Let them complain. I no longer have time, patience, or the men to spare.
* * *
“Sultan Al’Azam!” someone shouted.
Dara Shikoh craned his neck around, shoulders and neck aching from the unaccustomed archery.
“Atisheh!” he croaked, surprised. He’d thought her dead some hours ago and was glad to see her still among the living. He tried to add a happy greeting, but his throat was caked with dust. But no longer tight with fear, at least.
She maneuvered to join him. When close enough to speak without yelling, she said, “Sultan Al’Azam, from the looks of things, Aurangzeb will not make another attack.”
“Are you certain?”
She shrugged, gesturing with a hand at what little of the battlefield they could see. Even that small slice of the fields was carpeted with dead men and horses. “The men who most wanted a fight were the vanguard, both in the assault of the walls and when Aurangzeb sent his reserves against us. The ones still alive and unwounded have already fled once, and won’t have the stomach to fight again, if they had it to start with. Even the brave men among them will not want to tread upon their own dead to come to grips with us, even if enough could be found and organized. At least, not today.”
Dara spat again. He looked around, saw the signalman had been replaced by a boy barely out of the harem and croaked. “Sound the walk…” As the horses and men slowed, Dara took stock of his own hurts. On top of a throbbing headache that God, in his infinite wisdom, had decided to visit on him in the last few minutes, the fingers of his right hand felt shredded from the bowstring. He knew the pain was a result of too many hours spent bent over paper with the qulam and too few at archery. His horses and warriors, being in better condition than their leader, made no complaint, but he could tell the mounts were vastly slower than they’d been even during the last rotation, and the men were reaching into empty quivers for arrows already sent at the enemy.
They slowed to the walk with little of the brave show they’d had when first they’d sallied.
And the sally had been far more effective than anyone but Dara himself had believed it would be. Dara felt a pride that made all his pains diminish to a dull ache. His plan had killed a great many of the enemy today.
Still, Aurangzeb had so many men. And there was so much dust, despite the light rain that had fallen the evening before. Enough, almost to make him wish he’d stayed atop the walls to better see the progress of the battle.
But all his hurts, all his fears—they were as nothing compared to the feeling of leading men in battle as his great ancestors had done for generations. Back unto Babur, back unto Timur—back unto Genghis Khan.
They were as nothing.
And the Sikhs! They had, in the last hours, killed many, many times their number. They alone had broken the charge of Aurangzeb’s reserves. Aurangzeb’s thousands of sowar had gambled their lives against the very real threat on their flank in hopes of killing Dara himself. Unfortunately for those brave men, their charge carried them at an oblique angle across the front of the Sikh firing line, prolonging their exposure to fire. The result had been a murderous slaughter. Nearly half of them were dismounted or killed by the time the first warrior saw sense, turned, and fled for his life. The ignominious stampede to safety that followed would have made his ancestors proud, Dara was certain.
He patted his horse’s sweaty neck with his hand, wincing at the painful protest from abused fingers.
The wheel slowly brought him round to the creek side. The Sikhs were withdrawing toward the gate by sections. Dara could not—would not—call it a retreat, not with the orderly ranks the Sikhs displayed. And it was a proud display: the men, heads held high under saffron turbans, were singing as they were given orders to march toward the gate. Bidhi Chand was not among the singing men, of course. Dara had sent him to Lahore Gate.
The Sultan Al’Azam glanced over his shoulder as the slowed rotation carried him around once again. The outer works of Lahore Gate were a smoke- and dust-wreathed ruin, bodies heaped at the base of the walls and even atop the parapets. He’d been so busy with the fight there had been no time for fear—at least beyond the momentary fear for one’s own life—for the lives of others, like John and Bidhi Chand, that he’d ordered into battle.
The Sultan Al’Azam hoped Bidhi and John had at least lived to see the effectiveness of the tactics they’d taken such pains to impart to the men. The up-timer may have used a book of what he called “old-ass tactics” to train Bidhi Chand and his men, but all the book learning in the world would have meant nothing had the men themselves not been disciplined and willing to adopt the new formations, weapons, and tactics Bidhi Chand had drilled them on with such relentless fervor.
He raised a hand to signal the men to slow to a walk and could not help but see the bodies of men—both his and his brother’s—who had fallen and would not rise again, would not grow older, would not sing nor pray, eat nor drink, nor love a woman. If the coin of sovereignty was the blood of such brave men, had he the stomach to pay the price of victory over and over again until the war was won?
Did Aurangzeb?
And was that what this was? Victory?
There were so many dead.
His mouth tasted of ash and blood.
So many wounded.
Is this what victory looks like?
“Sultan Al’Azam?” Atisheh said, interrupting his fugue.
Dara glanced at his bodyguard and found her craning her neck to look toward Aurangzeb’s lines.
“What—” He
