The Tiger's Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  A heavy blow shook the earth under them. Tom flinched instinctively, fearing that the castle’s defenders had spied their preparations and opened fire. But the walls on this side were silent and dark. All the battle was being waged down in the bay.

  Three great war elephants paraded out between the men and halted at their head. Apart from their footfall, they made no sound. Tom marvelled at the animals’ training, that they could keep so quiet.

  Shahuji slid easily down from the lead elephant’s back and came to Tom.

  ‘Are you ready to lead the assault?’

  Tom started. ‘I thought you—’

  Shahuji spread his hands. ‘This is your battle. You asked for my army: I give it to you. If you mean to go through with this plan?’

  ‘I must.’

  ‘The breach in the walls is not low enough,’ Shahuji warned. ‘My gunners wanted another week at least to make it passable.’

  ‘We can climb it,’ Tom insisted.

  Shahuji nodded. He gestured to the elephant he had dismounted.

  ‘If that is your course, then here is your mount.’

  Tom stared at the beast. There was no doubting it was magnificent, terrifying: a creature to strike fear into any enemy. But it made a vast, cumbersome target. Up on its back, he would be easy prey for every gunner and marksman in the castle.

  Shahuji read his thoughts. ‘The men need to know their commander is with them,’ he said softly. ‘If they cannot see you, they will fear you have given up the fight. And if you will not fight, why should they?’

  More cannon fire sounded from down in the bay. Tom felt the eyes of the army watching him. He had no time to argue.

  ‘It is safer than you think,’ said Shahuji. ‘A war elephant is different from a hunting elephant.’

  The mahout made the beast squat, and Tom clambered on. At once, he saw what Shahuji had meant. The ornate howdah he had used on the tiger hunt was gone. In its place was an armoured box, sheathed with iron plates and with a falconet mounted on a swivel at the front.

  Mohite clambered in behind him, while the mahout crouched in the front of the box. The elephant rose and began to move. Peering down, Tom saw the army surge forward around them. The men in the front rank were utterly naked. Their bodies were smeared with ashes, their hair torn and wild. They writhed and twisted, their dappled bodies like smoke in the night.

  ‘Who are they?’ he asked Mohite.

  ‘Ghosias,’ the hubladar answered. ‘They are untouchables, devotees of Shiva the destroyer. Madmen who fear nothing.’

  A howl rose in their throats: an inhuman wail that chilled the sweat on Tom’s brow. The ghosias slapped their chests with the flats of their swords.

  ‘Angria will hear us coming,’ Tom fretted.

  ‘You cannot stop them,’ Mohite said. ‘It has already begun.’

  As they spoke, their advance had gathered pace, moving down the hill and towards the neck of land that led out to the promontory. The fires in the bay lit up the night sky, casting a ghoulish glow. From the elephant’s back, Tom could look down into the anchorage and saw the battle raging. One of the big grabs had broken loose from its moorings and was drifting towards the sea. Another had caught fire. He could not see Francis’ boats – though the water was strewn with wreckage and the bodies of drowning men.

  The iron box rang like a bell as a musket ball struck the armour plating. Tom ducked, cursing himself. They were already in range. Angria’s men were not sleeping. They had seen the Marathas approaching, and hurried to their defences. Now, they poured their fire across the little isthmus. Cannon balls tore through the Maratha ranks. Tom saw one of the ghosias, still capering like a berserker, plucked out of the air and smashed backwards into the men behind. His companions howled and ran forward.

  The isthmus had become a killing ground. Men were dying all around Tom. Another cannon ball flew a few feet from the elephant’s head. The beast twitched its ears, put down its head and lumbered forward. Musket balls struck it, but they did little harm. Tom knew from experience on the plains of Africa how even at close range, a ball might do little more than take the dust off the animal’s hide.

  But they stirred its temper. The enraged elephant charged forward. The howdah bounced on its back like a small boat in a storm, shuddering with the impact of each massive step. The wind of their passage rushed past Tom’s ears. The iron plating rang with the impact of other bullets. As Tom had feared, it made an easy target. The defenders knew where he must be. But the beast’s size also offered protection. The Marathas flocked in behind the animal, using its bulk to shield them from the men on the walls. It reached the kalargi trees planted before the walls and crashed through them, leaving a splintered path in its wake.

