✦ I. The Field the Lion Chose
The plain lay like a great bronze shield between two low ridges.
To a careless eye, it was simple open land:
* scrub burnt golden by the sun,
* scattered rocks,
* dry grass swaying in a faint breeze,
* a shallow, almost invisible depression curving across its middle.
To Narasimha, it was a page.
He intended to **write** on it.
From the eastern ridge, he surveyed the land.
Behind him, his army waited in organised stillness.
Numbers that would have made his younger self dizzy now felt… necessary.
* **3,000 infantry** – not regulars in perfect uniform, but hardened men from Rayalaseema villages, Bellary border fighters, Srisailam hill-men, Nallamala forest bands now fighting in the open.
* **200 cavalry** – fast Bellary horsemen under Avuku Raju, and a few of Uyyalawada's best.
* **50 elephants** – towering, decorated not with gaudy colours but with subtle sigils, armour on their foreheads and chests, trunks wrapped in protective cloth.
* **Tiger Corps** – scattered, invisible, hidden in:
* dry riverbed hollows,
* patches of stunted trees,
* folds of the land.
Overhead, vultures circled, as if sensing the feast of iron and flesh to come.
Ayyappa joined him, helm tucked under one arm.
"Last chance to pretend you are ill and hand this to someone else," he said lightly.
Narasimha snorted.
"I tried that yesterday," he said. "Sri told me if I fainted again in the Map Room, she'd have the elephants carry me into battle tied upside down from a banner."
Ayyappa laughed.
"Cruel woman," he said approvingly.
Narasimha's gaze stayed on the plain.
"Look here," he said, pointing. "The shallow dip."
Ayyappa squinted.
"Barely noticeable," he said.
"Exactly," Narasimha replied. "To marching men in tight formation, it will feel like flat ground. But their legs, their weight… the dip will pull them a little forward, disrupt their neat lines at just the right moment."
He gestured further.
"There," he said, "we dug pits last night. Covered with brush. Not large enough to swallow companies. Just enough to trip, to panic horses, to make cannons tilt."
"And the Tigers?" Ayyappa asked.
Narasimha nodded.
"In the hollows near the western edge, and among those thorn clusters to the north," he said. "When the moment comes, they rise behind the British, not in front. Let the enemy feel that the land itself is angry."
He inhaled deeply.
"Today," he said quietly, "we stop being the story of 'that one fort' and become the story of 'that cursed plain where two Regiment broke'."
Ayyappa's smile faded.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
Narasimha rolled his shoulders.
"No," he said honestly. "But I am here."
---
### II. The War Council – Formations of Old, Intel of New
In the hours before dawn, in the largest tent at Uyyalawada's forward camp, the war council had gathered.
On the floor:
* a rough map of the plain;
* pebbles for companies;
* sticks for formations.
Sri pointed with a slender stick at a serpentine line.
"Trinetra confirms," she said. "The British column will emerge from this gap between low hills by mid-morning. They believe they are within a day's march of Kadapa, with only one serious engagement ahead."
Raghava added quietly,
"They have lost roughly a hundred men to sickness and accidents. Morale is low, but the officers are forcing hard marches to make up for delays."
Avuku Raju snorted.
"Nothing makes a horse more stupid than an officer in a hurry," he said.
Narasimha smiled faintly.
"We will help their stupidity," he said. "But we will not underestimate their discipline. Even tired men can kill if we blunder."
He picked up a handful of pebbles.
"We do not meet them in a simple line," he said. "We use what our forefathers used – **vyuhas** – formations that think in **shapes**, not just straight rows."
On the map, he drew:
* a crescent of infantry at the centre, slightly bowed inward;
* elephants at the tips of the crescent like heavy iron weights;
* cavalry in loose clumps further out, like claws.
"Classic **ardha-chandra vyuha**," Venkanna murmured. "Half-moon."
"Yes," Narasimha said. "Their doctrine prefers:
* straight lines for firing,
* squares to resist cavalry.
We tempt them to advance into the centre, thinking to break us. When they press, the curve closes."
He moved pebbles.
