‘Charge at these beasts moving towards us! We have to deflect them on to a different path! We need time for our soldiers to retreat!’

Her cavalry drew their swords and roared: ‘Har Har Mahadev!’

‘Har Har Mahadev!’ bellowed Sati, as she drew her sword and charged forward.

Sati’s skilled cavalry kept up a steady volley of arrows as they drew near the elephants and oxen. While this did deflect many of the oxen away from Sati’s army, the elephants continued their headlong charge. Many of the elephant howdahs had transformed into hell-holes, emitting fire continuously. The shocked elephant-riders, sitting atop the berserk animals, had fallen on some of their flame-throwers, breaking the levers.

Moments later, Sati’s cavalry fearlessly charged headlong into her retreating elephants, riding expertly to avoid the wildly swinging trunks and metallic balls. They needed to bring their own elephants down. This required riding up close from behind and slashing the beasts’ hamstrings, thus making their rear legs collapse. But this was easier said than done, with the malfunctioning flame-throwers spewing a continuous stream of fire. Sati bravely led her section of the cavalry in pursuit of the task at hand. Since there were only twenty elephants, they were brought down quickly. But not before many of the cavalrymen had lost their lives, some crushed, many burnt by the flame-throwers. Sati herself had had her face scorched on one side.

In the meantime, the rest of Sati’s cavalry had managed to redirect all the charging oxen through the skilled use of spears and arrows. The bulls were still charging, panic-stricken with the burning carts tethered to them, but to the west and safely away from the rest of Sati’s elephant corps. Sati looked back to the east, where many of her foot soldiers were already sailing out to the safety of the ships. Her cautious planning had ensured that a large number of rowboats had been kept ready for just such an eventuality.

But this would prove to be a minor victory, before absolute disaster. The Meluhan cavalry had been riding hard towards the battlefield, making good time. And, as the oxen stampeded away, the Meluhan riders charged into Sati’s cavalry.

Swords clashed.

Sati’s cavalry had numbered three thousand riders and was evenly matched with the Meluhans. But her riders had just emerged from a bruising encounter with the panic-stricken elephants and oxen. Their numbers had come down and their strength was already sapped. However, Sati knew that retreat was not an option. She had to battle on for a little longer so that all her foot soldiers could get away to the safety of the ships.

Then Sati heard the sounds of the elephants once again.

She killed the Meluhan in front of her and looked behind.

‘Lord Ram, be merciful!’