The world was a screaming blur of wind and terror. White-knuckled, Meghanad wrestled with the reins as his heart frantically drummed against his ribs. The chariot lurched perilously as his second horse succumbed to its injuries and collapsed like the first. With two down, the strain fell entirely on his third. In an attempt to alleviate the burden, Meghanad drew out his sword and swiftly dispatched the rope and chains tethering the disembowelled beasts to his chariot.
As they fell, Meghanad noticed something peculiar. A red rope was streaming out of the bowels of his second steed. Before he could determine what it was, something obscene and wet coiled around the neck of his last remaining steed. Just one look, and Meghanad knew - intestines. The brute below was using the guts of a dead horse like some makeshift lasso.
The horse shrieked a high-pitched sound of pure terror. And immediately, it yanked its head violently to the side. The chariot veered sharply and went off-course, forcing Meghanad to fight to regain his balance. From the corner of his eye, he saw the ashen man use the momentum from the chaotic turn to propel himself upwards in an arc akin to a pendulum, where the man was the mass suspended at the end of a length of intestine-turned-rope. He crashed onto the chariot's ornate floor, further destabilising the platform.
It did not take long for Meghanad to recover his balance; he'd traversed the chariot through worse conditions, after all. And once he'd stabilised himself, he quickly closed the space between himself and the ashen intruder in less than a heartbeat.
Meghanad noticed that the man was distracted. Unlike their earlier contest of close-quarters combat, Meghanad could see an endless number of openings. His first strike was a palm-heel thrust aimed directly under the man's chin. Under normal conditions, this blow would certainly snap the victim's neck. And connect, it did. The result was also within expectation as a crack was heard over the howling winds. But the consequence was not as Meghanad had calculated.
The man healed almost instantaneously! In essence, the attack barely distressed him. Undeterred, Meghanad flowed into his next attack, which was a rigid knife-hand slicing at the thick cords of muscle in the warrior's neck. Again, the attack connected, the result was felt, but the after-effect was subpar. He pivoted with a low sweeping kick aimed at the back of the man's knee while simultaneously jabbing two stiffened fingers toward the eyes. It was a flawless, coordinated assault meant to cripple and blind in a single motion.
For a second, Meghanad felt like he was punching cotton. The attacks succeeded, but the man reverted almost instantly. The irony wasn't lost on Meghanad either; this was probably how all his opponents felt when they confronted him.
But what irked Meghanad the most was that the man didn't even seem to register his attacks. He was completely unfazed. He just stood there and weathered the barrage, with his crimson eyes fixed on Meghanad with a glint that was unlike that of a predator. Because a predator's purpose was just to fill its hunger. This man was purely on a mission to demolish.
Meghanad committed to a final, devastating punch aimed at the warrior's throat. But this time, the man moved. He took half a step back, and right as Meghanad's fist was an inch away from grazing his face, he cocked his head back and brought it forward. Meghanad's fist cracked, sending a jolt of pain through his nervous system. As his shattered appendage was repairing itself under the chariot's power, the man caught Meghanad by his armour and jerked him forward.
The man's skull collided against Meghanad's, and his world exploded into a silent, searing flash of white light. He was thrown sideways as a sound like a thousand temple gongs rang in his ears. His mind was a discombobulated mess. And although the physical damage healed at a steady pace, the disorientation took a bit longer to fade.
What surprised Meghanad was that there was no follow-up. Why had the man just left him? As his focus returned, Meghanad realised why, as he was greeted with a chilling sight.
The man had turned his back on him. He stood at the edge of the chariot while gripping the large, golden-spoked wheel. His back and shoulder muscles knotted into granite-like bulges under the strain. Wood groaned and metal screamed in protest. With a final, inhuman roar, he ripped the entire wheel assembly from the axle.
Meghanad stared awestruck. His shock momentarily overrode the lingering, dizzying pain in his head. He watched the beast of a man heft the heavy wheel and use it as a battering ram. He slammed it again and again into the axle of the second wheel. Splinters flew. Metal bent, then shattered. With a final, percussive crash, the second wheel was torn from the chassis and sent spinning into the clouds below.
