His scream was like nothing she had ever heard, the music of pure agony expressed in song. The man struggled against her weight but he was mortal, and could therefore offer little resistance as Jamelia crawled backwards down the length of his body and sank her jaws into the muscle and tissue of his chest, then dug her teeth in and began to worry the soft pulp loose.
Wellesley was on his feet now, his sword arm already mostly healed from the bite of the tigress, and looked about him for his fallen blade. A cloud passed clear of the moon and revealed its resting place to him. It lay in the dirt some fifteen yards away, so near and yet so far, for the tigress was slashing and clawing at the screaming figure who had had the courage to place his own body between the CSM and certain death.
Arthur started to move towards the pair, put on a burst of supernatural speed, and wrapped his arms around Jamelia’s neck, embracing her from behind. The great cat bucked wildly, seeking to hurl him clear, but the vampire held fast and refused to be shaken. Tightening his grip and drawing back his arms, Arthur slowly worked the beast’s head backwards until he could see flecks of blood around her nose, mouth, and whiskers.
The blood of Colin Campbell.
Campbell’s broken body seemed more dead than alive, for it hemorrhaged life from no less than a score of wounds, and yet incredibly, miraculously, it still moved. The face was little more than a mass of blood and gleaming bone, yet red bubbles gurgled out from between the Captain’s ruined lips.
He was still alive – barely.
Then something else drew Arthur’s attention, a soft, pitiful whimper from behind him. Arthur twisted his head around, unwilling to loosen his grip upon the tigress by even a fraction. What he saw there lit an ice-cold fire in his belly, and he knew then with utter certainty that this black creature must die.
Diomed, his poor, brave Diomed, lay dying, his ribs exposed to the open air. Arthur’s ultra-sensitive hearing picked up the sound of his faithful mount’s mighty heart slowing, slowing, and then finally taking its final beat.
Suddenly the red mist was back, and far more intense than ever before. I should have hunted you down and killed you after Seringapatam! Arthur raged inside, twisting the shifter’s muscular neck backward and to the side in an attempt to break it cleanly in two, just as he had done with Achilles – though that had been a sad necessity, whereas this would be nothing less than pure satisfaction. Campbell would still have been in one piece. Diomed would have lived. Well, damn you, but there shall be no more!
From the corner of his eye, Arthur caught sight of Dan Nichols making his way groggily towards the fallen silver sword, no doubt with an eye toward tossing it to him, but there was simply no time for that. Jamelia bucked and squirmed once again, more forcefully this time, and her shifter strength meant that she might even be capable of breaking free of a vampire’s grasp if this were allowed to go on. Yet try as he might, he just could not snap her neck. It was simply too muscular and strong.
Tightening his grip even further, Arthur summoned up every last ounce of strength that he possessed and then kicked upward with both feet, using the plain as a springboard. At the same time, he willed his bodily density to decrease – not to such an extent that he would lose his grip upon the still-struggling tigress, but just enough to allow him to propel them both high into the air.
Arthur’s body began to gain momentum, rising more quickly as he gained height. Jamelia had somehow managed to break his grip partially and with a growl she lashed out to ,swat him with a paw, its claws raking bloodless furrows across the flesh of his cheek and cutting their way through the thick red cloth of his jacket in four parallel lines. Powerful teeth snapped at the air just inches from his nose, holding the threat of bone-crunching force if they should actually close on his body. Arthur simply ignored her assault, his face a mask of concentration as he forced the sensation of pain to a distant corner of his mind. His every thought was focused upon one single goal: climb higher.
The vampire wasted neither the time nor the effort to look down, but if he had, he would have seen the spectacle of a Maratha army in the advanced stages of crumbling being played out hundreds of feet below him on the field of Assaye. Scindia’s men were in full retreat, and it was fast becoming a rout as panic spread through the ranks and Pohlmann’s men splashed their way northward to the far bank of the Juah. Maxwell, who had been hit several times by enemy fire, had simply shrugged off wounds that would have killed a mortal man and continued to lead his cavalrymen against the near-broken foe. His dragoons and native horse worried constantly at the Marathas’ heels, harrying and hounding them as they scattered to the four winds.
