The Moghul Part 108

Shirin examined Hawksworth's brandy bottle with her dark eyes and laughed skeptically. "I've brought my own bow."

Hawksworth cleared his throat as he slipped the bottle back into his jerkin. "I've requisitioned a brace of muskets. It's still the weapon I prefer."

"Congratulations, Captain." Jadar's laugh was cynical. "I admire your _feringhi_ initiative. But I don't want to see you harmed. Like I told you, I'm sending you with the _zenana_. They'll be moved to that hilltop there west of the camp. So at least you'll be able to watch the battle." He turned to leave. "Farewell until tomorrow, Captain. May Allah ride with you."

"And I wish you G.o.dspeed. You're a ten times better strategist then I realized, for whatever it may be worth."

Jadar laughed. "Just save some of your foul-tasting _feringhi _brandy for our victory celebration. And perhaps I'll drink with you one more time." His eyes darkened. "If not, then tomorrow we'll be eating lamb side by side in Paradise."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A drum roll lifted across the dark plain, swelling in intensity like angry, caged thunder. It rose to fill the valley with a foreboding voice of death, then faded slowly to silence, gorged on its own immensity.

"That's the Imperial army's call to arms. Prince Jadar was right.

Inayat Latif is attacking now, before dawn." Shirin was seated next to Hawksworth in the dark _howdah_. She rose to peer over the three-foot- high steel rim, out into the blackness. Around them were the shapes of the _zenana _guard elephants, silently swinging their trunks beneath their armor. The _zenana _waited farther back on female baggage elephants, surrounded by hundreds of bullock carts piled with clothing and utensils. "Merciful Allah, he must have a thousand war drums."

"You saw the size of the Imperial army mustering at Fatehpur."

Hawksworth rose to stand beside her, grasping the side of the rocking _howdah _and inhaling the cold morning air. "The queen had begun recalling _mansabdars _and their troops from every province."

Suddenly a chorus of battle horns cut through the dark, followed by the drums again, now a steady pulse that resounded off the wooded hills, swelling in power.

"That's the signal for the men and cavalry to deploy themselves in battle array." Shirin pointed toward the sound. "The Imperial forces are almost ready."

Below them fires smoldered in Jadar's abandoned camp, a thousand specks of winking light. Although the east was beginning to hint the first tinges of light, the valley where the Imperial army had ma.s.sed was still shrouded in black.

The drums suddenly ceased, mantling the valley in eerie, portentous quiet. Hawksworth felt for Shirin's hand and noticed it perspiring, even in the cold dawn air.

From the eastern edge of Jadar's abandoned camp points of cannon fire erupted, tongues of light that divulged the length and location of the camp's defenses. A few moments later--less time than Hawksworth would have wished--the sound reached them, dull pops, impotent and hollow. The firing lapsed increasingly sporadic, until the camp's weak perimeter defense seemed to exhaust itself like the last melancholy thrusts of a spent lover.

The defense perimeter of the camp had betrayed itself, and in the tense silence that ensued Hawksworth knew the Imperial guns were being set.

Suddenly a wall of flame illuminated the center of the plain below, sending rockets of fire plunging toward the empty camp.

"Jesus, they're launching fireworks with cannon. What are they?"

"I don't know. I've heard that cannon in India were once called naphtha-throwers."

A second volley followed hard after the first. Although this time no fireworks were hurtled, the impact was even more deadly. Forty-pound Imperial shot ripped wide trenches through the flaming tents of the prince's camp. In moments the _gulal bar_, where they had been standing only hours before, was devastated, an inferno of shredded cloth and billowing flame.

A harsh chant began to drift upward from the valley, swelling as voices joined in unison.

"Allah-o-Akbar! Allah-o-Akbar!" G.o.d is Great. It was the battle cry of Inayat Latifs Muslim infantry.

The plain below had grown tinged with light now, as dawn approached and the fires from Jadar's camp spread. As Hawksworth watched, nervously gripping the handle of his sword, a force of steel-armored war elephants advanced on the eastern perimeter of the camp, their polished armor plate glowing red in the firelight. Those in the vanguard bore steel-shrouded _howdahs_, through which a single heavy cannon protruded . . . probably a ten-pounder, Hawksworth told himself. The steel _howdahs_ on the next rows of elephants were almost three feet high and perforated to allow their archers to shoot without rising above the open top. Sporadic cannon and matchlock fire from the few hundred men left in the camp pelted the elephants but did nothing to impede their advance. Directly behind them the Imperial infantry swept in dense, martialed ranks.

Jadar knew exactly what he was doing when he picked this terrain for the camp, Hawksworth told himself. He used it to set the terms for the battle. There's no room to maneuver. When they discover the camp is abandoned, the elephants can't retreat and regroup without crushing their own infantry.

He slipped his arm around Shirin's waist and held her next to him. They watched as the Imperial war elephants crashed through the camp's outer edge, scarcely slowing at the ditch. When the elephants were at point- blank range, the specially loaded cannon along the perimeter opened fire, spraying a rain of steel barbs among them. Even from the hilltop he could hear the clang of steel as the barbs ricocheted off their armor.

"We'll soon know if Jadar's plan has a chance. Can he contain the elephants there, or will they obliterate the camp, then regroup, and .

