The Republican Army men sniggered in the background. Balram looked up at the Third Sister behind him. Krishna followed his eye-trail to see the distant figure of Satyabhama lounging on the ramparts, both legs hanging dangerously. ‘I understand enlisting women, but this one is disabled, Lady Satyabhama!’ he shouted through his horn. ‘Her shield hand is missing. How will she defend herself? How will she be part of a phalanx? How will she…’

Balram was silenced as Misery’s fist lashed out and caught him on the bridge of his nose. Balram’s head snapped back but his feet did not budge so much as a whisker. Misery screamed and wheeled around, her one hand pressed between her legs, as if she’d just hit a stone wall. A healer immediately rushed to her. A fractured wrist.

Deathly silence fell, till the faint sound of Satyabhama’s mocking laughter echoed from above. Even Storm, beside Krishna, couldn’t help chuckling. The sound sent a chill down his spine. This could get ugly. The Republican Army, which served under Balram, raised their spears. The Silver Wolves gripped whatever weapons were handy.

Then Balram smiled. His nose wasn’t even bruised. ‘Very well, Misery.’ He bowed. ‘Accept my thanks for correcting me. You can be part of the squad, but not the phalanx. We will find you duty more suited to your punching skills. But before that…ten rounds of the Iron Curfew before the sun sets and no milk in your rations for two days.’

Painful tears rolled down Misery’s cheeks, but she managed to salute Balram all the same.

‘Storm, attend to me,’ Captain Rain announced, patting Misery’s back. ‘You shouldn’t have laughed.’

‘Me? Not at all. I would never laugh at the misery of another.’

‘Ten rounds.’

‘Fuck!’ Storm grunted and stepped out to accompany Misery on her rounds. She turned to glance at Krishna. ‘The trip was…entertaining, Lord Krishna. My thanks.’

But Krishna wasn’t listening. He was staring at the faint spirals of smoke rising above Satyabhama’s head. She is smoking. This can’t be good.

II

Krishna negotiated the stairs of the Third Sister – a height only Daevas were fit to climb. The food in his stomach made zealous enquiries about emerging in a torrent and his throat seemed rather inclined to grant the request. He paused, looking around warily. He saw the burnt bodies impaled on sharpened stakes at different places along the Third Sister, their elbows drawn up tight in front of their faces, as if to fight off the fire that had consumed them. Vachan-breakers. Their bodies would serve as a deterrent to all his people, to even think about spilling the secret of Dvarka. But it did not help his stomach.

The sky was bluer than the Mathuran sigil, fitting neatly over the overcrowded city behind which the Mother Yami sluggishly flowed. Mathura fell away behind him in a vast arc as he finally reached Satyabhama, resting as if she were in a garden, her untied hair shining brown in the sun, pipe in hand. A kohl-streaked tear, dark as death, traced a path against her fair cheek. The wrinkled toxic stick in her hand had an overpowering stench.