The Place of Dead Kings

by Geoffrey Wilson

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You know, about Mahajan taking these lands.’

  Christ. Jack didn’t want another argument now. ‘We can talk about it some other—’

  ‘No, no.’ Rao raised his hand. ‘I agree with you. This place is the home of the Mar. They know every bit of it. Like Cormac said, it’s inside them. If that’s how the English feel about England, then maybe the empire wasn’t right to annex the country.’

  Jack sat back. He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t believed a Rajthanan could ever say such a thing. ‘You’ve had a change of heart.’

  ‘You got me thinking. You know, long ago the Rajthanans were conquered. Mohammedans from the north took our lands. But Jaidev Chauhan and the siddhas led us to victory against the sultans. We freed our lands and Rajthana has never been invaded since.’

  ‘I’ve heard about it a few times.’ Jhala had told Jack the story on numerous occasions.

  Rao nodded and looked straight at Jack. ‘I just wanted you to know. In case . . .’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Jack patted Rao on the shoulder. ‘I understand.’

  28

  Jack heard the harsh rasp of a crow. He peered through the leafless trees. Thick mist had settled over the countryside during the night and rubbed out most of the world. He could only see clearly thirty feet ahead of him.

  The crow cawed again.

  The Mar warrior beside Jack cupped his hands around his mouth and gave a return cry that was a perfect imitation of the bird’s call. When the crow in the distance rasped again, the warrior grinned, grasped Jack’s cloak and pointed excitedly into the mist.

  Jack understood what the man was trying to tell him and in less than a minute three Mar warriors materialised in the fog, scrambled down the slope and entered the trees. It was Cormac and the other two who’d gone scouting earlier.

  Jack crossed himself and mumbled a Hail Mary. The three of them had been gone for so long he’d started to think they’d run into trouble.

  He glanced behind him at the three hundred warriors who crouched in the forest in a scattered line. With their cloaks drawn over them, they were well camouflaged against the muddy earth, rocks and undergrowth. They gripped their spears and stared around them, their faces silvered. Wooden ladders lay along the ground beside them. They’d built these the night before, binding the branches together with whatever they could lay their hands on – rope, vines, pieces of cloth.

  Pain flared in Jack’s chest. He grunted, shut his eyes, and waited a few seconds for it to recede.

  Cormac and the others clambered through the woods and squatted beside him.

  ‘See no Cattans.’ Cormac panted. ‘Safe to move.’

  ‘Good,’ Jack said. ‘Looks like we’ve made it without being seen. And the castle?’

  Cormac pointed ahead at the dark smudge of a saddle between the hills. ‘Over there. Other side.’

  ‘The castle’s on the other side of that slope?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Jack looked up. The sun was lost behind the fog, the light diffuse, as if coming from no particular direction. ‘You think it’s noon yet?’

  Cormac looked up. ‘Aye. Noon now.’

  Jack trusted Cormac’s judgement. The Mar were even better at living in the wilderness than he was. They were no doubt used to gauging the time in these conditions.

  If it were noon, then it was time to move. All going well, Rao and the rest of the Mar would now be looking down at the castle from the far side of the valley. Mahajan and his men would have seen them massing in the hills, but that was all part of the plan. At Rao’s command, the Mar would pour down the hill and rush at the castle gate. Cormac had found another warrior who knew enough English to act as a translator, but it would hardly be necessary. Rao just had to point and say one word: ‘Charge.’

  Jack couldn’t hear the sound of guns or muskets. The attack hadn’t started yet. Rao had his watch, so his timing would be precise. But the assault would come soon. In the next few minutes, Jack was sure.

  Pain rushed through him again. He twisted his face.

  Cormac put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. ‘Problem?’

  Jack did his best to force back the stabbing sensation. ‘It’s nothing.’

  Within a few seconds the worst of it had passed.

  Several of the Mar muttered and pointed ahead. Jack looked up and spotted a flake of glowing ash drifting down from the sky and lighting up the surrounding mist. Further flakes followed. Soon a swarm of the shining dots sailed across the hills, bobbing and dipping before eventually spiralling to the earth.

