Seeing the oncoming army of elephants, Vrikodara, the son of Pandu, the hero, licked the corners of his mouth like the king of beasts in a forest. Then, the foremost of charioteers, taking up his mace in the great battle, swiftly leapt down from his chariot and struck terror into your army. Seeing him with mace in hand, the riders of elephants carefully surrounded Bhimasena on every side. Having come into the midst of the elephants, the Pandava shone like the sun set within a great mass of clouds. That bull among the Pandavas scattered the elephant army with his mace, as Matarishvan the wind scatters a vast, spreading bank of clouds. The elephants, struck down by mighty Bhimasena, raised a cry of pain in the battle, roaring like storm clouds. There, at the summit of the battle, Partha, torn open in many places by the elephants' tusks, shone like a flowering ashoka tree. Seizing an elephant by its tusk, he tore it away, and with that very tusk he struck the elephant on its frontal boss and felled it in the fight, like Death himself with his staff in hand. Bearing his mace smeared with blood, his body coated in fat and marrow, as though adorned with armlets of blood, he appeared like Rudra. Thus the great elephants that survived his slaughter fled in every direction, O king, trampling their own army underfoot. With these great elephants stampeding on every side, O bull of the Bharatas, the whole army of Duryodhana once again turned and fled.