Wellesley tightened his vice-like grip on the tiger’s neck and torso even further, his supernaturally-enhanced muscles visibly straining in the attempt to strangle the life out of the creature which had robbed him of his beloved horse and most valued aide. Yet Jamelia stubbornly refused to succumb, choosing instead to sink her teeth into her adversary’s shoulder. Wellesley did scream this time, for the claws and bite of a shifter could hurt him every bit as much as the edge of a silver weapon. So focused was he on the struggle at hand that he missed the sight of Anthony Pohlmann hurtling through the sky behind him, rising in an arc above the battlefield like a rocket from its cradle.
Ever the professional soldier above all else, Pohlmann knew a battle lost when he saw one. The emotional part of the Hanoverian’s brain was still more than a little stunned at the reversal suffered by his army, unable to quite believe that such a drubbing could have been inflicted upon his pride and joy by such a numerically inferior force, but that was a question for another day — when he saw the lines of his compoo finally break beyond all repair, he realized with utter certainty that his first duty was to live to see that day arrive. Regrettably, that meant the ignominy of flight, both literally and figuratively.
But first, there was a score to settle.
His nemesis was not hard to pick out, even amongst the chaotic maelstrom of the battlefield. Wellesley was soaring high above it all, continuing to climb with what Pohlmann soon realized was a certain tigress held tightly within his clutches.
Perfect.
Another volley of concerted musketry slammed into the white-coated men all around him, the remnants of Jamelia’s battalion. Her second-in-command, Bindusar, had been desperately trying to hold them steady for the past few minutes, yet as more and more fell to the bullets and bayonets of the redcoats, the diminutive officer’s task had gotten harder and harder. Finally, Bindusar went down with a heavy lead ball embedded in his chest. Blood gouted from both his open mouth and the new hole between his ribs, and his was face screwed up into a mask of agony as the life drained from his body. Pohlmann felt the blood-lust spark within him, provoked by the sight and smell of the life-giving fluid now staining the plain before him. The vampire shook his head to dispel it. There was no time to feed now, he knew. He had to get away, reach one of the Maratha fortresses…Gawilghur, perhaps, he mused. Yes, Gawilghur would be perfect, for the place was damned-near impregnable, or so it was said.
His sword scraped clear of its ornamented scabbard in one single, fluid motion, and the Hanoverian gripped it tightly in his right hand. Willing himself up into the night sky, Pohlmann left the fragments of his once-proud army in the dust beneath his feet as one might discard a worn-out old coat. The Highlanders and sepoys surged forwards like an unstoppable tide, putting those who were too slow to take flight to the bayonet, yet none of it mattered to him now; all that mattered was the red-coated figure that his vampiric vision could still pick out some one thousand feet in the air above him and to his right, a figure upon which he was closing rapidly with every passing second.
Specially crafted for just such an opponent by an armorer from Bremen, Pohlmann’s silver blade gleamed in the cold light of the moon and stars.
“Submit to the inevitable,” Arthur hissed into Jamelia’s ear, which twitched with irritation at the merest sound of his voice. He injected a soothing, saccha
rine undertone that was often the last thing a vampire’s victim ever heard, pouring honey in the form of words in an attempt to manipulate their will. “Give in now, and I shall end your life quickly and with mercy.”
“As you did for my father?” the tigress growled, her words sounding unnatural coming from the feline mouth. “Dead upon his back in a stinking tunnel?”
“Yes. Think of it as a familial courtesy, if that makes you feel any better.” Arthur knew that Jamelia could not see the callous smile he now wore, but could tell from her continued struggle that his attempt to supernaturally glamor her wasn’t turning out to be very effective.
“You dare—” the tigress hissed angrily.
