Arul woke before dawn, the sky still and grey. He stretched his limbs and looked at his sleeping friends hidden under their heavy shawls. Keeran’s mouth was wide open. When he started to snore, Arul suppressed a laugh, his eyes turning to Navira curled up into a ball, her hair across her face like a river of black silk. Arul’s heart skipped a beat, unable to move his gaze from her as he warmed his hands over the fire.
I’ll leave them sleeping. At least for a while.
Arul stepped outside to watch the sunrise, a glow in the east pushing back the deep blue of the night. Shukran, the morning star glowed brilliantly in the last few hours before dawn, perhaps as the myths said, jealous of the sun, wanting to remain the brightest object in the sky. The rising sun would soon destroy the subtle colours of the night. A great pity, for the night was far more beautiful in Arul’s eyes.
Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed something move. Spinning in that direction, he spied a distant figure on the summit of a hill. He blinked once and it was gone. He ran back to the campsite, his face tense. ‘Wake up!’ There’s someone out there! I think we’re being followed!’
‘Where? Navira yawned, rising and following Arul outside. Keeran emerged and rubbed his eyes, squinted at the dim landscape. Arul pointed in the direction of the hill.
‘Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?’ Said Navira.
Arul’s face darkened. ‘No way! Someone was there all right!’
Keeran scratched his tousled hair and yawned. ‘Hmm…we can't do much about it, so let’s just be careful, okay?’
‘Any sign of Jaya?’ Navira asked.
Arul slapped his forehead. ‘Oh no! I’d forgotten in all the excitement!’ I assumed he was roaming about like usual.’ His eyes leapt to the grey hills. ‘Where is he?’
Navira put her hand on his shoulder. ‘He’s a wolf, Arul. He’ll find you. He’s very clever. Really he is.’ Arul nodded half-heartedly.
The sun rose over the hills in a sudden blaze as they left the ruins and re-joined the winding road. Without food they became steadily weaker as the morning wore on. It wasn’t helping things that the road became ever steeper and there wasn’t a single animal to hunt. Arul’s gaze swept the ranks of hills, looking for Jaya.
They sat by the roadside, stomachs rumbling, the sun not even overhead yet. Arul licked his cracked lips and listened for signs of flowing water. A creek or spring. Anything.
One more day without water, then we’re finished.
‘We don’t even know where this road leads,’ Keeran mumbled as he squeezed a few drops from his waterskin, twisting it like a rope. It was true. They couldn’t see past the next hill. It was as if they were caught in a giant maze.
Arul thought for a minute. ‘I need a high point to scout ahead.’ He stood wearily in the middle of the road, his gaze falling on a promising spot. ‘That one!’ His friends looked up and saw a particularly tall hill west of the road. ‘It’s not far. I’ll go up and see,’ Arul said.
Navira and Keeran slumped, bodies near exhaustion. They wrapped themselves deep in their cloaks to wait. Keeran unstopped his water skin and stared into it, as though the act of looking might create more water.
Arul strode off and was climbing up the brown grassy slope soon enough, puffing as he reached the summit, a forlorn wind-blasted place. He recovered his breath for a minute before gazing in a complete circle.
The view was spectacular, the grasslands undulating far towards the hazy eastern horizon. In the west lay the vast bulk of the snow-capped Meru Ranges, rugged and majestic. To the north lay a gap in the mountains through which the road climbed. A pass of some kind. He turned south to see if he could spy the Ancient Forest.
Instead, he saw something else. Multiple objects moving fast. Tiny dots skimming over the grass. Arul shaded his eyes from the glare, but couldn’t make out the shapes. He squinted at the tiny figures of Keeran and Navira sitting by the road, then back to the moving shapes.
Abruptly, he recognised what they were.
His heart froze. Half a mile behind Keeran and Navira, there were eight swiftly moving animals, their dull-yellow bodies blending into the grassland as they ran effortlessly, not slowing for anything.