"These," he said, indicating small stones behind the curve, "are reserves. When their front line is fully engaged, we push fresh men into gaps. Not grand charges, just constant **pressure**."
He tapped the elephants.
"These giants do not rush blindly," he said. "They move only when signalled, in tight phalanxes at each flank. Their job is to hammer squares."
Avuku Raju's eyes gleamed.
"And my riders?" he asked.
Narasimha drew two wide arcs.
"You circle," he said. "You harass their flanks, threaten their rear. Never stay still long enough to receive volleys. When their squares form facing elephants, you dart in from angles, throw javelins, retreat."
"And the Tigers?" Sri asked.
Narasimha smiled.
"Old," he said. "But effective. We will use a version of **Garuda vyuha**."
He placed small pebbles behind the British projected line of march.
"In the epics," he said, "Garuda formation was a fierce bird – head, wings, claws. Today, our Garuda is invisible. The Tigers are its claws. When the British are fully committed to our centre, when drums and smoke drown thought, Tigers strike from behind:
* attacking baggage,
* shooting into backs,
* setting fires,
* cutting down runners.
Let the Company men feel they have walked into a **beak** that closes from both sides."
Ayyappa grinned, bloodthirsty.
"I like this bird," he said.
Sri, though, watched Narasimha's face.
"You will be where?" she asked.
He marked a point at the very centre of the crescent.
"Here," he said. "Where else? If I fight from the rear, our men will think I doubt them. If I rush the front alone, they will die trying to follow. The centre is both spine and heart."
Venkanna's gaze softened.
"Do you remember," he asked, "what I told you about anger and purpose?"
Narasimha nodded.
"Anger is fire," he recited quietly. "Purpose is the hearth. Without the second, the first burns your own house."
"Good," Venkanna said. "Keep that in mind when your blood runs hot. This day will tempt you to let the Asura in you dance too wildly."
Narasimha's jaw tightened briefly at the word.
Asura.
Somewhere deep in his chest, something… stirred.
He pushed it down.
"We will fight as **men** first," he said. "If something more comes… we'll use it. But we will not lean on miracles."
He looked at them all.
"Today," he said, "we show them that Rayalaseema is not a patch of brown on their map. It is a lion's back. And they are standing on it."
---
### III. The Red Snake Reaches the Shield
By mid-morning, a haze of dust announced the British column before the men themselves could be clearly seen.
From the eastern ridge, Rayalaseema's fighters watched in silence.
Drums, ragged from overuse, still kept a semblance of rhythm.
Flags snapped.
* Red coats, now sweat-stained and dust-streaked.
* Sepoy ranks behind, faces darker but no less strained.
* Gun carriages groaning.
* Ambulance carts following like ominous shadows.
Fitzroy rode at the front, jaw clenched.
He saw the glint of metal on the far ridge and straightened.
"So," he muttered. "They have the courage to stand in the open."
Harwood's eyes narrowed.
"They have something," he said. "Courage… or confidence. Or both."
As the column spilled onto the plain, the full sight of Narasimha's army revealed itself.
Infantry lines forming a wide curve.
Elephants at the ends, tusks sheathed in iron.
Cavalry hovering beyond like dark birds.
For a moment, several British officers sucked in a breath.
"This is no rabble," one whispered.
Fitzroy growled.
"Form line!" he barked. "Guns to the centre! Sepoy companies in second rank! Prepare to advance!"
In clipped commands, the march column bent and reshaped:
* companies peeling off,
* forming firing lines,
* colours planted,
* officers moving along fronts with swords drawn.
Harwood noted the distance.
"They've placed themselves further back than we expected," he said. "We'll have to march across most of the plain under their observation."
"Let them look," Fitzroy snapped. "We will show them what a European line does to native levies."
Harwood's fingers tightened on his reins.
"This 'native levy' already took one of our forts," he thought. "Do not mistake him for the others."
---
### IV. The Lion Speaks Before the Roar
In the centre of the crescent, Narasimha rode slowly along the front rank on his stallion, armour gleaming in the harsh light.
Men straightened as he passed.
He raised his spear, pausing where they could all see him.
No grand platform.
No gilded parasol.
