Ragini placed her hands on Dinan’s. Her warmth quelled his trembling. “If I do not go, then I will be in dereliction of my highest duty,” she said gently. This was Dinan’s job: to keep the gate of the mountain and obey His Lord. Ragini could not begrudge him his duty.
Dinan sniffed and nodded. He lowered his head to her hands and touched them to his eyelids. Ragini could feel the hint of his tears on his eyelashes. After a deep breath, Dinan stood tall once more. There were no tears in his eyes, but his brow was drawn tight together.
“My Lady,” he began pleadingly but couldn’t continue.
Ragini squeezed his hands before she let go. Dinan didn’t need to finish. It was the same as everyone else. “I will try,” she promised.
Resignation and affection in his eyes, Dinan took his mace and stepped out of Ragini’s way.
The Lady of the Mountain squared her shoulders and marched out from under the entwined trees.
Behind her, the air of Mount Kaashil was clear, still, and silent. The forest held its breath, not a single leaf rustling. Rudra’s shield allowed sunlight through, but outside of it, the realms were covered in shadow and storm.
Ragini walked through the shield. It surrounded her with Rudra’s energy. And though she knew she was going too slowly, she paused to let it fill her. His magic exuded so much warm and compassion and beauty that one couldn’t help but linger. Her heart felt crushed with the idea of leaving this behind, possibly forever.
If there were a moment to turn back, it would be right here. She had a right as Lady of the Mountain to stay and protect the refugees. No one would blame her for not doing enough.
Then she reminded herself that her father was out there. The soldiers of the Underworld were out there. And she didn’t stop being a Princess of Demons when she married.
Ragini stepped out of the shield, immediately deluged by freezing rain. Lighting arched across the sky in blinding branches, followed by ear-splitting booms of thunder. The forest around her swayed violently under a black sky that roiled like the bubbling surface of boiling water.
Setting her jaw, Ragini pushed back a few stray strands of hair before a gray metal helmet appeared, wrapping securely about her head.
A beam of lightning crashed into a nearby tree, splitting it down the middle and setting the branches alight. The rains made short work of the fire, leaving smoldering black charcoal and steam in the fire’s wake. This chaos raged across the entire world.
Ragini rooted her feet into the ground and called her power to herself. The energy sparked just under her skin, filling her from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. Her eyes glowed a molten red as she fixed her gaze on the path leading her out of the forest. No more time to waste.
One moment, she was there, and the next, she wasn’t. Moving at a speed greater than the wind and only slower than thought, Ragini found herself out from under the trees at the base of the mountain.
Plains of rolling hills opened out before her. What was once a lush, green landscape of rivers and grass had turned into flooded and gray swampland.
A spray of water outlined her path to the battlefield. The sounds of battle reached her before the sight of soldiers and beasts. Under the loud drone of rain came the clash of celestial and demonic weapons against unforgiving elemental forms of the Primordial creatures. Roars of beasts, unlike any life in the three realms, reverberated across the plains.
Then she saw them. Great lumbering creatures the height of several humans. Primordial beasts were elemental beings made of fire, water, earth, plant life, magma, and air. Their fundamental aspect dictated their physical form.
The nature beasts were giant leafy monsters on four limbs like tree trunks and a head full of a crown of sharp branches. The beasts of air sliced through the battlefield as cyclones of cloud. Gleaming arrows crashed and broke against the unforgiving stone hides of boulder-like stone beasts.
The swampy battlefield held heaps of bodies. Gods, Demons, Spirits, Mortals, and creatures of all kinds. The torrent of rain didn’t keep the stench of death from surrounding them all.
Ragini stopped at the edge of this field of death, feeling her heart fracture at the sight of so much devastation. And in the fissures left, a deep rage rose to fill the space.
She could not blame the Primordial creatures for acting on their nature. They were a mythical story, even for the gods. They only ever emerged from the Primordial Ocean to punish those who disturbed the universe itself. Their duty was a cosmic, karmic retribution only possible by the substratum of existence.
