Changing The Royal Rules

Plan And Prince

Ahana's POV

    The palace walls and pillars told different stories of my childhood. They were the pillars which hid me from my mother's beatings, hid me from get punished for practising the fighting, hid me from my sisters while hide and seek, but all were dear to me. 

    Those were the best times of my life, but now it gave me immense pain to know that no one was going to scold me, no one was going to punish me and mostly no one was going to love me like my parents did in spite of how much trouble I caused.

    Everyone bowed to me as soon as I entered the court room. "Everyone please accompany me." I said and headed towards the room where usually the plans for wars were made. It contained the maps of various states, countries, models  of those states. 

    "Do you need my assistance?" Asked Saroja from no where. After the death of my father she never left me behind but she don't have any knowledge of these things. "Thank you for asking, I will manage." I said and headed with other men.

    The men I chose were trustworthy. I had made sure to fire the ones who were not loyal and the gold diggers after my father's death.

     "I have called all of you to inform the upcoming war." I said and one of the person from the last row was shocked. "I know, it is the most foolish thing to do, but we need to create fear among the other kingdoms. I have full confidence we will win this war." I said and I could see, I have caught many attention. 

    "We are going to disclose our secret weapon. I know, many of you don't know about it, but about ten years back, the second queen of Mahamati, my mother, queen Agni have trained the group of women to the situations like this. Now we have about a thousand women in it. So if we include those then, we have about  five thousand army and from the today's event, I think the Kashita will send about ten thousand men." As soon as I finished a hand was raised I gestured the person to say his opinion.

    "How can we compare a women strength to men strength. Those are good in kitchens not in war." I smiled at the words. My mother said that when she started to train as a warrior, even she was discouraged. 

    "You will know the strength of those women when you see them in war. Let's discuss the plan." I said and brought the model which had Kashita, Mahamati, Rajghad and may other places. 

    "The Mahamati is located at southern part and the south kingdoms of Mahamati has it's alliance with us. There is no way the kingdom would risk their soldier to send them to attack us from east and west of Mahamati." I completed by showing the forest near Mahamati present in east and west.

    "We all know at the east of the Mahamati which is the cursed forest. I have heard, no human can survive there for more than seven days and moreover whoever went inside that forest never returned back. I agree with you, your highness." I heard the minister of revenue agreeing with me and some ministers shaking their head in agreement.

    "The west side of Mahamati has the forest but goddess of all forests recites there and no one is allowed there till the solar eclipse arrives. No one will dare to step there as goddess curses whole family of man who enters there." Minister of agriculture exhibited his ideas. 

    "Yes, the ministers are right, so there is no way they can attack from east and west. We will take this as an advantage. Instead of defending ourselves from Kashita's attack we will conquer half of Kashita." My statement earned a lot of gasps from minister.

    "Your highness, I am sorry to say this but I think this is the most suicidal idea for Mahamati." fear was evident in the tone of minister of art and culture.

    "Hear the plan which will be explained by general. Then you all can decide." I said and allowed the general to proceed.

    "We will make 3 parts of our army. The soldiers, who are expert in bows and arrows will be at the front and we will be doing slight modification while attacking them first time. When the army of Kashita will make it to us we will attack them with explosives." General showed the marks where the bomb attacks should be carried.

    "Next comes the final stage where we fight with their army. I want our best of sword fighters, elephants, horses, mace fighters....." general continued to explain the plan designed with our raj guru. I looked at him who had the proud glint seeing me. 

    I smiled at him to which he nodded and looked  ahead. Soon the general finished explaining the plan once again in detail. "From today we will be making explosives, poisonous liquid which effects the human even if he touches the dead body of the person whose death caused by the poison, the arrows and various things required for war. After 3 days we will make our way to the border of Kashita. We will be sending the message to the villages near the borders to provide the soldiers the basic necessity." General started assigning the tasks to minister.

    After he finished I moved forward. "Thank you for being there for us, you all can perform the necessary preparation. We will win this war, we have to win this war, for our people, for the betrayal, to avenge death of our king, for the future of Mahamati. Jai Mahamati!" I said my heart filled words. "jai Mahamati!" I head the chorus from ministers. 

    General dispersed everyone. I moved to my brother's chamber where he was playing with my sister. "you could have asked the help of your older sisters." I looked at Aparna who was looking at the same scene in front of us. Her statement made me to look at her.  

    "No, after this war I will ask their help, but now let them enjoy their motherhood." I smiled at Shivani who was lighting the lights of the room. "They will not be happy." I hated to agree that Aparna's statement was true. Even they were sisters from different mothers, they looked after me till their marriage after my mother died. 

    "We will see about it." I turned to leave but Shivani's action caught my attention. She was tying a red thread around my wrist. "This is given by my grandma, she worshipped all the nine goddesses during the Nava ratri (nine nights) and gave it to me. I think you need this more than me." Shivani tied the thread and left me to do her work.

    I just wish everything goes according to the plan. I breathed seeing the preparation for war.

In Kashita

    A man in his late twenties was sitting on a royal sofa with two women beside him and one woman was on his lap was kissing him. His hands were roaming all over her. The man was none other than prince of Kashita, Nirav. Yadav. 

    A man of same age sat at the other sofa witnessing his act. He was disgusted by the prince present in front of him. Even though he hated the prince but for his kingdom it was necessary. The man was none other than prince of Rajghad, Parth. Singh. Rajput

    A soldier came running to the room. "Sorry to disturb you, your highness, but you need to come and see the front of Palace. A stack of dead bodies are thrown in front of the palace.

    Both the Prince ran towards the front of palace. It was true, there was a stack of dead bodies. A soldier handed the Prince Parth the letter which was hung around the horse tied to a tree near palace. 

    "Greetings from Mahamati,

        I hope by now you have received the gift from Mahamati, Prince Nirav. I hope you are pleased to see your troop. It was really difficult to bring those bodies near your palace but we managed. This message is to convey you that think twice before causing any harm to Mahamati. I want to say that we are ready for war, you can come any time for the attack. Just remember that we never forgot the betrayal and death of our king. Do all your good deeds because you time on the earth is ending.

                                                                                                        -Princess Ahana. Rathore."

     Prince Parth read the message loud and clear. he could feel the temper of Prince Nirav just standing beside him. Prince Parth smirked seeing the message and now he wanted to change the plan. "Get ready to  welcome the prince of Rajghad princess." Prince Parth mumbled under his breath.