  The wind must have changed direction. He hadn’t seen any ash during the journey so far.

  The warriors grumbled more loudly.

  ‘They say spirits,’ Cormac said.

  ‘Tell them not to be afraid,’ Jack replied. ‘The Great Shee will protect us.’

  Cormac whispered the words to the nearest men, who passed the message on down the line. This seemed to have the desired effect as the warriors quietened.

  ‘Right.’ Jack took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go.’

  The men cast aside their cloaks and hid them in the undergrowth. Jack did the same – it would be easier to climb without the heavy garment. A few of the Mar were dressed in padded tunics, but most wore the usual knee-length garb with bare legs.

  Yet again Jack marvelled at their hardiness. The elements seemed to have no effect on these people. No wonder Rao had become so fascinated by them.

  At Jack’s command, they crept forward out of the woods and into the open. Jack and Cormac were at the head of the party, while the others followed in a broken column. Jack had done little planning or given the men many instructions. They were to get over the saddle, charge at the castle, raise the ladders, fight and spike the guns. That was it.

  He wondered briefly what tactics Jhala would have used. Would he have approved of Jack’s strategy? What other strategy was there? Jack had come up with the best plan he could given the circumstances. It was too late to have second thoughts now.

  The scimitar swung at his side as he moved. The pistol and the knife nestled on the other side of his belt.

  The mist coiled about him, brushing his face and beading his clothes and hair. The phosphorescent ash fell in curtains. One flake circled close to his face, giving off a faint ringing sound. Another descended on to Cormac’s tunic and vanished as it touched the cloth.

  This close to the castle, the scent of sattva was strong again. The streams were thick and constantly sent Jack’s skin quivering.

  Pain stabbed Jack’s chest. He stumbled, regained his footing and carried on. Cormac frowned but said nothing.

  The scarp loomed ahead. It was a short distance to the top of the saddle, but the incline was steep and smothered in trees. It would be a difficult scramble up . . .

  Then Cormac gave a sudden roar that made Jack jump. The tall man raised the side of his tunic. A hole had been torn in the cloth and an arrow now quivered in the ground directly behind him. The missile must have missed his body by an inch.

  Jack heard a hiss and a second arrow slipped out of the fog. The metal head and feather flights spun as the missile plunged straight towards him.

  Christ.

  He dodged to the side. The arrow hummed past and speared the earth a couple of feet behind him.

  The air suddenly came alive with whirring missiles. They criss-crossed the mist like flying insects. The warriors behind Jack shouted. One man thudded to the ground and squirmed, an arrow lodged deep in his throat. Another slumped to the side with a missile in his thigh. Arrows danced off the heather and rocks.

  Jack scanned the way ahead and could just make out dim shapes moving at the top of the saddle.

  Damn. Mahajan’s forces had somehow seen them approaching.

  Cormac wailed. ‘I fail. I look. No see.’

  ‘You did your best. They must have been hiding near the castle and come up after you left. A patrol must have seen us. They knew w
e were coming.’

  An arrow smacked into an ash flake and sent sparks flying. Another skipped across the ground and slid past Jack’s boot.

  Jack fought back a rising tide of pain. Retreat wasn’t an option. Rao and the others would attack soon and would be slaughtered if Jack and his men couldn’t get into the castle and spike the guns.

  There was only one thing for it.

  He drew his scimitar, raised it above his head and did what Jhala or any other officer would have done – he shouted, ‘Charge!’

  Then he was running towards the trees, straight into the blizzard of missiles. Glinting ash sang around him, arrows whined past and the blood roared in his ears. He kept shouting and the sound of his own frenzied voice carried him forward.

  Cormac began running a second after Jack, but soon caught up and bellowed a war cry. His eyes bulged, his mouth opened in a snarl and the veins in his neck and forehead stood out like tree roots.

  Jack was dimly aware that the Mar warriors were charging behind him. He could hear their shouts, the thud, thud of their feet and the occasional scream as one of them was hit.