Just a man on a horse on the same dirt they stood on.
"Brothers!" he called.
His voice carried, honed on hilltops and courtyards alike.
"Look at them!"
He pointed his spear at the approaching red-and-brown block.
"Two Regiment," he said. "Men who crossed oceans to tell us how much we should pay to drink our own water. Men whose officers think our lives are a line on their accounts."
There were muted growls.
"Look at **yourselves**," he went on. "Farmers. Hunters. Temple guards. Forest bands. Men of Bellary, Srisailam, Nallamala, Rayalaseema. No one sailed to bring you here. You walked. Because this is your land."
He stood in his stirrups.
"We are not fighting for glory," he said. "Not for my name. Not for some distant emperor. We fight because:
* this soil held our ancestors,
* this rain fed our mothers,
* this sun baked our backs in fields,
… and some strangers decided they could write their names over all of that."
His tone sharpened.
"When the guns fire," he said, "remember:
* every step you hold is a step they do not own.
* Every man beside you is a wall between their greed and your home.
If fear comes, that is fine. It means you understand the stakes. Take that fear and hand it to me. I will carry it. You carry your spear."
A small ripple of rough laughter.
He smiled.
"And if I fall," he added casually, "Ayyappa will scold you all into fighting twice as hard out of sheer terror."
Ayyappa rolled his eyes.
Some tension broke.
Narasimha lowered his spear.
"Remember," he said, voice quiet but intense, "we are not here to prove we can die bravely. We are here to prove we can make **them** retreat. Fight smart. Fight together. And today, make this plain remember our footsteps."
He turned his horse, raised his spear high.
"Rayalaseema!" he roared.
This time, the answering shout was not pretty.
Not drilled.
But it was **alive**.
---
### V. First Thunder
The British guns fired first.
Even with sabotaged powder and weary crew, artillery remained artillery.
The first volley shook the air.
Cannonballs tore up dry earth, flung dust and splinters.
A few found flesh.
Men fell.
An elephant trumpeted, more startled than hurt, as a ball smashed a stone nearby.
Narasimha did not flinch.
"Hold," he ordered.
His front ranks did not surge forward in blind anger.
They shifted slightly, like a living fabric, absorbing the blasts, closing gaps.
The British infantry advanced in line:
* officers shouting,
* flags waving,
* bayonets a glittering hedge.
"Steady!" Fitzroy barked. "Remember your training! Two ranks fire, two ranks reload! Keep distance! Do not rush!"
They had never fought elephants.
Not like this.
Not with a half-moon watching them.
At Narasimha's signal, archers and early musketeers in his front ranks stepped up.
No volleys.
Individual shots.
Arrows arced, searching:
* officers with plumes,
* standard-bearers,
* sergeants who shouted too clearly.
Some missed.
Some did not.
Each hit was a small cut in the British spine.
As distance closed, musket shots from both sides cracked more frequently.
Smoke thickened.
Men began to drop in earnest.
The crescent held.
Then, at just the right moment, Narasimha's horn sounded:
a long, rising note.
"Advance the centre!" he ordered. "Slow. Solid. Do not break formation!"
The half-moon began to move.
---
### VI. Clash in the Dip
The first true collision happened in the almost invisible depression across the plain.
British lines, ambitious and eager to "close with the natives," stepped into it.
Their neat rows wavered:
* a slight stumble here,
* a knee sinking there,
* officers adjusting positions as cohesion faltered.
"It's nothing!" one lieutenant shouted. "Mind your steps!"
On the other side, Narasimha's front ranks entered the same dip with expectation.
They had walked it the night before in the dark.
They knew where the ground shifted.
Their feet found firmer patches as if guided by instinct.
When the two forces met, the British lines did not slam into a brittle wall.
They ran into a **yielding**, then striking, mass.
Rayalaseema spears met bayonets with a harsh screech.
Men shoved.
Shouted.
Grunted.
Narasimha was there in the thick of it, spear butt in one hand, shield on the other, using the weight of his mount to push, never charging alone but always one step ahead of the line.
A red-coated soldier lunged.
Narasimha knocked the bayonet aside with his shield and thrust the spear-butt into the man's chest, then reversed and brought the head down on another's shoulder.
