Nasteya Page 17

  ‘One thing’s sure, Sarvin—you will die today,’ Nasteya said furiously.

  ‘Wait! There’s still one left on the list of surprises I’ve been giving you. Turn to your left and see it yourself,’ Sarvin said. What could be worse than everything else that was already going on? But as we turned to our left towards the woods, my heart stopped and I started to pray. It was them, piercing through the thick mist and heading straight towards us—a herd of barbaric White Demons.

  A thunderbolt made its way straight from the high skies to the tip of Kushya’s sword as Nasteya raised it and threw it on the ones in front, slicing them to death along with the trees that came in its way. They came in large numbers and managed to surround us. I shielded Nasteya, who was busy dealing with the White Demons, from Sarvin’s arrows. Sarvin, who was surprised by the power of Kushya’s sword, realised that if he stayed for long he would be killed as well. He tried to flee but our fifty brave men came out and held him and severed his head from his body.

  Then we regrouped and together we fought the White Demons. The clamour of clashing swords, thunderclaps, shouts, screams and galloping horses filled the air. With the power of Kushya’s sword, Nasteya dealt deadly blows to the White Demons who surrounded him. Had the mist not ebbed along with their corpses, a heap of dead bodies would have piled up by then. The fifty gallant men fought bravely. Without them, things could have been worse than what they already were. But it was Kushya’s sword that earned most of the credit. Soon, the White Demons realised that as long as we had the sword, it would be impossible for them to trounce us. So they retreated into the mist again. With a loss of ten of those fifty brave men, we seemed to have won the battle. But that didn’t mark our overall triumph, nor were we relieved. The shadow of treachery darkened our minds. Where had those White Demons come from? Why were they on Rudra’s side?

  Were they actually Rudra’s men? Was it Rudra who had sent them to destroy Saarah? What about the Resistance? How were they coping? What should we do now? These questions pounded my head but the last one was the most important of all. We marched hurriedly towards the underground base. I could feel the stress that Nasteya carried and the fear that shrouded his heart, the fear of losing everyone’s trust, the fear of losing the battle, the fear of losing Eshana. His hands trembled as he pulled the horse’s reins, his eyes burning red with outrage. I dreaded what lay ahead of us, what we would see, and the grim picture that my mind had started to draw. Though the Resistance weren’t my own people yet…

  We reached the base to see… No cover to the entrance… and the entrance itself had been torn apart, made wider… The worst was when we peered inside and saw what they had done to the place. Everything was ruined… the bridges broken, most of the platforms gone. Along with dead silence there were arrows, swords and corpses all over the main bridge. Smoke was still rising from piles of smouldering ashes. Nasteya was speechless with shock—as were we all.

  And then in the middle of the bridge, we found him.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  A FATHER’S GREED

  Hira lay there, counting his final breaths. From a distance I saw that he had been stabbed savagely—a dried stream of blood drained from his body towards one side of the bridge. We ran to him and Nasteya cradled Hira’s head. He poured few drops of water in his mouth.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ Nasteya said to him.

  ‘I wish,’ Hira gasped. ‘Forgive me Nasteya, forgive me.’ ‘Shhh!’ Nasteya said gently. ‘I betrayed you. But I didn’t mean to. Forgive me, please,’ he said and he started to weep.

  What he had just said tempted a question inside me— why did he say so? How did he betray us? But then a realisation widened my eyes. Was Hira the rat Sarvin had mentioned?

  ‘I want you to kill me before I succumb to my wounds. I want you to punish me. You should have never made me responsible for keeping a secret, the one that Rudra made me spit out.’

  ‘What are you…?’ Nasteya fumbled. Hira had just admitted to being the one who had betrayed us to Rudra, sabotaging our plans. Why? Why would a loyal person like Hira backstab us?

  ‘Yes! Nasteya, I know that the sin I’ve committed won’t grant me any place in heaven but I don’t want you to hate me after I’m dead,’ Hira murmured. ‘But the love I had for my son made me shut my eyes to everything else. It all started when…’

  Slowly, painfully, Hira unburdened himself of his story. He told us that he made the first mistake when he had gone with Ayaan to the main market that morning to get some breakfast. Sarvin, along with some other guards, had arrested both of them and taken them to Rudra in shackles. Rudra had told Hira that he suspected us of being involved with the Resistance… He had threatened to feed Ayaan to the monster unless Hira leaked the plans to Rudra. Hira had pretended to be ignorant of any plans, until Rudra had drawn blood from Ayaan’s neck with his dagger. The sight of his son struggling against Rudra, his neck stained with blood, was more than Hira could bear. But then Rudra cut him again, deeper this time, and Ayaan fell to the ground. ‘That’s when I lost my courage and caved in… I couldn’t bear the thought of my dear son being put to death…’

