It was almost dawn when Samudra Raksa tethered to the port of Sungai Lumpur. Senopati Narendra had noticed the huge smoke arose from the village thus he ordered his hulubalang to prepare for battle. Beforehand, he fruitfully amassed fifty hulubalang that would fight for his cause.
Has the rakshin come? Am I too late to save them?
Cautiously, Narendra and his host marched toward the village. But before they arrived, they stumbled upon the refugee who walked seaward. The refugees, who were mostly women and the elderly, gave an unexpected response the moment they saw Narendra. As if looking at a ghost, hastily, they ran away from Narendra screaming. When Narendra managed to seize one of them, she begged in tears. Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.
Narendra realized that Amretasari and her people should have thought he was betraying them. He ordered his hulubalang to throw away their weapon and gather the refugee. Gently, the Senopati explained he came to help them as planned and meant no harm.
“Then how did the rakshin found out our location?” asked one of the refugees furiously.
“I don’t know,” answered Narendra. He had been very cautious in running the rescue plan. He did not even tell his crew the exact location of Sungai Lumpur village.
The rakshin should have been spying on me.
Finally, he was able to convince them and sent them to board Samudra Raksa. He learned from the refugee that Amretasari and the others were fighting the rakshin with bows and arrows, so they had time to go to the hideout place—a cave near the beach. Narendra realized the eerie similarity of the battle strategy with Mongol’s strategy in the Battle of Indrapura.
Impressive, thought the Senopati, to emulate a battle strategy you only heard once in a very different environment.