Fathers, Krishna sighed, can be so predictable.

1 Residential schools operated by Acharyas who have completed their training at the Citadel of Meru or another Meru-approved gurukul.

I

The roots were thick underfoot. They spread out to bridge the gaps between the trees. Even when the trees themselves thinned out beyond the camps, the knotted roots remained thickly woven on the ground. Stepping over them carefully, Shishupal tracked the nine-fingered boy. There was still no sign of Dantavakra. Nothing else moved. The only sound was his breathing, the tread of his feet on the endless carpet of tree roots, and the soft slapping of his sword.

The boy stopped, unslung his antlered bow and strung it in one fluid motion. Shishupal watched him lay out five long, stone-tipped arrows and squint into the darkness. Shishupal traced his eyeline to the target on a distant tree. A whistle of wood later, Shishupal saw that the boy had pierced the target with his first arrow, and split the embedded arrow with a second. Shishupal had seen it performed many times by great archers. But never by one without a thumb.

‘The show is over.’

Just what I needed, thought Shishupal glumly, to be caught peeping on a boy. ‘It was a good show,’ he rallied. It was art.

The boy bowed. ‘Eklavvya is glad. Allow him the opportunity to be more presentable, lest it be said the Valkas are savages.’ He bent over his sack and rummaged to pull out a thin shirt of rabbit skin.

Shishupal was momentarily confused, but he could not decide by what exactly. Was it because the Valka spoke High Sanskrit in the third person, or was it because he was wearing a shirt of rabbit-skin? Eklavvya looked innocent enough, however, though for a boy his age, the strain marks on his arms wound deeper than what one usually saw in archers. His torso bore bruise marks. The one around his ribs, probably left from Dantavakra’s daredevilry, gloomed with the purple glow of orchids.

‘A stream of apologies to keep you waiting,’ Eklavvya said as he pulled on a glove over his maimed hand. ‘Lord Shishupal, if Eklavvya is not mistaken?’

Shishupal nodded. ‘I believe I have you to thank for teaching my brother some humility.’

The boy laughed. ‘Fortune smiled on Eklavvya today. The move on the horse was valorous, almost trumping Eklavvya, not with force of course, but with the dark magic that the clouds of surprise thunder with. It was most outstanding, Eklavvya confesses.’

‘But you managed to turn him, right at the fall.’

‘Agility has been Eklavvya’s long time mistress.’

Shishupal had a nagging feeling the lad had done time with a theatre troupe. But he had bigger concerns to contend with. ‘You wouldn’t have happened to cross paths with my brother now, would you?’

‘Not since the Tournament. Is Dantavakra missing?’