Thunders roared through the storm-soaked night, a predatory growl rolling across the rain-drowned world.
This was no ordinary night.
The sky over the riverbank was the color of a fresh bruise, thick with bloated, charcoal clouds that seemed to be whispering secrets they could no longer keep.
KA-BOOM.
A peal of thunder, more violent than any natural storm, cracked the sky wide. For a heartbeat, a crack-rift of dark light—darker than the night itself—sliced through the clouds like a knife through a piece of cloth. With a sharp, sickening moment of the air, the rift vomited a solitary figure into the fray, leaving them to tumble helplessly through the freezing torrents of rain toward the sodden earth below.
Harsha, a warrior who looked as though he had fallen through the very center of a battlefield, hit the riverbank with a sickening, metallic thud.
His divine armor, covered in rain and blood, crashed loudly against the sharp rocks—a sound instantly drowned by the hungry roar of the Kalindi River. With a desperate attempt, he curled his body into a protective ball, skidding and tumbling down the muddy slope. Even as his limbs battered against the earth, his arms remained locked like iron bands around a small, lotus-weave basket, shielding it from the biting wind and the merciless, freezing rain.
He clutched the basket to his chest as if it were the last anchor in a drowning world. Inside, petals of the basket the infant lay in an unnerving silence, his wide eyes reflecting the lightning with a clarity that no ordinary human infant possess.
"There! The scent... the child scent is coming from the swamp!" a voice hissed, thin and cold as a winter wind.
Three Chhaya-Asuras crawled out from the mist like ink bleeding into water. They were terrifying creatures —made of ghostly shifting shadow and protruding, sharp bone—moving with a creepy, liquid-sickening grace that defied the natural world. In their gnarled grips, they were holding curved blades that wept a slow, soul-corroding venom, the poison sizzling as it hit the wet earth.
Their lidless eyes fixed upon the broken man collapsed in the mud; to them, he was merely a hurdle between them and a prize that promised a reign of eternal darkness.
"He's finished," one of the Asuras muttered, its voice like the grinding of dry stones. It stepped forward with hungry impatience. "The fall has finally broken him."
"Fool," the lead Asura snapped, its voice cracking like a whip. "He is a celestial, not some fragile mortal. He won't have perished so easily. If he's still, it's only because the cursed dagger has finally begun to work its magic. He is either unconscious, or far too weak to stop us."
Listening the asuras voices of assumptions above, Harsha did not move. He remained facedown in the freezing silt, his breath barely stirring the mud beneath his lips. To any observer, he was nothing more than a fresh corpse for the crows.
"Whatever he is," another Asura growled, its voice thick with a cautious malice, "step carefully. Celestials do not die quietly."
The impatient Asura ignored the warning. He skated forward, its clawed, skeletal foot stopping mere inches from Harsha's head. It leaned down, the stench of decay rolling off its shadow-wrapped frame. A rough rattling laugh escaped its lipless mouth.
"Look at him," the creature mocked, its shadow looming over the warrior. "Once a great warrior, reduced to—"
Harsha's eyes snapped open abruptly.
In a heartbeat, the illusion of death vanished. Harsha exploded into motion with a ferocity that defied the laws of gravity. He pivoted on one shoulder, his hand seemed like a mere blur as it reached the hilt of his sword at his hip. There was no metallic ring of a blade being drawn; instead, there was only the deafening, whip-like crack of displaced air.
A huge curve of blinding, orange flame light—hotter and brighter than a thousand torches—sliced through the freezing rain. The impatient Asura didn't even have time to shriek; it was simply there one second and vaporized the next, its dark form crumbling into a drift of black ash that the wind instantly snatched away.
The other two hissed in terror, a sound of pure, unadulterated terror. Before they could recoil into the safety of mist, Harsha was already among them. He moved with a grace that defied his wounds. He lunged forward toward the second demon, thrusting the heavy blade in its throat with unerring precision. And with a fluid, practiced twist of his wrist, he spun toward the third.
A burst of pure, white-hot energy erupted from his hands, pinning the final Asura to the gnarled trunk of a nearby banyan tree. The creature let out one last, strangled scream before dissolving into pile of ash.
