KRISHNA CORIOLIS#1: Slayer of Kamsa Read Free Page A

prayed silently that they were not Sura lives, then felt mean and small for having thought so. All life was precious, all humanity united in brotherhood. No matter whose blood lay dried upon the armourplate of this hathi-yodhha, it was a death he would not have wished for anyone.
    Supremely confident of its strength and tonnage, the elephant trundled forward without heed for the puny sipahis pointing their spears at it. Its flailing trunk, pierced with studs, knocked three sipahis carelessly to the floor; then it proceeded to pound their prostrate forms with its leaden feet. The sipahis convulsed and screamed, the screams cut abruptly short as the massive grey feet smashed their heads with practised ease, spilling their lives onto the polished marble floor. Gasps and exclamations of protest met this callous life-taking.
    The hathi-yodhha swung its massive head from side to side, checking for more challengers before covering the last few yards into the centre of the banquet hall. The surviving gate guards, brave though they were, shuffled aside hastily, their faces blanchingat the fate of their companions. Even the lot of them combined could hardly expect to face a battle-ready war elephant, and this, as they well knew, was no ordinary war elephant. This was the feared and hated Haddi-Hathi himself, named for the pleasure he was rumoured to take in crushing human bone, haddi. It only made things worse that the elephant, like its rider, was on their side. Theoretically speaking, at least.
    In fact, Vasudeva thought grimly, they had more to fear from their kinsman mounted on the elephant’s back than from the hathi.
    That heavily muscled figure, clad in a blood- spattered brass armour to make himself resemble an outgrowth of the elephant rather than a separate being, was none other than the universally feared and hated master of Haddi-Hathi, Prince Kamsa himself, who had evidently returned from a new campaign of reaving and ravaging. Vasudeva glanced around to see his aides-de-camp, indeed his entire entourage of clansmen, reaching instinctively for their swords and maces. They found no weapons: the party had divested itself of its metal implements at the gates before entering at dawn in accordance with the terms of the treaty. But even so, their faces and clenched fists betrayed their rage at the sight of the man mounted atop the elephant. That man – nay, that beast, for he was more truly an animal than the creature astride which he sat – had left his bloody handprint upon the spotless reputation of every last one of the Sura houses represented here.
    Over the last few years, none of these proud families had escaped the rapacious raids and ruthless violence of Prince Kamsa and his marauders. Vasudeva raised his hands to quell the muttered noises of provocation rising from his party, sensing the desire for just revenge that swelled in their proud warrior hearts. He himself, as king and chief justice of the Suras, had grown heartsick at hearing the innumerable atrocities committed by the prince of the Andhakas and his white-clad mercenaries. Their exploits far exceeded any conceivable desire for revenge or simple war lust; theirs was a campaign of brute destruction.
    The list of war crimes, in utter violation of all Arya warrior codes, streamed past his memory’s eye like a herd of sheep impatient to return to the stockade before dusk: women violated, homes and herds put to the torch, entire families wiped out overnight ... yes, the White Prince had much to answer for. But that reckoning would not be here, or now. King Vasudeva kept his hands raised to either side, and his clansmen subsided reluctantly, their faces still dark with angry blood.
    Atop the blood-tainted elephant, Prince Kamsa’s proud, handsome face turned from side to side, his piercing grey-blue eyes sweeping the length of the banquet hall, briefly and contemptuously scanning the faces of his many enemies assembled here. He lingered briefly on the women,