On the battlefield Vibhishana frowned. He shaded his blue eyes and looked up into the blue morning sky, where a few small white clouds bad gathered. He told Rama, "Indrajit approaches us invisibly. I cannot see him unless I know just where to look; even Brahma cannot see him. For combat, he has called his chariot forth from the fire, and while he stays on that car be cannot lose a fight to anyone. To lndrajit now the thunder of heaven is but a whisper and Death's dread noose a bit of string. Your army are deer sent against a lion; there is nothing he cannot do."

They heard the flag-bells ringing and the four tigers growling-then there was a sharp noise from the sky like iron cracking and a flaming axe came from the clouds. It was falling fast aimed right for Rama. King Sugriva bravely jumped up to shield him, and that axe struck through his bold heart and killed him.

lndrajit stood firing down from the back of the beyond. Down came a rain of death. Thirty-three crescent arrows killed Prince Angada, and his blood made his gold fur red. An iron hook dashed in the chest of Nala the bridge-builder; be fell coughing and choking, and died strangled and frightened. Ten diamond-tipped arrows pierced the bear King Jambavan and he fell; a barbed bronze spear tore through Vibhishana's shoulder as he stood beside Rama and pinned him to the ground. The frightful cries of the dying filled the air. Hanuman flew up into the clouds. He couldn't see lndrajit, but he saw a magic sword running at him like lightning, all by itself. Hanuman grabbed it, but that weapon became a fair young woman. She cried in fear, "Let me go! It's wrong to hold an unwilling woman !" So hearing that one word- Wrong -Hanuman released her. She became a sword again and cut him down from the sky.

lndrajit's assault covered the field with dead, and Rama stood among the rolling heads and broken bodies of his animal friends. He tried to aim by watching where Indrajit's arrows appeared to come from, but those arrows didn't fly straight, and their sources always shifted and changed. Rama shot his golden arrows out over the whole sky, and some few of them fell back from the clouds with their points covered with blood.

Then only Rama and Lakshmana remained standing, the two best men of all this world. lndrajit shot his arrows at them until there was not one fingertip's space left unpierced on their bodies. Their gold armor was no use. Those many wounds killed Rama first. He fell dead. Lakshmana couldn't believe what he saw and wept. He tried to blink the tears from his eyes, but more arrows came through his heart and killed him before he could see again.

And at mid-morning, lndrajit unbearable in war returned to his grove of trees outside Lanka. He became visible and got out of his chariot. The car and the tigers disappeared in a ball of flame. Indrajit said graciously to his servants, "Go through the underground passage into Beautiful Lanka. Tell my father-Have no doubt, have no care. Rama is dead, I killed him."

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