and darkening the very air with the thick
shower of arrows they shot."

SECTION CCLXIX

Vaisampayana said, "Meanwhile, the king of Sindhu was giving orders to
those princes, saying, 'Halt, strike, march, quick', and like. And on
seeing Bhima, Arjuna and the twin brothers with Yudhishthira, the
soldiers sent up a loud shout on the field of battle. And the warriors of
the Sivi, Sauvira and Sindhu tribes, at the sight of those powerful
heroes looking like fierce tigers, lost heart. And Bhimasena, armed with
a mace entirely of Saikya iron and embossed with gold, rushed towards the
Saindhava monarch doomed to death. But Kotikakhya, speedily surrounding
Vrikodara with an array of mighty charioteers, interposed between and
separated the combatants. And Bhima, though assailed with numberless
spears and clubs and iron arrows hurled at him by the strong arms of
hostile heroes, did not waver for one moment. On the other hand, he
killed, with his mace, an elephant with its driver and fourteen
foot-soldiers fighting in the front of Jayadratha's car. And Arjuna also,
desirous of capturing the Sauvira king, slew five hundred brave
mountaineers fighting in the van of the Sindhu army. And in that
encounter, the king himself slew in the twinkling of an eye, a hundred of
the best warriors of the Sauviras. And Nakula too, sword in hand, jumping
out of his chariot, scattered in a moment, like a tiller sowing seeds,
the heads of the combatants fighting in the rear. And Sahadeva from his
chariot began to fell with his iron shafts, many warriors fighting on
elephants, like birds dropped from the boughs of a tree. Then the king of
Trigartas, bow in hand descending from his great chariot, killed the four
steeds of the king with his mace. But Kunti's son, king Yudhishthira the
just, seeing the foe approach so near, and fighting on foot, pierced his
breast with a crescent-shaped arrow. And that hero, thus wounded in the
breast began to vomit blood, and fell down upon the ground besides
Pritha's son, like an uprooted tree. And king Yudhishthira the just,
whose steeds had been slain taking this opportunity, descended with
Indrasena from his chariot and mounted that of Sahadeva. And the two
warriors, Kshemankara and Mahamuksha, singling out Nakula, began to pour
on him from both sides a perfect shower of keen-edged arrows. The son of
Madri, however, succeeded in slaying, with a couple of long shafts, both
those warriors who had been pouring on