The front and rear ranks exchanged places with well-drilled precision. Once behind the front rank, brass bases twinkled in the dawn light as the spent paper shells were ejected high into the air. The entire unit disappeared behind the growing cloud of gun smoke in the next instant as the front rank fired.
Another cannonball roared by to slam into the tower supporting the Sikhs. About a foot square of the sandstone face shattered, the surrounding yard or so of material cracked as well, but the impact went almost entirely unnoticed by the defenders manning the redoubt.
“The difference between earth-backed and freestanding defenses sure is clear,” John muttered, eyes sliding from the undamaged tower to the collapsed outer gatehouse.
“What?” Bertram called, wiggling a dirty finger in his ear.
“Nothing!” John shouted back.
Hoping Aurangzeb could see the hopelessness of continuing his attack, John rolled over and looked out on the plain.
The ground for almost a mile from the wall positively heaved with men, horses, and even camels. Most of the men seemed to be either advancing into the meat grinder of the defenses or shooting at the defenders, but he spied a few backs among them as men retreated, too.
One of the crazy camel-mounted guns belched, the one-pound ball whistling as it whipped overhead to crash into the upper works of the left-hand tower of the gatehouse beside one of the snipers, who flinched back behind cover.
That made John look for the cannon that had dropped the outer gatehouses. A moment’s search revealed all but two of them were silent, their crews dead or fled. More were being rolled forward, though, and these looked bigger. The leading ox of one dropped, red stain growing against the white hide between its horns.
Someone started wailing.
He glanced back at the tower where the sniper had been perched. From the gun smoke lingering around him, he was the one who did for the oxen. He was fumbling through a reload, wailing tearfully the whole time.
Hindu. Probably thinks he’s going to be reincarnated as a slug or worse for having killed a sacred bull.
Save it for later, bub. Gotta survive this shit, first.
He looked away.
Closer to hand a group of military laborers were working to fill in the creek that, running from the southeast to the northwest a hundred yards or so from the gate, made a natural, if shallow, moat in the rainy season.
“Dammit, man, where is Dara?”
North wall
They had been killing for more than an hour by the time the enemy broke and began to flee the space between the outer and inner walls below.
“They’re falling back,” Damla gloated, her face triumphant in the morning light filtering in from the eastern loops.
Atisheh wiped at the sweat leaving muddy trails in the dust caking her face, her breathing ragged and fast. She tried to answer but found she could only nod as she lowered her bow. She ached everywhere, but the shoulder where she’d been wounded defending Shah Jahan was a pulsing lake of fire from neck to elbow. She’d worked to strengthen it, but clearly hadn’t spent enough time with the bow.
“What, tired?” Damla asked, offering a waterskin.
Atisheh’s nod turned into a roll of her head and then each shoulder. Her hand shook as she took the waterskin and raised it to her lips.
“Already? We didn’t even get any bladework in.”
“Cousin,” she gasped when she’d slaked her thirst, “I’d make you eat those words if I didn’t know you’d just spew more foolishness the minute it gallops into that empty gourd you call a skull.”
Damla grinned. “And I would take such threats more seriously if you weren’t barely standing.”
“Atisheh!” Yonca yelled as she raced into the tower. Atisheh forgot her pain on hearing the fear in her subordinate’s voice.
Standing straight, Atisheh schooled her breathing and said, “Speak, do not shout.”
Yonca lowered her voice. “Messengers, Atisheh. Delhi Gate is secure. The river gate has not been attacked. The Sikhs are massing. Lahore Gate is still hard-pressed.”
“Good.” She turned to Damla. “Quit grinning at me like an idiot and find out how many we lost. If the numbers are as expected, have the walking wounded remain at their stations and every third warrior join you.”
“I go,” Damla said, running up the stairs and out onto the upper bastion.
“Send them to Delhi Gate!” Atisheh shouted after her.
“We sally?” Yonca asked.
“If that madman Bidhi hasn’t already.”
“Already?”
“He does love a fight, that one.” High praise, from Atisheh, whose reputation had grown in her absence.
“If only he were as pretty as you,” Yonca purred.
Atisheh glanced at the younger woman, who was studying her with frank appraisal.
She snorted. “Later, if at all.”
Yonca had the good grace to look away, ears reddening. It reminded Atisheh to pull her chain veil across her face. It wouldn’t do to offend some of the more conservative men while she did the killing they could not. There would be no end of whining if they saw an unmarried woman’s face.
“Run ahead and let the master of horse know we come,” she said, making a show of checking her bowstring.
“I go.”
Once she was alone, Atisheh groaned and leaned heavily against the wall. Wanting nothing more than to do nothing for a few months, she pushed off the wall and staggered up the stairs.
The groom who tended her horses sprang to his feet on her arrival. She looked around and, seeing few witnesses she cared for, gestured at him. He obediently squatted beside her horse with his hands cupped, helping her mount.
She barely suppressed a grunt as the muscles in her shoulder decided to fold themselves into an agonizing cramp the likes of which she’d never felt before. She sat the horse a moment, stretching her shoulder, then gently kneed the mare into motion.
She was feeling better by the time she saw the serried ranks of Sikhs waiting to be led from the gate. Never one to publicly admit that a firearm was anything other than dead weight in the making, she
