sure your king won't fancy his
soma
diluted.”

The guard hurriedly closed the lid, before conducting a perfunctory scrutiny of the other urns. Each was full of wine. Satisfied, he jumped off the cart. What he had failed to notice in the dark, however, were the thin, hollow, reeds that had been sticking an inch out of the surface of the wine – one reed in each urn.

He signalled the other guard to open the palace gates. “Go on,” he shooed the cartman. “The granaries and storehouses are to the left. The guards inside will guide you.”

Once the cart was inside the palace compound and the gates shut, the guard turned to his mate. “That was really good
soma
.” Then, as the drizzle intensified, he added a tad regretfully, “Perhaps we should have filled our flagons after all.”

Five minutes later, two porters were carefully unloading the heavy urns from the cart and lugging them into a storehouse to the rear of the compound. The cartman stood beside a soldier, watching the porters.

“You can go,” the soldier growled insolently at the cartman once the last urn had been unloaded.

“If you don't mind, I'd like to see that last urn stored away safely, sir,” the cartman spoke in an ingratiating manner. “My payment depends on it.”

The soldier grunted in mild annoyance, but waited until the porters emerged from the storehouse. The soldier dismissed them, turned to the cartman and jerked his head.

“Leave.”

“Er... shouldn't you lead me to your king so that I may offer my respects and inform him of this delivery?” the cartman hesitated, his eyes observing the porters as they disappeared from sight.

For a second, the soldier glowered at the fat little man in disbelief. “I'll have your tongue for your impudence, you dog,” he exploded at last, making a threatening gesture with his spear. “Get lost.”

“Yes sir.”

Chastised, the cartman quickly waddled to the front of the cart and began preparing to leave. However, he watched the soldier out of the corner of his eye, and the moment the soldier dropped guard and relaxed, he pulled out an iron wood quarterstaff from under the cart. With confounding dexterity and speed, he then smacked the soldier expertly on the left temple. The soldier sank to the ground, knocked cold.

Stepping over the prone soldier, the cartman entered the storehouse that was packed to the rafters with provisions in sacks and chests. The six urns stood lined up against a wall. Walking up to the urns, the cartman rapped his staff against each, three times in quick succession.

Off came the urns' lids, and from each emerged a man,
soma
dripping off his body. The men leaped out of the urns nimbly, freeing their swords from their scabbards before their feet touched the ground.

“Pthoo!” One of the men spat out a reed. “It felt like we would be spending the rest of the night inside those urns, breathing out of those reeds.”

The man's voice rang with authority. Clearly the leader of the group, he was around thirty, extremely large, broad-chested and powerfully built, with heavy muscular arms and shoulders. His swarthy, clean-shaven face was handsome in a brutal sort of way, and he seemed like someone accustomed to using his fists and sword to drive a point.

“Well, you had enough
soma
to keep you company till daybreak,” the cartman grinned. “So what are you complaining about?”

“My friend Dhanavantri, I'm complaining about how you kept telling those guards that the cart has seven men on it,” the big man wrung some wine out of his shoulder-length hair before tying it into a high, crude ponytail. “What if they had become suspicious?”

“The killing would have started at the palace gates then, what else? And don't tell me that would have been a problem for any of us.”

As the men smiled wolfishly at one another, Dhanavantri continued, “Anyway, what I told the guards was the truth. My experience tells me that the more truthful you are, the less people are inclined to believe you.”

The leader shook his head in mock horror. “And my experience tells me that you have to leave. If you and the cart are not back at the palace gates quickly, the guards could get suspicious and raise an alarm.”

Dhanavantri nodded. “I shall be waiting with the horses outside the city. I'll see you tomorrow morning.”

Once their fat friend had departed, the leader raised his heavy scimitar. Running a thumb on its keen edge, he looked at the men around him. “I repeat one last time... Avoid all unnecessary violence. Most of the guards, soldiers and palace staff are still loyal to King Harihara – they're just afraid of Kulabheda and his elite Royal Guards. You will kill only the Royal Guards. Take down as many of them as possible.” Seeing the men nod, he added, “Okay, let's go.”

The men slipped out of the storeroom, silent as shadows, and fanned out across the palace compound.

***

In one of the palace bedrooms, a strong, well-built man lurched drunkenly over a bed, looking down at a young woman who lay trembling on plush velvet cushions. The woman was in her early twenties, her lustrous eyes large with fear in her pallid face.

