Vaibhav Anand - The Great War of Hind

THE
GREAT WAR
OF HIND

THE LEGEND OF RAMM

S RISHTI P UBLISHERS & D ISTRIBUTORS

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New Delhi 110 019

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First published by

Srishti Publishers & Distributors in 2015

Copyright Vaibhav Anand, 2015

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. The characters, places, events and kingdoms described in this book are either a work of the authors imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to historical figures, battles or places is purely coincidental.

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Publishers.

To CA & HK, thanks.
For everything .

The future of this great land was once forged on the anvils of battlefields, lit afire by the blaze of war .

Sanjaay Mahaato, official chronicler of General Ramm 12015 BC

CONTENTS

Prologue

I n the beginning, there was no such thing as heaven or hell. All that there was then, was earth.

I speak of a land far before time far before the concept of time. When men and gods coexisted lived and died and fought and loved. People thought of time in breaths and moonrises and winters; and if they missed one say a breath or a moonrise or a winter time simply ceased to exist. But, for the sake of chroniclers and people who shall doubt my story, I shall state that we were of twelve thousand winters before the coming of that messiah many call Yesus.

It is unclear how everything, our world as we saw it, came to be. There were only stories and songs and poems passed down from generation to generation; hymns sung at festivals or lullabies that put children to sleep.

It was said that God created man. I shall not dwell on this story for I do not know how or why or when and I will not submit myself to conjecture. All that I know is that once God created man whichever God this was He could no longer bear his creation. So He created a new race to destroy humankind. Having set this race upon men, God retreated to the mountains, far away from his creations. Men came to know this race by many names. In our kingdom, we called them demons.

My name is Sanjaay and I shall tell you the story of how our world came to be. There are raconteurs and mischief-mongers in our ranks and I have no doubt they shall pervert the truth with their self serving versions. The events of history this history of our land shall thus inevitably have many versions, doubtless. I was there with General Ramm, I fought by his side and at the very end when I left his service, he confided in me everything even his deepest, darkest secrets. I began to write this book, this memoir of the great man that once was, when my body was no longer fit for soldiering, but my mind was still robust. I travelled far and wide. I met gods and demons alike; sons and wives of men long gone just so the world may know full well the truth about our times.

And so it was that thousands of winters ago, that earth as we knew it as I knew it came to be, with man and Gods at absolute odds.

In my time, we called our land Hind.

A land of gods and men and everything in between.

R amm held his stance for twenty breaths, rock steady. His right bicep glistened with sweat in the sun, swollen to twice its size as it held the bow string taut and still.

A pigeon cooed in the distance. A butterfly flapped its wings not ten paces from him. Ramm looked at them without looking at them. He understood the rhythm of the butterflys flapping wings, the space between the pigeons cries, the pace at which glistening drops of dew slunk to the ground and became nothing. He measured his heartbeat with them, felt the coos, the flaps and the dewfall synchronize with his heartbeat. His breathing slowed and as his sight became vision, he saw his target as the tip of his arrow saw it.

He saw the blades of grass arch slightly to the left and pegged the wind at half a horse-length per breath. Gentle enough but at fifty horse-lengths from the target, enough to make his arrow miss by one horse. He coaxed his aim off the mark one horse to the right and half-a-horse above his mark. All that remained now was to ease his breath to the point of being barely alive.

Then, with an extreme effort of resolve, Ramm shut off his senses as every Snipera tribesman worth his salt had been taught to. He felt every sense slowly become one. The smell, the touch, the hearing, the sight, even taste became one giant many-weaponed soldier as they focused on his mark for him (a phenomenon of focus the Snipera called awakening of the all-sense). And finally, he held his breath almost like those fish-baiters did under water; except for the fact that he still inhaled one breath savored in lieu of twenty. He saw the dew now fall ten times in a single breath, the wings flap five times as much, the coos punctuated by a gap that was one tenth as big as the original and with his all-sense, he saw the wind and felt the gentle curves in the path that he was to take through his arrow. He saw what the men of science called gravitas a mysterious force that pulled all arrows, once released, to the ground eventually. His heart beat slowly, almost languidly one beat for twenty and between heartbeats, he released his arrow.

He did not so much as fire his arrow as entrust it to the care of the wind and the earth. Because were it not for the gentle care of both, it would land a horse to the right and half-a-horse above the target. But the wind carried it gently and gravitas tugged at it until it curved and bent and hit with a gentle, almost polite thud. The arrow made a tiny hole in the exact centre of the target.

It took a few breaths for his all-sense to disperse and his breath to un-submerge from their underwater like bearings. When he came to, he heard raucous applause from all round. His senses returned to their full and normal use and he turned to see his king, Vikramadetya giving him a standing ovation. To the kings right, the princess sat expressionless, unmoved by the archers brilliance. The five other kings from all the other kingdoms of Hind applauded politely while choosing to stay seated.

Ramm raised his bow to his king and bowed slightly. He smiled gently, perhaps amused by the princess indifference and stood still, waiting for the court jester to announce him off the range. Instead, Vikramadetya raised his hands to the crowd in a gesture that asked for the applause to cede. And then in a majestic booming voice that kings somehow come to acquire, he addressed his audience.

In the six winters that our war games have been held, not once has a soldier from Ayodh been defeated! he paused theatrically for applause and the crowd did not disappoint applauding and cheering and howling in equal measure.