‘Right now!’ ordered Sita, clapping her hands. As the officer hurried out, Sita turned to the others. ‘Round up all the officers in the city. Get them to the Bees Quarter. To the inner wall.’
As the policemen rushed out, Sita walked out of her office to meet her personal bodyguards — the Malayaputras embedded in the Mithila police force. She checked to see if they were out of earshot. Then, she whispered to Makrant, a guard she had come to trust. ‘Find Captain Jatayu. Tell him that I want all of you to protect the eastern secret tunnel on our inner wall. He knows where it is. Preferably, find a way to collapse that tunnel.’
‘My Lady, do you expect Raavan to …’
‘Yes, I do,’ interrupted Sita. ‘Block that tunnel. Block it within the hour.’
‘Yes, My Lady.’
‘I cannot do that!’ hissed Samichi, looking around to ascertain that nobody was near.
Akampana, unlike his usual well-groomed self, was dishevelled. The clothes, though expensive, were rumpled. Some of the rings on his fingers were missing. The knife lay precariously in the scabbard, the blood-stained blade partly exposed. Samichi was shocked. This was an Akampana she did not know. Crazed and violent.
‘You must do as ordered,’ growled Akampana softly.
Samichi glared angrily at the ground. She knew she had no choice. Because of what had happened all those years ago …
‘Princess Sita cannot be hurt.’
‘You are in no position to make demands.’
‘Princess Sita cannot be hurt!’ snarled Samichi. ‘Promise me!’
Akampana held his fists tight. His fury at breaking point.
‘Promise me!’
Despite his anger, Akampana knew they needed Samichi if they were to succeed. He nodded.
Samichi turned and hurried off.
Chapter 23
It was late at night; the fourth hour of the fourth prahar. Ram and Sita had been joined by Lakshman and Samichi on top of the Bees Quarter, close to the inner wall edge. The entire Bees Quarter complex had been evacuated as a precautionary step. The pontoon bridge that spanned the moat-lake had been destroyed.
Mithila had a force of four thousand policemen and policewomen. Enough to maintain law and order for the hundred thousand citizens of the small kingdom. But against the Lankans, they were outnumbered five to two. Would they be able to thwart an attack from the Lankan bodyguards of Raavan?
Sita believed they could. A cornered animal fights back ferociously. The Mithilans were not fighting for conquest. Or wealth. Or ego. They were fighting for their lives. Fighting to save their city from annihilation. And this was not a traditional war being fought on open ground. The Mithilans were behind defensive walls; double walls in fact; a war-battlement innovation that had rarely been tried in other forts in the recent past. The Lankan generals were unlikely to have war-gamed this scenario. A lower ratio of soldiers was not such a huge disadvantage with this factor thrown in.
Ram and Sita had abandoned efforts to secure the outer wall. They wanted Raavan and his soldiers to scale it and launch an assault on the inner wall; the Lankans would, then, be trapped between the two walls, which the Mithilan arrows would convert into a killing field. They expected a volley of arrows from the other side too. In preparation for which the police had been asked to carry their wooden shields, normally used for crowd control within Mithila. Lakshman had quickly taught them some basic manoeuvres to protect themselves from the arrows.
‘Where are the Malayaputras?’ asked Lakshman.
Sita looked around, but did not answer. She knew the Malayaputras would not abandon her. She hoped they were carrying out last-minute parleys, laced with adequate threats and bribes, to convince the Lankans to back off.
Ram whispered to Lakshman, ‘I think it’s just us.’
Lakshman shook his head and spat, saying loudly, ‘Cowards.’
Sita did not respond. She had learnt in the last few days that Lakshman was quite hot-headed. And she needed his short temper in the battle that was to follow.
‘Look!’ said Samichi.
Sita and Lakshman turned in the direction that Samichi had pointed.
Torches lined the other side of the moat-lake that surrounded the outer wall of Mithila. Raavan’s bodyguards had worked feverishly through the evening, chopping down trees from the forest and building rowboats to carry them across the lake.
Even as they watched, the Lankans began to push their boats into the moat-lake. The assault on Mithila was being launched.
‘It’s time,’ said Sita.
‘Yes,’ said Ram. ‘We have maybe another half hour before they hit our outer wall.’
Conch shells resounded through the night, by now recognised as the signature sound of Raavan and his men. As they watched in the light of the flickering flames of torches, the Lankans propped giant ladders against the outer walls of Mithila.
‘They are here,’ said Ram.
Sita turned to her messenger and nodded.
Messages were relayed quickly down the line to the Mithila police-soldiers. Sita expected a shower of arrows from Raavan’s archers. The Lankans would fire their arrows only as long as their soldiers were outside the outer wall. The shooting would stop the moment the Lankans climbed over. The archers would not risk hitting their own men.
A loud whoosh heralded the release of the arrows.
‘Shields!’ shouted Sita.
The Mithilans immediately raised their shields. Ready for the Lankan arrows that were about to rain down on them.
Sita’s instincts kicked in. Something’s wrong with the sound. It’s too strong even for thousands of arrows. Something much larger has been fired.
Hiding behind her shield, she looked at Ram. She sensed that he too was troubled.
Their instincts were right.
Huge missiles rammed through the Mithilan defences with massive force. Desperate cries of agony along with sickening thuds were heard as shields were ripped through. Many in the Mithilan ranks were brought down in a flash.
‘What is that?’ screamed Lakshman, hiding behind his shield.
Sita saw Ram’s wooden shield snap into two pieces as a missile tore through it like a hot knife through butter. It missed him by a hair’s breadth.
Spears!
Their wooden shields were a protection against arrows, not large spears.
How can spears be flung to this distance?!
The first volley was over. Sita knew they had but a few moments before the next one. She lowered her shield and looked around, just as Ram did.
She heard Ram exclaim, ‘Lord Rudra, be merciful …’
The destruction was severe. At least a quarter of the Mithilans were either dead or heavily injured, impaled on massive spears that had brutally ripped through their shields and bodies.
Ram looked at Sita. ‘Another volley will be fired any moment! Into the houses!’