  Hira’s love for his son led him to betray the hopes of hundreds. His love for Ayaan blinded him to the consequences of his actions. In exchange for Ayaan’s life, he had revealed the whole conspiracy to Rudra. But then again, which father would be able to sacrifice his child for the greater good? He had only done what any other father would have done for his child. And when Hira had finished telling Rudra about the plans Nasteya had devised, Rudra had not been content. He had demanded more of Hira:

  ‘He demanded that I lead him to the hideout—again threatening Ayaan with death by the sword,’ said Hira in a broken voice. ‘I had no choice…’

  Rudra’s mind had worked fast. In a flash, he had sent his soldiers to round up some commoners. These had been dressed up as guards and threatened with imprisonment if they tried to resist or even asked questions. They had then been marched off to the rendezvous spot outside the western wall of the city, as specified by Nasteya, with a regiment of real soldiers led by Sarvin. Then, another group of soldiers had moved to the Resistance base. When they reached, they had sent Hira inside first. Eshana, along with everyone else who stood at the other end of the bridge, had stared at Hira—what was the matter with him? His head was drooping, weighed down by the load of regret, and he dragged his feet as if he could barely walk. As he crossed over the bridge, he saw a child and a father who were playing, as yet unaware of the soldiers at the entrance to their safe hideaway. On another platform, he saw some other children of Ayaan’s age laughing and playing, also unmindful of the hazard they were about to face. These sights triggered his scruples and it was that very moment that it occurred to him that he had brought death to the door. He knew that what he had done was irrevocable and it was too late to do anything about it. His conscience was screaming at him, blaming him, castigating him and just to stop it, he took a dagger out and lifted it up with both of his hands, shouting, ‘Eshana, tell Nasteya to forgive me and tell him to save Ayaan!’ And then, he had stabbed himself.

  ‘They’ve taken everyone to some crater,’ Hira whispered, his voice barely audible. ‘I don’t know where… Leave before it’s too late…’

  These were his last words. Hira was dead. Dead of regret. Dead, trying to save his son. I felt no hate for him, no anger; rather, I pitied his fate.

  By punishing himself, Hira had done something that only a braveheart could do.

  ‘He won’t die in vain,’ I said to myself. Even though I wasn’t Ayaan’s father, I would have done nothing different had I been in the same situation.

  I pulled my mind back to the task at hand. This was time for action, not sorrow. From what Hira told us, Rudra had taken Eshana, Ayaan and the others to the crater. A chill went down my spine as I recalled it—it was where the monster dwelled.

  As we rode towards the dreaded crater, I thought ruefully of the decisions we had made recen
tly. What good had come out of this mess? I asked myself. We had wanted to be heroes, to liberate people! Instead, we had lost Hira and Ayaan’s life was at stake.

  ‘I wish we had never come to Mehrgarh. I wish Nasteya had never involved us in this trouble,’ I muttered, kicking my horse to gallop faster.

  I couldn’t alter anything, but the result of this unpredictable war was not yet decided. There was always hope.

  When we were just a few hundred yards away from the crater, we felt the ground tremble.

  ‘Abhuva!’ I said to myself. But then I thought, no, this is a different kind of vibration. Just as I was allowing myself to feel a little relieved, the crust of the ground ahead of us exploded!

  A tornado of sand seemed to erupt from the earth and from out of this rose what seemed to be an army of sand creatures. Twenty feet tall and ape-like, their bodies were comprised of sand—insubstantial yet sharp, impossible to grasp yet capable of knocking us down… The wind kept blowing the sand away yet they didn’t diminish for more sand crawled up their bodies again.

  ‘Rauravas!’ shouted one of our men.

  ‘Rudra’s sorcery, undying Rauravas!’

  The Rauravas walked towards us and one of them said in a rasping rumbling voice, ‘Surrender, puny humans…’

  ‘Surrender? I don’t know the meaning of that word,’ Nasteya answered and took out Kushya’s sword.

