Jaipal dreamed. In his dream, he found himself amidst water up to his waist and a thicket of reeds up to his shoulders. The sky above was hazy, indistinct, as if the sun shone through a colossal dome of mud smeared glass. There were men to his left, men to his right, but always as he turned to look at them did they look away so that at no time could he see their faces. They wore armor, as he realized, so did he, with an unstrung bow clutched in his hands. Where was his bowstring? Try as he might, he could not find it. Crows and buzzards wheeled in the sky ahead, and through the curtains of fog which hung before him, he heard the sound. The low rumble of drums and the clash of symbols and the trumpeting of elephants and he found that the water about his waist began to vibrate as well as the muck about his feet. And then he saw them, titanic shapes appearing through the fog, with scarred gray faces and baleful eyes and cruelly curved tusks affixed with blades and chains, and they came at him through the water, crushing the weeping waves of reed before him and still he could not find his bowstring and his quiver was anyway empty and his sword would not free itself from it’s scabbard and a great shadow loomed over him so that day became night and in fright he fell backwards away from it, the water closing over his head and…

Jaipal awoke, heart pounding, face beaded with sweat. His bow lay at his side, as did his bowstring, and sword was still in its scabbard and his dagger tucked into his waist. Sohanpal was not there. But the drums were. And the cymbols. And… Jaipal sat up, craning his head to hear. Was that an elephant? “Get up! Everyone! Now!” A figure had appeared in the doorway, blotting out what Jaipal could now see through the pounding in his head and the burning in his eyes was the morning light. It was Srichandra, and he was armed. “Come the fuck on srenis! Let’s go! The Prince is here!” And with that, he left, leaving a huddle of hungover, soldiers to moan and rub at bloodshot eyes. “Fuck!” Jaipal exclaimed, and charged from the hut.

Outside all was chaos. Men of all the branches of the army were running about, hastily donning their armor as they attempted to stuff rice cakes into their mouths, headless of the grains which stuck to their mustaches and beards. In the field kitchens, the soldiery snatched with bare hands rice cakes and half cooked dough-sticks as fast as the dasa and shudra cooks could make them and the bakers who followed the army scrambled to catch the coins thrown hastily to them where they stood manning with stained arms their portable ovens. Jaipal managed to snag one of the last rice-cakes without meat before taking off after his nayaka, looking all around him for Sohanpal as he ran.

The srenibala assembled to one side of the road leading through the village. The other arms of the army assembled opposite there all as well, all distinction of caste and origin forgotten as the men milled together to catch a glimpse of the Prince. Jaipal still had not found his little brother, and felt close to a panic, when he spied the broad shoulders and unevenly shorn locks of Vakpati rising up above the sea of helms and turbans, like the man was some rough-hewn lingam paraded upon a chariot, and he forced his way to the front besides him. “Vakpati! Have you seen Sohanpal?” Jaipal asked without waiting to see if Vakpati noticed. “Huh? Sohanpal? No. I thought he was with you?” The big man shook his head. Jaipal opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off. The army of the Prince had already arrived.

Drumers beat ox-hide drums and symbols clashed and ranks of narsingas were blown as the chariots passed between the lines, their wheels and the hooves of the horses which drew them crunching on the dry earth. The horses were caparisoned with silk and flower garlands and adorned with jeweled bits and the scale of their rider’s haubarks and the folds of their turbans were similarly adorned, the rubies and sapphires of their mail gleaming like the holy sheddings of naga. The maulabala, the army of the hereditary warriors, true kshatriyas all, the arms of their bows plated with gold and the hilts of their swords worked in ivory. There was the cavalry as well, with silken prayer flags flying from the tips of their lances, the many-armed mudras emblazoned upon their brass embossed shields catching the glare of the morning light, and the prince, Gomitra II himself was at their head, attended to by his sacivas, his companions, men of noble birth bearing maces and parasols and fly-whisks and fans and all the accouterments of royalty. The soldiers knelt as the Prince passed them by, their heads lowered to the ground. From the corner of his eye Jaipal saw one of the men next to Prince Gomitra II, and he recognized him! It was Govindraj, King Gomitra’s own senapati, a man arguably more important to the persecution of this war than the prince, a man whose reputation for honor, valor, and martial prowess, was almost equal to that of the great World Turning Monarch Ashoka himself! Jaipal had fought in the army under his command at the start of the Salvi’s rebellion, and by the grace of his leadership, they had won every battle!

