The monkeys had begun to appear by then, just a few of them at a time at first, but in a remarkably short time they were on every house, in every tree, all of them paying homage to Hari before forming up into their regiments. The noise was considerable, and being monkeys they tended to eat whatever wasn't very firmly nailed down, and from that afternoon onward Hari spent most of his time trying to keep them out of trouble and stopping fights with the villagers. They obeyed him when he was there, of course, but when his back was turned they tended to resume looting.
    Ashram spent the day on the riverbank, casting spells. Where the enemy were forming up, he cast Spike Growth on the riverbank. Screams and scrambling suggested that the spell had taken effect, blocking the ford quite effectively. After about a half hour, the spell went away; someone on the other side had countered it.
    Over the same part of the terrain, he cast Hallucinatory Forest. Again, everything stopped over there. This time the spell was less easily dispersed; instead they began constructing a pontoon bridge a bit downstream of the altered land.
    Ashram cast Warp Wood on it. A moment later it unwarped. "Bastards," he muttered.
    The slow-motion sorcerous duel continued as the day wore on. A laughing spell threatened him, but he resisted it; that meant they knew where he was, which could be a problem—
    A fireball exploded all around him. The badly burned hermit retreated into the woods. On the far side, they were trying to cut down the hallucinatory forest, to no effect. In town, there were by now many monkeys, giving Hari a full-time job.
    "I assume these monkeys are your doing?" the rajah wanted to know, a bit nervously. "Please, tell me they are your doing?"
    "They are a gift from Lord Haruman."
    "And they will fight with us tomorrow?"
    "Yes."
    A smoldering Ashram joined them.
    "Lord Hermit, are you all right?"
    "I am merely letting them think that I have nothing left to do." In truth, he had one spell left to cast, and he didn't need to be anywhere near the target. It was late afternoon and they had not quite finished the bridge, but had brought out torches and apparently planned to work through the night.
    Ashram cast Plant Growth on the Amirdata land where the bridge was intended to end. When he was halfway through the spell, the invisible rakshasa that had been countering him all day attacked, rending him with unseen claws. For a fleeting moment he saw the thing's evil face floating there, and then it was gone from his sight. Ashram turned himself into a giant turtle. The rakshasa tried to flip him over; Ashram let out a roar and tried to bite it. The demon was not strong enough to pick him up, it seemed, and gave up. The turtle hermit made his way back toward town, slowly, then returned to his usual form. There were a lot of monkeys around, and the rajah had been busy assembling his own men to defend the city.
    "His troops are definitely possessed, charmed. Evil. They just sent some invisible rakshasa to try to kill me," he reported to the others.
    "Doesn't look like it worked," Hari noted.
    "No, the strength of the tortoise is greater than that of the unnatural."
    "You're a pretty unnatural tortoise," Hasin pointed out.
    Night fell. The men from Urim set about hacking down the new forest growth at the end of their bridge. The Amirdatans and the visitors continued their own preparations, which included healing up from the previous day's exertions.
    Ashram threw an augury to see if it would be a good idea for him to keep up his nuisance spells, and received and ambiguous response. While Hari rode herd on monkeys, Hasin snuck into the enemy camp on the Amirdata side of the river in hopes of causing some trouble there. There were a few elephants in their own circles of five guards each, plus mahout and assistants, with blinders on to keep them from getting too excited.
    To the south, came the sound of an elephant charge—sounded like it was headed for Amirdata.
    "How the hell did they do that!?" Ashram wondered, taking the form of a vulture to make his way there more quickly, only to find that there were no elephants to be seen, nor any sign of invisible elephants.
    Hidden in his shadow, Hasin pondered assassinating an officer or two, and unwarily made a sound. He had been having really bad luck ever since coming to town, and wondered as he sprinted for safety, arrows zipping around him, if that too could be blamed on the missing bolt.
    Meantime Ashram swept down toward the town to let them know there weren't any elephants coming, but the folk there hadn't heard them at all. Two could play the nuisance game. He and Hasin returned at the same time, both considerably disgruntled. Ashram, at least, could do something about it. One of the enemy elephants began glowing. Then a torch near it exploded. Men ran around startled at first. They tried to wash the glow off the elephant, which was amusing.
    Back at the castle, the Amirdata forces continued to prepare. The visitors got some sleep, except for Hasin, who kept an eye out to make sure no one snuck in.
    The day of battle came. Most of the Urim forces had crossed the river, despite all the trouble. Hari arranged his monkeys in the woods to perform a flanking maneuver. Since the enemy sorcerer was probably on the other side, they decided Hasin would cross the river and try to find him. A scout reported that the enemy had broken camp and were on their way. The rajah set up his defensive perimeter around the town.
    "We're outnumbered badly, but hopefully the monkeys will be able to turn the tide," the old man sighed; he was worried.
