MISERY felt in her satchel. She had only two cursers and one bellower left. Her squad, the central detachment, engaged the Greeks while she advanced cautiously down the slope with a score of archers encircling her, so that she could throw her munitions at the two airavats below. Calm had volunteered, but Misery was the best at rock-throwing. A bellower was, however, not something you threw into a crowded alley. She would have to find a way to make sure she hit the beasts spot on with the two cursers she had left. Considering the airavat in the lead was not moving, it might be the easier target. As if it had divined her thoughts, the hitherto unmoving airavat rampaged up the slope. It crashed into Greeks and Mathurans alike, crushing many underfoot, slicing open others with its four tusk-blades.

Misery turned to wink at Calm, and shouted, ‘Run!’ even as she felt the trunk coil around her. She took out the bellower and looked into the eyes of the airavat. ‘Eat this, bitch!’ she yelled as she threw the bellower straight into the airavat’s open mouth with an underhand throw. Finally, a hero’s death.

MENAS wondered why he was here amongst the Greeks when he was an Easterner. He had grown up loving airavats. He loved the cold of the East. The abundance of forest. His mother had told him to join the Army even if it was under a Rakshasa King. There was honour in defending your borders, she had said. So, he had done so, as a mahout. But here he was, in a foreign land, fighting men and women, who had nothing to do with him. His King had sent him to Mathura, and he had obeyed. It had been madness. Burning pigs in the air! His airavat Mavant, had been terrified. The Greeks called airavats, behemoths. So unimaginative. Yet here he was, fighting amidst them, a long way from home, and not for anything he understood or stood to gain from.

The city had been a maze of inclined alleys, turns and barricades, terrible to navigate. Ahead, the head mahout Mandar, had run into a squadron of women-warriors, clad in grey, and been killed by a bolt. Menas was surprised to see the women make a stand. No one stood against an airavat. And then, the riderless airavat Imanyan, had charged ahead screeching when a Greek had pricked her with his dagger. Imanyan had been Mavant’s mate. So, without warning, Mavant had charged right behind her. From his seat, Menas had spied a one-armed woman in the guarded circle reach into her satchel and cry out.

All he remembered later was seeing the man who had pricked Imanyan be blown to smithereens before he himself was punched in the chest. He had fallen off Mavant and lain sprawled on the ground. Ahead, the explosion had taken apart buildings on either side of the alley. Menas had tried to rise, but realised he had broken his leg. A sad trumpet snatched his attention. No…no... he cried as he saw Mavant stumble. ‘Mavant!’ The sound of hooves answered him; he saw a posse of Mathuran cavalry charging down the alley. His last thought before a horseman beheaded him was who would take care of Mavant when he was gone?