The rest of the lion pride! That scout must have led them to us! They’ve caught our scent. We won’t stand a chance if they catch us…
Arul felt sick in his stomach. He fought to control his panic, his mind racing, shouting desperately at the top of his voice, waving his arms like a lunatic. He leapt about, trying to catch Keeran and Navira’s attention.
‘Heeey! Naviiiiraa! Keeeraan!’ He shouted. But the distance was too great for them to hear. After a minute they appeared to notice his urgent movements. They stared at him blankly. Arul pointed to the road behind, his arms frantically miming the jaws of an animal opening and closing. His two friends seemed puzzled, but then their heads jerked towards the south. Arul pointed and screamed with every bit of energy he could muster.
‘RUN!!’
Arul made the actions of someone running and kept screaming. Hesitantly at first, the pair began to walk up the road. As they watched Arul’s frantic movements, the wind suddenly carried his distant voice to them.
‘RUN!!’
They ran.
Arul sank to his knees, his legs shaking.
When his eyes flicked south, Arul saw the pride bound onto the road and turn north after Navira and Keeran, their pace accelerating.
The predators were now only minutes behind his sprinting friends. Arul grabbed his head in despair.
They can’t outrun those lions! I need to distract the pride.
He raced down the hill, flattening the dry grass as he slid down most of the slope, fitting an arrow to his bow without pausing. The second he knew the road was within reach of his arrows, he dropped to one knee and forcefully slowed his breathing. It was difficult to do with his heart hammering away so hard.
He waited.
And what happens when they turn towards me? I can’t take all of them down before they reach me.
Arul suddenly realised this was a fight that would only have one outcome.
He was going to die.
From somewhere deep inside, his courage rose up like a wind, gentle at first, then rising to a gale. A fire in his heart. He shook his head, blinking away sweat from his eyes, letting his eyes rest on the sky one last time.
Blue and infinitely calm.
If it is my destiny to die, then so be it.
He was at peace when he heard the soft thudding of the running pride, their padded feet barely disturbing the ground. The first lion sped into view, focussed on the distant running figures of Navira and Keeran. It slowed and sniffed the ground, perhaps smelling someone else.
Arul kept still, his bow drawn taught, his aim perfect. The sabre-tooth never saw the killing arrow slicing through the air, barely a foot from the ground. With a howl the lion burst into a sprint towards Arul, an arrow sprouting from its neck. But then it tumbled head over heels, crashing in an explosion of dust and grass.
Arul had another arrow ready before the rest of the pride appeared. The lions saw one of their own lying dead on the grass. They slowed to a walk, sniffing the air suspiciously, chests heaving with exertion. Arul closed his eyes for a moment. He knew it was time. The second arrow loosed with a twang, a murmured prayer to Vishnu on his lips. A warrior’s prayer.
When I die, let my soul fly to you true and straight like this arrow.
Another sabre-tooth lion roared in fury, an arrow embedded in its shoulder. A second arrow hit it in the chest, the animal thrashing about, snarling as it died.
The rest of the pride swung their massive heads towards Arul, eyes blazing. They spread out in a semi-circle and began to move in, clawing the grass impatiently. A smaller lion went down in a roar. Two more arrows missed their mark as the wind suddenly gusted across the hills.
Arul nocked his last arrow.
I’ve given Keeran and Navira a chance. Please let them live.
The four remaining animals roared as they fixed their golden eyes on Arul, their muscular forelimbs rippling with power. Arul fired at the closest lion and saw not one, but two arrows piercing its neck, killing it instantly.
Arul threw down his bow and drew his aruval.
His eyes flicked to a figure on a slope opposite. A stranger firing arrows incredibly fast.
Who on earth?
Now there were only three of the beasts remaining. They stopped charging, snapping around to the new threat behind.
Arul threw off his satchel and quiver. The largest predator kept closing on him, accelerating into an explosive sprint over the last twenty feet. Arul stepped back uncertainly, gripping the hilt of his aruval, his body tensed like stretched cord.
Maybe I can stab upwards into the animal’s neck.
