She had to admit he was a fine horseman. The speed of his mount was impressive, but it was the rider who lent a horse both heart and mind. Dara had hardly slowed when leaping the creek that ran parallel to the walls of Red Fort. Where many sowar had to fight their mounts to get them to attempt the crossing at speed, he’d simply braced in the stirrups and given the horse his head.
She rode past Dara as the drummer began the signal and, finding another target among the tents, loosed. The target didn’t immediately fall, but gave a satisfying yelp before disappearing in the chaos of silk and livestock that every camp throughout the long, dark history of war inevitably sank into when unexpectedly attacked.
She kneed her horse into a tight circle and looked back along the way they’d come. Many, many men lay dead or wounded along that path, but Aurangzeb had a great deal more men to spare than Dara. She wasn’t sure how many fighters Dara had lost, but he could ill afford more than a pittance.
The drums started to roll.
Atisheh slowed and came to a stop near Dara, who was shading his eyes and looking with concern to the southeast and the great mass of men struggling to overcome the defenses of Red Fort.
That she was chief among his harem guards was the only reason Atisheh did not get more resentful looks from those few of his courtiers surrounding him who were not part of Jahanara’s inner circle.
“Are we late, Atisheh?” he called.
“The Sultan Al’Azam arrives when he deems appropriate,” she said with an immediately regretted shrug. Now that she had time to breathe, her shoulder ached with the fierce insistence of a lover too long absent.
The chuckle that followed was as manly a noise as she’d ever heard from him.
Groups of his sowar began to rejoin the messengers, musicians, and courtiers surrounding the emperor.
A crashing volley echoed across the killing field.
“I do believe we made enough room for Talawat’s guns to do their work,” Dara commented.
Atisheh sniffed.
“You do not like them?”
“Oh, they kill well enough.” Not being able to shrug without pain was cramping her style.
Dara stood in the stirrups when the majority of his men seemed to have returned. “What do you think, my sowar?” he shouted. “Shall we help those who have to get their own feet dirty rather than ride steeds of beauty and power like ours?”
The men roared their approval.
Atisheh was impressed. Suffering as he did from the horrible headaches brought on by any kind of stress or setback, she had rarely seen Dara this strong or well-spoken of late. Never one to pray overmuch, Atisheh sent one winging up to Heaven in hopes that Dara would remain healthy and fully in control, at least for the duration of the battle.
As she opened her eyes, she saw one of Dara’s battle servants dispensing sheafs of arrows among the men. She gestured for him to join her and, as he was loading her quivers, looked south and east toward the clouds of gun smoke and constant, regular beat of massed gunfire that marked the Sikh advance.
And they were advancing. The men had already covered a hundred gaz or so, even after marching out in the wake of Dara’s sowar and deploying in a double file. Atisheh could now see the point of John’s endless drilling of the men: their advance was steady and their fire killed or wounded hundreds of warriors with every volley. But there were thousands more behind them, pressing into the space between the creek and the walls.
Aurangzeb’s warriors were caught in a bind. Too many men crowded into a limited space. So many that the sowar were forced to dismount on the far side of the creek and walk the remaining distance to the walls. The vast herd of abandoned horses were driven to the edges of the crowd of men, obscuring the advance of Dara’s much smaller force.
Atisheh’s smile was predatory beneath her veil.
The lions will soon be culling the sheep.
Dara shouted at the drummers. Several thousand sowar rocked into motion, heading back the way they’d come. A short time later they were approaching the edge of the shallow ravine and beginning the turn to the right.
They were, by now, approaching the extreme right of Dara’s infantry. A double line of arquebus-armed infantry was lining up along the creek to cover the Sikh flank and the sowar when they were eventually driven back by Aurangzeb’s superior numbers.
While planning the sortie, John had said the infantry formation would resemble one of the Latin alphabet’s letters, an “L” with the base toward the enemy.
She looked forward and realized they did not have far to ride before starting the wheel, loosing arrows at the point closest to their targets in the fashion that had delivered death to the enemies of nomadic horse archers since the days of Genghis Khan, if not long before.
Of course, not all of Dara’s horsemen were archers. A few hundred or so bore lances and wore heavy armor, preferring to charge home among the ranks of their enemies. Not unaware of how suicidal such tactics would be under the present circumstances, they kept to their orders, riding with the larger circle of horse.
The drums changed beat, signaling the wheel. Atisheh pressed her horse’s flank with her left knee, and stood in the stirrups as the first of the enemy rotated into view. Riderless horses were stampeding away from the wall, crushing men and panicking the mounts of Aurangzeb’s men trying to come to grips with Dara’s sowar.
Aurangzeb had packed so many men into the attack that Atisheh loosed, reloaded, loosed, reloaded, and loosed again before the circle had moved her beyond view of targets. As she stood down and rode round again, she watched the wall to