The chariot, now crippled, began to buck and fishtail wildly, threatening to tear itself apart in mid-air.
It was in that moment of dawning horror that Meghanad finally understood. The ashen man wasn't trying to kill *him*. He was trying to kill his immortality. He'd figured it out!
A new, frantic energy surged through Meghanad. He scrambled for his bow and immediately nocked an explosive arrow. He amplified the magic that generated the explosion and fired at point-blank range. The resulting blast engulfed them both, searing flesh and metal alike. The ashen man was thrown back as his body was riddled with shrapnel. For a moment, Meghanad could see the light leave his eyes. But it was only momentary, as he had already begun healing.
Meghanad, caught in his own blast, felt his armour singe and his skin blister. The wounds began to close, but he noticed, with a spike of cold dread, that the process was a fraction slower than before. Worse yet, his opponent was recuperating faster than he was.
He knew that he could not let himself get separated from the chariot while facing this invulnerable opponent. His eyes darted around and landed on a heavy length of chain that was initially used to tether the horses to the chariot. With anxious hands, he wrapped the loose end tightly around his right leg and checked that the other end was secured to a metal ring bolted to the chariot's floor.
At that moment, Meghanad looked up and met his opponent's gaze. And then it all happened within a fraction of a second.
Meghanad saw a dark hue falling on them - a shadow. Before he could turn to gauge the source, he saw the ashen man leap forward from his spot. He barely had enough time to move to his defence when his world collapsed in a thunderous crunch of splintering wood and shattered stone.
The chariot slammed into the sheer face of a mountain.
The impact shouldn't have affected Meghanad, and the man knew that. Which was why the ashen attacker acted to maximise the pain inflicted. He gripped Meghanad by the throat and chest and pinned him against the rapidly approaching wall of rock. Meghanad became the buffer between the man and the mountain.
Darkness swallowed them as they bored into the stone. The noise was deafening. It was like a constant, grinding roar that vibrated in Meghanad's marrow. He felt his bones snap, pulverise, and turn to dust, only for the chariot's magic to force them back together in the next instant. He was unmade and remade a dozen times in the span of a few seconds. It was at this moment that Meghanad regretted his conditional invulnerability, because the endless pain made him wish that he were dead. Jagged rocks flayed his skin, tearing away muscle and sinew, dragging him through a claustrophobic hell of friction and pressure. He tried to scream, but his mouth was filled with grit and blood.
He was a plough, driven by the unstoppable force of the ashen man and the momentum of his celestial chariot as he churned through the mountain's heart.
Then, as abruptly as the torment had begun, the pressure vanished. He burst out the other side of the peak in a shower of debris. With his momentum hampered, gravity reclaimed him. The chariot, which was now little more than a twisted wreck of frame and axle, plummeted toward the churning waters far below. The sudden jerk of the fall snapped the chain taut, leaving Meghanad dangling upside down by his right leg.
He swung wildly in the gale, blinking the dust and blood from his eyes. To his left, he saw what remained of his last steed. The impact had turned the majestic beast into nothing more than red mulch smeared against the twisted wreckage of the chassis.
As clarity poured in, the pain ceased, and his body was remade once more. Meghanad quickly tried to hoist himself up to undo himself from the chains. At that moment, a boom echoed from above.
Meghanad twisted his neck to look up.
The patch of rock he had just exited exploded outward. Through the cloud of dust, the ashen man stepped out into the open air. He grabbed onto the jutting rock faces of the steep side of the mountain and methodically made his way down.
Once he was beside Meghanad, the man stopped. Even upside down, Meghanad met his eyes. They were calmed now, but the rage bubbling within was still blaring like an unending siren through them.
The man extended his hand to the side.
From the wreckage of the mountain, a silver blur whistled through the air. The man's axe spun end over end and returned to its master with unerring accuracy. It slapped into the man's palm with a heavy thud.
