They were more a collection of tribes and clans than a solid unified bloc. Such was the horrifying thought that petrified the young Rajput as he enlisted to fight for the king. Being of the north, he was no stranger to conflict. Surrounded to their North by the hostile Tibetan armies, and to the south by the mighty Empires of Hindustan,who were always ready for war and finally to the East and West by lay other Himalayan kingdoms of the Mountain people,small as themselves,always ready to snatch away chunks of their neighbor’s lands.

Even this time the problem had been as such, the Himalayan kingdom of Kumaon had sent raiders from the East, burning villages and pillaging treasuries. Thus the King had commanded all his nobles to collect men. The young man, in truth no more than a boy, had been the son of the Village chief,the village which in reality was made up of hardly eleven or twelve families. So,after the call was made, the young Karn readily agreed to his father’s demand that he go to fight. It was,to put it simply, a matter of restoring family pride rather than one’s own agreeableness. 

The family had been part of a Khasa tribe,not more than a hundred years ago, keeping honorable positions too. Then with the transformation,they were soon Rajputs. But the plains’ men viewed them with suspicion and to a certain extent, hatred. Thus he was compelled to agree with his father. Now,travelling with two other boys from the same village, even with adequate clothing, Karn just felt the unending cold. So did the other two boys,one fifteen years of age and the other sixteen,both younger than himself. He had turned last summer.

 According to his map,which seemed worn out and old,he was probably about ten to twelve hours of journey away from his destination, which was the Garh or fort of the king’s representative of the particular area. The man had been a good friend of his father’s, and it was likely that he would get his own unit to command. The younger of the two other boys, Teeru, knew about archery and was thus carrying a crossbow his father had managed to obtain from a Chinese trader. The elder of the two, Nires,carried a mace and an Axe. They were both from different families but were close friends. Karn himself carried a long sword and the traditional bow and arrows.