The lioness leapt on him in a killing frenzy. Arul stabbed upwards while the lioness was still airborne. He rolled sideways, desperate to escape her razor claws.
The lioness twisted in the air, sailing past Arul and landed with a howl. He could hear the animal’s scrabbling feet as she tried to turn, ripping out clods of earth.
Arul’s heart skipped a beat. He had lost his aruval.
His eyes darted to the ground in a panic.
He was now unarmed, facing an enraged sabre-tooth lioness.
The lioness came to a stop. She could feel something lodged in her throat. Something that burned with an intensity that she had never felt before. She roared at the puny two-legged creature that stared at her with wide eyes. Twisting her head violently, she tried to dislodge the object.
She bounded towards the human boy then suddenly staggered, feeling her life draining away. Her head drooped and she could see that the grass beneath was stained red. Yet her fury drove her onwards. The boy fell back and pushed himself away with his hands and legs, his fear like a cloud, stinking and weak. As she died, the lioness made one last lunge at the boy, raking his foot with a claw.
A scream of pain shattered the air.
Darkness came swiftly for the sabre-tooth, and beyond that, worlds bright with spirit animals. The remaining lions, watching the struggle with confusion, turned tail and fled.
No prey was worth this much death.
Arul gazed at the stranger, his face invisible within the shadow of his hood. He wanted to call out to him. Thank him. Say something. Instead, his breath became ragged, his body falling into shock. The horizon spun, points of light flashing like jewels. His eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground unconscious.
Only the hooded stranger remained as a witness to the desperate struggle between boy and the lions.
Time ceased to exist for Arul, and oddly familiar dreams washed over him like bells ringing on a faraway mountain. Calling him to puja. He dreamt of being carried while someone sang to him. He thought that he remembered the song from long ago, but in his memory it was a woman’s voice.
In his dream, someone touched his forehead, a sudden light flooding his body. The light healed him. Not only physically, but somewhere else. Somewhere deep in his heart. A lonely boy never accepted by his own village. A boy that stood alone and waited for his mother to return year after year, realizing finally that she would never come back to him.
He glimpsed the hazy face of a beautiful dark eyed woman smiling at him. He knew her face. He knew the glimmering amulet at her throat. Arul was about to call out to her, but she faded quietly into the night.
From deep inside his core, overwhelming grief welled up. He had felt it all his life, and now it poured into his dreams. He wept in a secret place known only to him. He wept until his heart was empty. Mercifully, he fell into a deep sleep, like a ship wandering into a dark sea.
Many days walk away, the woodcutter Parthiban stood next to his cart and watched the crowd restlessly mill about Sailem’s pañcāyattu hall. Gusts of cold air kicked up red dust from the space in front of the building. Above the murmurings of the village-folk, he could hear only one sound coming from inside the hall.
The shrill voice of Kapilan, The Elder.
It rose in pitch from time to time before lapsing into lengthy silences, causing the waiting villagers to crowd closer to the front entrance. In due course, Kapilan’s supporters filed out of the hall with smug expressions. At least half of the Council of Elders were in that group. Parthiban rubbed his head and re-stacked the logs on his cart. He had a bad feeling about what was happening.
Headman Viyan and the rest of the elders exited the hall, their heads bowed. Then Kapilan came out and stood on the front veranda, chest puffed out. Parthiban turned his back and started pulling his cart. As he left the village, he heard Kapilan explain that he was now Headman and assistant to the Royal Scouts.
‘I expect your full co-operation in this matter. The fanciful tales of Ori the Forester will not influence this village. These attacks are isolated cases, and there’s no need to panic. I am here to look after Sailem now.’ His supporters cheered.
The rest of the folk remained sullen and quiet.
Parthiban stopped his cart and tightened his vetti around his waist. The world was changing, even in this isolated valley. He muttered a prayer to the God that dwelt on Mount Amundi, although sometimes he doubted that the Gods really existed. With a grunt, he tugged his cart forward. The old woodcutter and his rattling cart were soon lost in the gathering dusk.