8.1 Viveka
We had ridden for a short distance when I became aware of the unnatural silence. All the earlier sounds of gunfire, shouts, screams, explosions, horses, had died down. Only the foul sea wind remained, blowing with a force born of freedom that it could never have in a Bombay packed with skyscrapers and buildings.
The silence was more ominous than those terrible sounds.
I guessed that the hill intervening between us and the battlefield was deadening the sounds of the battle. But even so, we should have heard something, anything.
Unless...My mind had to struggle to complete the chilling thought. Unless the attacking army had met with almost no resistance and the battle was over as suddenly as it had begun. I had read about such things happening before during a course in martial history I'd taken at Michigan State to earn extra credits for that semester.
In the face of vastly superior forces, either an army loses heart at once and turns tail. Or they fight with a fierceness born of desperation, either winning bravely or being cut down to the last man. If I'm not mistaken, it was General Clausewitz who said that in his classic manual on military history, Clausewitz On War--or then again, maybe it was Bill Gates during the Microsoft break-up! I'm not trying to be flippant, but 21st century corporate wars weren't very different from medieval age infantry battles, except that in business it was the balance sheets that turned bloody red, not the battleground.
There was no way of knowing which of the two had happened on the other side of the hill. But the first possibility seemed more likely. The Northern army had seemed far superior in numbers and battle-lust to the Southern forces.
Rikit Raushan's hand still stayed on my bare thigh. I was uncomfortably conscious of it, as well as of his close physical presence. I could smell him and it wasn't a very pleasant smell. But then, I suppose, in a world torn apart by war and the complete breakdown of civilization, they probably didn't have the luxury of bathing daily.
And there was something powerfully masculine about him that wasn't entirely repulsive or unattractive. In fact, in many ways he was more attractive in real life than Hrithik Roshan was on the screen in my world. More raw and manly somehow.
I berated myself for letting such thoughts pass through my mind. And to think that when I was a schoolgirl I had once tossed a Mills & Boons out of a BEST bus window, just to prove to my classmate that I thought romance fantasies were trash. It was the raw violence around me that was making me think such thoughts. It's a survival mechanism. Violence arouses the senses, makes one more fully aware of one's life-energies, awakening the chakras.
That and the fact that this man was so closely pressed to my back, I could feel every contour, every muscle of his body. There's something primeval about being on a horse with a person of the opposite sex. Something powerfully animalistic and arousing--not that I was aroused by this brutish lout, mind you. But the circumstances were such that I couldn't help being aware of his physical intimacy.
Suddenly, I felt him tense. The hand on my thigh tightened, and with one expert twitch of the reins, he brought the horse to an abrupt halt.
The moment the horse stopped I heard it too.
The pounding sound of other horses. Many horses. Behind us.
He turned the horse smartly, looking back in the direction we had come.
After a moment, the sound rose to a crescendo. And they burst into view above us on the peak of the hill.
Soldiers. Dozens of them. Armed and on horseback.
They paused at the top of Pali Hill and I saw one of them point with his lance at us and call out to a man behind who was dressed in shining armour.
Behind me, Rikit spat a name that sounded like a curse.
"Khanna!"
The man in armour gestured at us, and the troupe of horseback soldiers started downhill towards us. They were less than a kilometre away and would catch us within minutes. From their drawn swords and lances, there was no doubt about their hostile intentions.
I felt a cold wave lap at my throat, filling the tiny cut with a tingling icyness.
My captor turned his horse around until it was headed South again, and we began to ride faster, trying to outrace the soldiers following us.
The silence was more ominous than those terrible sounds.
I guessed that the hill intervening between us and the battlefield was deadening the sounds of the battle. But even so, we should have heard something, anything.
Unless...My mind had to struggle to complete the chilling thought. Unless the attacking army had met with almost no resistance and the battle was over as suddenly as it had begun. I had read about such things happening before during a course in martial history I'd taken at Michigan State to earn extra credits for that semester.
In the face of vastly superior forces, either an army loses heart at once and turns tail. Or they fight with a fierceness born of desperation, either winning bravely or being cut down to the last man. If I'm not mistaken, it was General Clausewitz who said that in his classic manual on military history, Clausewitz On War--or then again, maybe it was Bill Gates during the Microsoft break-up! I'm not trying to be flippant, but 21st century corporate wars weren't very different from medieval age infantry battles, except that in business it was the balance sheets that turned bloody red, not the battleground.
There was no way of knowing which of the two had happened on the other side of the hill. But the first possibility seemed more likely. The Northern army had seemed far superior in numbers and battle-lust to the Southern forces.
Rikit Raushan's hand still stayed on my bare thigh. I was uncomfortably conscious of it, as well as of his close physical presence. I could smell him and it wasn't a very pleasant smell. But then, I suppose, in a world torn apart by war and the complete breakdown of civilization, they probably didn't have the luxury of bathing daily.
And there was something powerfully masculine about him that wasn't entirely repulsive or unattractive. In fact, in many ways he was more attractive in real life than Hrithik Roshan was on the screen in my world. More raw and manly somehow.
I berated myself for letting such thoughts pass through my mind. And to think that when I was a schoolgirl I had once tossed a Mills & Boons out of a BEST bus window, just to prove to my classmate that I thought romance fantasies were trash. It was the raw violence around me that was making me think such thoughts. It's a survival mechanism. Violence arouses the senses, makes one more fully aware of one's life-energies, awakening the chakras.
That and the fact that this man was so closely pressed to my back, I could feel every contour, every muscle of his body. There's something primeval about being on a horse with a person of the opposite sex. Something powerfully animalistic and arousing--not that I was aroused by this brutish lout, mind you. But the circumstances were such that I couldn't help being aware of his physical intimacy.
Suddenly, I felt him tense. The hand on my thigh tightened, and with one expert twitch of the reins, he brought the horse to an abrupt halt.
The moment the horse stopped I heard it too.
The pounding sound of other horses. Many horses. Behind us.
He turned the horse smartly, looking back in the direction we had come.
After a moment, the sound rose to a crescendo. And they burst into view above us on the peak of the hill.
Soldiers. Dozens of them. Armed and on horseback.
They paused at the top of Pali Hill and I saw one of them point with his lance at us and call out to a man behind who was dressed in shining armour.
Behind me, Rikit spat a name that sounded like a curse.
"Khanna!"
The man in armour gestured at us, and the troupe of horseback soldiers started downhill towards us. They were less than a kilometre away and would catch us within minutes. From their drawn swords and lances, there was no doubt about their hostile intentions.
I felt a cold wave lap at my throat, filling the tiny cut with a tingling icyness.
My captor turned his horse around until it was headed South again, and we began to ride faster, trying to outrace the soldiers following us.
posted by Ashok K. Banker at 12.10.05
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