In one smooth, fluid motion, the man used the momentum of the catch to swing the weapon downward.
Meghanad screamed as the axe bit through armour, flesh, and bone. There was no resistance. The blade separated his leg cleanly just above the ankle.
The connection to the chariot was severed.
Meghanad plummeted.
His scream was swallowed by the wind as he fell away from the healing magic, away from the mountain, and into the waiting abyss below. He hit the water with the force of a cannonball.
The cold was a shock to his system, momentarily stunning him. The torrential currents grabbed him, tossing him like a rag doll against the tide. He thrashed. His lungs burned. He fought the urge to inhale the ocean. With a desperate kick, he broke the surface, gasping for air that tasted of salt and copper.
He wiped the water from his eyes and looked up, searching for the sky.
Instead, he saw a shadow growing larger. The ashen man was diving straight for him headfirst.
A small, ironic smirk touched Meghanad's lips. It was the only defiance he had left.
Then, the world went dark.
___
The wind howling over the ocean was replaced by the low, restless murmur of a massive encampment. Miles of fabric rippled in the coastal breeze, forming a sea of tents that stretched as far as the eye could see. To a distant observer, it might have looked like any other army awaiting the horn of war. But a closer look revealed a strange peculiarity.
These were not men. Not… entirely men.
Tails twitched nervously. Fur bristled in the damp air. The soldiers crouched on their haunches or paced with agile, restless energy. The army consisted entirely of Vanaras.
In the centre of this sprawling formation stood a large tent. Its heavy flaps were secured against the wind. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of herbs and the weight of silence. A man sat patiently by the bedside of another. His posture was rigid with a quiet, terrifying focus. Both were dressed in the same humble attire - plain rags that contrasted sharply with the regal bearing that they couldn't quite hide. Their hair was pulled back into tight top-knots, revealing faces that bore the same noble structure.
But the resemblance ended there. The man who sat in vigil possessed skin the colour of dark and rich rain-laden clouds. The figure on the bed was naturally lighter, fair like the moon, but now he was rapidly turning the colour of ash. His chest barely rose. The pallor of death was creeping up his neck, stealing the life from him, breath by shallow breath.
A dull, thundering boom echoed from somewhere far across the water. The ground beneath the tent trembled ever so slightly.
The dark-skinned man's eyes snapped open. He had been deep in meditation, but the sound pulled him back to the waking world. The faint lines of worry that had etched themselves into his forehead smoothed out, replaced by a wash of profound relief.
The tent flaps swung open, admitting a gust of fresh air and a massive figure. A large bear walked in on two legs with uncharacteristic agility and poise.
"Lord Ram!" The bear spoke with a deep, vibrating growl. "Hanuman has returned! He's found the herb."
"I didn't doubt him for a moment," Ram said as he stood, with a small, weary smile touching his lips.
Before the bear could reply, the flap opened again. A Vanara rushed in, breathless and frantic, carrying the scent of ozone. He collapsed to his knees, slid slightly on the rug, and raised his hand high above his head in offering.
In his open palm rested a pouch. Its contents spilt out slightly to reveal the lush leaves of the herb.
Ram stepped forward. He collected the pouch from the trembling hand and turned to the bear, extending the medicine towards him.
"Jambawan, I must trouble you to brew the poultice."
The bear reached out nimbly. His large claws collected the herb with surprising delicateness. He bowed low and retreated to the corner of the tent where a mortar and pestle lay waiting.
Ram turned back to thank the kneeling Vanara and to express his heartfelt gratitude. But the spot on the rug was empty.
Ram blinked. He stepped out of the tent and scanned the bustling camp. A short distance away, he spotted the monkey overturning a stack of weapon crates, lifting heavy stones, and peering frantically under wagons.
"Has ANYONE seen my Gada?" Hanuman shouted with his voice cracking in panic.
"Didn't you carry it with you when you went?" Ram said as he approached.
The Vanara slapped his forehead in annoyance as the realisation dawned on him. He then turned to the crowd and yelled, "Can ANYONE get me A Gada?!"