  A skirl of pipes sailed down from the hills. He was close enough to the slope now to make out the figures massing on the hilltop.

  He reached the bottom of the scarp and bolted into the woods. The branches meshed about him, and the undergrowth and vines clung to his legs. He slipped, grasped at the damp ground, regained his footing and charged on.

  Looking to the side, he saw Cormac loping uphill, smacking aside bushes that got in his way. When Jack glanced back over his shoulder, he saw the first of the Mar flooding into the forest and scrambling up the incline, with more appearing from the mist all the time.

  A storm of arrows pelted the trees and bounced off branches. One pierced a trunk next to Jack. Others stabbed the ground or snapped on rocks. But at least the woods provided a degree of cover.

  The slope steepened and Jack had to put his scimitar back in his belt and clamber up on his hands and knees. Mud and dead leaves splattered him in the face. He tasted wet earth in his mouth. His fingers tore at the ground in an effort to stop himself slipping backwards.

  The pain beat like a hammer in his chest. He felt himself choking a few times and even thought he would black out.

  But somehow he kept going.

  A great rumble rolled through the earth. He felt it in his hands as he grabbed at the ground. Two further rumbles followed, the sound clapping between the hills.

  Gunfire.

  The assault on the castle must have begun.

  Cormac stalled and stared up the hill. The Mar warriors also slowed their pace, their mouths hanging open and their eyes white with fear.

  ‘Keep going!’ Jack shouted. ‘The Great Shee will protect us!’

  Cormac took a huge breath and bawled out the words in Gaalic. He shook his spear at the enemy ranged somewhere above. Then he charged on up the hill, the other Mar following.

  Jack scrambled to keep up. Cormac was already ten feet ahead of him and other warriors were slipping past him to either side.

  A dense crackling erupted further up the scarp. Jack spotted dabs of flame blinking through the trees.

  Muskets.

  The Cattans had muskets.

  Bullets shredded twigs, slashed branches, slapped into tree trunks. The ground ahead of him rippled and kicked up leaves and specks of dirt. Flakes of ash spun and whirled as balls whipped past them. A warrior near Jack gave a choking cry and fell. Another doubled over as he caught a bullet in his stomach.

  The muskets spluttered again and hailed more balls down into the woods.

  Jack struggled on. He had to get up the slope, get in amongst the Cattans. He would kill them, as many as he could, because now it didn’t matter if he died, only that he got to the top of this scarp and took as many of the enemy with him as he could.

  He heard chimes of steel, shouts, screams, groans. And then he was running out of the trees and up the final approach to the summit. Many of the Mar were already there and battering into a line of Cattans. Men wrestled, swung swords, and lunged with spears or knives. Jack could barely tell which side was which – only the occasional flash of a white skull on a tunic gave him any indication.

  A Mar warrior, with blood covering his face, staggered towards him, then fell to the ground. A Cattan lay nearby, grasping at the air and moaning.

  Jack paused to gauge the situation. The Cattans had dropped their muskets and now fought with swords and axes. The Mar had only their spears and knives, but they outnumbered the Cattans by two to one. Now that Jack’s men had reached the summit they could win this battle.

  He heard a roar nearby and spun round in time to see a Cattan swinging a giant axe at him. He ducked and the blade whistled past just above his head. In a fluid movement, he drew the pistol, cocked it and fired, all before the Cattan had regained his balance. The bullet smacked into the Cattan’s stomach and a stripe of blood sprayed Jack. The Cattan grunted and gazed at the wound. Then he looked back at Jack and stumbled forward again, his face twisted with rage.

  Jack cocked the hammer, the cylinder spinning, and fired again. Flame and smoke jetted from the pistol and the Cattan’s chest spat blood. The man staggered backwards, then lurched forward again and collapsed on Jack.

  Jack fell back with the man on top of him. He could smell the Cattan’s dank hair and the wet-sheep stench of his cloak. The Cattan gargled, coughed blood into Jack’s face, tried to rise, couldn’t and finally lay still.

