Warrior Princess; Her Quest to the throne

Turning to look at the shocked participants in front of her, Ahilya said with a shrug, "I am afraid that we will have to start the process again. Make sure that you drop the numbered leaves back into the pot before you move away from here. You will be informed when we are ready to start again."     

So, this is the famous princess," Bela thought to herself, her face devoid of any expressions.     

"You should have left the dirty work to us or atleast done it discreetly," Gayatri chided Ahilya gently when the latter came out of her chambers after changing her blood splattered clothes.     

"I think we don't have to worry about any cheating instances throughout the competition now, right?" with that statement, Ahilya walked out.     

This contest had always fascinated Ahilya during her growing years but this time round, she had a special interest in it and wanted to keep a close check on the proceedings.     

Sighing quietly, Gayatri followed her out.     

When the process started again, Bela managed to get in to the stable somewhere in the middle of the line-up. Even though the best horses were gone, she was fairly happy with her choice. Horses as a breed were proud and majestic animals. But the problem aggravated with thoroughbreds and they tended to be temperamental, especially with strangers. So, she would rather be with a decent, mild mannered horse who would respond to her command without too much resistance than try and tame an ill-mannered brat just before the competition.     

She asked the attendant at the stable for the horse's name. Then, she took the horse for a trot on the track, learning its quirks, letting it get familiar with her voice and scent. The contest had been delayed due to the incident earlier and as a result was rescheduled for early morning of the next day.     

Bela left the horse in the stable after spending a few hours with it. It was time for her other event. She retrieved her bag which she had left at the check-in counter and walked towards the amphitheater where the contest for showing off one's weapon and skills was to be held.     

She was a good swordswoman but her skill couldn't rival that of the professionals who practiced it exclusively, on a daily basis. Hence, she had needed to come up with something that could set her apart and hopefully give her an edge over others. During her tenure with Suraksha Chakra, she had done specialization in two streams. One was herbology and second was learning to design or modify existing weapons.     

Bela had been working on an ancient design which was originally drawn by a Southern zilla general, Vallabh, who was also known as the master of weapon design in Chandragarh. The design was never put into practice during this century but as per Bela, it held a lot of promise.     

It was a drawing of a holder which could accommodate five arrows one after another, without having to reload. It had really fascinated her and she had spent a couple of years trying to actually forge such an instrument, adding her own modifications to the design. It used the same mechanism as that used in a catapult. The size of a catapult's components needed to be proportional to the weight of its intended projectile, and this crossbow also employed the same science.     

It had the space to stack the arrows in a staggered manner and release them quickly one after another in succession. Its effectiveness was dependent upon the shooter's accuracy and stability.     

For the past many weeks, Bela had been practicing this under different weather conditions. She hadn't known how would be the environment in Himprayag on the day of the event but was well aware of the cold temperature of Himprayag. She had tried to take into account the wind movement as well.     

For training herself, she had walked to the highest peak in one of the snow peaked Northern zilla hills and dug her hands in the snow there for some time before picking up the crossbow. She wanted to test her fingers and their efficiency under severe situation. Initially her numb fingers wouldn't even fit into the bow's loop. But slowly her hand started to get accustomed to it.     

Standing now waiting for her turn, she flexed her fingers and hoped that she would be able to impress people enough to take notice of her.     

Saptsindhu     

Thirst and pain kept Shaurya putting one step in front of another. His destination was not too far now!     

Two hours earlier     

Even though he had prepped and practiced it a couple of times before the actual fall, it hadn't prepared Shaurya for the variables. The unexpected presence of the big guy whom he dragged along at the last minute with him, had nearly killed him.     

But Shaurya had had no choice. If he hadn't taken the strongest guy along, he wouldn't have been able to break the circle and slip off the edge.     

Though it looked to everyone that he had jumped off the cliff, he had actually slid down it and pushed the guy away from himself simultaneously. There was a shallow groove in the cliff, which was enough to fit a thin man standing inside. This indention wasn't visible from the top of the cliff. As he straghtened up inside and tried to balance himself, the guy going past him struck his sword in Shaurya's shoe which broke the momentum of his fall. He embedded the sword further into Shaurya's foot and clung onto it, fiercely.     

More than the excruciating pain, at this point, the bigger danger was of Shaurya being hurled into the valley faster than the guy!