"What's with the anxiousness?" Ram asked as he placed a gentle palm on the panicking monkey's shoulder.
"I do 'pologise, my Lord, but I must return," Hanuman explained, with his characteristic drawl. The monkey massaged his jaw as he spoke, drawing Ram's attention to the conspicuous scar by his chin.
Ram was one of the very few who called Hanuman by his given name. Most just referred to him as Hanuman - the one with the disfigured jaw. Although the Vanara didn't appear affected by this designation, Ram could feel that the name drudged up some unpleasant memories.
Besides, Maruti was too beautiful a name to be buried in obscurity.
"What's the hurry?" Ram queried.
"A gallant Traveller and Knowledgeable Head helped me find the herb," Maruti quickly expounded. "I also wouldn't 'ave been able to protect it without their intervention."
"Protect it?" Ram asked with a frown.
"Meghanad intercepted me as I flew back," Maruti continued. "He even used the Brahmastra on me."
That revelation sent a shockwave of silence across the campsite.
"He invoked the Brahmastra for such a paltry reason?" Ram scorned. "How dishonourable!"
But then something clicked, "Wait a minute! He used the Brahmastra on you, and yet here you stand?"
"I was saved again, thanks to the Traveller's assistance. He blocked the Brahmastra!" Maruti evoked with excitement.
"He blocked it, AND survived?" Ram probed further. To which the Vanara nodded. At this point, four Vanaras walked in carrying a heavy Gada. Maruti picked it up with ease and turned to face Ram again.
"I must take my leave, my Lord," he said. "I 'ave left my saviour to fight my battle for me. I must go and save them."
"Wait!" Ram yelled right as Maruti was about to leap away. "Take me with you."
"My Lord?" Maruti expressed disbelief.
"Meghanad is a tricky opponent," Ram explained. "He fights dishonourably. It won't hurt to have some support."
Ram collected his bow and arrow and ran forward as Maruti slowly hovered above the ground. As the Vanara started to pick up speed, he grabbed Maruti's dangling tail, and the duo ascended into the clouds.
___
The transition from the lush, if chaotic, encampment to the battlefield was jarring. It was like stepping from a forest directly into a kiln.
Ram stood silently at the edge of the devastation. Beside him, Maruti shifted his weight from foot to foot. His tail twitched with nervous energy. The landscape before them had been fundamentally rewritten. The natural undulations of the plains were gone, replaced by a smooth, terrifyingly flat sheet of black glass. The heat was still rising from it in shimmering waves and distorting the air.
Ram crouched down. His fingers hovered inches above the vitrified earth. He didn't need to touch it to feel the lingering resonance. It hummed with a frequency he knew intimately.
"The Brahmastra," Ram stated softly.
"Yes, my Lord," Maruti replied with a subdued voice. "The Crown Prince fired it. I… I fled, as the Knowledgeable Head instructed. But the Traveller… he stayed."
"You keep repeating the designations of these… characters," Ram commented. "The Traveller and the Head, who are they?"
Maruti scratched his head sheepishly, "I forgot to ask their name," he admitted. "The Traveller was large. Maybe a foot or so taller than you, my Lord. The Knowledgeable Head was… jus' a head that could talk."
"I am no closer to knowing who these people are," Ram muttered as he rose and walked towards the epicentre.
"The Traveller was as white as snow," Maruti continued as he tried to recollect the details from his memory. He rubbed his skin and said, "I think 'twas ash. You could see the peach of his skin peeking 'round his eyes and on his lips. He wore only a tiger-skin tunic."
"A follower of Lord Shiva, then," Ram murmured as he walked around. The glass cracked and crunched beneath his sandals, which was the only sound in the dead air. He stopped at the very centre of the blast radius. Here, the destruction halted abruptly. Behind this point, the ground fanned out in a cone of untouched earth, protected by some immovable object that had stood right where Ram was standing now.
"Impossible," Ram whispered with his brow furrowing.
