He turned left just in time to see a hail of arrows descend on the Greeks facing the central Mathuran detachment. The Greeks were numerous there but none had bothered to form a shield roof. At the first sight of arrows, they ran. Guess none of them wanted to just squat and get peppered with shafts.

Suddenly, detonations cracked through the night. Shishupal was jolted, as if one had burst next to him. But the Wolves hadn’t used theirs’ yet. That ought to wake the Greeks, he thought glumly as he heard more of the damn cursers explode in the distance. Too soon, he reckoned. Some Mathuran in the central detachment had probably got too jumpy. Nerves can do that to you in battle and shit on the best laid plans. Best I focus on my own road ahead. Just as he thought he had regained his balance, he stumbled over a corpse.

‘Wonderful,’ said Eklavvya.

‘Everything feels wonderful when the men you have to kill are just corpses on the road.’

‘Not true,’ Eklavvya said as he slowed his jog. Shishupal followed his gaze to one of Kalyavan’s lot, who was crawling away, dragging his bloody legs behind him. Eklavvya smashed the Greek’s skull in passing, with the back of his borrowed axe. He turned to Shishupal. ‘Can Shishupal hasten his feet? The tunes of combat tug at Eklavvya’s heart like a lost lover.’

More like opium to an addict. But Shishupal did not chastise him. He had no clue whether the Greeks were now the Empire’s enemies or not. Only time will tell, I suppose. For now, he had to stay alive. Why had he not escaped through the tunnel when he had the chance? Or better, why the hell had he even entered Mathura? He shook his head like the answer might drop out of his ears. Just made his headache worse.

The grass beneath his feet soon levelled off, then began to slope down, giving way to cobbled streets. Between the shoulders of the soldiers ahead, he caught glimpses of the fighting. The colony through which he was running had escaped the wrath of the airavats. Here and there, evidence of the last stand that a faction of the Mathuran Army had made, was visible. The dead lay carelessly strewn about. As Balram had said, not one cobblestone had gone uncontested. However, Shishupal knew the Red Cloaks would be assembling their own lines by now, mean, crude faces all, and they would face the onslaught of Mathura with their own fury.