that the Uzbeks are not yet across, we charge. Do you understand?’ The boy nodded and cantered off.
Babur’s heart beat to a thunderous rhythm as they set off again. His senses felt unnaturally acute — he noticed the spiky black hairs on the body of a caterpillar wriggling along a blade of grass and the soft, purple-pink breast of a wood pigeon startled from the tree where it had been resting. The smell of sweat — his own and his horse’s and from the men and animals around him — seemed to rise in a pungent elemental cloud, the essence of life itself. Perhaps a man never felt so alive as when he was about to be in the presence of death.
‘Majesty, you should halt here while I reconnoitre,’ said the scout.
Two hundred yards ahead, Babur caught the gleam of water through the trailing feathery branches of some fine old willows. ‘Very well. Be quick.’
‘Yes, Maj-’ The scout got no further as a black-feathered Uzbek arrow pierced his cheek and a second tore into his throat. A third thudded harmlessly into the ground. As the blood bubbled out, the man’s eyes glazed and he tumbled from his horse, one foot still caught in his stirrup.
As cries to take cover rose around him, Babur flung himself low over his horse’s neck expecting at any moment to feel the cold tip of an arrow embed itself in his flesh. Gripping his reins in his left hand, with his right he reached round to grab his metal-bound leather shield and hold it over his head for protection. But no more arrows came. Babur cautiously raised himself. To his left, through the swaying golden willows — the direction from which the arrows had come — he saw a trio of Uzbek horsemen making off along the bank towards the point at which the river took its sharp turn.
Perhaps they were scouts spying out the land while the others were still crossing. He mustn’t give them time to get back and raise the alarm. Kicking his horse, Babur threw back his head and yelled the order to charge.
The willow branches whipped his face as he burst through and he tasted blood from a cut in his lip. Reaching the wide bank, he saw the Uzbeks disappearing round the bend and cursed. Taking an arrow from his quiver and pulling his bow off his shoulder, he dropped his reins. Half standing in his stirrups and holding his horse steady with his knees, he fitted the arrow to the string and pulled it back. It sped straight and fast, embedding itself in the rump of one of the Uzbek horses. Babur heard its whinny of pain and watched it skitter sideways into the river, taking its rider with it. Baburi had also fired but the other two Uzbeks had vanished.
As Babur and his close-packed riders thundered round the sharp curve, turf flying up, his heart leaped. The two surviving Uzbek riders were yelling and gesticulating but few of their comrades had noticed. A small group, still on the far bank, had seen that something was wrong and were running for their weapons but most were in the water, concentrating on getting themselves and their animals across the fast-flowing river.
Only a handful of sodden, shivering men had already reached the bank. Babur and his troops fired a first volley of arrows from the saddle, felling many. Then Babur gave the order to dismount and to maintain a steady fire of arrows from the cover of trees and rocks. Even on the far bank some Uzbeks were falling to the ground while in the blood-flecked river the bodies of dead and dying men and animals were forming a solid, tangled mass that even the current could barely shift.
‘Majesty!’ Baburi’s clear voice rang out above the screams and groans.
Babur glanced round just in time to see one of the two mounted Uzbeks, whose existence he’d completely forgotten, galloping towards him. Something bright gleamed in his hand — an axe. The man threw back his arm and sent it whirling towards Babur with such force that he could almost hear the air whisper as it parted. Babur leaped sideways as the axe flew past his right ear to stick in the mud behind him.
Grunting he turned, yanked it out and weighed it in his hand — it felt good, well-balanced. The Uzbek was only a few yards away now, curved sword in hand and determination on his face beneath his pointed steel helmet as he bent low in the saddle. Baburi rushed forward.
‘No — I want him,’ Babur yelled. Dropping his bow he stood, the axe in his right hand, waiting, judging the moment. With the man just a few paces from him, Babur threw it. The shaft — not the blade — smashed into the warrior’s face, pulping his nose, but he was still in the saddle. Babur felt the hot breath of the man’s snorting horse as the Uzbek bore down on him. Throwing himself forward, Babur grabbed the rider’s left leg just above the knee. The rings of his chain-mail tore the flesh of Babur’s fingers but it only made him hold on tighter and pull harder. The Uzbek, blood streaming from his shattered nose, fell sprawling on the ground but rolled clear of his horse’s thrashing hoofs and sprang up.
