Week 10 Story: The Cowardly, Timid Boy Goes on to Fight a Bigger Snake and an Army

Figure 1: Jaka Battles Meindas Personal File

Far away, by a remote village, next to a dark forest, where a terrible serpent once lived, a dragon circled overhead. An eagle and snake chimera the length of a house, its mouth dripped of venom; a true dragon.

The dragon rears back in fury, just in time for Jaka to bury the blade of his sword into the roof of its mouth, killing it.

It had been 15 years since Jaka Singh had met the great lion and slain the serpent in the woods. In that time, he had grown tall and broad-shouldered. His head was ringed with a dark mane of hair. He was clothed in a scale and padded armor, and a lion pelt was tied around his waist. In hand was his legendary sword, forged from the claw of the great lion.

Villagers come to marvel at his latest victory, and naturally he removes his shirt and flexes for the crowd. After all, how can justice exist when the people could not admire his battle forged body?

This time, only one rock was cast at his head.

As the villagers pushed past him and began to butcher the dragon’s carcass for magical parts and food, Vellit, Jaka’s wolf squire, came yelling “An army from another land is invading, led by the terrible cannibal king and fruit connoisseur Meindas. Their army numbers in the hundreds and is only a few hours away.”

Panicked that the enemy army was larger than their entire village, Vellit begs Jaka to order the evacuation of the village, but Jaka refuses, proclaiming “Vellit, I understand your fear, but I am not one to run from a threat! Let us meet this king and show him the might of the lion within us!”

Hearing this, the townspeople flee into the woods. Dismayed, but undeterred, Jaka decides on a different plan and says to Vellit “Go get those visitors.”

“That travelling family of warriors who wanted your assistance?” asked Vellit.

“Yes, that’s the one.” replied Jaka.

“The one where their leader beat you in a fight?” inquired Vellit. 

“Yes, that one. Who else could I be talking about?” snapped Jaka. 

Reluctant but loyal to his master, Vellit and bursts into the temporary home of the visiting Sardinie family, and loudly proclaims “There’s a cannibal king coming to kill us all, and he’s going to be here in less just a few ours, and, and….”.

The Sardinie children, Nilaya, Ahmed, and Sam, simply continued eating their meal. The mother, Mary, simply sighed with annoyance at the thought of having to slaughter hordes on enemies instead of having a nice family dinner. Raynesh, a family friend, began to grab his fighting gear. Finally, Julian, the father, gripped Vellit by the shoulders and calmly, but firmly, told him to please speak clearly and calmly.

Upon hearing Vellit’s proper explanation, Raynesh took the children along with the other fleeing villagers, while Julian, Mary, Vellit, and Jaka prepared to face the enemy.

The terrible king Meindas arrived, an apple in his left hand and a human calf in his right. Surveying the land, he munched on the calf, before unhinging his jaw and swallowing the apple whole, skin, seeds and all. He licked his chops at the sight of the beautiful village fruit and picked a mango, again swallowing the fruit whole. Smiling, he boasted his challenge “Are you all meant to defend this village? Some black-skinned demon, a woman, a lanky teenager, and a single real warrior?”

At this, Mary elegantly replies “How would you like to eat shit off the sidewalk?” She and Julian charge the enemy line. As they move to intercept her, she spins, leaps into the air and casts a spell that materializes a log the size of a telephone pole that matches her velocity on summoning, and this giant weapon sweeps through a score of enemy soldiers. Julian simultaneously summons and shoots a swarm of needles, each of which lodges in the eye of an enemy soldier.

But the army is vast, and more soldiers move in to intercept, only to fall to Vellit and his sling with rocks, each enchanted to explode into deadly fragments upon impact. This assault clears a line for Jaka, who charges Meindas, Meindas responds with terrible Agniastra. The heat repels Jaka, and Meindas turns his attention to Vellit, casting fire at him, and then Mary, before Jaka charges again. Jaka dodges left and right, pushed back by the power of the flame. Meindas releases another fireball, but this time, Jaka casts a spell that raises a pillar of earth to block the flame. Meindas casts a firestorm, but Jaka deflects it by casting a blade of magic from his sword.

Meindas attacks with an arrow enchanted with the heat of the sun, but Jaka enchants the earth to launch him into the air, high over the attack and into Meindas’ litter, and swings his claw-forged sword at Meindas. Meindas parries with his own weapon, an axe, and launches a counterattack; Jaka blocks and binds the axe with his sword then strikes Meindas while materializing a lion’s claw, slashing him across the face. Meindas stumbles back in pain, but Jaka allows him no reprieve, and kicks him in the thigh, sending Meindas tumbling off the litter onto the ground. However, Meindas is quick to recover, and raises his axe, sending a storm of fire at Jaka. Undeterred, Jaka twists the ground under Meindas’ feet, sending him sprawling, before leaping from the litter, and burying his sword between Meindas’ eyes.

Seeing the death of their king, the army halts its advance, and Jaka speaks to them “You have come far, to conquer these lands, and for what? I await you. Death awaits you. Go back to your lands and live lives of gratitude, rather than seeking take ours, lest you lose everything in pursuit of little.”

With that, the army fled, back across their border to their homelands, and Jaka, Vellit, and the Sardinies have Dragon stew.

More Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbit

Author's note

Well, there's a lot to unpack with this one. First, there are 4 Jataka tales in this story, "The Sky is Falling Down", "The Pennywise Monkey", "The Monkey Who Saved His Troop", and "The Foolhardy Wolf". "The Sky is Falling Down" was the basis for a story that I wrote where a young boy learns to be courageous and face his fears. That boy becomes Jaka Singh, the hero of this story, after receiving a giant claw clipping from a great lion and then fighting a snake. The main plot of this story is based on "The Monkey Who Saved His Troop", where a monkey saves his troop from a group of fruit loving hunters. This is also the reason that Meindas is a cannibal, because the hunters wanted to eat the fleeing monkeys. Here, Jaka exhibits the same virtue and defeats an invading force, saving his village. His speach at the end is modeled after "The Pennywise Monkey", where an army sees a monkey lose its peas trying to get a single pea, and decides not to attack an enemy nation. Finally, Vellit, whose name comes from the Roman wolf skirmishers Velites, is the lookout from"The Foolhardy Wolf", where the lion (Jaka) coaches the Wolf (Vellit) instead of letting him get himself killed.

Furthermore, there is the incorporation of three of my own stories. The first and most obvious is my retelling of "The Sky is Falling Down", the boy from that story grows up to be Jaka. Raynesh is actually from the original draft of Rama's banishment episode, before I re-wrote it to be a retelling of Rama's banishment, he was the main character of that embarrassing outburst. He was originally supposed to etch this tale into his blade, and I want him to play a more significant role and protect some of the villagers from enemy scouts, but the story is almost 1000 words long as is. He's also supposed to be quite young, no more than 14. Finally, Mary and Julian are actually the main characters from a novel that I am trying to write. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite develop either of their characters due to the word limit. Mary just seems a bit cocky and rude, while Julian barely has any chance to express himself at all. For the record, Mary is characterized by lots of very strong and conflicting traits and desires, while Julian is calm and good natured, but a bit anxious and lacking self-confidence. However, I am happy with Jaka and Velit's characters, and I like how the fight was much less one sided than usual, with both sides having asymmetrical, but balanced advantages.

Finally, I want to add that writing using my own characters gives me a lot more freedom with characterization, whereas I don't want to pull an established character too far off of their original characterization.