  The elephant slowed. Tom risked a glance above the rim of the box. They had come right up to the walls, though at terrible cost. Bodies lay strewn behind them all across the promontory.

  The cannon had mostly fallen silent, but the musket fire was fiercer than ever. Now, the men on the walls were almost directly above the elephant. Tom leaped out and slid down the elephant’s flanks. To his right, he saw the spikes protruding from the gate, long enough to deter even the proudest elephant. Ahead, a rubble slope rose towards the breach in the walls.

  Tom’s heart sank. From the watchtower on the hill, the breach had looked manageable. From the bottom, with musket balls flying all around, it looked like a mountain. He remembered Shahuji’s warning – my gunners wanted another week at least.

  But he could not doubt himself now. One whole section of wall had come down intact, sliding down and landing at the bottom of the slope as a makeshift barricade. He ran there and crouched behind it.

  Men ran by. The ghosias had suffered terrible casualties approaching the walls, but they had not lost their will to fight. Catlike, they jumped onto the rubble and began hauling themselves up towards the breach.

  Tom felt ashamed. He could not cower behind shelter, while other men risked their lives for his family. A desperate madness overcame him, some taint of the frenzy of the ghosias infecting his blood. He sprang out from behind the piece of wall and charged up the slope. Loose stones slipped away under his feet; musket fire crashed around him, but it was all drowned by the blood pounding in his ears. All that mattered was gaining the summit. He was almost there. One more stride up the treacherous slope and—

  The rock he stood on gave way. It slipped down the slope in a shower of loose stones, sweeping his feet from under him. He fell hard, knocking the breath from his lungs and slid away. Dust and mortar filled his mouth.

  But the ghosias had done their work. Carried on by their destroyer god, they had reached the top. Their success dismayed the defenders: and the rate of fire coming from the castle slowed. The ghosias capered triumphantly in the breach, bellowing their war cry.

  All at once, a deeper sound obliterated it. It was the roar of cannons. Angria had known they would make for the breach. He had placed cannons behind it, loaded with grape shot and musket balls, ready to greet any attacker who fought his way to the top.

  Tom, still sprawled on the slope below, saw the blast of the cannon like a flash of lightning behind the breach. He stared, sickened, as the men at the top disintegrated in an instant. A cloud of flesh and limbs rained down around him.

  If I had not slipped, I would be one of them. But Tom had no time to be thankful for his escape. Now was the time to move, before the guns behind the wall were reloaded.

  He found his sword, pushed himself to his feet and lunged up the slope. Leaping from rock to rock, too fast to let them pull him back, he charged.

  A noise rose lower down the slope, a shout that began with a single voice and was rapidly taken up by others. ‘Har! Har! Mahadev!’ The men behind him had been shocked to a standstill by the cannon blast. Now, they gained new hope. They followed him up, chanting the Maratha battle cry. Those who had lost their weapons scooped up rubble and pelted any defender who dared show his face. Others hurled their spears
, threading the gaps between the battlements to strike down the pirates who lurked there.

  Tom reached the top of the slope and stepped into the breach. Mohite followed a pace behind. A pirate came at them with a bayonet, but the hubladar swung his mace and crushed his skull like a ripe melon.

  For a moment, the two men stood atop the broken wall, in the valley between two towers. They stared down into the courtyard, lit by the light of many torches and braziers. Tom licked his lips, and tasted the dry bitterness of the turmeric smeared over his face.

  He raised his sword to the heavens in triumph, and bellowed out the battle cry with his men. ‘Har! Har! Mahadev!’ God is with us!

  They had breached the castle. Now he had to find Sarah and Agnes.

  Far below, the sounds of battle carried down through the rock into the depths of the castle dungeon, thunderous groans and muffled roars magnified beyond recognition. Dust and pebbles slithered down the walls, shaken loose by the reverberations. It was like being in the belly of some monstrous leviathan.

