The Moghul

Rajput infantry armed with long spears. Inside their line were Rajput swordsmen, who now had linked together the skirts of their long, steel-mesh cloaks to form a solid barrier. And inside these was the last defense line, the circle of armored war elephants.
    As their own elephant instinctively rejoined the line protecting Jadar, Hawksworth reached to touch Shirin's hand. As he did, he noticed her thumb was bleeding and realized for the first time she had not been supplied a bow ring.
    "I think we can hold off the infantry with the elephants. But I don't know how long . . ." Her voice trailed off as he looked up at her face. She was leaning against the side of the howdah , pointing wordlessly toward the east.
    He turned to see a vast wave of the Imperial Rajput horsemen bearing down on their position. They numbered in the thousands.
    "God Almighty." He reached weakly for another arrow, trying to count those remaining in the quiver and asking if he would live long enough to shoot them all. "It's over."
    Their battle cry lifted above the plain as the approaching cavalry neared the edge of the massed Imperial infantry engulfing Jadar. They began advancing directly through the infantry, not slowing, heading straight for Jadar.
    Hawksworth notched an arrow and rose up in the howdah to take aim. He drew back the string and picked the man in the lead for the first arrow.
    As he sighted the Rajput's bearded face down the shaft, he suddenly froze.
    The Rajput had just driven the long point of his spear into an Imperial infantryman.
    Hawksworth lowered his bow in disbelief and stared as the approaching Imperial cavalry began cutting down their own infantry, taking heads as they rode toward Jadar, leaving a carpet of death in their bloody wake.
    "Holy Jesus, what's happening? They're attacking their own troops! Are they sotted with opium too?"
    Suddenly their chant of "Ram Ram" was taken up by the Rajputs surrounding Jadar, and they turned on the Imperial infantry nearest them with the ferocity of a wounded tiger.
    "Today Allah took on the armor of a Rajput." Shirin slumped against the side of the howdah and dropped her bow. "I had prayed they would all one day join with the prince, but I never really believed it would happen."
    Jadar's circle of war elephants began to cut their way through the remaining infantry to join the Rajput forces, swivel guns blazing from their backs. In what seemed only minutes his entourage merged with the vanguard of Rajput cavalry, and together they moved like a steel phalanx against the Imperial infantry reserves waiting in the east.
    Hawksworth watched as the Imperial lines were cut, separating the infantry fighting on the plain from their reserves. Next a corps of Rajput horsemen wielding long spears overran the Imperial gun emplacements, then grouped to assault the Imperial command post. When the elephant bearing the banner of Inayat Latif started for higher ground, discipline in the Imperial ranks evaporated.
    By late afternoon the outcome was no longer in question. A final attempt by the Imperial forces to regroup disintegrated into a rout, with thousands of fleeing Imperial infantry falling before the swords and spears of the Rajput cavalry. Only the merciful descent of dark enabled Inayat Latif and his Imperial commanders to escape death at the hands of pursuing Rajput archers.
    As Hawksworth rode with Jadar's entourage through the dusty, smoke-shrouded battlefield, headed back for the camp, he felt he was witnessing the gaping mouth of hell. The plain was littered with the bodies of almost forty thousand men and over ten thousand horses. The proud war cries were forgotten. Through the dusky twilight came the plaintive moans of dying men and the shrill neighing of shattered horses. Rajputs moved among the bodies, plundering the dead enemy, searching for fallen comrades, dispatching with their long swords any lingering men or horses who could not be saved.
    All because of Jadar, Hawksworth thought, and his stomach sickened. Now what will happen? Jadar won the day in this valley, in the middle of nowhere, but the Moghul is still in Agra, and tonight he still rules India. And I think he'll still rule India, if only in name, till the day he dies. Jadar can't march against the Red Fort in Agra, not with this ragtag army. Even his division of Rajput defectors couldn't storm that fortress. I'm not sure God himself could take the Red Fort. So what now, noble Prince Jadar? So far you've merely