The story of Raktabija’s death pulled King Suratha in deeper still. He said to the sage Medha, Lord, you have told us this strange and wondrous chapter of the Devi’s glory, bound to the slaying of Raktabija. Now we wish to hear what came after: with Raktabija fallen, what did Shumbha do next, and what did the fiercely wrathful Nishumbha?

The sage Medha said, When Raktabija fell and the other demons died beside him in the fray, a fury without measure seized Shumbha and Nishumbha. The sight of his vast army being hacked apart lit a rage in Nishumbha that he could not hold down, and with the main strength of the demon host around him he hurled himself at the Devi.

Great demons rode at Nishumbha’s front, at his back, and on both flanks. Lips clamped tight, shaking with anger, they closed in to kill the Devi. Then the mighty Shumbha came on as well, ringed by his own forces: he fought the Mother-powers as he advanced, and wrath carried him forward to finish Chandika.

Then a ferocious battle erupted between the Devi and the two brothers. Arrows fell in a downpour so savage it seemed two storm clouds had burst at once in the same sky. Chandika’s volleys sheared apart every shaft the pair loosed, and her torrent of weapons hammered the limbs of both demon lords.

Nishumbha snatched up a whetted sword and a shield of brilliant sheen and struck at the crown of the lion, the Devi’s noble mount. The moment her mount was struck, the Devi answered: a single razor-edged arrow, and Nishumbha’s fine sword and his shield of eight crescent moons lay in pieces.

With shield and sword gone, the demon flung his shakti weapon, and the Devi’s discus split it in two as it flew at her. Swollen with rage, the danava Nishumbha now came bearing a spear; as it arrived, the Devi crushed it to powder with a single blow of her fist.

Then he raised a mace and hurled it at Chandika; the Devi’s trident met it, broke it, and burned it to ash. When that bull among daityas came on next, battle-axe in hand, she battered him under waves of arrows and dropped him to the earth.

Seeing Nishumbha of terrible prowess sprawled on the ground, Shumbha, wild with anger for his brother, came forward himself to kill Ambika. Standing on his chariot he seemed to tower impossibly high; his eight matchless arms spread wide, each gripping a superb weapon, until he had blotted out the whole of the sky.

The Devi watched him come and answered with her conch, then drew from her bowstring a note the demons could not endure. And with the tolling of her bell, a sound made to drain the whole daitya army of its fire, she filled every quarter of the sky.

Then came the lion’s great roars, roars before which elephants in rut let their frenzy fall away, and they flooded the heavens, the earth, and the ten directions. At that moment Kali leapt skyward and struck the sky and the earth with both hands, and in that crash every sound that had come before was lost.

Shiva-duti then loosed a peal of harsh, unholy laughter. The sounds set the demons trembling, and Shumbha passed into the far reach of his fury. The instant Ambika flung her challenge, Stop, wicked one, stop, the gods stationed in the sky answered with cries of victory.

Shumbha advanced and hurled a shakti weapon hideous with flames; it came on glowing like a mountain of fire, and the Devi met it with a great meteor and struck it aside in mid-flight. King, the vault between the three worlds shook with Shumbha’s lion-roar, and yet the terrible clamor of his own soldiers being cut to pieces rose above even that.

Arrow met arrow: the shafts Shumbha loosed, the Devi cut away, and the shafts the Devi loosed, Shumbha cut away, by the hundreds and then by the thousands, each shearing the other’s volleys with fierce arrows of their own. Then Chandika, in full wrath, struck Shumbha with her spear, and under that blow he dropped senseless to the ground.

In that pause, consciousness crept back into Nishumbha where he lay. He took up his bow and sent arrows at the Devi, at Kali, and at the lion as well. Then that lord of the danavas, the son of Diti, conjured ten thousand arms, and with that many discuses he covered Chandika from view.

Then the blessed Durga, destroyer of the anguish of hard straits, rose in anger and with her arrows cut down every one of those discuses, and every dart besides. At this Nishumbha seized his mace and, with the daitya army pressed close around him, rushed once more to destroy Chandika.

As he bore down on her, Chandika sliced through his mace with her keen-edged sword, and his hand went straight to a spear. Now came the moment on which the whole war had hung. As Nishumbha, tormentor of the immortals, closed on her with the spear in his grip, Chandika answered with her own spear, flung at full speed, and it buried itself in his heart.

One last astonishment remained. Out of that spear-split heart tore a second man, charged with enormous strength and valor, crying “Stop” as he came. He had barely stepped free when the Devi laughed, a laugh that rolled like thunder, and her sword took off his head; he too crashed to the ground.

Now the end came for the demons still left on the field. The lion fed savagely on asuras whose necks its fangs had already crushed; Kali and Shiva-duti devoured others the same way. Some great asuras perished on the point of Kaumari’s shakti, and others were undone by water made holy with Brahmani’s mantra.

Some fell impaled on Maheshvari’s trident, and some were pounded to dust against the earth by the blows of Varahi’s snout. Vaishnavi’s discus cut the danavas to pieces, and the thunderbolt flying from Aindri’s palm brought down still more. So the field emptied: some asuras perished on the spot, others in the crush of that great battle, and the rest were devoured by Kali, by Shiva-duti, and by the lion, king of beasts.