  Agnes and Sarah were alone. The guards had come earlier and taken Lydia away, as they did on so many evenings. The first time it happened, Agnes had stayed awake all night, imagining the things the pirates must be doing to her. But when Lydia returned, she shrugged off Agnes’ concern. In fact, she seemed to be smiling. From this, and other brazen hints she dropped, Agnes deduced she had taken a lover among the pirates.

  She did not condemn Lydia for it. They all did what they had to to survive. Agnes would never have done the same – but she had not entirely resigned herself to her fate. Sitting in the gloom, she worked at the lock of her manacles with a small iron nail. She had found it embedded in the rock, a remnant of some door or bracket that had once been fastened there. It had taken her a week, to pry it loose, cutting her nails to the quick and chaffing her fingertips bloody, working only when Lydia was away lest she betray them to her lover.

  Now she had it. Lydia had gone, and so had the guards who usually manned the iron gate. At first she had wondered why; later, when the guns erupted, she guessed Angria had withdrawn them for the battle. That gave her efforts fresh urgency. She could not know that Tom and Francis were outside the walls, that even at that moment Tom was mounting the great war elephant. All she knew was that the castle was under attack.

  She had been married to a soldier for twenty years. She understood what the invaders would do to two women, chained and helpless, if the castle fell.

  Beside her, Sarah moaned and shifted her weight. She could no longer roll over. Her belly swelled out of her malnourished body, the skin stretched so tight Agnes feared it might burst open. The baby must be near its term. That gave Agnes added urgency: she did not dare think what sport the pirates would make with a baby born in their dungeon. With her numb, broken fingers, she worked the sliver of iron into the lock of the manacles. She had been doing this for over an hour, prying into the lock, probing for anything in the mechanism that would give. Occasionally, the nail seemed to snag something and hope caught in her chest. But each time, when she applied pressure, it lost its purchase and slid off without effect.

  The rumbling coming through the rock seemed to grow deeper. Silt shivered off the walls. The battle was coming to its climax. Almost in despair, she jabbed the nail into the keyhole again. Blood from her torn fingers dribbled into the lock. Before, she had not dared apply too much force for fear of snapping the nail. Now, desperation made her careless. She leaned on the nail with all the force her thin arms could muster, driving it with the frustration of months of captivity.

  The lock gave. The shackle sprang open and dropped off, so quickly it bruised her knee. She stared at it, dangling from her other arm, hardly able to comprehend her freedom. It was the first time in months she had seen her wrist. The skin was bruised black and raw, almost too tender to touch.

  Unsteadily, she rose to her feet. Sarah was still asleep, and there was no point waking her yet. Agnes stole through the caves to the iron gate that barred the way to the stairs. Another lock – but this time there was a key, hanging from a hook in the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Summoned in haste to the castle’s defence, the guards had overlooked it.

  Agnes could not reach it. But she had the manacle, still dangling from her right wrist. She slid her arm out through the bars, then tossed the loose end of the manacle towards the hook like casting a fishing line.

  It struck the wall, just below the hook, with a clang that echoed up the staircase. She tried again, and again the shackle missed.

  By now, she felt sure someone must have heard it – but that only redoubled her determination. Concentrating as hard as she could, she fixed her gaze on the key and threw.

  The shackle caught the key-ring and whipped it off the hook. It clattered to the ground. Using the shackle once more, Agnes dragged it across the floor until it was close enough for her to grab it. She put it in the lock – and the door opened.

  Now to get Sarah out. But before she could return to their chamber, a wrenching cry rang out through the caverns. Her sister’s voice. She ran back.

  Sarah lay on the floor, curled into a ball, hugging her knees against her distended belly. She breathed hard, trying to hold in a deep and wounding pain.

  She could not. A rending sob of agony tore out of her. She tipped back her head, biting her lip until it bled.

  Agnes knew what that sound portended. In Bombay, and later in Brinjoan, she had volunteered as an assistant with the surgeon when he tended women in childbirth. She had held their hands, and mopped their faces, and whispered encouragement in their ears. Sometimes, she had presented the happy mother with a newborn babe at the end of it. Other times, it had all been in vain.