The entire conflict had lasted barely five seconds. Where three shadows had stood, only the smell of ozone and the rising roar of the Kalindi River remained.
Silence returned to the riverbank, except for Harsha's raging heartbeat. He stumbled toward the water, his vision started to fade. He knew the rift wouldn't stay closed for long.
Harsha collapsed back onto one knee, using the sword as a crutch. Exhausted and fatally wounded, his metalic armor was fading, turning dull as his life-force was fading away. He looked at the basket. The child was safe, but he didn't knew if there were more of those asuras here.
"I cannot carry you any further, my boy," he wheezed, the words bubbling through a throat tight with pain. He looked at his trembling hands and realized that his wounded body is completely exhausted: his legs would no longer carry the weight of his destiny.
Than in that moment a desperate, wild idea took place in his mind. He looked toward the churning, iron-gray muscles of the Kalindi River.
"The water," he whispered "I must let the current take what I cannot."
He gripped the basket so tightly that his knuckles turned white, and stood with a sudden, sharp motion. Before him, the Kalindi River was a churning beast, its currents roaring in a violent duet with the heavy winds. For a moment, he stopped; a flicker of raw hesitation and nerves betrayed the exhaustion in his eyes.
Then, he finally stepped in.
Summoning the very last of his strength—a final, agonizing spark of will—he forced himself into the freezing torrent of the river. The icy water screamed against his open wounds, but than he went numb to the pain, wading deeper and deeper until the soft mud disappeared and the strong treacherous current pulled him to the depths.
Lifting the basket high above his head like a sacred offering, he surrendered his body to the river's violent embrace. He became a ghost in the surf, a lone soul struggling against the swelling tide to reach the far, dark bank.
As he was flowing with the river current through the heavy curtains of rain, a single, flickering yellow light appeared in the dark. It appeared like a lonely star on the far side of the roaring river, marking a strong stone and wood farmhouse. Harsha's heart gave a painful surge of recognition. He knew that light. It was the home of Nand Verman—his oldest comrade, a man who was as reliable as his own sword
Harsha blinked through the painful rain, keeping his eyes fixed on that small, golden light.
"He is there," he whispered, his voice cracking against the wind. "He is still there."
The sight of the light felt like an invisible hand reaching out to him, pulling him forward when his legs wanted to give up. With a deep breath, he began to drag himself from the river's icy grip. He fought the current inch by inch, his heavy, soaked armor scraping against the stones until, at last, he reached the dry bank.
Through blurred eyes, he saw his friend's house standing just ahead—it was exactly as he remembered it. Moving slowly and steadily, he limped toward the light, clutching the basket tightly in his left hand. Every breath felt like a struggle, a heavy price to pay for crossing between worlds without a moment's rest.
By the time his boots hit the wood of the porch, the last of his strength was completely vanished.
He swayed at the threshold, his chest heaving as he fought for air. With an agonizing slowness.
Slowly and painfully, he lowered himself to his knees, his muscles shaking with a deep, uncontrollable tremble. He placed the lotus-weave basket gently onto the floorboards, pulling his hands away quickly before his shaking fingers could tip it over.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the rain. Then, from inside the basket, came a soft, shivering whimper—the first sign that the child was truly alive.
A tired smile broke across Harsha's blood-stained face. Relief washed over him, warmer than any fire.
Than he looked at his waist and from his belt, Harsha drew a double-edged sword. He wedged the heavy hilt into the side of the lotus basket, bracing it firmly against the wooden door so the basket wouldn't move. The glowing symbols on the blade pulsed twice and then went dark, the weapon disguising itself as nothing more than an old, rusty piece of iron.
"Grow well, my little ember, am leaving you here in the hands of my my most trusted friend" Harsha whispered. His voice was calm, though it was the last of his strength. He pressed a bloody thumbprint onto the boy's soft clothes—a final, protective mark of him.
Then, like mist vanishing in the morning sun, Harsha turned and walked back into the darkness. By the time he reached the edge of the trees, he was gone. All that remained of the celestial warrior were a few shimmering drops of blood on the grass, quickly washed away by the rain.
Author: Suvendu Kumar Nath
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