  He raised the sword and a thunderbolt emerged from the sky. He sent it like a whip towards those devils. But the Rauravas just reassembled themselves even after Nasteya sliced them into two. The sword’s power only managed to blow some sand away. Nasteya’s second try also went in vain, succeeding only in irritating the Rauravas. Nasteya tried again and again but he failed every time. Within no time, they had surrounded us. They managed to keep us bound, but our weapons and fists just passed through them—as though they were a pile of sand!

  Nasteya was disarmed and his sword was passed to another giant. Lifting us with ease, the Rauravas carried us towards the crater. We continued to kick and beat our fists, stab and thrust, as the Rauravas strode forward, but to no avail. Finally, we were dropped back to the ground, outside the crater wall.

  The sky was dark and cloudy. The sun was afraid of seeing the consequences of the events going on over the land of Mehrgarh. Rudra stood on a podium. To his left was a cluster of White Demons, to his right, the Resistance fighters, chained and surrounded by hundreds of Rudra’s men. On seeing us, Rudra said to the White Demons, ‘I promised you I would find you the man with the scar of the eagle’s claw on his chest in return for your help… We both seem to have kept our promises. There he is.’

  Then he turned towards Nasteya and said, ‘How does it feel to be defeated? Northerner, whatever you may try, you can’t overpower Rudra. You have no idea how easy you made it for me. For years I was in search of these treacherous rats… Now that I have them, thanks to you, I’ll feed them to Abhuva.’

  Rudra gestured and his guards started to push the prisoners into the crater. At the back of the crowd, Eshana and her father sent us desperate, pleading looks. They knew that everything had come to a sad end. And then when all the members of the Resistance were inside, the gate to the crater would be closed.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE SILVER LINING

  We had agreed to help the Resistance fighters and the other citizens of Mehrgarh because we empathised with their pain. But we were now at a dead end… All the power lay in the hands of evil and doom had come upon us. I could see no way to escape. Rudra’s opponents were trapped inside the crater. Nasteya and I had our necks balanced on the edge of the enemy’s sword. I wished I could see some light at the end of the tunnel.

  ‘Blow the trumpets! Awaken the monster! ‘ Rudra declared.

  High into the skies soared the sound of trumpets, smiting the hills and echoing in the hollows. A flock of birds, shaken by the deafening sound, fluttered southwards over our heads, shrieking and squawking as if they knew the terror that had been awakened.

  ‘This man goes with us. It is the will of our lord,’ one of the White Demons said to Rudra, pointing towards Nasteya. I watched as a bunch of Demons mounted on their black beastly horses and rode off, disappearing into thick mist, taking with them Kushya’s sword. The only asset we had was gone.

  ‘Then you shall take him for he is not of any use to me and your lord should know what Rudra has gifted him,’ replied Rudra.

  Another group of White Demons marched forward towards Nasteya, unaware that they had roused a dangerous animal inside Nasteya… As long as Nasteya could breathe, I knew that even God himself wouldn’t be able to touch him without his consent. As the Demons tried to get hold of him, they unleashed the beast within Nasteya. In a flash, he had snatched two swords from two of the barbarians and deprived them of their heads. Chaos! Confusion! I followed Nasteya’s example and barged into this sudden battle.

  There wasn’t a sword that could find its way past us... The White Demons were falling to our blades. When the others saw that we were unbeatable, they encircled us, but none of them came forward. Those Rauravas were too slow to catch us.

  ‘Stop right there,’ Rudra yelled. We saw that he was using Ayaan as leverage. ‘If I were you I wouldn’t move...’

  ‘Don’t stop!’ brave little Ayaan shouted, but of course we had to—we couldn’t risk his life. Ayaan was drowsy and seemed weak and tortured. Once again, it was silence all around. The Rauravas held us again. But the silence was soon broken by a familiar thudding of hooves.

  Abhuva was coming!

  The entire Resistance was in that crater and there wasn’t anything we could do. I was petrified. Then a shadow screened the partly visible sun from us, darkening the whole crater. The monstrous creature’s roar drowned out the screams of those inside the crater. By that time I had lost all of my hope and I was drenched in a sweat of fear and distress.