The first row of elephants suddenly reared chaotically, lashing out with their armored trunks and dismounting some of the gunners. As barbs caught in their feet, they trumpeted in pain and started to mill randomly in angry confusion, crushing several of the men they had thrown.

Just as Jadar predicted, the deadly carpet of barbs had temporarily disrupted their advance. Their ranks were broken and their guns in disarray. Behind the elephants the infantry still marched unaware, until the confusion in the elephant ranks began to disrupt their front lines. Gradually the order in the infantry ranks completely disintegrated, as the men stopped to eye the milling war elephants ahead of them in growing fear and confusion. By a single cannon salvo Jadar's men had robbed the attack of its momentum.

"Now's Jadar's moment." Hawksworth watched in growing admiration. "Will he use it?"

As though in answer, a blare of trumpets from the hills on both sides of the plain suddenly electrified the morning air. As they died away, the woods opened wide with a single chorus, deep and throaty and unforgiving.

RAM RAM. RAM RAM. RAM RAM.

It was the ancient Rajput war cry.

A blaze of fire from Jadar's camouflaged cannon shredded away the leafy blinds erected along the foot of the hills, sending a rain of forty- pound lead shot into the Imperial war elephants. Their disordered ranks erupted in tangled steel and blood. Seconds later, a volley by Jadar's small artillery ripped into the unsuspecting infantry ma.s.sed behind the elephants, hurtling fragmented bodies and orphaned weapons spinning through the ranks. Finally came the fiery streaks of rockets, thin foot-long iron tubes filled with gunpowder and set with a lighted fuse, many with a sword blade attached to the end, which cut in a deadly wave through the Imperial troops, slashing and exploding as they flew.

A dense roll of Jadar's war drums sounded from both hillsides, and the first wave of Rajput cavalry, still bellowing their war cry, charged down on the disrupted Imperial forces, discharging volleys of arrows with mechanical precision. They wore steel-net cloaks and helmet guards, and their horses were armored with woven steel netting encased in heavy quilting--with a wide frontlet over the chest, a neck-length collar secured to the top of the bridle, and a body shroud over their sides and hindquarters emblazoned with each man's family crest. The startled infantry turned to meet them, and in moments the air darkened with opposing arrows. From the hill above came the din of supporting matchlock fire from Jadar's own infantry.

The Rajput cavalry plowed into the first rows of Imperial infantry with their long _nezah _lances held at arm's length high above their heads, thrusting downward as they rode. Veins fueled with opium, the Rajputs had forgotten all fear. They brushed aside Imperial spears and swords and slaughtered with undisguised pleasure, as though each death endowed more honor to their _dharma_. Hawksworth's stomach knotted as he watched a thousand men fall in less than a minute.

While the Rajputs attacked, the prince's division of armored war elephants had emerged from their camouflage and begun advancing across the western edge of the plain, isolating the ragged remainder of the Imperial elephants from the battlefield. Although Jadar had far fewer war elephants, they now were easily able to contain the shattered Imperial forces.

Hawksworth turned to watch as yet another wave of Jadar's cavalry bore down on the plain. These rode through the tangle of Imperial infantry wielding long curved swords, killing any the first wave had missed.

"I'm not sure I believe what I'm seeing." Hawksworth peered through the dust and smoke boiling across the plain below. "Jadar has already seized the advantage. He's immobilized their war elephants, their major advantage, and he timed the counterattack perfectly."

"The battle has only just begun." Shirin took his hand for no reason at all and gripped it. "And their major advantage was not elephants, but numbers. I fear for him. Look, there." She pointed toward the east, where the red sky now illuminated a vast sea of infantry, poised as reinforcements. "The prince's Rajputs cannot stop them all. Prince Jadar does not have the forces to meet them. I think he will be defeated today, badly."

"And if he dies, do we die with him?"

"Perhaps not you. But they will surely kill me. And probably Mumtaz.

Most certainly they have orders to kill his son."

On the field below Jadar's cavalry fought as though possessed. Rajputs with one, two, even three arrows in their back continued to sound their war cry and take head after bearded head, until they finally slumped unconscious from the saddle. Riderless horses, many with their stomachs slashed open, could be seen running wildly through the Imperial ranks, unused arrows still rattling in their saddle quivers.

Waves of Jadar's infantry had begun pouring down from the hills, following the cavalry. The men wore heavy leather helmets and a skirt of woven steel. A hood of steel netting hung down from each man's helmet, protecting his face and neck. They advanced firing volley after volley of arrows into the Imperial infantry. When they reached the plain, they drew their long curved swords and, waving them above their heads, threw themselves into the forces of Inayat Latif. The field quickly became a vast arena of hand-to-hand combat, as inevitably happened when two Indian armies met, with Jadar's forces badly outnumbered.

Shirin watched the slaughter in silence for a time, as though tallying the dead and dying on both sides, and then she turned her face away.

"Allah preserve us. Prince Jadar's Rajputs have eaten so much affion I think they can fight even after they die, but their numbers are already shrinking. How long can they protect the prince?"

"Where's he now?"

She turned back and peered through the dust on the field for a long moment. Then she pointed. "He's on the field now. There, in the center.