Behind him, his reserves began to feed into gaps, as planned.
The centre did not collapse.
It absorbed and **chewed**.
Fitzroy, watching the fight from just behind his line, scowled.
"They're holding better than expected," he muttered. "Bring the guns closer. Hit that centre again."
He didn't see, from his angle, the pits his men were about to discover.
---
### VII. Elephants and Squares
At Narasimha's second signal, the horns changed.
Short, sharp blasts.
On both wings, the elephant corps moved.
Not in wild rushes, but in organised lines three beasts deep.
They lumbered toward the British flanks, guided by mahouts with calm precision.
"Form square! Form square!" British officers yelled.
Training snapped in.
Men pulled back, forming hollow squares of bayonets facing outward.
It worked – at first.
The elephants checked.
Some shied away from the spiky hedges.
A few trumpeted in distress as musket shots darkened their hides.
One beast, wounded in the shoulder, reared and nearly threw its mahout.
Narasimha watched closely.
"Not yet," he murmured.
Then he signalled again.
From the flanks, Avuku Raju's cavalry thundered in low arcs.
They did not crash into the squares.
They skated around them, throwing javelins into the exposed corners:
* killing or wounding men at key junctions of the formation,
* then veering away before a proper volley could be aimed.
"Hold! Hold your fire until they're closer!" a British captain shouted.
His men, jumpy and exhausted, fired early.
The shots tore at empty air or hit a stray horse.
Reloading took precious seconds.
In those seconds, the Rayalaseema infantry pressed the front more.
The square edges began to fray.
Elephants, seeing the wobble, surged again, striking at corners where fewer bayonets bristled.
One square broke like cracked pottery.
Men spilled back, screaming, as a tusked behemoth ploughed through the edge, flinging bodies aside like dolls.
The others held, but at cost.
Harwood rode frantically between pockets of chaos.
"Keep order!" he shouted. "Your guns are still—"
One of the guns, being maneuvered for a better angle, hit a cleverly concealed pit with its front wheel.
The wheel snapped.
The carriage tilted.
The barrel slammed into the ground with a ruinous crunch.
The crew swore.
Harwood's stomach dropped.
"How many little accidents before you admit design?" he thought bitterly.
---
### VIII. Garuda Shows Its Claws
Just as the battle at the front became a grinding, bloody slog, a new sound rose at the rear of the British formation.
Not British drums.
A different rhythm.
Then:
Screams.
Tiger Corps had risen from the scrub and hollows like ghosts.
They didn't charge full companies.
They hit:
* baggage trains,
* officers' tents hastily pitched behind the lines,
* ammunition wagons.
A group of Tigers swarmed a powder cart, killed its light guard silently, cut the traces, and sent the terrified horses bolting sideways.
The cart crashed into a cluster of soldiers halfway between front and rear, scattering them.
Another group set fire to canvas with oiled rags, just as they had in the night raid.
Flames leapt.
Smoke drifted forward.
A British runner, sprinting to bring orders, felt an arrow slam into his calf, sending him tumbling.
From the front, it sounded to many British soldiers as if the battle was suddenly **behind** them as well.
"Sir! They're in the rear!"
"We're surrounded!"
Panic crept in.
Fitzroy snapped his head around.
"Who authorized movement from the baggage lines?" he roared.
Then he saw:
Fire.
Arrows.
Dark figures flitting like shadows.
For a moment, genuine fear punched through his chest.
"If our supply lines break…" he thought. "If we lose powder, food—"
In front of him, his line wavered again.
He had to choose:
* reinforce the front,
* or secure the rear.
He hesitated.
For Narasimha, watching, it was the moment he had waited for.
---
### IX. The Asura Stirs
Battle is a strange god.
It eats time.
Narasimha did not know how long they had been pushing and parrying when it happened.
Somewhere in the chaos, a bullet grazed his arm.
He barely felt it.
He saw an officer raise a pistol at Ayyappa from behind.
He moved, too slow.
The shot fired.
Ayyappa stumbled, shoulder jerking.
A red haze flickered at the edge of Narasimha's vision.
