The wind below the high peak carried the scent of cold iron and dry dust.
Halfway up the eastern crag, two hundred meters below the Vajra Shila (the lightning-stone peak), a narrow ledge hugged the mountain wall.
It ended at a dark mouth in the cliff, hidden behind a curtain of tangled mountain ivy and grey lichen.
Vidhar stood on the ledge in his saffron dhoti, his bare toes gripping the frozen shale.
His palms, rubbed raw from thirty logs of pine the day before, were treated with warm mustard oil and felt tough as boiled hide.
Bhagavan Parashurama stepped past the hanging vines.
He placed both massive hands against a flat, rectangular slab of dark granite set deep into the cliff wall.
The stone was marked with ancient, faded signs from the dawn of the Treta Yuga, worn smooth by centuries of rain.
The Teacher did not speak a mantra; he simply set his bare heels, breathed from his belly, and pushed.
GRRR-NNNT.
The three-ton block of stone groaned, grinding back on hidden rollers of solid basalt.
A puff of dry, ancient air spilled from the gap, smelling of aged sandalwood, boar fat, and cold forged steel.
“Step inside,” the Teacher commanded.
Vidhar followed his massive shadow into the cool dark.
The cavern was not large—ten paces across, carved directly out of the mountain’s black core.
Light entered from a narrow chimney high in the rock ceiling, casting a straight pale beam onto the center of the floor.
Arranged on low stone shelves along the walls were weapons from twenty-one campaigns.
There were no golden hilts, no silk banners, no jeweled sheaths.
Everything here had been made for pure slaughter.
Long recurve horn bows hung wrapped in greased hide; rows of heavy ironwood arrows sat in bins lined with dry pine shavings; spears with leaf-shaped steel points two feet long leaned against the stone; and ranks of broad-headed axes sat coated in dark grease to keep the damp mountain air from eating the edges.
From the dark upper shadows of the chimney, black wings flapped.
Kakbhushundi dropped like a stone, snapping his wings wide to land neatly atop the skull of a massive mountain bison mounted to the wall.
“The armory of the son of Bhrigu,” the crow whispered inside Vidhar’s mind, his tone hushed and heavy.
“The iron here drank the blood of kings who thought their stone fortresses could defy the cosmic order.
Do not touch anything without permission, boy.
Half these blades are thirsty, and they do not care whose blood they drink.”
Vidhar kept his hands at his sides, his eyes scanning the racks.
Bhagavan Parashurama walked past the spear racks and stopped before a flat chest carved from a single block of dark teak.
Inside, resting on clean white fleece, lay two items.
The first was a Sharnga (composite horn bow), completely black from nock to nock.
It was slightly shorter than the practice bow, barely a meter and a half long, but the curve was deeper, the horn belly polished to a mirror shine, and the wraps at the grip bound tight with blackened sinew.
The second was a battle Parashu (battle-axe).
The haft was two feet of fire-hardened black ash, bound with dark deerskin.
The head was not blunt training iron; it was hand-forged crucible steel, three and a half kilograms of dark metal with a cutting edge polished to a terrifying silver sheen.
The rear of the head ended in a thick, four-sided spike meant to punch clean through iron helmets.
“Take them,” Bhagavan Parashurama said.
Vidhar stepped forward, reached into the fleece, and lifted the black horn bow.
The balance was perfect.
It felt lighter than the practice stave, yet when he pressed his thumb against the recurve limb, the wood felt hard as stone.
“A forty-kilogram draw,” the Teacher said, watching him closely.
“Horn from the wild water buffalo of the southern marshes, backed with tiger sinew, bound with boiled fish glue.
It does not wobble in the wind.
When loosed, it will send an iron head through two men and the horse between them.”
Vidhar set the bow down and reached for the axe.
His right hand closed over the deerskin wrap.
He lifted the weapon.
The three-and-a-half-kilo head rose naturally, the balance point sitting two inches below the eye.
The weapon felt like a continuation of his own forearm.
The polished cutting edge caught the pale light from the ceiling, cold and razor-sharp.
“The practice tools forgave you,” the Teacher said, stepping closer until his shadow swallowed the chest.
“A blunt iron head bruises the shoulder; this edge severs the bone and splits the marrow.
A light cane arrow stings; this black bow snaps the spine.
In the hands of a fool, live iron is a curse that invites death. Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
In the hands of an Antevaasi (resident disciple), it is the arm of Dharma.”
Bhagavan Parashurama reached down to the shelf and lifted a dark leather quiver packed with twenty black-fletched ironwood arrows, along with a braided leather belt fitted with an axe loop.
“Put them on.”
Vidhar strapped the leather belt around his waist, buckling it over his saffron dhoti.
He slid the black ash haft through the leather loop at his right hip; the steel head rested flat against his thigh, heavy and silent.
He slung the quiver over his right shoulder, the strap crossing his bare chest diagonally.
He stood in the shaft of light, armed for war.
Kakbhushundi cocked his head from the bison skull, his dark eyes sharp.
“Look at him,” the crow croaked dryly.
“An iron-age scribbler draped in the weapons of the Treta Yuga.
You look like a true mountain killer now, Vidhar.
Just make sure you don’t cut your own knee off when you draw the blade.”
Vidhar rested his hand on the smooth haft of the axe.
“I have chopped thirty pine logs, bird.
My knee stays where it is.”
Bhagavan Parashurama turned toward the cavern opening.
“The gear is claimed,” the Teacher said, his voice flat and hard.
“Now we test if the man can carry it.
A warrior on a battlefield does not shoot from a hill, drop his bow, walk fifty paces, and pick up his axe.
He shoots with the axe at his belt.
He chops with the bow in his left fist.
He switches from distant death to close slaughter without dropping a single heartbeat.”
He pointed out the mouth of the cave, back toward the sunny ledge.
“Down to the lower terrace.
We begin the transition drills.
You will loose at seventy meters, close the distance at a dead run, draw the iron from your hip, and cut the straw targets before the dust of your sprint settles.”
Bhagavan Parashurama stepped out onto the sunlit shale without waiting.
Vidhar gripped the black horn bow in his left hand, felt the cold weight of the live steel against his thigh, and stepped out into the light.