  Abhuva breached the wall that encircled the crater. With its tremendously powerful tail, it swept Rudra’s men away. Even the Rauravas found themselves being crushed by the monster. Whenever those sand devils would reassemble themselves, Abhuva would sweep them aside and crush them again. Rudra looked terrified. Nasteya gave me a look of relief while I returned a rather surprised look. Was this beast trying to help us? Rather than wasting time thinking about it, we resumed the fight. Rudra, on the other hand, was so alarmed that he didn’t even notice when Ayaan ran away from him, dashing towards the gate of the crater and unbolting it. When Eshana and others emerged from the crater, they saw a scenario quite opposite of the one they had seen before they were pushed into the crater. They saw that we fought bravely. They realised that Rudra was being defeated. They deemed that Abhuva wasn’t against us. Buoyed up by new hope, they joined us and played their part well. One after another, Rudra’s men were taken down. The Rauravas disappeared as well after Vedang chanted a hymn that overpowered Rudra’s sorcery. When almost all of Rudra’s men were down, he tried to flee but Abhuva caught him. It threw him up in the air and right when Rudra was about to fall into Abhuva’s mouth, an arrow knocked him aside and saved him from Abhuva’s giant jaws. Nasteya came to him, his bow held loosely at his side. Abhuva tried to pick Rudra up again, but Nasteya stopped him by saying, ‘Enough! Calm down now.’

  After an ear-shattering roar, Abhuva calmed down. I had to pinch myself; I couldn’t believe that I was not dreaming.

  ‘How…’ Rudra mumbled in shock.

  ‘Everything has an end, someday. Today, it’s the end of your dictatorship,’ Nasteya replied and then he dragged Rudra to King Vidhur.

  ‘Can you smell your death?’ King Vidhur asked Rudra. ‘For years you have taken the lives of innocent people just for your own greed. But your sins have led you to this moment. Before you breathe your last, pray to God to give you at least some corner in heaven—although I’m afraid you’ll never get it.’

  Seizing a moment when everyone’s attention was on the king’s words, Rudra swooped down, picked up a fallen sw
ord and lunged at Vidhur’s chest, but before he could do any damage, his hands dropped the weapon and he cried out in pain. Ayaan had struck him from behind. Pulling his sword out of Rudra’s back, Ayaan, with all the hate and sorrow that had pooled in his heart, now plunged the sword into Rudra’s gut again saying, ‘This one’s for my father.’

  The very next moment, Vidhur beheaded Rudra. He lay on the ground, dead, decapitated.

  Vidhur and Nasteya stood in the middle of the battleground, strewn with the bodies of the dead and the injured, friends and foes, dust mingling with blood and tears.

  ‘I longed for this day Nasteya,’ said the king. ‘You’ve brought us a long-awaited victory. We owe you our lives.’

  ‘Owe me your affection and friendship, nothing else,’ Nasteya replied.

  ‘At first, we thought that everything would end terribly but then this miracle happened… How come this beast obeyed you?’ Eshana asked.

  ‘He was Rudra’s pet before I tamed him,’ Nasteya replied.

  ‘But when did you do all this?’ I asked.

  Last night. I lied to you when I told you that I fell off my horse. It all started when a thought came over me, a desire that I couldn’t keep away. And then this question struck me: If Rudra can tame a monster, then why can’t I? I decided to do something that you would have termed as madness. Only half-believing in myself, I rode towards this cave… But by the time I reached, my mind was at last made up to plunge into the hole of Abhuva. I sneaked inside the crater, prepared to face trouble. With a torch in my hand I quietly trailed along the dark walls of the cave. I stumbled upon bones, skulls and skeletons of both men and animals. It stank inside the cave! I came at last upon four holes in the wall of the cave, all of the same size. Unable to decide which one I should enter, I shouted, ‘Abhuva, come and see that a man has breached the walls of your cage.’ There was silence all around. Those holes were wide enough for a man to enter, but not at all big enough for a monster like Abhuva. ‘Abhuva, come out. Are you scared?’ I shouted. Nothing. Just silence. I brought my torch near one of the holes and pushed it inside for a better view. A stream of foul air blew off my torch and then came a muffled growl from under my feet. Above those holes, two ovals were now visible. I stepped back and lit my torch again. In its light, I saw that those four holes were Abhuva’s nostrils and those two ovals were two of his six eyes! It frightened me for a moment but I did not falter in my quest. Abhuva roared. His roar blew my torch and me away. The cave trembled. A putrid smell filled the air. Abhuva crawled forward, snapping his sharp teeth but I evaded him, by darting around faster than he could move. All that the monster could do was crawl. The cave wasn’t big enough for him to stand but it was big enough for me to run. I climbed a wall, leaped over his head and dived near his forelimbs. He couldn’t turn and this was the only opportunity I had. I took my sword and pressed it against his leathery skin right where his heart was. He stopped at once on feeling the tip of my sword.