  Jack heaved the man aside and scrambled back to his feet.

  Cormac ran up to him. ‘Hurt?’

  Jack shook his head. ‘I’m all right.’

  Swiping the blood from his face, he looked around. The battle was over. About a hundred Mar and Cattans lay on the ground, some squirming in pain, others still. But the remaining Cattans were fleeing into the mist.

  How many Mar were left? From a quick look, he thought at least two hundred stood panting on the summit. Not many, but it would have to do.

  Several warriors were giving high-pitched cries and pointing down the other side of the hill. It was only now that Jack took a moment to take in the scene. Below him, a gentle slope slid down into the murk. The rest of the valley beyond was clotted with mist, but in the centre, the dark bulk of the castle rose from the hill. In the fog, the building was hallucinatory, the towers and chimneys wavering and uncertain, the shining ash wheeling about it.

  An orange flash lit up one side of the castle for a moment. A boom shuddered across the valley. Two further flashes followed in rapid succession. Each glow was blurred by the mist, as if the explosions were underwater.

  The battle for the castle’s main gate was continuing. Somewhere on the far side of the hill, Rao, Domnall and the others were attacking.

  Jack found himself whispering a prayer for them.

  A few of the Mar were trying to tend to their wounded comrades. But Jack knew there was no time to waste. The fallen would have to fend for themselves until the battle was over.

  He wrenched out the scimitar and shouted, ‘To the castle!’

  He sprinted down the slope, smashing through thistles and leaping over clumps of gorse, holding the blade above his head as he’d seen Jhala do so many times. That was the way to lead a company. From the front. Scimitar in hand.

  The Mar roared and followed him. He heard the beat of their feet on the ground and the wild cheering from their lips. Soon they’d caught up to him and a few began to inch ahead.

  The scaling parties rushed out in front, bearing the long, roughly made ladders beside them. If they got just one ladder up and secure, that was enough. With one ladder and a few men you could create a breach in a fortress’s defences.

  The Mar swarmed to the bottom of the hill and charged across the valley floor. The castle was no more than half a mile away, being much closer to the hills on this side of the valley. Gunfire flickered behind the towers, silhouetting the tortured metal and stonework. The pounding nois
e tumbled across the open ground.

  A speck of ash flashed in Jack’s face and he spat to blow it away. A ripple of pain made him stumble, but he shook his head, growled and pressed on.

  The castle wall reared up ahead. It was only around seven hundred yards away now. Jack flicked a look across at Cormac and the tall man grinned back, his eyes feverish.

  They were going to make it.

  Then a copper flash burst on top of the wall. Jack heard the telltale shriek of a round shot, although he could see nothing through the mist. More flashes shivered along the ramparts. And then the balls came screaming through the murk. They appeared suddenly, swooping down like hawks.

  A ball hit the ground ahead of Jack and bounced up over his head. Another slammed into a warrior just along from him. The man’s body flew apart in a cloud of red and one of his arms went cartwheeling through the air.

  Jack heard wet thumps and cries all about him as men were struck down.

  Christ. There were far more guns on this side of the wall than he’d anticipated. Mahajan must have believed Jack’s force was larger than it really was. The only consolation was that Rao’s troops would be facing an easier battle on the other side of the castle.

  The guns continued to flare across the wall. And now specks of fire arced down through the fog.

  Shells.

  The first explosion ripped open the mist high overhead. Orange flame, with a white heart, punched the dark. Musket balls and fragments whistled through the air. A second shell slapped the ground several yards ahead of Jack and sent up a sheet of fire and earth. The blast pummelled him with hot air, almost knocking him off his feet, and a shell fragment whirled past to his left.

  Cormac growled and waved his fist at the enemy.

  The shells and round shot howled all around them. Flashes burnt Jack’s eyes and powder smoke stung his nostrils. The wound seethed in his chest and his eyes ran as he charged deeper into the globe of sattva encircling the castle.

  Darkness rushed over him for a second. He lost his breath, struggled for air, then said a Hail Mary in his head and pulled himself together.