The Moghul

directly toward the center of the line.
    Hawksworth noticed Arangbar suddenly order his mahout to hold back his elephant. The other Imperial elephants had also paused to wait. Then Arangbar turned and ordered the servant who rode behind him to pass forward a long-barreled, large-caliber sporting piece. Allaudin, whose fright was transparent, also signaled for a gun.
    Hawksworth's mahout pulled his elephant directly behind Arangbar's, as though for protection.
    The tigers seemed in no hurry to engage the buffalo. They scrutinized the approaching line and waited for their moment. Then, when the buffalo were no more than ten feet away, both sprang simultaneously.
    The female was speared on the horn of a buffalo, but she flipped in midair and sank her teeth into the leather shielding on its neck. As its Rajput rider slipped to the ground, the male of the pair dashed past his mate and sprang for him. The Rajput swung his broadsword, catching the tiger in the flank, but it swatted him aside with a powerful sweep of its paw and he crumpled, his neck shattered. Other Rajputs rushed the male tiger with their swords, as their buffalo closed in to kill the female, but it eluded their thrusts as it circled Arangbar's elephant. Soldiers with half-pikes had already rushed to form a barricade between Arangbar's elephant and the tiger, but the Moghul seemed unperturbed. While the panting male tiger stalked Arangbar, the female tiger was forgotten.
    As Hawksworth watched spellbound, his pulse pounding, he caught a yellow flicker out of the corner of his eye and turned to see the female tiger slip past the ring of buffalo and dash toward the rear of Arangbar's elephant. It was on the opposite side from the armed soldiers, where the Moghul’s elephant was undefended.
    Hawksworth opened his mouth to shout just as the female tiger sprang for Arangbar, but at that moment a shot rang out from the enclosed howdah of Queen Janahara and the female tiger crumpled in midair, curving into a lifeless ball as it smashed against the side of the Moghul’s mount.
    The jolt caused Arangbar's shot at the male tiger to go wide, merely grazing its foreleg. A dozen half-pikes pierced its side as it stumbled forward, and it whirled to slap at the Rajputs. Allaudin also fired his tiger gun, but his shot missed entirely, almost hitting one of the men trying to hold the tiger back. It whirled in a bloody circle for a moment, and then stopped.
    It was staring at Hawksworth.
    He heard his mahout shout in terror as the tiger sprang for the head of their elephant. A wrap of yellow fur seemed to twist itself around the elephant's forehead as the tiger dug its claws into the protective leather padding. As Kumada tossed her head in panic, the mahout screamed again and plunged for safety, rolling through a clump of brown grass and scrambling toward the soldiers.
    The tiger caught Hawksworth's eyes with a hypnotic gaze as it began pulling itself over the forehead of the terrified elephant, directly toward his howdah. Kumada had begun to whirl in a circle and shake her head, futilely trying to dislodge the wounded fury slashing at her leather armor. The tiger slipped momentarily, then caught its claws more firmly and began to climb again.
    Almost without thinking, Hawksworth reached forward and grabbed the ankus , the short pike and claw used for guiding an elephant, that the mahout had left lodged in a leather fold behind the elephant's head. He wrenched it free and began to tease the tiger back.
    Kumada was running now, wildly it seemed, toward a large pipal tree at the edge of the clearing. But the tiger had pulled itself atop her head and, as Hawksworth jabbed its whiskered face with the ankus , he heard a deep growl and saw a flash of yellow and claw as a sharp pain cut through his shoulder.
    He knew he was falling, dizzily, hands grasping against smooth leather as he slipped past the neck of the elephant, past its flapping ear, against a thundering foot that slammed the dust next to his face.
    Kumada had suddenly stopped dead still, throwing him sprawling against the base of the pipal tree. He looked up to see the tiger suspended above him, glaring down, clawing at the face of the elephant and bellowing with pain.
    Then he heard the snap of the tiger's spine, as Kumada slammed it again and again against the massive trunk of the tree, Only when the tiger was motionless did she let it drop, carefully tossing its body away from Hawksworth as it tumbled lifeless