    Ashram cast a water breathing spell on Hasin, who went upstream a bit and swam across the river to look for mages. He was sure he had done something stupider in his life, but wasn't quite sure what it could be. He spotted a richly caparisoned elephant crossing the bridge, carrying a general; Hasin frowned. The man looked a lot like one of the ambassadors.... He pulled his blowgun free and aimed at the elephant. The first dart failed to pierce the creature's skin. So did the second. Gritting his teeth, he watched the elephant finish crossing, then realized that he hadn't seen the Rajah Mard anywhere among the troops; he ought to be there. He could see the palace of Urim from where he was and decided a look around might be in order.
    Ashram stayed with the main Amirdata forces, sharing an elephant with the rajah and Mahabhodipani, with another Hallucinatory Terrain spell ready. That slowed the enemy advance considerably. When enough of them had gotten through it, he cast another Spike Growth. A Stinking Cloud struck one of the Amirdata forward units, which wavered but did not quite collapse. The front lines were taking arrow fire, and the enemy elephants were forming up for a charge.
    Hari waited in the forest with his army of a thousand monkeys, unseen by the enemy as yet.
    A series of fireballs hit the Amirdata front line, their source one of the Urim elephants. Two elephants panicked. The enemy charged.
    Things were not going well, Ashram noted, doing his best to calm the elephants and keep their panic from spreading. Then the monkeys attacked. The Urim infantry were taken entirely by surprise. Another Stinking Cloud struck. The hermit summoned a swarm of wasps to attack one of the Urim elephants and looked for the spellcaster—there, one of the generals, and he looked oddly familiar. He was wearing armor with some metal in it, but the Heat Metal spell failed to affect him.
     "That one?" Mahabhodipani asked Ashram, pointing.
    "Yes!"
    He pointed the scepter; the illusion faded, revealing the rakshasa, which screamed and turned to dust, unable to withstand Buddhist relic.
    Then the Urimian elephants hit the Amirdata line. An image of Haruman appeared above the monkey troops, hypnotizing them. Hari, too, looked around for the spellcaster, spotted a good candidate. He tried to rouse his monkeys out of their fascination, but they remained in awe of the image of their god.
    Hasin snuck into what appeared to be a deserted palace. Upstairs, in a locked room with a booby-trap on the door, he found the rajah tied to a chair. His eyes opened wide when he saw Hasin and he mumbled around his gag. Hasin apologized for touching the man and untied him.
    "So I take it the evil sorcerers hypnotized your troops and are leading them in an attack on your neighbors?"
    "Yes! They came, they kidnapped my generals, tied me up here and took all my troops!"
    "Well, we'll have to see how they're getting on back there."
    "Oh, we have nothing to worry about."
    "We don't?!"
    "A little bird told me."
    Hasin wasn't at all sure what to make of that. On the other side of the river the monkeys were being forced back toward the forest and most of the elephants were fighting each other regardless of what side they were supposed to be on.
    And than a small, naked boy appeared in the sky. A hush fell over the field. The illusion of Haruman fell away.
    "Rakshasa, come forth!" the boy commanded. The demons were pulled into the air. He waved his hand; for a moment he appeared to be not a boy but a bolt of metal, from which light radiated. The rakshasas disintegrated; the hallucinatory terrain went away, and the monkeys went wild with excitement. "I am sorry it had to turn out like this," he said. "I went away for a little while and everything got out of control. I hope I've made up for this, but you see I have other things to do now. My blessings on the rajahstans of Amirdata and Urim, and let the marriage of the Princess Kalinda and the Rajah Mard go forward as planned. I have defeated the evil rakshasas, and the witch will not return for any period of time, for you have sorely wounded her. Now I must go to my father." He shimmered out of existence.
    Hasin and the rajah finally made it to the battlefield. "What'd I miss?"
    "Oh, nothing, just a god showing up," Ashram breezed.
    "Dang it all!" Hari complained. "I don't suppose you guys would like to attack anyways?" he asked the Urim troops. Shame to let a good chance for battle—and all these monkeys—go to waste like that.
    Everyone stood around stunned for a while. Ashram began making his way through the troops, doing what he could for the wounded of both sides.
    Hari, still a bit disappointed, thanked and released the monkey army, which dispersed into the forest.
    The two rajahs embraced. "I knew it couldn't have been you!" Akshe exclaimed. Mard explained what had happened to him.
    It seemed that Vishnu had needed the bolt, and sent Garuda for it; the bird had merely neglected to tell anyone about it. Then the rakshasas had moved in, until the three wandering heroes showed up and seemed likely to mess up their plans. The cracking noise that had mystified everyone was the sound of Garuda breaking through the chrysalis that the bolt was in.
    The only one who was at all unhappy with how things ended was Hasin, who left town very quickly, and without having made a penny off the expedition. Ashram and Hari continued their pilgrimage, and eventually of course they did meet again, under even stranger circumstances, but that tale is for another day.
    
         

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