He and Babur faced one another, balancing on the balls of their feet like wrestlers, watching for the chance to make the first move. If the blood-smeared Uzbek felt any pain he wasn’t showing it. His cold eyes were narrowed, weighing up his opponent. Babur was wearing nothing to denote him as a king — the Uzbek was just sizing him up warrior to warrior.
Dagger in his left hand now and Alamgir in the right, Babur darted forward in a feint, then jumped back nimbly as the Uzbek lunged. Circling his opponent, Babur tried the same trick a second, then a third time. Each time the Uzbek reacted, slashing with his sword only to have Babur skip teasingly away. Muscles tensed, Babur jumped forward for the fourth time. The Uzbek hesitated, convinced that Babur was still playing with him — that he wouldn’t follow through. But this time, instead of leaping away, Babur lashed at the man’s exposed throat with his sword and kicked his right foot hard into his groin. The Uzbek slid to his knees, hands between his thighs, blood pouring from his throat.
But as Babur stepped forward to finish him off, his right foot slipped on the sticky clay of the riverbank and he crashed down, dropping his dagger and trapping his sword beneath him. The wounded Uzbek saw his chance of reprieve. Pulling himself upright, he recovered his sword and lunged forward. Babur raised his left arm to protect himself and immediately felt a stinging pain. Glancing down, he saw blood pouring from a deep cut in his lower forearm and running down so that his left hand was scarlet and dripping.
Instinctively, he struggled to his feet and, as he did so, twisted away from the Uzbek who, weak from his own wound, reacted slowly. Freeing Alamgir, Babur drove the sword with all his force through the man’s throat and out through the back of his neck. Blood from a severed artery spurted over Babur, mingling with his own.
Looking around, Babur saw the fight was over. The Uzbeks were either dead or had fled. Holding his left hand high above his head to lessen the blood flow, with his right he untied a cotton cloth from round his neck and handed it to Baburi. Then lowering his left arm, which he already felt to be stiffening, he extended it towards him. ‘Bind it tightly. . We may need to fight again today. .’
The euphoria was already leaving him — but why? Perhaps because to Shaibani Khan the death of upwards of three hundred of his men would be no more than a mosquito bite in the night. . Babur would still have to ride a long, hard road before this was over. .
Chapter 18
Babur breathed in the familiar smells — the acrid smoky scent rising from the twigs and animal dung of campfires, the aroma of fat lamb roasting on spits and of flat bread baking on hot stones. All around him, in the gathering darkness, his men were cleaning and oiling their weapons, laughing, cooking, pissing, enjoying the rest after the weeks of skirmishing. It was good to know that his force had swelled to at least sixteen thousand. Every day men driven out by the Uzbeks were joining him.
But they couldn’t stay much longer in these sweet grasslands, deep in the mountains of Gharjistan, twelve days’ ride east of Herat. According to reports picked up by Babur’s scouts, Shaibani Khan had quit the city some weeks ago. The accounts were vague and the exact timing of his departure was unclear but all seemed to suggest that he had ridden out through the Qipchaq Gate at the head of a large force and had appeared to be heading north-west. Could it be a device to tempt Babur on to Herat, apparently left only lightly garrisoned? Or was Shaibani Khan planning to sweep north-east to outflank Babur? The Uzbek leader would know by now that Babur had led an army westward from Kabul. He’d also know that if he could take Babur’s force by surprise he’d crush it easily. Or perhaps he was bypassing Babur. Perhaps even now he was leading his Uzbek barbarians through the mountains north towards Babur’s capital, Kabul.
Babur stared deep into the glowing charcoal in the metal brazier outside his tent. The lack of definite news in recent days seemed ominous. . It was as though Shaibani Khan had vanished. . He stretched his hands over the
