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

controlled herself. It would not do to intervene now. She might distract Rama by calling out. And there was the matter of honour to be considered: after all, the Brahmin had challenged Rama fairly and openly, in front of fifty thousand witnesses. For her to intercede now on his behalf would be dishonourable, humiliating. She had no choice but to brace herself and watch … but there was one thing she could do honourably. 
    Kausalya prayed to her patron deity, the mother-goddess Sri in her supreme incarnation, the original creator of all, the One True God to whom even mighty Brahma bowed and paid homage. Let this end now. Let it end without anyone else coming to harm. But most of all, let Rama be safe and well . 
    Then she watched as the Brahmin hefted his axe and charged at Rama. 
    Rama was prepared for the assault. 
    Ever since the Brahmin’s first appearance, he had missed the power of the maha-mantras Bala and Atibala, that fiery shakti that had flowed through his body and brain, igniting every cell, firing it up to that hot-as-ice, cold-as-flame preternatural state that had so quickly become as familiar to him as the tensing of his own muscles, the feel of his own skin. 
    But the shakti of Brahman had been stripped from him. Taken away as the price for wielding the Brahm-astra. He had known the consequence of unleashing that great celestial weapon. Yet he had accepted the responsibility and fulfilled his dharma, saving the lives not only of those who resided in Mithila City, in the direct path of the asura invasion, but of all mortals who would eventually, inevitably, have faced the death-wrath of Ravana. 
    And now he stood before Parsurama without any force other than his own mortal strength. 
    And what good was mortal strength before the legendary power of the axe-wielder? He who had cleansed the earth of Kshatriyas so many times before? 
    How could one solitary warrior stand before such a legendary challenger? 
    All these thoughts flashed through Rama’s mind in the fraction of an instant. 
    And then the time for thinking was past. 
    The Brahmin attacked. 
    Parsurama charged at him, his axe swinging at Rama’s neck with enough force to carve another passageway through the mountain. The Brahmin moved with preternatural speed, belying his white-haired ancientness, the stockiness of his physique and the heavy mass of his upper body. There was no time at all for the young rajkumar to dodge the blow, nor did Rama have any weapon with which to deflect the swinging axe. The Bow of Vishnu, however potent its celestial origin, was but a bow after all, not a shield or sword. So fifty thousand breaths caught in as many throats as the watching Ayodhyans saw their prince face the rushing gleam of that legendary blade without moving an inch. 
    Rama simply stood his ground. 
    He let the axe come flying at him with all the force of Parsurama’s headlong-rushing swing. He let the blade of the axe strike his exposed neck, catching it on the right side of that narrow stem, midway between his delicate collarbone and strong jawline. An artery pulsed once in the instant before the blade struck the dark, almost bluish skin. Sita’s eyes were among those that saw the throb of Rama’s lifeblood in his bared neck, as distinct as the flutter of a bird’s heart in its exposed breast. A single pulse, like the beat of an unheard dhol-drum at some distant funeral procession. And then the blade struck home with enough impact and shakti to shatter a mountainside of basalt rock into smithereens. 
    THREE 
    The axe struck Rama’s neck with a sound like nothing human ears had ever heard before. It was less a sound than an absence of sound. An utter blankness, as if the axe had struck the trunk of a tree so thick and soft that it had penetrated right up to the haft. But even the softest treetrunk would have issued some sound, the faintest of pulpy thumps perhaps, or the tiniest thwack as the enormous axe-blade imbedded itself in its