They had not. There were too many men to kill, and too few warriors to kill them.
Still, the wheel went through two more full rotations and half of one of her large quivers before suffering their first losses. She could not tell from the mess of tangled horseflesh and men whether the two riders had been shot or simply collided, but the wheel rode on, heedless. Another spin and she heard, over the pounding of hooves and the gunfire of the Sikhs, the signal to advance.
The slower rotation brought about by the advance and greater penetration into the ranks of the enemy gave her time to loose four arrows before she could find no target.
She’d started her second quiver by then, and her horse was sweating. They were even with the Sikhs now and caught a glimpse of a man riding hard and fast toward them from Delhi Gate. She blinked, realizing the boxes lashed to his horse and the two following it contained the paper and brass shells Talawat’s weapons required.
Didn’t they have bearers among them?
The wheel brought her around again. Atisheh ignored fatigue and pain to pick a target, draw, and loose.
I know they did. She drew and loosed again. They went through that many shells already?
She drew and loosed once more before the cannonball ripped her horse from beneath her and killed the next three sowar behind her.
Gun line
“God! Where did they come from?” Carvalho breathed. He’d been busy with reloading, and had missed the appearance of an orderly line of men around the shoulder of the redoubt to the north and west of the mob Aurangzeb’s men had become as they tried to cross the creek and carry the walls of Red Fort.
The newcomers leveled long guns like those that had been killing his men and opened fire. Dozens of men died in that first volley, and many more were wounded. That was bad enough, but then they fired again without reloading. The line of men behind them stepped forward and repeated the process. By the time they were being replaced by the first rank, a thousand men and more lay dead, dying or wounded on the field.
Then, just to be certain the artillerist knew he was no longer loved by God, at least a thousand horsemen rode into view on his side of the creek and almost immediately began to rain arrows on the mass of dismounted men and riderless horses milling in confusion. Men fell dead, or screaming, on this side of the river too.
“Reset to the west!” he screamed, thanking God the Whore of Babylon was already loaded.
Islam’s crew heaved, struggling to get the massive weight of the gun lined up with the new target. The cannon was not made for such small targets as men, even mounted men, but by God, he would do his best.
He signaled the other guns to continue firing at the gatehouse while the crew worked to shift the Whore. There was risk enough of striking their own men with a ball from one cannon but he wouldn’t allow the guilt for such a mishap to fall on another man’s shoulders.
No-man’s-land
Atisheh heard muffled screams of men and horses. Some of them had been her own, she thought. She drew breath and coughed. Something rolled her into the light of the flares…or maybe daylight, she wasn’t sure. Everything had a reddish cast she could not blink away.
The ground trembled beneath her. Many horses striking the earth. A steady thunder, as of drums, penetrated her many aches and no few pains, the paired sensations waking her to the idea she should be doing something other than lying on her back, bleeding.
Ignoring the pull of chain mail on tender flesh, Atisheh wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands. They were tacky with blood, but she eventually cleared her lashes of most of it.
Blinking in the increased light, she watched mutely as a horse, flat on its back and its guts strewn about, flailed beside her with its hooves kicking at the dawn-reddened sky. Atisheh looked away from that horror, saw fletching catch the light as arrows whistled through the air above her.
Instinctively, she began to move.
A part of her wondered how the horse had managed to roll over her without crushing her. Atisheh scrambled aside and climbed to her feet. Indeed, despite her many aches and pains, nothing seemed broken.
Smoke carrying the stench of burned horsehair, sulfur, blood, offal, and seared pork that could not be pork drifted across her position, making her gag.
Atisheh winced as she moved her veil aside to spit the taste of vomit from her mouth. Fresh blood flowed. The chain mail had grated the skin off her nose and one cheek despite the silk winding meant to protect her flesh.
The regular beat of the Sikhs’ shotguns discharging in volley fire was audible from somewhere fairly close by. The sound cut through the other noises of the conflict raging around her, but she could not see the men themselves.
Someone she didn’t recognize came wheezing out of the smoke toward her, only to fall a few paces away, an arrow sprouting from his neck.
A pang of regret flashed through her as she realized her own bow was lost in the wreckage she lay in, if not destroyed. The regret made her examine her other weapons. Her sword, scabbard and all, had been bent degrees by some impact. Perhaps the steel had protected her from the rolling horse? Her daggers, one at the top of her boot, and one in her wide belt, were still in place.
The smoke cleared for a moment. Freed of the stench, Atisheh spat and quickly took her bearings. She had somehow ended up standing on the far lip of the ravine that paralleled the wall. Idle considerations like how she’d managed to move twenty gaz from where she estimated she’d been when the cannonball hit fled
