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Pisacas used their enemy to breed as well. 
     
    Nagas, giant cobra-like beings with a human head and torso but with yard-long forked tongues and serpentine lower bodies and long tails. They slithered through the alleyways and up walls, finding the strays and those who tried to flee the more organised invaders. Rama saw a group of Nagas converge hissing on an unarmed Brahmin mother and her two shaven-headed sons. The raised hoods mercifully hid what happened next. When the hoods parted, the three Brahmins lay prone on the street, their skin turning blue from several twin-puckered bites. 
     
    Uragas, enormous reptilian brethren of the Nagas, flowed slimily among their cousin species, their enormous python bodies swollen with telltale lumps—the Ayodhyans they’d swallowed alive. Their deceptively human faces were cast in the appearance of beautiful girl-children, a detail that only added to the horror of their violations. 
     
    Yaksas, the anthromorphic races. Even though Rama had grown up with tales of their magical antics, he had never heard of Yaksas being openly malevolent. They were generally benign, lovable but mischievous pranksters who used their morphing abilities to tease and entertain, not to kill and maim. Here, their mischief was vicious, their antics deadly. He saw a group of Yaksas morph into a herd of horses as they turned a corner and came face to face with a troop of citizens armed with an assortment of farming implements and kitchen weapons. The Ayodhyans paused to let the horses ride past, realising their mistake only when the Yaksas tore into them like predators rather than the gentle herbivores they were masquerading as. Hooves flailed, smashing skulls like ripe pumpkins. Powerful equestrian teeth ripped necks and bit off limbs. Half-ton heavy battle-horse bodies trampled screaming humans underfoot, shattering bones and smashing organs. Elsewhere, other Yaksas were using their morphing abilities to disguise themselves as elephants, camels, deer, dogs, swine, even an unlikely band of murderous buffalo, loping along with horns dripping blood and gore. 
     
    There were other asura races too, committing other unspeakable acts of violence and desecration. Defiling holy icons, demolishing temples, and slaughtering, always slaughtering. 
     
    A rumbling sound forced Rama to raise his gaze to the extremities of the city, where he saw the king’s highway boiling with more intruders. The asura forces covered the road all the way to the edge of the Southwoods, a distance of a full yojana. They flowed from the high rises of the Southwoods down to the city like a boiling black river of pestilence. Even at a glance, it was clear that the invaders vastly outnumbered the defenders. And yet, more kept coming in a constant seething flow. There seemed to be no end to their unholy numbers. 
     
    A screeching cry startled him from his horrified reverie. He looked up to see the early dawn sky darkening. Great hulking shadows coalesced into the winged shapes of flying bird-beasts, humanoid creatures out of myth and fable. He stared in disbelief at what seemed to be Garudas and Jatayus, named after the gigantic mythic man-eagle and enormous fabled man-vulture of ancient folklore. Their slender, lightly feathered bodies were strikingly humanoid, except for the bird-like eyes and beaks, and the incredible muscular wings growing from their backs. Some had a wingspan as much as ten yards or more. They swooped down to the streets below, down to the killing floor of the slaughterhouse that Ayodhya had become. Rama scanned the sky and saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of the flying creatures, flocking to the carnage, calling to each other exultantly in their proto-human speech. As they reached street level and a new wave of horror began, he shut his eyes and staggered back, away from the aperture, unable to absorb any more. 
     
    Now do you see the futility of resisting me and my forces? Would you like to see your kith and kin