He looked at the ground. There were footprints burned into the rock - deep indentations where someone had dug in their heels against a significant opposing force.
"I know you aren't one to lie, Maruti. But I must admit I was sceptical when you described how he blocked the attack. However, seeing this… The Astra wasn't dodged - which is obviously impossible to do given that it's the Brahmastra - nor was it countered with another Astra," Ram observed with surprise in his eyes as they traced the clean lines where the annihilation stopped. "It was absorbed!"
Maruti looked around frantically, scanning the horizon and the sky. "But where is he? There is no body here. If he survived… where'd he go?"
Ram turned his gaze from the ground to the sky. He narrowed his eyes, tracking nigh imperceptible hints that were laid bare all around him. "Meghanad is arrogant, but he is not foolish. If his ultimate weapon failed, he would not stay to trade blows on the ground. He would retreat to the air."
Ram walked a few paces to the right, pointing to a patch of ground that hadn't been glassed but was riddled with deep, charred gouges.
"See here? Explosive arrows are fired at a sharp downward angle. Meghanad is an exceptional marksman. He would not miss. So, one can deduce that these were not fired with the intention to attack, but for utility. He was correcting a drift." Ram traced the trajectory with his hand. His finger moved like a compass needle until it settled on the distant, jagged silhouette of the mountains to the south. "The chariot was unstable. He was fleeing, but there was an unwelcome passenger aboard."
Ram turned to Maruti. "To the mountains, Maruti. We must cover the distance quickly."
Maruti knelt, offering his back. Ram climbed on, securing his grip, and in a heartbeat, the scorched earth fell away. Maruti launched himself into the air, the wind rushing past them as he bounded across the landscape with earth-shattering leaps.
They moved fast, but the journey was not short. The mountains were merely a hazy purple line on the horizon when they started. As they crossed the miles of barren terrain, Ram kept his eyes fixed on the ground below, reading the story of the chase in the debris left behind.
"There," Ram called out over the rushing wind, pointing to a crater that marred the valley floor miles from the blast site.
Inside the impact zone lay two massive, golden wheels. They were embedded deep in the earth, with their spokes twisted like dry twigs.
"He lost his wheels here," Ram analysed with a sharp and calculating voice. "The chariot would have listed heavily to…," he squinted while calculating mentally, "…the right. He would have had to fight the reins just to keep it airborne."
Maruti pushed harder. His powerful legs ate up the miles in a heartbeat. As the foothills began to rise beneath them, the debris trail grew denser. Splinters of painted wood and torn metal littered the rocky slopes like confetti, marking a desperate, erratic flight path.
"He was losing altitude," Ram noted.
They crested the final ridge, and they reached the high peaks. Maruti slowed and landed softly on a jagged outcropping.
"There," Ram said, pointing toward the sheer face of the cliff ahead. The devastation here was evident. The chariot had gone straight through. The sole horse that remained was turned into a skidmark of gore. On the other side were the remains of Meghanad's celestial chariot - the pride of Lanka's armoury. It hung precariously, with a leg alongside it.
"It seems the Traveller won," Ram commented.
"But I don't see him anywhere!" Maruti shrieked anxiously. His eyes scanned the treacherous waters below, hoping not to see a body floating down there.
"What do you think, Maruti?" Ram asked.
"Why do you ask me, my Lord? What would I know?" Maruti responded with a sheepish grin.
Ram raised his brows inquisitively, "I can only speculate based on what I see. But you were actually there. Besides, Maruti, you underestimate your own deductive capacity."
Maruti furrowed his brows in thought.
"Given all the evidence," he expressed. "'tis clear that the Traveller is a formidable warrior. If he can go toe-t'-toe with Meghanad while the latter is moun'ed on his chariot, and is also able to block the Brahmastra, then that must mean the Traveller is either extremely durable or invulnerable, and wields a weapon of great power. Furthermore, his invulnerability may have a less stringen' condition compared to that of Meghanad. Which must mean that he is still alive."