The Prince’s entourage passed and the men rose just in time for the elephants to make their appearance! The great beast seemed to regard the men with a human-like intelligence from beneath the scaled barding which draped their massive heads and bodies. The mahouts rode perched precariously on their necks, and behind them, armored howdahs in which archers rocked slowly too and fro in time with the elephants august stride. Bronze blades protruded from their tusks, and from their mountainous sides hung gilded shrivastras and eight-spoked dharmachakras and silver wreaths of victory which clanked as the lords of all the animals marched.

Behind the elephants, ranks of curious looking soldiers marched, and Vakpati spat at the sight of them. “Mlecchas!” He hissed. Jaipal placed a hand on the huge man’s shoulder and shook his head. “They are members of the sangha just as we, and their King is a sage they say. Besides, you utter more prayers to their gods than our own.” Vakpati could only grunt at that. The soldiers who now marched between the sworn swords of Gomitra were light of complexion, with curling, well oiled beards, clad in armor of painted paper and wielding pikes of truly prodigious length, while the officers marching to the side of each column were armored in thick bronze greaves and plumed helmets and cuirasses molded like the powerful torsos of wrestlers. Yavanas, from beyond the five sacred rivers of the west. Behind them came even more foreigners, their beards long and pleated and bound in leather thongs, clad in swirling kaftans of fanciful weave with queerly curved bows in holsters at their hips and lead by white robed priests bearing bronze torches. Parsikas, a people subject to the yavanas who worshipped, it was said, those very same daemonic asuras who warred with the gods in the Vedas! “Why in all the hells are they here?” Growled Vakpati. “Sangha or not, it is an affront to all arya the way our King bows and scraps before them!” Jaipal laughed. “Vakpati, isn’t your wife a yavana?” “Heh?” The stonecutter turned to stare at him for a moment. “Yes, but that’s different, she was a slave when I married her!”

The last of the of the army passed by, concluding with a procession of yavana hiereus leading goats whose fur was painted with foreign sigils and priestesses with wreaths in their hair and with reed flutes pressed to their lips playing a tune whose tenor was both alien yet somehow martial. Some of these, Jaipal was shocked to see, were not women at all, but men, who were so slim of figure and whose faces had been so heavily painted and so thoroughly plucked of hair that at first glance he had mistaken them for women! After those holy androgynes had passed on, a brief, almost impossible silence, descended upon the gathered soldiers. Srichandra was the first to break it.

“Oil pressers! Stonecutters! To me! What the fuck are you looking at? Come on!” This was followed by a cacophony of the rest of the nayakas shouting for their respective cohorts to gather about them. “Hurry the fuck up!” “Your sresthin is a real bullock isn’t he Vakpati!” A young man’s voice. It was Sohanpal, making his way through the press of confused bodies towards them. The young man stopped short as he spied Jaipal, taking a weary step back, and the first thing Jaipal noticed, was that the young man had taken the time to smooth and brighten with cosmetics the skin around his eyes. They looked at each-other for a moment, unsure of what to say. Jaipal knew he had to apologize. Never once had he heard his father apologize, and no matter what his brother accused him of being, he could at least be a better man than his father in that regard. But the words would not come, could not come, as if bound by chains of iron inside his throat. Then, thankfully, the nayaka began to speak, and with a equal parts relief and shame Jaipal turned to face him as a ring of other guild soldiers, most thoroughly hungover, some still drunk, spread out around him.

