Kurukshetra: The defining Krishna-Arjun journey

ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟝: 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕠𝕣 𝕨𝕙𝕠 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕟𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕕𝕖𝕗𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕

Krishna's pov

That night, sleep eluded Krishna. Now that Bhisma had been defeated, their side's chances were undoubtedly looking much brighter.

However, the King of Anga would be descending onto the battlefield tomorrow. The King of Anga, with Indra's infallible Vasavi Shakti to do his bidding. Chant Arjun's name, release the weapon, and nothing Krishna did would be sufficient to intercept it. Nothing Krishna did would be sufficient to stop Karna from taking Arjun's life--

Krishna jerked upright, cold sweat breaking over his forehead.

He could intervene only upto the point Karna released the weapon. He must ensure Karna never released the weapon at all.

It would not be hard to ensure.

***

The eleventh day of battle saw the first of the much anticipated encounters of Arjun and Karna. When the two greatest bowmen of their age fought, the battlefield seemed to fall silent and watch, though in fact, battle raged all around fiercely. 

Krishna's arms worked at the reins to guide the chariot. His concentration, however, was focused upon the opponent's thought process. Should the seed of an idea to call upon the Vasavi Shakti form in Karna's mind, Krishna would sow confusion and avert it.

The Lord knew, of course, that this was far from an ethical thing to do.

It was just that when it came to Arjun's life, he could not care less about ethics.

***

Shortly before dawn on the twelfth day of war, news came that Duryodhan had commanded Dronacharya to capture Yudhishthir alive. Their spies related the reasoning behind this rather strange command; if Yudhishthir was killed, Arjun would wipe out the whole battlefield.

"I would," said Arjun promptly, "only, nobody is going to touch a hair on your head so long as Bhrata Bheem and I are here, jyesht."

"I know, my dear," said Yudhishthir, smiling.

The next day, however, the Kauravas came armed with an excellent ploy. The army of Trigarta, led by King Susharma, who had joined the Kauravas only to kill Arjun, issued an open challenge to Arjun. Torn between the necessity of protecting Yudhishtir and the duty of accepting a challenge, Arjun eventually chose the latter once Bheem had assured he would protect their eldest brother with his life.

Large masses of Trigarta's army kept getting slaughtered as the day progressed, for they were no match against a lone Arjun.

Till the rumour came: Bheem had been killed by Bhagadatta. 

When Arjun heard it, the surroundings was deafened with his involuntary howl of agony.

"Parth, your brother is all right," said Krishna, who thought he ought to know if something this big had occurred. "It is simply a rumour--"

"Take the chariot to Bhagadatta, Madhav," said Arjun wildly.

Krishna shrugged with helplessness and hastened to comply. Nothing but seeing Bheem alive and kicking would calm his friend down, and Krishna was ninety person sure Bheem would be found not far away from Bhagadatta.

Trigarta's warriors tried to detain them, but in the wake of Arjun's desperation, they could not withstand his arrows as Krishna made their chariot shoot away. On the way, their allies shouted that Bheem had not died after all, he had survived an attack that had been almost certain to slay him.

As Arjun and Krishna's chariot reached Bhagadatta, Bheem was fighting in the vicinity. 

Arjun, shaking with relief, issued a challenge to Bhagadatta.