Raids To The South

The three kingdoms that lay to the south of the Indian subcontinent had never seen their glory rise to these heights. Southern India was flourishing with wealth and natural resources. They could peacefully focus on administration of their lands as they did not face any threats from their rivals in the north. People in the south despised their counterparts in the north.

This rivalry was centuries old. The northerners were staunch believers of atheism. They did not believe in God whatsoever. Where as people in south had several and different kinds of beliefs. Some believed in one God or monotheism and the others believed in multiple Gods or polytheism. People practiced several religions and they all lived in unity. But one fact that the people in the south could not tolerate was that the people in the north did not believe in God, that they had no religion. The northerners could not bear the rituals and festivals that their counterparts in the south did in the name of God. They used to cringe and sneer whenever people in the south said simple phrases like ' May God bless you'. This naturally caused a lot of friction between the two communities. They resented each other and their hatred and abhorrence towards each other had reached its core about a century ago.

Northerners were heavily built and tall people. All of them resembled great warriors as if they were born to fight on the battlefield. They did not know to read or write. They always thought it was a waste of time and efforts to focus on literature. Instead they would practice battle skills and warfare to protect their land and invade others. On the contrary, people in the south were well educated and owned many scriptures and invaluable pieces of literature. They also had an army which was huge but it was nothing compared to the northerners. People in the south called the northerners pagans, heathens and barbarians as they could not read or write and did not show basic etiquette. They detested this kind of behavior and ignorance. They never trusted them and always looked at them with an eye of suspicion. About a century ago, the king of south kingdom wanted to join hands with the northerners and needed their help. And so he called many of the great warriors and leaders to sign a peace treaty with him. He believed with the help of the great Northerner warriors, he could conquer more lands and that the unity of both communities was mutually beneficial to both.

The warriors accepted this offer and came to the south kingdom as guests. Though the common public did not like this idea at first, they believed in the king and thought they would definitely reap the results of this treaty in the future. The northerners were treated well by the king. Their leader stayed at the palace of the king for a month and other warriors stayed at the small palaces of the officials of the king which were spread throughout the kingdom. They were taking their time with planning out the treaty and the strategies. The King never thought that the northerners could outwit the wise and educated people in the south. He thought that the northerners only had physical strength and that they could not plan out complex strategies.

The king's reckless attitude towards the northerners came as a huge blow to him. The northerners were patiently developing a strategy to outwit the king and wreak havoc on he south kingdom. The northerners understood that many religions were living together in harmony in this kingdom. Though there were some extremist groups in all the religions, they were oppressed by the king. The northerners covertly joined hands with these people. They wanted to disrupt this unity between the religions which would cause pandemonium in he kingdom. They paid the Muslim extremists to put beef in the meals of the Hindus and the Hindu extremists to put pork in he meals of the Muslims.

People were quick to make out the adulteration in food and overnight a major chaos spread all over the kingdom. One spark was enough to erupt a tremendous fire, to bring a whole kingdom down to its knees.

Communal riots were taking place all over the kingdom in the late hours of the night. The northerners were prepared to take advantage of this situation. They wanted to attack the king when he was the most vulnerable. The leader of the northerners conspired to kill the king and his officials during the night of the communal riots. The warriors followed the order of the leader and with their battle skills, they killed the security guards and then went out to kill the officials whose palaces were spread out in the kingdom.

The northerner leader had a special plan to kill the king. The south kingdom royal family had a policy that the king can refuse a wrestling challenge only three times in his entire life. The fourth time, it is a must for the king to accept the challenge. The challenger should have royal blood and have a large enough army to overthrow the king. The king had already refused he challenges three times in his life and now the leader challenged him for the fourth time and he had no option but to accept that challenge. He was already woken up by the guards who informed him about the chaos and riots in the kingdom. The northerner leader was six feet tall and was heavily built. The king on the other hand was old and had lost all his physical strength. His defeat was inevitable now. It took no more than fifteen minutes for the leader to kill the king.

The king was successfully overthrown by the combination of the wits and strength of the leader. The leader now sat on the throne and declared he southern lands under his empire. He wanted to imprison the sons of the king especially the heir to the throne, the eldest prince, Avdesh. But they had already escaped via a secret route. The leader ordered for the search of the princes. The communal riots had come o an end after the common public knew that the king had been overthrown by the northerners. The princes were nowhere to be found. As soon as the guards came to know about the riots, they first informed the princes to leave the palace. They then informed the king about the crisis.

The princes had gone to the soaring high mountains of the western ghats. On the top of these mountains, a clan of warriors lived there peacefully. There was a huge army of warriors living throughout the western ghats. No one in the common masses knew about the existence of this clan. It was kept a big secret from them. These warriors were way better than the northerners. These warriors only wanted to live a peaceful life. They knew that if they lived among the masses, as soldiers in the army, they would never get peace as the king would exploit their power and try to conquer more lands through them. This is why they signed a pact with king. The pact stated that the king would allow the clan to peacefully settle in he mountains keeping it a secret from the common masses. In return the king wanted the clan to help the king during a time of huge crisis wherein there could be danger to the collapse of the kingdom. They willingly signed he pact.