Arthur didn’t hear the sentence to completion, because suddenly his world was engulfed in a torrent of blinding light and pain of such magnitude that it blotted out everything else in existence. Fire blazed through him, seeming to originate from a place in his left flank just below the kidney. He reached for the spot, unable to stand the new-found agony for even an instant longer and clamped his palm over a gushing puncture wound that was already necrosing at the edges. Whatever had done this had to have been silver, Arthur knew, for his insides were aflame, burning like a miniature sun within his left side and abdomen.
His grip on Jamelia was now lost, and the tigress twisted in the air as gravity’s clutches took hold, turning to rake her claws across his face and throat once more. This time, viscous black ichor spurted from the deeper lacerations, tearing his flesh and musculature to ribbons. The vampire general opened his mouth to scream out a cry that threatened to shred his vocal cords, and then suddenly he was falling; they both were, tiger and vampire, falling earthward, the vampire enveloped in a deeply personal world of pain, whereas the tigress simply knew fear, true fear, for perhaps the first time in her entire life as the ground rushed up to embrace them both.
Grimly satisfied, Anthony Pohlmann sheathed his still-dripping blade and watched them both fall out of sight into the darkness below. It was a pity about Jamelia, the Hanoverian reflected, and he supposed that if he had truly cared about her, then it might have been possible for him to arrest her fall and return her to the ground safely. But he was already thinking ahead, and planning for every foreseeable eventuality. Somebody was going to be held responsible for this disaster, after all, and a conveniently dead battalion commander might just make for the ideal candidate.
Yes, the Hanoverian thought to himself as he increased speed and flew far away from the accursed field of Assaye, it was Jamelia who failed, and not I. A fiction was already forming in the back of his mind, a believable narrative that would lay all of the blame for this outrage at the dead woman’s door. Jamelia’s battalion had taken fright and run, he nodded as the story began to crystallize, causing the center of my compoo to buckle and break. That had caused the entire middle of the line to collapse, and with in, Scindia’s army.
Pohlmann overflew the fortified village of Assaye, heading northeast towards the distant fastness of Gawilghur, and was disgusted to see that the Raja of Berar’s men were already abandoning the place to the enemy. Gunners hitched their cannons up to limbers, then began to whip the horses frantically into motion, dodging and weaving their way through the press of soldiers that was streaming away from the field of battle.
There would be another day to defeat the British, Pohlmann knew, but it would have to be somewhere other than here. His men had performed admirably to begin with, gouging bloody chunks out of the British army on the plains below, and they had inflicted grievous wounds upon Wellesley’s ranks that may even yet prove to have broken the back of that tiny little force.
Yes, Pohlmann thought to himself as he rode the gusting winds aloft, perhaps this is no true defeat after all, but merely a stalemate…
Even now, the commander of the British cavalry was calling his men back from their pursuit along the north bank of the Juah, perhaps recognizing that his men were in great danger of finding themselves too strung out and vulnerable to the surviving Maratha cavalry who even now skulked uncertainly around the field’s edges.
Yet Wellesley was finished, and that was no small thing. Pohlmann’s adept thrust of the blade had been a little too lateral for his liking, but it had struck home nevertheless, puncturing his opponent’s flank with a point furnished from the purest of silver.
Who would command the British now? The old man, Stevenson, and his tiny little army that had failed to even find the field this day, let alone take to it? Pohlmann laughed harshly. Although competent, Stevenson was no Wellesley, and Wellesley himself was now ended. A smile played at the corners of his lips. There may be opportunity here, Pohlmann reasoned.
All in all, not such a bad day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A Fall From Grace
After falling at terminal velocity for a few interminable seconds, Arthur’s body hit the surface of the River Kailna as though it were a wall made of the strongest brick.
The impact knocked all sense from him, leaving the vampire little choice other than to allow himself to be lost within the cold, dark embrace of those swift-running waters, until after what seemed like an age he finally slammed into the river’s bed, kicking up a cloud of silt and pebbles all around him. Arthur simply lay there, alone in the murk, slowly gathering himself and refocusing his senses. He could hear as well as feel his bones knitting themselves back into their original shape once more, for so many had been shattered rather than cleanly broken by the sheer force of his collision with the Kailna.
