Chapter 42 — Rama and Ravana

Ravana's chariot came through the gates with the force of a storm breaking from stone.

He did not enter the field as a creature of legend detached from command. Ten heads rose above his armor, each crowned and alert; twenty arms drew weapons, took reins, and answered the pressure of battle. The form was made to be terrible. The mind behind it was a soldier's. He read the bend in an enemy line, chose his angle of approach, and used chariot, bow, and weapons in concert. The vanaras, who had faced him before only across walls and ranks, saw at close range why Lanka had trusted him to hold its last defense.

Rama saw the allied line give ground under the arrows. Lakshmana stepped forward first, not to take the war from his brother but to protect Vibhishana, whom Ravana still treated as the nearer object of rage. Ravana cut down the charioteer and horses that carried him; Lakshmana broke his bow. For a moment the king of Lanka stood without that weapon. Then he seized a great spear, bright and terrible, and changed the direction of the fight.

Vibhishana was in its path. Lakshmana moved between them.

The spear struck Lakshmana in the chest and drove him to the earth.

Rama reached his brother through the noise. Lakshmana lay bloodied and still, the spear embedded deep. Rama's grief did not make him forget the battle, but it made every victory he had imagined seem suddenly useless. He pulled the weapon free and answered Ravana with a storm of arrows. The rakshasa king did not collapse beneath them. He withdrew only after the exchange had left the field choked with dust and the two armies stunned by Lakshmana's fall.

Rama knelt beside his brother. Lakshmana had followed him from Ayodhya, stood beside Sita in the forest, crossed the sea, and taken on Indrajit when the battle required it. Now the younger brother's body lay cold against the trampled ground. Rama spoke not as an untouchable victor but as a man who could see no meaning in rescuing Sita if Lakshmana could not rise to share the return.

Sushena, the vanara physician, came forward. He studied Lakshmana's face, hands, and breath. The prince was gravely wounded, he said, but he had not passed beyond help. Before the night was gone, medicines had to be brought from the herb-bearing mountain in the far north.

Hanuman heard the instruction. There was no time for the army to wait, and no one else could cover the distance quickly enough.

He looked once at Lakshmana, once at Rama, and rose into the darkening sky.