“Here’s the situation. Svamin Govindraj wishes for the assault to commence in an hour! By the time the sun is well at our backs, we have to be out there and ready to fight!” A chorus of groans arose at once from the men, followed by a slurry of protest which sounded to Jaipal like nothing so much as the sounds a sounder of pigs make after gorging on fermented mangoes. “Shut the fuck! All of you!” Srichandra barked, and the voices died down. “That is the army of the King! Lead by Prince Gomitra himself! They’re ready to fight! Have been since yesterday! They encamped not an hours march from here just so they could reach us at this exact time!” Confused looked were exchanged by some of the men, but Jaipal nodded. Were the army of the King to have arrived yesterday, it would have given the defenders of Salwa time to prepare, for any spies in the camp to notify them of the army’s composition. But now, they would be arriving as if driven by Surya’s own chariot, already arrayed for battle with the sun beaming directly into the those who held the wall’s eyes! If an assault were to be made, there would be no better time than now. He just wished he had been able to get a little more sleep…

“Jaipal, Vakpati, you will lead the first wave. You escort the elephants!” “Could we at least get a few more hours of fucking sleep!” Exclaimed one of the soldiers, who Jaipal recognized as Mattat, an oil presser like himself, though not from the same village. “When King Gomitra, may his cows all swell with calves, ascended took the throne, his first act was to limit the sale of wine to the end of the week! It’s written on a fucking pillar in Mathura, Mattat! So you’re either sober enough to fight or a breaker of the King’s law. Which is it?” Srichandra spat, with a venom that Jaipal thought uncharacteristic of the man. He had always lead his sreni with a stern hand, but never an oppressive one. What could be weighing on him so? “I, I-.” Mattat began to stammer, but Jaipal intervened. “Forgive him Srichandra, you know he can’t read!” A smattering of nervous laughs, followed by even more groans and the sound of someone struggling to hold the contents of their stomach down.

The nayaka ignored him, continuing on. “The Prince has lead the army all the way from Rajgarh! Salwa is the last hold of the once-born Salvi! The King wants their rebellion put down! We’re to take those walls, put the dasyu to the sword, and put an end to their republican pretensions! It has been decreed!” Srichandra withdrew a scroll from his belt and unfurled it to read. “That all those who who dwell within Salwa’s walls, who cast lots in with the gana sangha, who presume to elect their kings and give them gana, who make treaty with the accursed Pushyamitra Shunga, shall henceforth be of no varna! They are dasas all!” The captain lowered the scroll to look the men in the eyes, sweat begining the worry at his brow. “Do you know what that means?” “They are to be slaves!” Sohanpal exclaimed with a broad smile. Jaipal could not help but wince at the eager edge he heard in his brother’s voice. Srichandra nodded. “Yes! Remember, the King’s share of all your loot will be a third, the rest is yours! But first, we have to breach those fucking walls! Zeus and the Maitreya!” “Zeus and the Maitreya!” The cry was taken up as one, and echoed across the camp. Behind him, Jaipal heard the retching cease and the sound of wet vomit hitting the ground.

The marched towards the front. In the village the sacrificial fires had been piled higher than the rude roofs of the huts and they blazed with a prismatic incandescence as the priests and the monks threw holy unguents and blessed oils into their roiling depths. The band of the Prince continued to play, their thunderous, rolling march joined by the discordant plucking of a hundred dilettante soldier-bards at their harps and the shrill blasts of conch shell horns, while the atavis whooped and wailed and danced around the shouting form of a shaman in a cloak of grass and a mask of bone and horn and who shook his skull rattles to the sky as if to call down lightning from those cloudless, azure reaches upon the town.

