And Nala flew, his tunic flapping and billowing against his burning skin. He fell, tumbling over and over, the sky whirling around him. The Kaurava Mansion, the black moonless sky, the grey rocks, all rushed past as he tumbled past the trees he had been trying to trace moments before. Icy wind roared in his ears and ripped at his hair. He could see each tree now from various angles as he spinned. Stony outcrops cut into him. Needle-sharp branches snatched at him. But nothing slowed his fall as he plunged down the mountainside.

But, instead of having his skull smashed out on the rocks below, as would have happened in the natural course of things, he fell against a donkey that had made half the descent without incident. Like a thunderbolt from the sky, Nala’s body crashed into the creature’s behind. The startled creature recoiled in fear, lost its footing, and slid braying in fright into the ravine below, taking Nala’s place in the fate Bheem had planned for him.

And so it was that a poor donkey saved Nala’s life.

I

Windowless hovels clung to the walls of the Crows like old mistresses. Awnings sagged precariously above shanty shops. Water ran in ankle-deep torrents down the slopes leading away from the Crows. The downpour had stripped the flowers from the dwarf trees lining the streets, turning the walkway red and white. In the damp shadows of the winesinks, whorehouses and inns that lined the roads that led out of Hastinapur into the woods, dour-faced owners watched two figures, in mortal fear, as they passed. Fortunately for the two, apart from a few miserable mules, the street was mostly empty at this time of night. And the score of black-jacketed city guards atop the watch-towers were only too glad of the distance the towers provided them.

Both figures were wrapped in bandages, hastily gathered from torn sheets and clothing. Boiled tomato mash, still warm, blotted the bandages around their faces and arms. A coating of the stuff was plastered liberally over their groins. Limping around wearing a layer of tomato extract and wrapped in ragged strips, was disgusting, but there was no better way to disguise a Daeva and a Resht born with a golden breastplate, as they escaped the city.

Ravana’s Curse was an incurable, painful disease, and those infected with it were treated with less hospitality than lepers. Had the pair been trying to enter the city, they would have been greeted with arrows. As it was, the guards had no interest in engaging in any conversation with two diseased figures exiting the city.

‘I feel sympathy for those who truly suffer from this ailment. It is terrible the way people are shunning us,’ Savitre Lios said. ‘Would death be preferable, I wonder?’