His pulse spiked.
Sounds dulled for a heartbeat, then returned sharper.
The air around him seemed to **thicken** and heat.
He had known rage before.
This was different.
This was not the hot, blind anger of a man.
It was the cold, immense fury of something older, coiled in his bones since the Trimurti had blessed him.
For an instant, he felt as if another shape stood overlaid on his body:
* not just a man,
* but a towering, shadowed figure with a lion's mane of flame,
* clawed hands,
* eyes blazing molten gold.
Asura.
Not of adharma.
Of **unrestrained force**.
Men around him felt it even if they couldn't name it.
A sudden, oppressive **aura** rolled out from him:
* like heat before a forest fire,
* like the moment just before monsoon lightning crashes.
Rayalaseema fighters near him straightened, spines tingling with fierce exhilaration.
British soldiers opposite him froze.
One dropped his bayonet, suddenly sure he was staring at a demon from fever-dream stories.
Horses, sensitive to things beyond human sight, **screamed**.
Several reared violently.
One cavalry horse bolted straight through the British flank, nearly trampling its own riders.
Even some elephants shivered—but their mahouts, feeling the change, murmured old mantras, hands firm.
Narasimha stepped forward.
For those directly in front of him, in the smoke and sun, his outline seemed wrong:
* too broad,
* shoulders edged with something like a mane,
* eyes glowing inhumanly bright for a second.
He raised his sword.
His voice, when it came, seemed to shake the air.
"**WHO ARE YOU,**" he roared, "**TO TAKE TAX FOR THE RIGHT TO LIVE ON OUR OWN LAND?**"
The words slammed like a wave, more felt than understood.
He surged into the British line.
Men tried to meet him.
They failed.
He moved with terrifying precision:
* parrying bayonet thrusts not just with his blade, but with an almost preternatural sense of where the next attack would come;
* striking at wrists, elbows, knees – breaking lines, not just bodies.
A soldier lunged.
Narasimha pivoted, grabbed the man by the collar, and flung him aside as if he weighed nothing.
Another swung a musket like a club.
Narasimha stepped inside, shoulder-barged him with such force that the man flew back into two more.
Around him, his men felt their own strength swell.
Fear shrank.
"Dora is…" one gasped, eyes wide, "…he's like… Narasimha Swami himself…"
The name was apt.
The British, unused to the language, heard only the tone: reverent, awed, and directed at the man cutting through their line.
Some of them broke.
A private dropped his weapon, turned, and ran.
Another, sheer terror in his face, fired his musket wildly, hitting nothing but air.
Harwood, from further back, saw only a ripple in the enemy line and an odd shimmer around the rebel leader for a heartbeat.
He felt a chill.
"That's not just tactics," he thought. "That's… something else."
In the heavens, Lakshmi's hand closed around Vishnu's.
"Carefully," she whispered.
Parvati's eyes gleamed.
"He has touched the edge of his Asura form," she said. "Not fully. Just a… flare."
Maheshwara smiled faintly.
"Battle remembered him," he said.
---
### X. Cracking the Snake
The psychological shock did more than a dozen volleys.
Horses panicking, rear harried, front assaulted by a man who seemed more myth than flesh—each thread of discipline stretched thin.
Then broke.
One British company near the centre, already battered by casualties and shaken by the aura, began to fall back without orders.
"Hold the line!" its captain shouted.
An arrow took him in the throat.
He fell, gurgling.
The withdrawal turned into a stagger.
On the flank, an elephant drove through a half-formed square, scattering men.
Avuku Raju's riders darted in to exploit gaps, cutting down those who fell.
At the rear, Tiger Corps intensified their attacks:
* drums beat from unexpected directions,
* conch-shells wailed,
* making it sound as if enemy numbers had doubled.
The British line, designed to fight in **one** direction, suddenly felt as if the enemy was in **all** directions.
Fitzroy bellowed himself hoarse.
"Re-form! Re-form, damn you! It's just natives!"
But the word "just" had lost its power.
Harwood saw it clearly.
"We're losing cohesion," he said grimly to a fellow officer. "If we don't pull back in some order, this won't be a tactical retreat. It will be a rout."
