Part 108 (1/2)
s.h.i.+rin 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.” s.h.i.+rin 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.” s.h.i.+rin 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 s.h.i.+rin'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 crus.h.i.+ng their own infantry.