To one side of the road, a trio of brahmins, their long, wild shikhas tumbling down almost to the ground from their tonsured scalps, skin smeared with sandalwood and ash, recited the Vedas and painting tilakas of victory upon their supplicants foreheads, while opposite them a trio of monks in saffron robes did the same. It was to them that Jaipal and the vast majority of the srenibala went, while their acharya exhorted them on to battle from the slave borne shield upon which he sat. “The King is the shield of the dharma, and to serve him is to serve the dharma! Do not fear death, for their is no self to die! Do not shun the killing blow, for to protect the King is to protect the faithful! Those who die in his service will achieve nirvana in no more than two lifetimes!” Jaipal reached the monk, allowed the twin fish of victory to be sketched upon his head, and continued to march. It occurred to him then, and only then, that when this battle was over, win or lose, the war would be over with it. And that would mean a return to his home, to the life of a guildsman, the rigour and bucolic rhythm of the oil-press and rural life, and suddenly, he, inexplicable, he felt afraid, afraid in a way no other approaching battle had ever made him feel.

They marched through the palisade, a sorry looking structure, it now suddenly seemed to him, and onto the field between the camp and the city. The suburbs of Salwa had once stretched all the way to the moat, but the shops and corrals and pagodas and homes all had been demolished to provide fuel for the besiegers and to deny the besieged cover under which to sally out. Now all that remained was mud drying to dust in the heat borne of a rapidly approaching summer and the pitted remains of a few stone foundations, tough, sallow, sweet-grass growing wherever its roots could find purchase. The walls of Salwa rose before them. They were made of red brick, topped with wooden indrakoshas for the archers to fire down from. They were not the most impressive works Jaipal had ever seen, and the grinding months of siege had seen them reduced slightly, the crenelations of the walls looking like stumps of rotten tooth, but, as his father had often drunkenly ranted, even a leprous child could kill a man from atop a wall. It had always scared him when his father had said things like that, when had said almost anything really, but standing here now, with bow in hand and a turban sewn with iron ringlets wrapped about his head, Jaipal could understand a bit of what his father had been trying, in his loutish way, to say. Understand, but not accept.

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The defenders were just beginning to man the walls. They looked a pitiful sight, thin figures worried by hunger and sleepless nights and the death of their kin. There were women amongst them, with baskets of stone and pot-shards, and young men barely tall enough to draw a bow over the battlements. But defiant they still stood. If the sudden appearance of the King’s army with her elephants and chariots and foreign auxiliaries struck fear into their hearts, they did not show it. A few of them, old men with beards reaching almost down to their dicks, lowered their loincloths and to relieve themselves over the walls while their compatriots jeered. Jaipals sighed. It was going to be one of those days. A strange silence descended upon the field, broken only by the eager call of a few enterprising buzzards circling above and a flock of sparrows startled from their perches in the burned out ruin of a smithy by the passing of an elephant. Sohanpal was but a man down from Jaipal’s right, but he dare not move to speak with him. Everyone waited.

The silence was broken by the clanging of a bell and the bleating of a she-goat. A foreign mantic led the creature forward, in-front of the whole army. There was a basket of flowers in her hand, and a wreath of woven lily had been placed upon the goats head. The goat seemed entirely unconcerned, as if it led an army every day before its morning milking. With preternatural calm, the priestess withdrew a long knife, it’s blade black as night, from the basket, and held it up to the she-goat, who did not flinch. But she did not open its throat. King Menander had forbidden the practice of animal sacrifice in his camps, and so then too had his proverbial son, King Gomitra. Instead, the priestess simply made a small cut in the goat’s flank. If it noticed the wound, it betrayed no sign, then with a flick of the blade she wet the petals in her basket, and spread them upon the ground.

Jaipal had no idea what it was the diviner saw in that alien rite, those scattered swirls of pink and red, but he knew it was important. All eyes, of both sides, were on her as she raised her head and stabbed towards the walls with her knife and shouted something in a language he could not understand. But the yavana’s understood it, and they sent up a great cry who’s import transcended nationality, and soon the entire army was shouting and cheering and taunting and screaming and banging sword upon shield and spear upon ground, and the Prince of the Maitra dynasty himself rode forward upon his steed, seeming to take a moment to study the fortifications before him and the defenders who huddled atop them, much reduced it now seemed, by the magic cast by the mantic!

