The Last Rudra

After feeding the boy a spirit gathering pill, Bhadra had dashed off into the woods.

Though the jungle was Oman's territory, just like the whole Garuna, it was overseen by the falconer guild. Bhadra knew better than to trust any such person who laid bare their consciousness before others. 

  The constellations in heaven were shifting again. The world was changing,  and so were the loyalties.

The old treaties and trues would soon turn into jokes one shared over a cup of wine. 

Signs were clear as day. First, a son of Udder had perished here in Minaak, second the havoc of mortal birds. 

He had advised Oman to cancel Inna's feast this year, for he smelled blood coming their way. But the lord was too prideful to listen to him.

Bhadra only hoped his men would be enough to bear the brunt. 

Avoiding the prying eyes of spirit birds flying above, he carried the boy in the direction in which he had sensed the ashavs. 

He could feel his magic guiding the two beasts to him. He just had to find a secure place, well hidden from the birds, and wait for the boy to wake up. 

Bhadra's eyes fell on a rock formation huddled together and shrouded by the shady trees. He halted and swept his awareness to check for any hidden danger. There was none. So he laid down the boy on a smooth rock. As he waited for the horses. 

The sky had reddened when Bhadra heard the hooves of the ashavs. The magic had lured them all the way here. 

He checked the lad's pulses. He was about to wake up. 

Suddenly, the fowler felt a tug in his mind. What was it? He jumped to his feet, his eyes glowing. He saw the two ashvas, almost a mile away, in a tug of war with his magic. The two beasts refused to take another step ahead. 

There was something there that had raised the animals' guard. Bhadra scanned the surroundings again. 

Had something escaped his eyes? He didn't doubt the ashvas, for the beasts were known for sensing the danger far ahead of time. 

There was a saying in Arvana, the land of ashvas, "If you listen to ashva, trouble will never get to you ."

Bhadra activated his spirit eyes, Yet he spotted nothing out of the ordinary. The wood seemed uncannily quiet here, but then again, they were deep in the forest. 

He tried to cajole the ashvas, but the horses refused to budge. The harder he pulled, the more afraid they grew. 

He stopped playing the tug of war, thinking about something. 

The fowler took out eight nails and nailed them in the eight directions one by one, his lips moving, chanting some obscure spells. The wind froze as the sleeping lad vanished from the sight, leaving behind just the rocks. 

Bhadra gave a last scrutinizing look to the rocks and dashed off to where the ashvas were standing. 

This part of the wood attracted few herbalists, florists and more so hunters.

As it had nothing but soma trees, eroswood trees, and some other useless flora. 

When Bhadra landed a few feet away from the frightened ashvas, the first thing he spotted was withering trees. It seemed the autumn had attacked the small grove before its due time. He pulled his hood up and examined the leaves covered floor. 

He walked over to the less affected tree and touched its drying trunk. After a pause, he plucked its yellow leaf and chewed it. 

A deep frown surfaced over his runes covered forehead. Bhadra removed dried leaves from it. Then his glowing eyes spotted a coal-black twisted root among the drying soma tree roots. 

His eyes widened at the recognition. He swiftly pulled down his hood and backed off. 

How they could be here! 

Bhadra felt tingling in his heart. A feeling he hadn't felt in centuries. He looked into the west. The sun was about to be defeated. 

He had to leave before the night came. He steered the horses around the dying grove, for he knew the beasts would rather die than step in. 

He didn't blame them. As they were afraid of the fear itself. 

***

When Onish came around, his head was throbbing with pain. He forced open his eyes to find himself lying on the pile of dry leaves, his clothes blood-stained and tattered. 

It was already night. The trees seemed spooky in the moonlight. The hooded figure of Bhadra was standing a few feet away, sniffing the air. Onish sat up, leaning his back against the thick tree trunk. 

"Lad, you have taken too long to wake up," Bhadra said without looking back. 

"What happened?" Onish asked. All he could recall was that he was practising the manipulation arts by the creek. Then something went wrong as he tried to form the Maruti yantra.

He could still feel the weakness in his body and the tingling sensation in his limbs. 

"Shush!" Suddenly, Bhadra crouched down, throwing an arm around Onish, thus covering him with his black cloak. 

  Puzzled, Onish saw darkness seeping out of the cloak as it engulfed them. 

"Keep quiet, boy. I think we've fumbled over a conspiracy." Bhadra whispered into his ear. 

Onish tried to have a look around them;  the woods seemed shushed as if it, too, had heard Bhadra's warning. 

Uncannily there was not a single annoying ember bee here. Not any glowing flowers. 

Then there was this tree,  black like coal with crimson red leaves. Bulging veins running all over its trunk and twisted boughs. Onish felt uneasy just by looking at it. All the other trees around it had dried up. As if it had sucked their lives. 

Huddled together, they waited there in sullen silence. The night darkened around them. Onish wondered where their horses had gone and how they would get to the castle now as they were miles away from the city. Worst of all, they were in the woods, the same woods where he had been chased down by the shadow. 

He didn't know whether the evil being had abandoned his search or not. Anyway, he didn't want to stay in this place anymore, where trees whispered as if conspiring against mankind, and the frightening spirit birds ran amok. He wished Bhadra would stop being paranoid and bring him out of the woods. 

But the fowler was too absorbed in his spying game to care about him. He even seemed to forget to pull down his hood. 

His runes were glowing with faint ocean blue light. His eyes were fixed at the tree. 

"Boy, stop staring at my face. And don't use the spirit till morning. Because of your silly mistake, I have to spend the night here." 

Bhadra said. He had no plan to spy on a child of Elanor. But when he brought the ashvas to the rock where he had left the boy hidden behind the spirit shield. 

He found the boy had no intention of coming around any time soon. The night was falling on them. 

Though Bhadra could carry the lad all the way to the city, he was not confident of reaching there safely, not without exposing his identity. 

One who had invited Elanor here was undoubtedly conspiring against Oman. By the look of it, the falconer guild seemed to be involved in the sinister scheme. 

His outing with the lad was not a secret. Almost half of the city would have known now that their young lord had gone out. The conspirator would never miss such a good chance. 

What Bhadra didn't get was how they had freed the evil woman from the patala. 

It seemed the ancient treaties had already been torn away. 

And this was also the reason he had decided to stay. He wanted to find out whether his guess was correct. 

So he camouflaged the horses near the rock formation and brought the boy under this eroswood tree just a few hundred feet away from the dying grove. 

A reasonable distance from where he could eavesdrop if anyone decided to pay a visit to the devil tree. 

And it seemed Shai ( the god of fate) was pleased with him tonight. 

Because the djall decided to come out of earth tonight. 

As soon as the sun took his last breath in the west, the soma tree under which the child of Eleonor was hiding shook as the twisted boughs of djall emerged from the leaves covered ground. They clung to the trees like leeches, and within a few seconds, the tree turned into white dust that flew in the wind. The tree of darkness,djall,  tore open the earth breast and grew out. Its blood-red leaves rustled in the night breeze. The woods shushed as though it had recognised its predator. 

Bhadra, standing under the tree, well hidden behind his shield, smiled wickedly. The conspirator was coming to meet his guest. 

And sure enough, as the night darkened, Bhadra sensed the spirit-bird above them, a powerful one.