The other man hesitated.
"Retreat?" he echoed. "We're the Empire. We don't—"
Harwood cut him off.
"Empires retreat too," he snapped. "Sometimes they even learn from it before it kills them."
He rode toward Fitzroy.
"Colonel!" he shouted over the din. "We must pull back to the ridge. Regroup. If we stay here, we'll be fighting pockets, not a line, and the rebels will feast on that."
Fitzroy's pride warred with the sight before him:
* men breaking,
* colours dipping,
* the lion-man in the centre cutting through like an axe.
Rage shook him.
But he was not entirely a fool.
"Signal general withdrawal!" he snarled at last. "Drums! Bugles! Back to secondary positions! Cover the guns!"
The command rippled out raggedly.
Some officers relayed.
Some were already dead.
The withdrawal began.
Not neat.
Not pretty.
But a withdrawal nonetheless.
---
### XI. Mercy and Message
Narasimha saw the shift.
He could, if he wished, signal a full pursuit:
* drive the British into the ground,
* cut down as many as possible from behind,
* turn a defeat into a massacre.
A part of him—a newly awakened, burning part—wanted exactly that.
The Asura flicker urged:
*Finish. Crush. Let none return to threaten again.*
He closed his eyes briefly.
The aura around him dimmed.
When he opened them, they were just a man's eyes again.
Hard.
Tired.
Human.
"Hold pursuit at half," he ordered Ayyappa. "Infantry keeps pressure, but no reckless chasing. Cavalry harasses, but pulls back at my signal. We've broken them enough for today."
Ayyappa looked at him.
"You're sure?" he asked.
"No," Narasimha said. "But this is the line I choose."
He turned to Sri, who had ridden closer with a small guard.
"Take note," he said. "We need:
* counts of their dead and ours,
* lists of captured,
* wounded to be treated on both sides where possible.
Sepoys who surrender will be given water and a choice: go home, or stay and fight with us. No forced conversions. No coercion."
Sri nodded.
"And the British officers we capture?" she asked.
Narasimha's jaw tightened.
"We will treat their wounds," he said. "Then… we will choose a handful of bodies for a message."
Her eyes flickered.
"Another bloody letter to Madras?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "They need to understand Kadapa was not a fluke. Today's plain is not an accident. This is a **pattern**."
He looked at the retreating column, smoke and dust marking their path like shame.
"Let them know," he murmured, "that Rayalaseema is not a wound they can cauterise with one searing."
---
### XII. Harwood Looks Back, and Marvel Listens Forward
From the British perspective, the retreat to the ridge was a blur.
Some companies maintained cohesion.
Others turned into clusters of men following whichever officer still had a voice.
Guns were dragged back, their wheels carving deep ruts.
Banners dipped, then rose again shakily.
On the ridge, Fitzroy dismounted heavily.
His face was grey.
"We regroup," he said through clenched teeth. "We dig. We make them pay twice the blood for every step if they come again."
Harwood dismounted more slowly.
He turned back to the plain.
He saw:
* bodies in red and brown scattered like seeds gone to waste;
* elephants moving with surprising gentleness among the wounded, as their mahouts directed recovery;
* rebels binding their own hurt and, to his quiet shock, bandaging some of his sepoys who had dropped their weapons.
He swept his gaze until he found the centre.
There.
Narasimha, helm off, hair matted with sweat and dust, stood on a small rise.
He was not cheering.
He was not thrusting his sword into the air in triumph.
He was… talking to a wounded sepoy, crouched beside him.
For a second, despite the distance, their eyes met.
Harwood felt a chill.
"This is no mere local rebel," he thought. "This is a… **type** of man history writes about later. And we are on the wrong side of his story."
---
### XIII. Heaven Names the Plain
In the celestial realms, the Rayalaseema Plains glowed like a scar touched by light.
Lakshmi exhaled.
"He stepped close to the fire and pulled back," she said softly. "He did not let the Asura devour the man."
Parvati's eyes blazed with approval.
"He let it **flare**, not rule," she said. "That is harder than people think."
Saraswati's fingers danced on strings, weaving a slow, fierce melody.