Jaipal could feel it then. His blood pounded in his ears and burned in his veins and his hands became pale claws around the horn of his bow and the very air in his lungs became as hot steam, but he shook his head and without thinking shoved the man beside him back to address his brother. “Sohanpal!” The young man turned with a start, his eyes wide as Jaipal’s own. “Yes?” He said, struggling to master his breath though not a shot had yet been fired. “I…” Jaipal began, but again the words would not come, again he found it impossible turn remorse and love into speech, so instead he barked. “Stay behind the elephant!” Sohanpal blinked. “What?” “Stay behind the elephant! Guard its flank!” The young man began to shake his head and Jaipal had to grip the hem of his dhoti to keep himself from shouting. “Just fucking do it alright! Please!” “I, alright, alright!” Sohanpal stammered. It was Jaipal’s turn to blink. “Alright?” “Yes yes alright! Brother, I need to tell you something important, once we are-.”

Sohanpal was cut off by a shout from the Prince and turned his head. “I am a paid servant like yourselves!” Shouted the son of Gomitra, his stallion rearing in its shining finery before them, a conch-shell horn slung across the blazing jewels of his armor. “This Kingdom is be enjoyed together!” He drew his sword, the rasp of iron against bronze as sounding as clear as the bells of a temple in that place of incipient slaughter. “Strike the enemy! Zeus and the Maitreya!” “Zeus and the Maitreya!” The cry went up from all corners of the earth, the trumpets sounded, and the assault was on!

Jaipal found himself torn by the weight of charging bodies away from his brother, and could only turn to charge for the mantlets. Channels were left open in the ranks for the elephants, and the mammoth creatures plowed through them, their trunks swinging like branches caught in a monsoon wind. Ladder where brought up behind them, and the armies of the Mitra Dynasty advanced upon the walls of Salwa, every arm making for the causeway across the moat assigned to it, with the Prince and his foreign bodyguard taking the bridge leading to the main gate.

Jaipal was the first to reach the pavise on his side, Vakpati on the other. Already the arrows fell like rain from the walls. He grabbed the mantlet with the man who arrived besides him, lifted and charged across the broken ground, shafts and feathers slapping against his feet. Pot shattered against the earth all around him, spraying his ankles with ceramic shrapnel and urine and shit and even less wholesome things. From the backs of the elephants the maula’s raked the walls with bow-shot of their own, their howdahs putting them nearly at the same height as the defenders. Seeing the danger, the foul dasa began to concentrate their shot against the elephants, but by then the first mantlets had made it almost to the end of the causeway. Jaipal slammed the huge bamboo shield down with a grunt, his partner immediately hammering at the steaks while he took aim. He saw the silhouette of a man through the craggy ruin of the walls top, sighting him up along the smooth shaft of an arrow drawn tight against bowstring, and released. The missile took the man in the throat, and he tumbled forward with a soundless scream to have his head dashed to bloody chunks upon the base of the wall. Something akin to ecstasy descended upon him then, and with eyes shining like the sun and mouth agape and without ducking back behind cover, Jaipal drew another arrow and lined up another shot.

The shafts of the invading army crashed upon the walls like a swarm of hornets assailing a beehive, the clatter of iron on stone drowning out the cries of battle and screams of pain! More bodies fell, feathered like hedgehogs, some rolling and tumbling and sliding into the moat, where terrible, emerald form were quick to appear to drag them under as the primordial rakshasas Surasa burst from the sea to devour Hanuman! Those atop the wall who survived were driven back behind what remained of their defenses, forced to respond by blindly throwing stones and bricks torn from their own homes and delivered to them through the storm by their own wives and children. At the main gate, at the army’s center, the effect was even more pronounce, for the parsikas had joined the fight. They fought from behind ranks of wicker shield, and where the men of the srenibala could rightfully claim to be children of the bow, the Parsikas were fathers, their aim deadly, their draw strong, the sting of their arrows wrecking untold havoc amidst the defenders. But the Salvis did not abandon their posts, they did not retreat. The threw stones and shouted curses and died shielding their fellows with their own bodies!

