THREE
When their king dies, Shalya’s legion breaks away from the rest of the Kaurava army and rushes at the Pandavas. Duryodhana cries to them to wait, they must all fight together. They will not listen. Yudhishtira and his triumphant kshatriyas pick Shalya’s men off easily and yet another Kaurava legion perishes.
Panic takes the other Kaurava soldiers. Their nerve gone, they turn to run. Duryodhana looms behind them in his chariot and speaks to them in a voice like the sea. “Is it from death that you flee? Death will hunt you down anyway, whether in war or in peace. It is better to die as heroes and find heaven, my friends. Why do you fear these Pandavas? I will show you how to win this war. Ride with me and victory shall be ours!”
He charges the enemy and what remains of his army, twenty-one thousand men, follows him into battle again. Duryodhana fights like a dark Deva on Kurukshetra. For a while it seems he will win the war single-handedly. By himself, he holds up Satyaki, Dhrishtadyumna, Bheema, Arjuna, Yudhishtira, Nakula and Sahadeva.
His uncle Shakuni appears beside him and he fights like ten men today! On Shakuni’s other side, his son Uluka is as formidable as his father is. Between them, these three drive the five Pandavas back. Seeing them, Duryodhana’s brothers, the handful Bheema has left alive, rally round, their bows singing. But when Bheema sees these sons of Dhritarashtra, he throws back his head and gives a familiar roar of delight. A smile spreading on his face, Bheema comes like a comet from the Pandava ranks, flying to keep his oath!
Some of Duryodhana’s brothers try to run. Bheema catches them. He kills them all, their blood splashing in the sun, staining the brown field. Soon, of Dhritarashtra’s hundred sons, only Duryodhana and his brother Sudarshana are left alive.
The eighteenth day hurtles on, with men dying like rain-flies. With some incandescent archery, Arjuna decimates the scant remains of the tenacious Trigartas and just Susharma is left alive. A sharp duel ensues, but Susharma’s spirit is broken with all the defeat inflicted on him. Arjuna puts an end to that king with an arrow that tears his chest open and blows his heart to shreds.
Bheema dances among what remains of Duryodhana’s elephant army. He crashes the beasts down with huge strokes of his mace, then, dispatches their riders like insects. When almost all the elephant legion is razed, Bheema, covered in blood, turns his burning gaze to Duryodhana and Sudarshana. He climbs into his chariot again and, with Arjuna and some others around him, rides at the last two Kauravas left for him to kill. As he draws near, he roars at Sudarshana to attract his attention. Even as that prince swirls around to face him, Bheema sloughs off his head with a crescent-tipped arrow, once favored by their master Drona.
Of his hundred brothers only Duryodhana remains and a gory, triumphant Bheema rides at his cousin to end it all. Just in time, Shakuni blunders between them with his son Uluka and the last elephants of the Kaurava army. Nakula and Sahadeva appear at Bheema’s side and they engage Shakuni and Uluka. Fine power upon him, Nakula caparisons Uluka’s elephant in a sheen of arrows. Uluka strikes Nakula with thirty shafts and covers the raging Bheema with seventy more, drawing blood in a hundred fonts. Nakula seizes a slender spear and casts it at Uluka like sorcery. With his father looking on, the golden lance decapitates Uluka and his corpse tumbles off his grey beast’s back.
Shakuni’s scream echoes around Kurukshetra. His eyes welling blind, he turns on Nakula’s twin: Sahadeva who had sworn to kill him on the day of the game of dice. With every weapon he has, Shakuni attacks Sahadeva. The Pandava smashes all his missiles and fells his elephant. Shakuni climbs into a chariot and, his nerve gone, tries to escape. But Sahadeva is determined to keep his vow. He pursues the Gandhara, crying, “Stop and fight, coward! You are the cause of this war, of all this misery. If you had never come to Hastinapura, Duryodhana would not have become the monster he did.
You laughed at the oaths we swore when you banished us. Who is laughable now, Gandhara? Dusasana is dead, Karna is gone. Look where your son lies without his head. Come, Shakuni, pay for your sins. Let me pluck your head from your neck like a fruit from a tree. I am happy that I can kill the most evil of all our enemies.”
Knowing there is nowhere to run, Shakuni turns. They fight a short, scathing duel. Then, Sahadeva picks up a javelin, with golden wings and casts it at Shakuni. It cuts Gandhara king’s head from his throat and Shakuni dies, his hooded eyes staring, still full of malice.
Celebration breaks out among the Pandava legions and absolute panic among the Kaurava soldiers that remain alive. Duryodhana’s men flee in that frenzy and once more the Kaurava looms threateningly behind them and brings them back to fight. But with Shakuni, the last ember of hope dies in Duryodhana. Surely, now, only one thing remains: to die himself.
Of his eleven teeming aksauhinis, of millions, just two hundred chariots, five hundred horses, a hundred elephants and three thousand footsoldiers remain. For his sake, they come back into battle. Duryodhana watches the Pandavas make short work of his final legion, scattering its corpses on Kurukshetra as the wind does blades of grass.
Of eleven immense legions just Duryodhana, Kripa, Aswatthama and Kritavarman are still alive. Of the seven Pandava aksauhinis, two hundred chariots, seven hundred elephants, five thousand horses and some ten thousand footsoldiers remain. The blood of more than ten million kshatriyas soaks Kurukshetra, field of dharma. Most of the noblest bloodlines of the earth have been extinguished. The race of kings has been destroyed forever; an age has ended.