"In ages to come," she murmured, "strategists will study battles where smaller forces used terrain and intelligence to defeat larger ones. They will speak of Hannibal, of guerilla leaders far from here. Few will know that in a dusty Indian plain, a king with one foot in myth and another in history did the same—with an Asura's shadow behind his shoulders."
Maheshwara smiled.
"Destruction was offered a feast," he said. "He chose a measured meal. I am… satisfied."
Vishnu's gaze slipped far, far forward, to a future where:
* superheroes fought aliens over New York,
* armies clashed with technology and magic intertwined,
* men in armour discussed collateral damage.
"Marvel's age will think itself the first to balance power and restraint," he said. "They will not know how old that dance truly is."
Brahma wrote carefully:
> *Battle of Rayalaseema Plains: Approx. 3,000 rebel infantry, 200 cavalry, 50 elephants vs. two weakened Company Regiment(8000 soldiers). U.N.R. employs integrated tactics: ancient vyuhas (ardha-chandra, modified Garuda), Trinetra-based predictions, selective guerrilla strikes (Tiger Corps), and brief manifestation of 'Asura aura' causing psychological shock (not full transformation). British sustains heavy casualties, forced retreat with morale severely compromised. No indiscriminate massacre pursued; wounded treated selectively on both sides. Narrative of British invincibility in open battle shattered regionally.*
---
### XIV. The Plain Remembered
As night fell, fires winked on across the Rayalaseema Plains.
Some around cooking pots.
Some around funeral pyres.
At the edge of the field, Narasimha sat with Venkanna, a cloth tied around his grazed arm.
For the first time since the battle, he allowed himself to **feel** the exhaustion.
Venkanna watched him quietly.
"How does it feel?" he asked at last. "To win your first great open-field battle against them?"
Narasimha considered.
"Like I have been handed a boulder labelled 'Expectations'," he said dryly. "Everyone will now think I can repeat this whenever I like."
He sighed.
"But also…" He looked out over the plain. "…like a weight I have carried alone for too long has shifted to the land itself. Before today, many still thought, 'We can't beat their guns in the open.' Now, the soil here will whisper forever, 'We did, once.'"
He rubbed his chest absently.
Venkanna watched the motion.
"You felt it," the Guru said softly. "Didn't you?"
Narasimha didn't pretend ignorance.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Something **rose** in me. Hot and cold at once. For a moment…"
He swallowed.
"…for a moment, I thought if I let it fully out, I could tear through their line alone."
"And why didn't you?" Venkanna asked.
"Because," Narasimha said, "I saw my men's faces. They were looking at me like I was not human. Reverent. Afraid. I do not want to rule men who only remember me as a **monster** that fought for them. I want to rule men who believe they themselves held the line."
He smiled wryly.
"Also, Lakshmi Devi would be very cross if I turned my battlefield into a crater," he added.
Somewhere above, Lakshmi smiled.
Venkanna chuckled.
"Good," he said. "You stepped to the edge and stepped back. That is how one learns the shape of his own depths."
Narasimha leaned back, looking at the stars.
"Tomorrow," he said, "we count dead. We mend spears. We patch armour. The day after, we decide what to do with these Regiment that now glare at us from that ridge."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"But tonight," he murmured, "just for a few breaths… I will let myself believe that we did something that echoed a little further than these hills."
The wind moved over the plain, carrying:
* the scent of smoke,
* the iron tang of blood,
* and, faintly, the new story villagers would start to tell:
> "On that field, the Company learned that the lion of Rayalaseema does not just prowl in forests or forts. He roars under the open sky."
In another age, Marvel's heroes would fight their battles on alien worlds and skyscraper rooftops.
They would never know that in 19th-century Rayalaseema, a man whose soul should have been Manu had already fought a war blending:
* ancient formations,
* guerrilla cunning,
* divine aura,
* and very human restraint.
The Battle of Rayalaseema Plains was over.
The war—
for Bharat, for the future where this world would one day meet Marvel's—
had only just begun.
---
✦ **End of Chapter 36 – "The Battle of Rayalaseema Plains"** ✦