“You...” the man pointed accusingly at the woman, holding on to the bedpost with his other hand. “You... I could have forced myself on you. I can marry you by force, you know that. But instead, I am asking... I, Kulabheda, am
asking
you to marry me.”

The woman quailed as Kulabheda slurred and ranted on top of her. At last, mustering courage, she pleaded. “Please... please don't do this. My father will reward you handsomely if you will let...”

“Your father will.
reward
me?” Kulabheda interrupted, throwing his head back in uproarious laughter. “No, no... Princess Rukma, I'm afraid Harihara is in no position to reward
anyone.
For he is below us in the dungeons, with nothing left to give. I have taken everything he had. His kingdom, his treasury...
everything.
If anything,
I
am in a position to reward your father – with his and your own mother's life.”

“Please have mercy on them,” the princess whimpered.

“I will, I promise you.” Kulabheda sobered down just enough to quaff a goblet of
soma
that he held in his hand.

“All I want is your assent in marriage,” he continued, wiping his lips crudely with the back of his hand. “Agree, and your parents will come to no harm. You have my word. And imagine – by marrying me you can be queen of Heheya! Queen of the very kingdom you grew up in. How many princesses are blessed with such luck?”

“Why are you doing this to us?”

“Why? You ask
why?”
Kulabheda's face darkened and he flung aside the empty goblet in rage. “You spoke of your father rewarding me... I was your father's most loyal general; I served him and Heheya faithfully for years. But when the time comes for him to give you away in marriage, he chooses to favor some silly prince or the other over me! That's the reward I get for my loyalty.” Kulabheda paused to catch his breath and grunted. “Perhaps he thinks a soldier isn't worthy of a royal princess. So I've decided to seek your hand as king of Heheya.”

“I'm... I'm sure my father didn't mean ill,” Rukma tried to reason. “He would have given you anything else had you asked for it.”

“I wanted
you,
but he ignored me,” Kulabheda leaned over the princess, his bloodshot eyes drunk with lust. He licked his lips lasciviously, his face inches from the princess's. “So now I am left with no choice but to take what is mine.”

Suddenly, Kulabheda threw himself on the princess, pinning her down with his weight. As he plunged his head into the soft curve of her neck in crazed passion, Rukma wriggled in desperation and let out a shriek.

A moment later, the bedroom door was kicked open with a loud bang.

As the door swung clumsily on a broken hinge, a giant of a man wearing a high ponytail barged in, brandishing a heavy scimitar. His face, however, was hidden in shadow.

“Who are you?” Kulabheda demanded, swiveling around.

“Your nemesis,” the intruder answered. With a smirk in his voice, he added, “How interesting to know that the new king of Heheya cultivates an interest in wrestling with women.”

Kulabheda pushed himself off the bed, his eyes flashing with anger. “The new king of Heheya also feasts on the corpse of the person he has killed,” he said, reaching for his sword on the side table.

As he straightened, the giant stepped into the light. Fear swelled in Kulabheda's eyes on recognizing the man. “Oh, it's you!”

Just then, alerted by the crashing in of the door, three Royal Guards came rushing to the bedroom. Swords raised, they launched themselves at the intruder. But in a series of fluid, lightning-fast moves, the man parried the attack, severing a guard's arm and carving open the stomachs of the other two.

Seeing that the intruder was busy fighting the guards, Kulabheda raised his sword and lunged at the man's broad back, which was turned to him. But at the last moment, the giant spun around and wove out of the way of Kulabheda's sword. Thrown off balance, Kulabheda stumbled forward – straight into the tip of the other's scimitar aimed directly at his chest. The heavy sword pierced the flesh and buried itself firmly in Kulabheda's heart.

As the giant pulled his scimitar free, blood welled out of the wound and Kulabheda fell on the carpeted floor, lifeless.

The intruder straightened and looked at the cowering princess, her face white with shock and fear.

“Fear not, Princess Rukma. You are safe,” he reassured. “I come from the court of King Vikramaditya of Avanti. I am here under orders from King Vikramaditya to free King Harihara.”

The man bent to grab Kulabheda's head by the hair and lifted it off the floor. He raised his scimitar, and then looked at the princess, who was staring at him in wide-eyed horror.