It was early morning, the sky was still dark. General Pushya had taken a headbath and clothed himself in a new pair of clothes sent by the king, a white dhoti with a gold border and a white shawl with a similar gold border to cover his upper body. He tied up his long hair into a top bun and set out barefoot to the temple situation in the palace grounds. The palace was a short distance from his manor in the city. The guards at the morning gates were still on their night duty. They quickly saluted and let the general pass through as soon as his face was visible from the light of the torches beside them.
He soon reached the temple amidst a mango grove. He stopped by the water pump to wash his feet before he entered the temple. The cold water felt good running down his feet. The temple was lit with oil lamps, some hanging from the temple ceiling, some placed on the floor. A priest was waiting for him at the altar, holding an aarti plate with a small oil lamp in both his hands.
General Pushya entered the temple, bowed respectfully facing the deity in the inner chamber of the temple and rang the temple bell. The sound of the bell reverberated across the surroundings.
“Good morning, General,” greeted the priest as General Pushya reached him. The priest held the aarti plate towards the general, the latter bent his head and guided the light from the lamp with both his hands towards his eyes, getting the blessing from the gods.
“The seclusion chamber has been readied for you, general,” said the priest, as he guided the general towards a hidden chamber at the back of the temple. It was a small dark chamber with no source of light except for the grill at the top of one of the chamber walls.
“Thank you,” said the general as the priest closed the chamber door leaving the general alone in the tiny chamber.
General Pushya pulled open a placemat placed on the side, spread it on the ground and sat cross-legged on it. He joined his hands by letting the tips of the thumb touch one another, one set of hands sliding below the other. He relaxed his shoulders and closed his eyes. This was a mandatory three-day seclusion at the temple to cleanse his mind before he could take the Blood Oath. The Blood Oath bound the Oath-Taker to a chosen individual for life, the Oath taker would live to serve this person until the day one of them perishes. It is an irreversible oath, once taken it cannot be reneged. Going against a Blood Oath would put the Oath-Taker’s entire future bloodline into a never-ending cycle of betrayal till the day the bloodline perishes. The King of Dayita knew very well what he wanted when he asked General Pushya to take the oath for Prince Aryaman. The guaranteed undying loyalty of his best general to the future king would stabilise his dynasty.
The general focused on his breath, he had been feeling peaceful ever since his duel with the blind cultivator, Svetavastra had ended. This had come as a surprise to him, he should be feeling anything but peaceful - to be defeated by a seemingly young man who was blind not to mention, he should have felt humiliated. He however felt a profound sense of gratitude, as if he had been taught highly advanced moves by a hard-to-obtain master. To have found King Nahusha missing from his expertly guarded confines, he should have felt dismayed but he took it well and moved on with his tasks. The key to getting his hold on the famed wish-fulfilling mani was missing, he had been searching for it relentlessly for decades and he felt okay about the loss. General Pushya mentally sighed. What was happening to him?
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Even the matter of the Blood Oath, he could not bring himself to evade it. It would bind him to the future of the Dayita kingdom till his death. The very future he had patiently sought to destroy all these years. He was 5 years old when his mother sent him to assist Dayita soldiers on the battlefield.
“Your life is for retribution, Pushya,” his mother had told him. He did not know what retribution had meant then but he nodded solemnly to his mother. He made his way to the army outposts on the border of Dayita. Dayita’s borders were not secure at this point. The Dayita army led by commander Keraku fought hard to solidify Dayita’s presence as a stronger power in the region. This meant constant warfare and wounded soldiers. Pushya sneaked into the outpost barracks and became an errand boy. He would carry food and medicines between barracks. The army doctors liked him because he was reliable. The soldiers liked him because they got their food on time. No one had questioned his background, they had assumed he was an orphan and took him in. So he served them from battlefield to battlefield for a number of years.
When he was twelve, he asked the station master of the barracks if he wanted to join the army. The station master refused instantly.
“If errand boys start becoming soldiers, who will do the chores?” the station master had asked.
Commander Keraku was passing by the barracks at that time. He stopped upon hearing the station master’s words.
“An errand boy can of course become a soldier,” the commander said looking at Pushya with a smile. “Provided that he proves himself capable.”
Pushya looked into the eyes of the commander, his own eyes reflecting a myriad of emotions he was going through, this person in front of him was the sworn enemy, he was also his birth father. He nodded solemnly and returned to his chores. From then on, he silently watched the soldiers train on the grounds and would himself train in the dead of the night till dawn. He did this for two years. When he was fourteen, the army had opened a recruitment drive in a nearby town. He entered it, brisked through all the stages with ease and entered the army as a foot soldier.
The foot soldier became a cavalry within a few years and went on to master swordsmanship, archery and other forms of martial weaponry. He displayed military acumen and often strategised for commander Keraku during the latter’s campaigns in the North. He became a commander of the Northern armed forces when was only twenty-three. Keraku had passed away on the battlefield that year, and Pushya was unanimously chosen to lead the position based on merit and his contributions.
Fate prevented patricide. His mother had sent him to Dayita to bring the kingdom to its knees. It was for the glory bestowed by this kingdom that Keraku had infiltrated the Kapala army and betrayed it, wiping them out mercilessly. Pushya’s mother was a squadron leader in the Kapala army who too came under the sway of Keraku and unwittingly aided the latter. She repaid it with her life and ingrained in Pushya that his life was for vengeance. Pushya had left his mother when he was five but the vengeance in him grew steadily and strongly, akin to his rise in the Dayita army.
As General Pushya meditated in the seclusion chamber at the temple, his mind dispassionately went through the events of his life. His vengeance had faltered once when had fallen in love. The Blood Oath would make him falter again.