At the end of the causeway was a narrow ditch, the sum total of all that the Salvi soldiers had paid for with life and limb the night before. It would perhaps have given a wild cow pause, but the war elephants of Mitra were trained purabhettahs! Ditches gave them not phase them, nor did their faces flinch from arrow fire nor would even sharpened stakes make them hesitate! The first elephant leaped the small ditch, its riders adroitly holding on, followed by ladders and shields born by slaves and columns of guild pakkhandinos lead by a shouting Srichandra. Ropes and hooked were thrown from the back of the first elephant and secured to the wall, then the command was given the elephants behind the lead bull began to pull, and in seconds, an entire layer brick and ruined mortar came crashing down in a cloud of clotting dust! Panicked forms scrambled away from the opening thus revealed, and many were brought down to the ground riddled with shafts, their blood mixing with mortar to slough away like unholy mud! Where the wall was low enough, the ladders were thrown up against it, and the shock-troops scrambled up, hammers raised above their heads and promises of soon delivered hell hurled from their lips! The thunderous boom and crack of iron and flesh against banded wood sounded out across the field, for in the center, the gates of the town were under the assault of the colossal Bimbisara, the patriarch of the Mitra army’s elephant corps who was in times of peace the personal conveyance of King Gomitra I himself!

Beneath the walls, Jaipal knelt besides his mantlet, scanning the walls with furrowed brow for a target. Seeing none, he doffed his bow, drew his sword, and ran for the nearest ladder himself, driven by urges sinful yet honestly inherited. He heard Vakpati call his name as he charged forward, enjoining him to stop, to hold his position, but he did not stop. Could not stop. It was a decision that, upon latter reflection, would be the greatest regret of his life. He began to hurry up the latter, hand over sweat soaked hand, when a shadow flashed in the corner of his eye.

The Salvi were not ignorant. Treasonous yes, defilers of the rajadharma, recalcitrant mutineers, but not ignorant. They rejected the rule of any King not chosen by the warriors he claimed to lead, but even so they were students of the Vedas and the of the Middle Way and as well, of nitishastra, the science of politics and war. And as good students of this science, they had constructed the fortifications of Salwa according to its pretexts, including the construction of secret ways through their walls. And these they now used. A section of wall, so artfully fashioned as to be indistinguishable from the red-brick surrounding it, a niskuradvara, sung open, and the warriors of of the Salwa Gana Sangha poured out. The army of the King had never discovered it, and so faithfully had the defenders hidden it that even when to not use it would mean their death, as had happened the night before, they preferred to die rather than betray it existence. But use it they now did!

A cry of alarm went up from both man and elephant on the causeway, and Jaipal looked just in time to see tens of savage dasa warriors pouring out of the wall between the ladder he ascended and another. He didn’t even have time to jump. Later, he would chastise himself, seeing how if he had just held his position, had not allowed sin to smother his senses with its black clouds of karma, he could have spotted them as soon as the door opened, could have shot them as they came out, could have saved… Everyone. The enemy took aim, cursing him and his comrades to the next hundred lifetimes, and fired. Jaipal blinked as pain blossomed upon his forehead and the earth began to spin all around him. The arrow took him in the head, bouncing as If by some miracle from his armored turban and taking it with it, but knocking him clean off the ladder. He landed with a grunt and splash in the moat below, only narrowly missing being impaled upon a feces smeared bamboo stake, blinking and sputtering and cursing and rising just in time to see a black shape slam into him from above.

