66697602-The-Ramayana-R-K-Narayan

end his career. Rama drew an arrow elegantly from his
quiver, poised it on the bow-string, and let it go. It sped along
and pierced Vali’s chest like a needle passing through a
fruit.
Overcome with astonishment, Vali paused for a moment
to take stock of the situation. His grip around his brother’s
neck relaxed involuntarily. With one hand he had held on to
the arrows shaft and arrested its passage through his chest.
Now he clung to it with his hands, his feet, and the coils of his
tail, and broke and retarded its motion with such stubborn
strength that even Yama, the god of death, stood back,
nodding his head in admiration.
Vali had never thought, even as a possibility, that there
was any power on earth or in the heavens which could
subdue him with any weapon or stand up before him in a
fight. All this was an accepted fact, but here he was like a
miserable worm, not even able to understand what it was
that had laid him low. Could it be the “Trisula” of Shiva or
could it be the “Chakra” of Vishnu or Indra’s “Vajrayudha”?
He laughed ironically. At the same moment he felt an
admiration for the unknown assailant. Who could it be? he
speculated, forgetting his pain. He was invulnerable
according to the promise of the gods, yet here was the
reality, the arrow in his heart. He laughed bitterly at his own
cocksureness of these years; what could it be, who could it
be? Why speculate? Let me find out. So saying he