Now the kingdom was in a crisis and in shambles. The princes had already left to seek the clan's help. They traveled through a secret route and reached the mountains in two weeks. They informed the clan about the situation and it took another two weeks to prepare for the battle. The northerner leader had told the army of the king to resign from their poss and now they were jobless. As soon as the huge clan came to fight against the northerners, the army also joined them. In no time the leader was defeated and fates were overturned. The clan were very experienced and highly skilled warriors. They declared Avdesh as the king and returned back to their safe haven. The masses once again stood united to see the northerners' defeat. The public still resented the northerners and forgot about the riots that took place.

Avdesh ordered a huge wall to be built that would separate the north from the south. It was built on the border of the two territories. Avdesh did not want any relations with the northerners and all the trade routs were also closed.

The two kingdoms lived peacefully for a century. After a hundred years the south kingdom flourished with wealth. The kingdom was divided among the three children of Avdesh for better administration. Subhadrapur which lay to the west was ruled by queen Subhadra, Ranagarh which was in the middle was ruled by the eldest son of Avdesh- Rana and Rudragarh which lay to the east was ruled by Rudra. The northerners were still uneducated, believed in barbarian ways and practiced atheism. They totally forgot how the lands in the south looked. Some even thought that there were no lands in the south. However there was a growing rumor that the south was filled with gold and wealth and amazing riches that the northerners had never seen.

There were no trade routes to the south therefore there was no passage to enter the south. But this time they did not want to trade with the people in south. They had had enough of it.They wanted revenge by plundering their wealth. They started building ships. at first only a few ships were sent which got lost in the storms of the sea. The next time they made better ships and found a better way to navigate through the south. This time they succeeded in reaching the south. Only a few ships were sent so they plundered only a couple of temples and came back. They had entered queen Subhadra's kingdom. Since only a few temples were plundered, no one informed her about the plunders.

There was also an island that lay to the far east of Rudragarh called Kudmat island. It was a huge island known for its defenses and for being self sufficient. It had fertile lands and did not depend on trade with other kingdoms. They were independent. The thing that Kudmat was known for the most was its defense system. The king there had built a very strong and advance defense system along the border of the island. It was said that no one could invade Kudmat. King Akashdeep had secluded the island from the politics of the subcontinent.They never indulged in the complex matters of the north and the south.

Kuldeep who was the only son and heir to the throne of Kudmat had studied in the southern kingdom. He along with Subhadra, Rudra and Rana had studied from Guru Vashishtha who was considered to be the best Guru of that time. All the four student lived together for 20 years together in the Ashram of Guru Vashishtha. They learned archery, battle skills, maths, sanskrit, and politics together. A deep friendship was established between Rudra and Kudeep as they were of the same age. Kuldeep had sown to his father that he would return back to Kudmat after the completion of his Brahmacharya and never return to the subcontinent. Kuleep and Rudra were inseparable. They had been together for 20 years and wished to be together for many more years. Rudra was a witty and cunning person. He was not a generous king. He convinced Kuldeep to return to Rudragarh. Kuldeep kept coming and going to Kudmat and Rudragarh. King Akashdeep had accepted Kuldeep even after he broke his oath as he was the only heir tho the throne.

Rudra provided for Kuldeep very well and gave him all sorts of comforts. In return Kuldeep would willingly tell Rudra about the mechanisms of the defense of Kudmat. He gradually spilled the beans about the flaws of the defenses of Kudmat. After hearinf this, Rudra started building a similar but better defense system for the south kingdom when Kuldeep was in Kudmat.

Meanwhile the northerners were now sending huge ships and raiding parties to the shores of the south and were plundering their wealth. This time Rana asked for a meeting to be set up. A few northerner warriors came o the meeting with Rudra, Rana and Subhadra. Rudra convinced the northerners to go and attack Kudmat instead of south kingdom as they had more wealth. He also educated them about the flaws of their defenses so that they could easily breach through the walls. The northerners left for Kudmat and they easily breached through the walls leaving Akashdeep and Kuldeep shocked. They successfully raided the Island and continued to raid there, looting Kudmat of its wealth.

Meanwhile Rudra built a stronger and modified defense system with almost no flaws to secure his kingdom from the future danger from the northerners.

Kuldeep was left feeling betrayed by his own friend whom he revered more than anyone else. It was Kuldeep's fault from the start to befriend a cunning and ambitious person and being in his dark shadows, in his bad company. He even betrayed his own father for Rudra's sake and now he was paying he price, watching his own downfall, his island being doomed and fall to ashes.