His flank wound was fortunately not fatal, something which was rather amazing when one considered the fact that if the blade had penetrated further and struck one of his vital organs, he would have burst into flames and died screaming in even greater agony. The silver weapon had delivered an excruciating injury, yes, but not a definitive one. He would retain a scar on his side for the rest of his days, Arthur knew, but then so many vampire officers did after close calls such as this one. They tended to serve as excellent reminders for one to be cautious when in the face of the enemy.
Squinting, Arthur thought that he could just dimly make out the glowing circle of the moon shining down through the gloom above him, distorted by the passage of the water as though it were a roughly-ground glass lens sitting between him and the night sky.
One thought suddenly edged out all others, pushing its way to the very forefront of his mind. His men: he could not simply leave his men under the guns of the Marathas, or the great swarm of enemy cavalry that still remained unbloodied on the field.
Looking about him for any sign of the riverbank, Arthur suddenly realized that such an attempt was pointless, for there was no way of telling the north bank from the south in this inky blackness, and so he strove to plant his booted feet underneath him, thinking to gain leverage and then propel himself up to the surface.
Then he saw it.
The object, whatever it was, gleamed dully in the darkness just a few feet away. Driven purely by curiosity, Arthur pushed himself through the icy cold water with several smooth and graceful strokes, drawing him ever closer to the object until finally his vampiric vision could see it for what it truly was.
A sword.
Not just any sword, Arthur thought as he squatted down against the resistance of the water and slowly scooped the weapon up by its hilt. This was the sword of a European officer, most likely a Frenchman if he was any judge, and although it was impossible to ascertain how finely balanced the blade was while submerged under water, Arthur could tell from the intricate nature of its design that somebody had lavished a great deal of time and money on bringing this particular sword to life, for the metal of the blade was heavily interlaced with silver.
Well, imagine that…my blade is gone, lost to the battlefield above us. I fancy that this shall make a more than suitable replacement.
Without warning, the great cat suddenly came at him out of the darkness, her face a mask of blood and rage. In the glimpse afforded to him in the instant bef
ore she struck, Arthur just barely had time to see the damage inflicted upon her once-proud and haughty features by the fall that had broken most of his own bones, and must therefore have taken a crippling toll upon hers. One eye was missing from its socket, which now poured a trail of inky black blood into the surrounding water. Jamelia had also lost several teeth, probably smashed from their sockets by the impact; and yet she still had ample teeth remaining to inflict the most horrific of injuries upon him, a fact that was reinforced quickly as tiger claws sank into the flesh of Arthur’s shoulders, sending fresh waves of pain lancing through him. Her mouth gaped wide before him, now seeming to come at him at the slowest of slow speeds as time distorted itself in this cold, dark underwater place.
Arthur felt as though he was struggling through sticky molasses rather than water. He was fighting to bring his newly-acquired sword up and into the guard position in order to fend off his feline nemesis, yet he was too late, for as the claws sunk into his shoulders and fractured one of his clavicles, it was all he could do to bring the blade up and around in an arc towards the creature’s left side. Even then, he knew that it was going to be late, far too late; and yet he had to try, for that was what was expected of a King’s officer, to never surrender in the face of the enemy, and so as the yawning abyss came slowly forward towards his grimacing face, closing out the entire world to his senses except for that rancid, bleeding maw, Major General Arthur Wellesley rammed the tip of the French blade into the side of the looming tigress with every ounce of strength that he had left.
The Last Stand
When the first fingers of sunlight emerged to stain the lightening eastern sky, signifying the imminent arrival of a cold, grey dawn, one thing was painfully apparent to both the British and Indian combatants alike: the bodies of the dead were slowly emerging as the true victors on the field of Assaye.
Goddess of the Dead (Wellington Undead Book 2) Page 28