The arquebusier fell unconscious at John’s feet.
“Shit!” John said, the grating pain in his shoulder making it a very bad idea to try and shake the still-smoldering coal from his hand. Dropping it might let the cord strike powder and result in a discharge, so that was out. He instead reached across with his other hand and yanked the match cord from the snaphaunce.
Bertram pushed past, the remaining men filing in behind him. John handed the arquebus to one of them.
“Don’t you need a weapon?” the man asked, retrieving the match cord from the floor.
“I have one,” John said. Suddenly scared he’d lost it, and utterly without thinking, he reached for his armpit to where his wife’s 9mm had been holstered when the shooting started.
Something popped in his shoulder, making him moan.
“You need a medic, John?” Bertram asked.
“No,” John wheezed, blinking. “I think it just popped back into place.”
“Good…” Bertram muttered. “If true.”
Gingerly, John returned his hand to the holster, unsnapped, and pulled the gun free. He made a push check as he’d been taught and, as the slide traveled smoothly, figured it was intact.
While he was feeling the spare magazines in the other armpit for any sign they’d been bent out of shape, Bertram coughed to clear his throat, then hiked a thumb at the door opposite the one they’d come through.
Switching to Persian, the smaller man eventually continued, “Because it sounds like the fighting is still going on”—the stuttering crash of a volley penetrated the door—“and I don’t think Bidhi Chand will ever let us live it down if we don’t take some part.”
The fighting men with them, their hands busy reloading, checking weapons or rendering aid to the injured, chuckled.
“Right,” John said. Mopping sweat from his brow, he straightened and took a deep breath. Bertram bent and picked up the unconscious man’s sword.
A new sound, muffled better by the door, joined the gunfire: the steel on steel of a melee.
“Shit.” John went to the door and shot the bolt.
John was about to push it open when the men he was supposedly leading shouldered him aside and, screaming, charged blindly out. Blindly, because the morning rays of the sun had momentarily cut through the smoke to shine from blades, helmets, and shields.
Blinking, John stepped into chaos. It was…beautiful in a way a train wreck could be fascinating. Each instant both a cause and an effect trailing after a thousand others that terminated for some men but allowed others to travel to the next.
The man he’d handed the gun to raised it to fire at a warrior who’d climbed into view and paused to draw a heavy curved sword from his hip.
The gun banged.
The swordsman staggered, arms windmilling as he fought for balance. He was given no opportunity to recover as the defender reversed his weapon and swung it by the barrel. The butt of the gun clipped the man’s knee, dropping him like a stone. And, like a stone, he rolled and fell to the earth below.
Careful of his aim, John lined up a shot at the head of a warrior appearing between the crenellations. The man’s bearded face disappeared before he could pull the trigger.
Another of Aurangzeb’s warriors leapt at one of John’s companions, katars in each fist. Dara’s man went down in a welter of blood. Crouching over his victim, the man slashed at another warrior who skipped backward to avoid losing a limb.
John shuffled sideways away from Bertram to get a clear shot. He let the sight settle on the man’s chest and pulled the trigger twice. The first shot sparked through the man’s mail, the second, taken while the pistol was still climbing from the recoil of the first, ripped into his throat below the beard.
The man staggered but didn’t go down.
Bertram rushed forward and drove his sword home in the man’s pelvis just as another man scrambled over the wall behind the first.
John shot without taking careful aim and lost track of how many times he’d pulled the trigger when the guy finally fell screaming.
Bertram was already blocking the sword of another man.
There were a good twenty enemy amongst almost the same number of defenders now. Their proximity prevented the Sikh platoon on the far redoubt from firing at them for fear of killing their own.
John’s movement had left him next to the long ramp leading to the ground level inside the fort. He spared a glance down it, praying reinforcements were already on their way.
His relieved sigh was drowned as a mass of heavily armored warriors began to scream, “Skanda! Skandaaaa!” as they charged up the ramp and among the men struggling along the wall.
The next few minutes passed in a panting blur of fear, anger, and violence. When it ended, there was a lull John used to reload and look around. The nearest gun crew, much reduced from its pre-battle numbers, was already hard at work loading one of the shells copied from the Lønsom Vind’s stores.
“You’ve been cut, John,” Bertram grunted, nodding at John’s right arm as he tried to regain his breath.
John glanced down, saw a shallow wound he didn’t remember taking lining one forearm. It was already scabbing, so John left it alone and returned his attention to the battle.
There were thousands more men swarming across the open ground toward the stretch of wall between Lahore Gate and where the wall turned out of view in its progress toward Delhi Gate.
His gaze fell on the nearest redoubt, the one where the Sikhs had been shooting from and stood slack-mouthed in wonder.
Bidhi Chand, dressed in what looked like plate mail out of some geek’s D&D character fantasy, danced from one crenellation to another, seeming to ignore the deadly drop on one side as he stabbed and slashed anyone crazy enough to climb into reach of his blade.
“Would you look at that?” John said.
“What?” Bertram asked, tying off a bandage around his calf.
“That crazy fucker,” John said,
