The wind through the northern gully blew in raw, unpredictable gusts, carrying the chill of the high peaks down into the scrub brush.
Vidhar stood at the edge of the rocky clearing, the unstrung horn bow in his left hand, the braided silk bowstring looped over his wrist.
At his hip hung the leather quiver, packed with six heavy ironwood arrows.
Across the fifty-meter clearing, Bhagavan Parashurama stood by a dry stone wall, holding three thick dried gourds.
Each gourd was the size of a man’s head, dried until the shell was hard as wood and filled with dried river beans that rattled with a sharp clatter whenever he shifted his grip.
“In a fight, no man stands still to let you measure your breath,” the Teacher said, his voice flat and hard.
“A horse gallops.
A raider dodges behind his wicker shield.
A demon drops from the trees with a curved dagger.
If you take three heartbeats to steady your footing, you die with a cold blade between your ribs.”
Bhagavan Parashurama lifted the first dried gourd by its leather thong.
“You will start thirty paces back, behind that thorn hedge,” the Teacher commanded, pointing with his chin to a thick line of wild berry brambles.
“When the bean shell flies, you sprint forward, clear the brush, string the horn bow on the run, seat your shaft, and smash the gourd before it touches the gravel.
If the shell hits the dirt unbroken, you haul two more baskets of river stones before noon.”
Beside the weapons rack, perched on the dry branch of a stunted pine tree, Kakbhushundi fluttered his glossy black wings and let out a harsh, rasping croak.
“Two baskets of stones,” the crow whispered dryly into Vidhar’s thoughts.
“The boy’s shoulders will touch his ears before nightfall.
Stringing a thirty-five-kilo composite bow while sprinting over sharp stone?
Even the palace guards of Ayodhya would trip over their dhotis and crack their skulls.”
Vidhar ignored the bird.
He jogged thirty paces back, stepping behind the tangled wall of thorn bushes.
The ground under his bare feet was uneven, littered with loose pebbles and slick pine needles.
He set his focus, pulling the cold mountain air deep into his belly.
The blessing of Prana-Vayu (the vital breath of nature) flooded his thighs and calves, priming his muscles like coiled springs.
“Begin!” the Teacher roared.
With a flick of his massive forearm, Bhagavan Parashurama hurled the first dried gourd into the sky.
The bean shell arched high over the clearing, tumbling against the pale clouds with a loud rattle of beans, moving fast toward the loose rock below the cliff.
He drove off his back foot, clearing the thorn hedge in a single, flying leap.
His bare soles hit the gravel, sliding an inch before biting into the rock.
While running full speed across the uneven stones, he stepped his left leg through the backwards curve of the horn bow.
He hooked the lower tip behind his left ankle, jammed his right thigh hard into the belly of the stave, and hauled back on the upper limb with his right hand.
The sinew and horn shrieked under the violent bend.
The wood dug into his thigh, bruising the meat of his leg on the dead sprint.
Running while bending thirty-five kilos of horn tried to rip his balance sideways, threatening to pitch him face-first into the boulders.
Anchor the center.
Vidhar tightened his core, keeping his chest level even as his legs pumped over the rocks.
With his left fingers, he grabbed the loop of the silk bowstring, dragged it up the bending wood, and snapped it into the carved notch.
Clack.
The horn bow was strung.
He jerked his leg out of the frame without breaking stride.
In the same motion, his right hand reached behind his shoulder, his fingers finding the nock of an ironwood shaft.
He whipped the heavy arrow from the quiver, laid the shaft across his left thumb, and slammed the tail onto the silk bowstring.
The gourd was already descending, thirty meters away, dropping fast toward the sharp rocks.
Vidhar planted his right heel into the dirt, dropping low into a sliding Pratyalidha (the reversed rear-weighted combat stance).
Red dust kicked up around his ankles as he skidded across the stone floor.
He hauled the silk bowstring back to the hinge of his jaw.
The dried gourd tumbled through the crosswind, its brown shell spinning in the sunlight.
Through the focus of Kala-Drishti (seer’s sight), the spinning target seemed to slow down.
Vidhar didn’t aim at the gourd itself; he saw the falling curve of its path and pointed the three-cornered steel head two feet below its descent.
He released.
TWANG!
The silk bowstring lashed forward like an iron bar.
The heavy ironwood arrow hissed through the air, crossing the clearing in the space between two blinks.
CRACK-SMASH!
Mid-air, two meters above the sharp rocks, the steel head drove through the center of the gourd.
Dozens of dried river beans burst outward in a cloud of dust, rattling down against the basalt boulders like sudden hail.
The steel head tore clean through the wreckage and buried itself deep into the cliff face behind it, vibrating with a dull, low thrum.
Vidhar slid to a halt on the gravel, his right hand still resting against his jaw, the horn bow held level and true in his left.
The clearing fell silent, save for the rattle of the remaining beans rolling into the cracks of the stone.
From his pine branch, Kakbhushundi tilted his black head, staring at the cloud of bean dust drifting in the wind.
“Well, well,” the crow croaked mentally, his beak parting in a dry clack.
“The scribbler didn’t break his neck, and the gourd didn’t touch the ground.
Perhaps the Devas didn’t waste their boons on a complete clod after all.”
Vidhar lowered the bow, his chest rising and falling in deep, even cycles.
The skin of his right thigh was bruised red where the horn stave had bitten him during the run, and the pads of his drawing fingers burned from the violent slap of the silk, but his stance was rock-solid.
Bhagavan Parashurama walked forward, stepping over the scattered bean shells.
He didn’t smile.
He stopped five paces away, his sharp, dark eyes scanning Vidhar’s feet, his grip on the stave, and the balance of his hips.
“You dropped into the stance while your feet were still sliding,” the Teacher said, his tone measuring every inch of the movement.
“If that gravel had been wet with rain or blood, your back foot would have slipped, and the bowstring would have loosed your shaft into the dirt.”
Vidhar bowed his head slightly.
“I will drop lower next time, Gurudev.”
“You will not wait for next time,” Bhagavan Parashurama said, holding up the two remaining dried gourds in his left hand.
The Teacher shifted his grip, his massive shoulder muscles tightening beneath his ascetic skin.
“Two targets,” he commanded.
“One to the left, high over the pines.
One to the right, low skimming the rocks.
Two arrows from the hip.
If one bean touches the stone, you haul the river rocks.”
Before the last word left his mouth, the Teacher’s arm blurred.
Both gourds flew into the air at once.