Free PRINCE IN EXILE by AKB eBOOKS Ashok K. Banker Page A

to this sideways view through the gaps in the carved side panel of an elephant-top palanquin, Dasaratha’s military mind grasped at once that their procession had been attacked. 
    But by whom? 
    Slowly, painfully, he forced his eyes open once more. The nausea seemed to have passed momentarily. But all he saw was the same puzzling tableau. The only added detail he was able to glean was the red-hooded figure of Rajkumari Sita, his new daughter-in-law, standing in the front line of the phalanx, close behind the senapati, who seemed to be barring her way deliberately. Dasaratha tried to turn his head, risking another attack of nausea, but the ornate pattern of the sandalwood panel carving hid anything further from his view. He would have to raise himself to see above the side of the palanquin. 
    His elbow groaned in protest, and with a disproportionate sense of achievement he managed to raise his head a few inches higher. At once he heard a gasp from behind, and the tinkling bangled arms of Kausalya caught hold of him, bearing him up. To his left, acting just as quickly, Sumitra’s delicate hands also added their own strength, and with the help of his two queens, he was able to sit up against the side of the palanquin. One of the maharanis placed a bolster behind his head, so he could rest it and yet look around. He started to ask a question, then found himself able to see over the side panel at last, and all questions became redundant. 
    Rama stood on a ledge beside the rock-strewn mountain path, holding a great longbow, the likes of which Dasaratha had not seen except in paintings of legends and myths. The bow was a magnificent creation, its enormous span seemingly constructed for three men rather than one. From the unnaturally gaudy way in which it reflected the afternoon sunlight - sending shooting arrows of pain into Dasaratha’s eyes, forcing him to raise his trembling hand to shield himself - its celestial origins were unmistakable. Dasaratha had seen only two such bows in his life before, both depicted in the great fresco of the Battle of Shiva and Vishnu portrayed on the northside ceiling of the vast dome of Suryavansha Hall, back in the Palace of Ayodhya, painted a hundred years earlier during the reign of his grandfather Raghu. A veteran of the arts of war, Dasaratha had looked up at that magnificent portrayal too many times not to recognise such a weapon when he saw it in reality. 
    But he did not have time to admire the bow, or the ease with which Rama hoisted it high, as if he was accustomed to using such celestial astras daily. It was the figure standing directly opposite his son that now caught Dasaratha’s attention and held him enraptured in breathless awe. A figure out of yet another painting in Suryavansha Hall. 
    Dasaratha knew at once that the white-haired Brahmin, with his distinctive pug features and stocky appearance, could be none other than legendary Parsurama himself. The axe on the shoulder of the dhoti-clad Brahmin left no further doubt as to his identity. And in that same instant, Dasaratha recalled where they were: halfway up the side of Mount Mahendra, where legend had it the axe-wielder had retired after his last cleansing of the earth. With that, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place and Dasaratha recalled the explosion that had shocked his ailing brain into unconsciousness. The Brahmin had burst out of the mountain itself - and there, high above, was the splintered maw marking the place he’d emerged from. 
    Without needing to speak a single word to the two maharanis standing beside him in the palanquin, watching his son as anxiously as he was now, Dasaratha grasped the significance of the entire scene at once. 
    Rama was facing Parsurama in single combat. 
    Suddenly the tableau on the rocky ledge exploded into action, and Kausalya realised with new horror that Dasaratha was not saying a word to stop it - or perhaps he could not. She began to rise again, to cry out, but