each other, nose to tail, and the sabre and sword rang together. Dodd was taller than his opponent, but the young Englishman, who was a lieutenant and scarce looked a day over eighteen, was strong, and Dodd's blow had hardly broken the weave of his coat. He gritted his teeth as he hacked at Dodd, and Dodd parried, parried again and the two blades locked, hilt against hilt, and Dodd heaved to try and throw the young man off balance.
'You're Dodd, aren't you?' the Lieutenant said.
'Seven hundred guineas to you, boy.'
«Traitor,» the young Englishman spat.
Dodd heaved, then kicked the Lieutenant's horse so that it moved forward and he tried to slash back with his disengaged sword, but the Lieutenant turned the horse in again. The men were too close to fight properly, close enough to smell each other's breath. The Lieutenant's stank of tobacco. They could hit their opponent with their sword hilts, but not use the blades' lengths. If either horse had been properly schooled they could have been walked sideways away from the impasse, but the horses would only go forward and Dodd was the first to take the risk by using his spurs. He used them savagely, startling his horse so that it leaped ahead, and even so he flinched from the expected slash as the sabre whipped towards his spine, but the Lieutenant was slow and the blow missed.
Dodd rode twenty paces up the track towards the watching sepoys, then turned again. The Lieutenant was gaining confidence and he grinned as the tall man charged at him. He lowered the sabre, using its point like a spearhead, and urged his weary gelding into a trot. Dodd also had his sword at the lunge, elbow locked, and the two horses closed at frightening speed and then, at the very last second,
Dodd hauled on his rein and his horse went right, to the Lieutenant's unguarded side, and he brought the sword back across his body and then cut it forward in one fluid motion so that the blade raked across the Lieutenant's throat. The sabre was still coming across to the parry when the blood spurted. The Lieutenant faltered and his horse stopped. The young man's sword arm fell, and Dodd was turning. He came alongside his opponent whose jacket was now dark with blood, and he rammed the sword into the Lieutenant's neck a second time, this time point first, and the young man seemed to shake like a rat in a terrier's jaws.
Dodd hauled his sword free, then scabbarded it. He leaned over and took the sabre from the dying man's unresisting hand, then pushed the Lieutenant so that he toppled from the horse. One of his feet was trapped in a stirrup, but as Dodd seized the gelding's rein and hauled it round towards the fortress, the boot fell free and the young man was left sprawling amidst his blood on the dusty road as Dodd led his trophy homewards.
The Indians on the ramparts cheered. The sepoys spurred forward and Dodd hurried ahead of them, but the Madrassi cavalrymen only rode as far as their officer's body where they dismounted. Dodd rode on, waving the captured sabre aloft.
A gun fired from the fort and the ball screamed over the rocky isthmus to crash home among the cavalrymen gathered about their officer. A second gun fired, and suddenly the British cavalry and their riderless horses were running away and the cheers on the wall redoubled. Manu Bappoo was on the big buttress close to the gatehouse and he first pointed an admonitory finger at Dodd, chiding him for taking such a risk, then he touched his hands together, in thanks for Dodd's victory, and finally raised his arms above his head to salute the hero. Dodd laughed and bowed his head in acknowledgement and saw, to his surprise, that his white coat was red with the Lieutenant's blood.
'Who would have thought the young man had so much blood in him?' he asked the leader of his escort at the fortress gate.
'Sahib?' the man answered, puzzled.
'Never mind.' Dodd took the rifle back, then spurred his horse into Gawilghur's Delhi Gate. The men on the ramparts that edged the paved entranceway cheered him home.
He did not pause to speak to Manu Bappoo, but instead rode through the Outer Fortress and out of its southern gate, then led his captured horse down the steep path which slanted across the face of the ravine. At the bottom the path turned sharply to the left before climbing to the Inner Fort's massive gateway. The four heavy gates that barred the entranceway were all opened for him, and the hooves of his two horses echoed from the high walls as he clattered up the winding passage. One by one the gates crashed shut behind and the thick locking bars were dropped into their brackets.
His groom waited beyond the last gate. Dodd swung down from his horse and gave both reins to the man, ordering him to water the captured horse before he rubbed it down. He handed his sword to his servant and told him to clean the blood from the blade and only then did he turn to face Beny Singh who had come waddling from the palace garden. The Killadar was dressed in a green silk robe and was attended by two servants, one to hold a parasol above Beny Singh's perfumed head and the other clasping the Killadar's small white lap dog.
'The cheering, ' Beny Singh asked anxiously, 'what was it? The guns were firing?' He stared in horror at the blood soaked into Dodd's coat.
'You're wounded, Colonel?'
'There was a fight, ' Dodd said, and waited while one of the servants translated for the Killadar. Dodd spoke a crude Marathi, but it was easier to use interpreters.
'The djinns are here! ' Beny Singh wailed. The dog whimpered and the two servants looked nervous.
'I killed a djinn, ' Dodd snarled. He reached out and took hold of Beny Singh's plump hand and forced it against his wet coat.
'It isn't my blood.
But it is fresh.' He rubbed the Killadar's hand into the gory patch, then raised the plump fingers to his mouth. Keeping his eyes on Beny Singh's eyes, he licked the blood from the Killadar's hand.
'I am a djinn, Killadar, ' Dodd said, letting go of the hand, 'and I lap the blood of my enemies.'
Beny Singh recoiled from the clammy touch of the blood. He shuddered, then wiped his hand on his silk robe.
'When will they assault?'
'A week?' Dodd guessed.
'And then they will be defeated.'
'But what if they get in?' Beny Singh asked anxiously.
'Then they will kill you, ' Dodd said, 'and afterwards rape your wife, your concubines and your daughters. They'll line up for the pleasure, Killadar. They'll rut like hogs, ' and Dodd grunted like a pig and jerked his groin forward, driving Beny Singh back.
'They won't! ' the Killadar declared.
'Because they won't get in, ' Dodd said, 'because some of us are men, and we will fight.'
'I have poison! ' Beny Singh said, not comprehending Dodd's last words.
'If they look like winning, Colonel, you'll send me word?'
Dodd smiled.
'You have my promise, sahib, ' he said with a pretended humility.
'Better my women should die, ' Beny Singh insisted.
'Better that you should die, ' Dodd said, 'unless you want to be forced to watch the white djinns take their pleasure on your dying women.'
'They wouldn't!»
'What else do they want in here?' Dodd asked.
'Have they not heard of the beauty of your women? Each night they talk of them around their fires, and every day they dream of their thighs and their breasts. They can't wait, Killadar. The pleasures of your women pull the redcoats towards us.'
Beny Singh fled from the horrid words and Dodd smiled. He had come to realize that only one man could command here. Beny Singh was the fortress commander and though he was a despicable coward he was also a friend of the Rajah's, and that friendship ensured the loyalty of much of Gawilghur's standing garrison. The rest of the fortress defenders were divided into two camps. There were Manu Bappoo's soldiers, led by the remnants of the Lions of Allah and loyal to the Prince, and Dodd's Cobras. But if only one of the three leaders was left, then that man would rule Gawilghur, and whoever ruled Gawilghur could rule all India.
Dodd touched the stock of the rifle. That would help, and Beny Singh's abject terror would render the Killadar harmless. Dodd smiled and climbed to the ramparts from where, with a telescope, he watched the British heave the first gun up to the edge of the plateau. A week, he thought, maybe a day more, and then the British
