A String Of Pearls

Almost as soon as the battle had begun on the sixteenth day, the King and Crown prince of Avanti had been slain by Satyaki and their army decimated by him and Yudhamanyu. This beginning certainly did not bode well for the rest of the day.

Yes Bhrata Karna was rather unstoppable that day, especially since he had finally taken the Vijay Dhanush with him(which..?... Bhanumati hadn't even known he had possessed a bow that had belonged to Mahadev himself?!?!?! Why on Earth had he not used it till now?! He had muttered under his breath, something about being ashamed and two curses--?!?!?WHAT?!?!-- and bad luck, but she had no idea what any of that meant), but as he decimated the Pandava army, similar fate befell them as well.

And indeed, soon enough terrible news started arriving from the battlefield.

Bheem had once again gone on a rampage as he had in the previous days and five of the remaining Kauravas had already been killed.

It was ......... There weren't even any words left that could express what any of them were feeling anymore.

Bhanumati felt a chilling feeling creep up on her as the thought that none of the Kauravas might survive the war settled in her mind.

Her Duryodhan was a better mace fighter than Bheem but all the rest of the brothers?

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Chandramukhi had not spoken since the warriors had gone into battle and simply stared ahead blankly.

Bhanumati sat down next to her and took her hand, with nothing she could say to comfort her.

"It's going to end soon, Didi." Chandramukhi said dully. And the war ending was no longer a happy thought. It would all finally end and yet. It would end because... because... they would have no one left.

And she couldn't even ask her to not say that because it was true. She couldn't even bring up Bhrata Karna's prowess because of her constant fear that he would be killed by treachery as well, like their previous two commanders.

Chandramukhi buried her face in her hands. "We're going to be left with nothing at the end of this war." She croaked. "What would even be the point of us living?"

"Don't say that!" Bhanumati whispered. It was not that the thought had not occurred to her several times before. But hearing someone else close to her heart say that caused a different kind of pain.

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More and more bodies of the Kauravas and their children piled up.

Bheem didn't even spare Vikarna's life. The only man who had stood up for his wife when not even he and his brothers had done so. Mridula had gone completely numb, not saying a word since she saw her husband's body.

This was the gravest injustice, Bhanumati thought. Yudhishtir had everything to contribute in Draupadi's insult and yet Vikarna was the one Bheem had killed in his fight for 'Dharma'.

There was no end to broken wives and broken mothers and that was just within their family. Only on their side.

She found herself wishing that she too grew numb like Mridula. She felt as though if she kept on feeling the pain each time she saw the body of a brother-in-law, the body of a nephew ..... she would go mad.

Bhanumati already did not understand how she had survived the death of Lakshman. How any of them had survived the deaths of their sons.

And then.... and then... only Duryodhan and Dushashan remained of the hundred brothers.