Ram nodded in agreement, "Let us search the vicinity of this site. If his body isn't here, then we must make haste to Lanka."
"Lanka?" Maruti parrotted.
"Ravana just lost his son," Ram pointed out. "He won't let the killer pass peacefully. And if the killer is invulnerable, death will be the least of the Traveller's worries."
Maruti shuddered at the thought, before his eyes narrowed with resolve. He nodded to Ram before leaping into the waters below.
As Ram observed his companion's body disappear into the murky and torrential waters, his forehead scrunched up with a frown.
Who was this Traveller? Was his presence truly a coincidence, or was there some higher power in play?
___
Kratos woke with a start. His state, as always, was dreamless and silent. One moment, there was darkness, and the next, his eyes snapped open, alert and scanning for threats.
He pushed himself up. His body felt heavy. It wasn't fatigue. It was the strange, lingering lethargy that usually followed his episodes of uncontrolled fury.
"What happened?" Kratos rasped. His throat felt like he had swallowed a handful of desert sand. He looked down at his waist.
"Rage," Brahma answered. The head sounded tired. His voice lacked its usual haughty cadence. "Unadulterated rage. I tried to speak to you. I tried to grab your attention, but I could not get through to you at all. It was like shouting at a hurricane."
Kratos massaged his forehead. A dull throb pulsed behind his eyes. He tried to reach back into his memory to find the moment the fight ended, but there was nothing. Just a red haze and the sensation of impact.
"What happened to the man?" Kratos asked.
"You don't remember?" The head asked, a note of genuine surprise in his tone. "You killed him. Pretty brutally, if I do say so myself."
Kratos froze. He looked down at his hands. They were clean, scrubbed of blood. It was all just too hard to believe. Usually, a bout of rage-addled destruction didn't leave him so spotless.
"What did I do?" Kratos asked. He didn't want to know, but he needed to.
"You drowned him," a gravelly voice spoke from the shadows.
The ground rumbled with the depth of the sound. Kratos swivelled his head, and his muscles tensed.
For the first time, he took in his surroundings. He wasn't in a cell or a cave. He was in a palace. The room was cavernous, illuminated by the soft, golden glow of oil lamps set in alcoves. The floor was polished marble, veined with gold. Heavy curtains of red silk hung from the high ceiling, swaying gently in a draft he couldn't feel.
He was sitting on a bed large enough to sleep a family of bears, covered in sheets that felt like woven water.
Kratos turned fully, and his eyes caught a movement above the bed. A massive portrait hung there. It was framed in heavy, gilded wood. It depicted a warrior standing proudly in a golden chariot, a bow in his hand and a confident, arrogant smirk on his lips.
It was the man he had fought. The man he had killed.
"You stripped his jaw," the voice continued. It grew louder, closer, vibrating through the stone floor. "You tore the bone from the muscle, making it impossible for him to close his mouth. You made it impossible for him to stop the water from filling his lungs."
Kratos shifted his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He reached for his axe, but it was nowhere to be seen. He raised his palm and called it.
"And in his final moments," the voice grated, "you crushed his head in."
The heavy double doors at the far end of the room burst open. Wood splintered and flew inward as a massive foot stepped across the threshold.
A giant entered. He had to duck to clear the archway, even though it was built for tall men. He stood at least eight feet tall, like a mountain of muscle and malice. His skin was the colour of dried blood - a deep, reddish-black that seemed to absorb the light around him. His fingers ended in nails that were more like talons, sharp and black, an inch long and curved for tearing.
But Kratos barely registered the body. His eyes were drawn upward, to the horror that sat upon the giant's broad shoulders.
Ten heads.
They didn't sit in a row but seemed to cluster, undulate, shift and move with a life of their own. Ten pairs of eyes blinked in unison. Ten mouths grimaced.
"You killed my son," the heads spoke simultaneously. The sound was a cacophonous chorus of grief and rage that hit Kratos like a physical blow.
The axe arrived in his grasp with a satisfying thunk, and Kratos prepared himself.