Shatru Sesham: Sequel of Baahubali ✔️

Chapter Thirty-Two

Intimidated and scared on their presence in the cowshed being discovered, the intruders cautiously peeked out from wherever they were hiding. As soon as they emerged from their hiding place, Narasimha realized that neither he nor the Ashram stood in any apparent danger of the intruders.

If there was anybody in urgent need of succor, it was the intruders themselves. They were a boy and girl in his own age group. They appeared to be twins as they shared a very strong physical resemblance. The clothes they were wearing, the words they spoke and their behavior reflected that they came from a well-to-do and rich family.

But the ragged, tattered and bespattered condition of their clothes reflected that both the children had recently been through hell. It looked as through several days must have passed before they had a proper and sumptuous meal and a good night's sleep.

The girl among the twins was constantly shivering. The living daylights of both these children seemed to have been knocked out by what they had seen and experienced. Narasimha instantly notified about the presence of these children to Guru Dharmagupta who took them under his care.

After a bath, they were given new clothes to wear and a tasty and wholesome meal to eat. After this, the boy narrated a nightmarish tale of what they had been through, "My name is Vedant and this is my sister, Nandini. Both of us belong to the village of Deval. It is a small and insignificant village situated in the borders of our kingdom, not too rich or of strategic importance to our own king to pay attention or give it army protection and similarly not a serious threat or  resistance to any invading armies of the neighboring kingdoms.

During times of war, we were usually and benignly ignored by both our own army and soldiers and the enemy armies and their soldiers. At least that was what usually happened  until the last war. War broke out. The enemy who attacked us this time was formidable and brutal, an enemy who knew no mercy. They knew only to kill and destroy. Our king fled the capital along with his own family and the kingdom's Royal treasury leaving all of us to our own devices and the vagaries of time and fortune.

My father was the Sarpanch of our village. He couldn't abandon everyone the way our king abandoned us. The danger signal was sounded. My father and brother left in a huff after advising all of us to lie low and keep the door locked until their return. Everyone in the village decided to surrender and not offer any resistance to the enemy army provided the common citizens, women and children were not harmed.

But the enemy army started indulging in looting and plundering, killing everyone in sight, and  raping the women. Our men were forced to fight, something about which they barely had any idea. This little bit of civilian resistance was no match for a trained and brutal enemy army.

They were so strong and literally unstoppable. All the men in our village were dead fighting to their last breath to save the women, children and homes. Those enemy soldiers took my mother and elder sister before our very own eyes. Both of us somehow managed to escape from there and hid in the nearby woods.

The holocaust of destruction that hit my village blew away. But there was nothing left behind for both of us there. We walked for days together and rested during the nights. For the first few days, we managed fine by exchanging our jewels. We even occasionally hired bullock carts. We wanted to put as much distance as possible between us and those brutal savages who destroyed us and our homes.

Then we ran out of money and valuables. No one was ready to take us in and feed two orphans for free. Occasionally when we were lucky enough in hustling amidst the clamoring crowds of the temples en route, we got the Prasad or offering to the Gods to eat. But even there, we were not allowed to enter some of the temples because of the dirty and torn condition of our clothes.