This was their punishment for being unable to find peace with one another. Unable to cultivate compassion and tolerance. And so her rage was a helpless and desperate one. None of them knew if they could truly survive the tidal waves of the cosmic sea, but they had to try.
The air around Ragini heated up, leaving a trail of shimmering air as she dove into the midst of battle. Her magic swirled about her arms, summoning an elegant gold and red bow strung with a gleaming silver thread. A gem-encrusted quiver appeared on her back, filled to the brim with red-plumed arrows.
Without slowing down, Ragini drew her bow and aimed at the nearest beast. It was a thing made of lava and rock. It spilled over soldiers, burning them and the ground. Great plumes of steam whirled about its churning form.
Ragini murmured a soft prayer to the oceans and the moon in the blink of her eyes. Fixing her gaze on the head of the lava beast, she loosed her arrow.
It struck true into the side of the monster’s head. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, in a great flash, the creature’s lava blackened, and it churned to a halt. Small cracks began to form on the lumpy surface, and knife-like spikes of ice tore through. Within moments, the being dissipated into ash and charred stone.
The soldiers who’d been fighting the lava beast turned to see her, and a stunned silence turned to cheers.
“Princess!”
“Our Princess is here!” they cried.
“Lady Ragini! We’re saved.”
She gave them a curt nod as she drew one arrow after another. Using each beast’s elements against them, Ragini demonstrated her mastery of the elemental arts.
She loosed bolts of lighting into creatures of water. Freezing air to dissipate the tornados of wind beasts. Water to douse the fires and fire to bring down behemoths of wood and leaf. To each, she pointed out their most potent weakness. And with each felled beast, her energy rose and spread across the battlefield.
Weary soldiers felt a wave of renewed vigor. Lapsing bows and tired sword arms rose once again to do battle. Eyes that could barely stay open now were alert and keen.
Ragini tore through a significant swath of the Primordial beasts, reaching the center of the battlefield where most of the creatures concentrated. Amid these giants were two shining figures fighting back to back, each wielding gleaming celestial weapons that were second to none.
Swirling together at the heart of the battlefield was a soldier in gold and white armor with golden hair and another soldier in charcoal gray armor and streaming black hair. Both men wielded a curved sword and round shield that they used in a flurry of magical attacks upon the beasts.
When they attacked, they were near impossible to see, even for Ragini. Their blades shimmered with precisely controlled elements to cut through each beast converging on them. Ragini felt her heart swell, and she made quick work of a trio of stone and fire beasts to clear her way to the center.
“Father!” She called out after the dark-haired soldier felled his own beast.
The soldier swept his sword, creating a great ring of fire about the three of them and keeping the beasts at bay momentarily. Then he turned to face Ragini.
“Ragini.” Under his helmet, his expression was stern, and the frown could have meant he was angry to see her here, but there was a softness in his dark red eyes that didn’t fool his daughter.
She decided to greet him with a bright smile. “Ravi returned to the mountain,” she informed, “I’ve come in his place.”
The golden-haired soldier approached, nodding his head at Ragini. “Princess- ah, forgive me, Lady Ragini.”
She returned the bow. “King Ananda.”
Her father approached. “To whom did you leave the mountain?”
“Venkata,” the God King, Ananda, said. The Demon King shot him a look of warning.
Ragini sighed and kept her tone even. “Queen Chandika and Princess Shanti are protecting everyone there.” No amount of calamity in the world could keep her father from scolding her, it seemed.
Ananda lit up. He glanced at the barrier Venkata put up before fixing Ragini with an intense gaze. “How are they?”
“Eager to see you when this is over,” Ragini said gently. “Shasha wanted to come fight.”
Ananda laughed, a short, brief breath. “That’s my girl.” His eyes filled with feeling, contained by a soldier’s will. “Thank you, Lady Ragini. I’m grateful you’ve arrived.”
“Do not do anything reckless,” Venkata advised, ignoring how Ananda shook his head.
Ragini resisted smiling. She knew well how her father expressed worry and love. “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said seriously.
Comments (9)
See all