  All thoughts of escape were forgotten. She could not move Sarah now. She ripped Sarah’s dress open, all the way from neck to hem, and spread it out to cover the filthy floor. Sarah writhed on the cloth. A sheen of sweat covered her naked skin, glowing in the dim light.

  The screams came more often. Agnes counted the gaps between them. She knew from experience that the labour was advancing quickly. Sarah was not yet ready to push – but it would not be long now.

  More cannon fire rumbled through the rocks. Then, near at hand, Agnes heard running footsteps approaching down the stairs.

  ‘What shall we do?’

  Francis gazed between the boom ahead, and the flotilla of boats closing behind. He had no time to choose. The big grabs astern ran out their bow chasers. The boom rushed closer.

  ‘We must put about,’ Merridew shouted. ‘Otherwise we will do their work for them and drown ourselves.’

  ‘But then we will put ourselves back among the grabs. They will blast us to pieces.’

  ‘Better to risk death than guarantee it.’

  Francis stared wildly around. And as he did so, his gaze caught the extremities of the boom. On one end, it was fastened to the small fort that guarded the far side of the bay. But on the other, it ran right up to the rocks at the foot of the castle. There, by the light of the bonfires, Francis saw a small jetty – and a gate leading in to the cliff.

  ‘Alter course to larboard,’ he ordered.

  Merridew started turning the wheel before he finished speaking. But as the bow came around, Francis grabbed the wheel and pushed it back.

  ‘We are not coming about,’ he said. ‘Steer for the rocks where the boom is fastened.’

  ‘But we’ll smash ourselves to bits.’

  Francis gave a manic grin. He had thrown off the uncertainty that gripped him; he knew this was the only chance.

  ‘We are going ashore.’

  Their ship sailed across the mouth of the bay. Now she was beam on to the approaching fleet: a fat, unmissable target. Shots struck her sides, ripping her bulwarks to splinters. The pirates in the gallivats, seeing they had her penned against the boom, increased the tempo of their oars. Angria would pay an extra bounty to the crew who were first aboard.

  ‘What if we run aground before we reach the jetty
?’ Merridew asked. ‘Tide’s running out. We’d be as easy a prize as you could wish for.’

  ‘Then we will have to swim for it.’

  Merridew knuckled his forehead and ran to the rigging. Directing the men, he had them brace the yard around for their new heading. Though the sail was rent with many holes, the ship made more headway. Francis set the men to cutting away the broken wreckage that dragged in the water. He wanted every ounce of speed, to drive the ship as far up on the rocks as he could.

  Now they were under attack from a different quarter. The pirates on the jetty had seen their approach and realized what Francis intended. By the light of a fire, he saw them frantically levering one of their cannons with hand spikes, trying to bring it to bear. Others knelt and peppered them with fire from their matchlocks.

  Francis ran forward to the bow chasers. Under cover of the high forecastle, they were well protected from the musket fire. He urged the crews on as they reloaded.

  Crouching beside the big gun, he peered out through the gun port. The men on the jetty had manhandled their cannon into position, and were now desperately trying to load. It was like a duel played out in quarter-time, each side racing to get their shot off before the other.

  The grab fired first. The guns belched fire and leaped back on their tackles. But the noise was lost in a greater roar as the grab hit the shore full on. Her shallow draft had allowed her to come so close, her bow smashed open and drove forward, higher and higher up on to the rocks. The men were thrown to the deck. Francis just missed having his leg crushed by a cannon as it rolled loose on the tilting deck.

  ‘Up!’ he shouted. ‘Up and at them!’

  The grab’s flat, open bow had been designed for boarding other vessels. Now, it made a clear ramp, projecting over the rocks all the way to the jetty. With Francis in the lead, the Marathas rushed over it. They leaped off the end, bellowing their war cry, and set about the defenders.

  The bow chasers’ last salvo had done its work. The pirate’s cannon was upended, and its crew sprawled in their own blood. The attackers made short work of the remainder. Francis stabbed one of them through the heart, looked around, and realized there were no enemies left alive.