Jaipal was driven back beneath the muck and mire, the air knocked from his chest to be replaced with brackish water. He fought and struggled against what he could not tell, until finally the weight rolled from his chest and he rose clawing at the air as the man who had landed atop him did likewise. They stared at each-other for a moment, in between rasping breath, and as he tried to wipe the water from his eyes, Jaipal thought he might recognize the man. Then there was a spray of slime from behind him and the snapping of infernal jaws and the man went down screaming and shrieking as a crocodile launched itself from the water and snagged the man’s arm! Jaipal brandished his sword, which he just now remembered he still held, and tried to wade after the beast, but his sandals became snagged on something sharp in the mud and through half-blinded eyes he saw another shape rippling through the water towards him! Pure instinct saved him as he lashed out with his sword, the blade finding flesh and scale, shearing through the saurian snout which reared out of the depths at him with its dead, amber eyes, before snarling and retreating back from whence it came in a spray of black blood and broken teeth!

Above him on the banks and on the causeway arrows whizzed back and forth and Jaipal was forced to make for the edge of the moat and scramble up towards them, grasping at roots and gouging away fist-fulls of mud as his desperation propelled him upwards without even time to breath, his feet sliding, always threatening to send him back to the watery tophet he had just escaped! All of his bloodlust was gone, his rage extinguished, and Jaipal felt tired, so desperately tired that for a moment he seriously considered letting himself slide back down to embrace oblivion. But ultimately he did not relent, flopping with one final heave upon the ground beneath the walls, unheeding of who amongst the men fighting and dying all around him were friend or foe.

From the causeway, and elephant screamed, a wretched, earsplitting sound, and Jaipal rolled over, trying to raise himself with his sword. One of the war elephants had taken an arrow to the face, and the poor beast in its hurt and panic had thrown its mahout and was now trying frantically to turn about and flee its attackers! The men on its back cried out and held on for dear life, one opting to throw himself from the howdah towards the dubious safety of the causeway, breaking his neck for his trouble. And then Jaipal saw him, and his blood froze in his veins as time seemed to stand still. It was his brother, Sohanpal. He was coming around the rear elephant, his bow abandoned to the ground, a hand extended to Jaipal as he ran towards him, calling his older brothers name. Jaipal raised a shaking hand and called back. “Stop!” But the words came out as a not but a hacking cough. The elephants were all stampeding now, abandoning the causeway, sending men flying and diving into the moat as they turned about in their terror, and as one of them swung about, Sohanpal screamed. The bladed tusk of the purabhettah took him through the stomach, and with a violent fling of its head, Sohanpal was flung from causeway to land some distance away on the other side of the moat.

“Arrrggggghhhhh!” Jaipal screamed a wordless scream, like a boar stuck by a hunter’s spear. He threw down his sword and ran, nay, charged, through the hail of arrows and the thicket of clashing swords all about him, and only through the Buddha’s grace was he spared! He ducked beneath an elephants flailing tusks, ignored an arrow narrowly missing his head and instead becoming entangled in his hair, trampled a dying member of his own guild cradling his entrails, in his haste to reach his brother. Sohanpal lay there against the stricken form of a water-buffalo and the shield-cart it had been pushing, its limbs as straight and stiff as the arms of a temple idol. For a moment, he looked to already be dead, but by the slow rise and fall of his chest and the burble of bubbling blood escaping the wetness enveloping his torso and falling from his mouth, he knew him to be alive.

“Sohanpal!” Jaipal knelt beside him, his hands shaking so badly he could not have administered a dressing even had he the presence of mind to do so. “Sohanpal…” He said softly. The young man’s eyes opened, seeming to stare right through him. “Jaipal…” He began, then began to cough violently, black blood splattering the ground with each torturous heave. “Don’t talk! Don’t talk! Please! Duck!” “Goose…” Sohanpals eyes fluttered and rolled back in his head as Jaipal embraced him, pressing unthinkingly against his brothers stomach as if by magic his hand could reknit flesh and set bone. “I’m sorry Goose…” Sorry! That is what he had say, not Sohanpal! “What? No, no no no no don’t say that! It’s my fault little duck! I’m sorry! I’m so fucking, Duck? Duck? Sohanpal?” But it was too late. His brother was dead.