Empire of the Moghul: The Tainted Throne Read Free Page A

impetus of his downhill charge carried the rider onwards, Jahangir twisted in the saddle and caught him with a hard backhand sword slash deep into the flesh and bone of his upper arm, almost severing the limb. Losing control of his mount, the youth careered downhill towards Jahangir’s camp until he was knocked from his saddle by a well-aimed shot from one of Jahangir’s musketeers, stationed by Ismail Amal behind the shelter of an overturned baggage wagon to protect the camp.
    Looking about him with eyes now as sharply focused as usual, Jahangir saw that the other attackers had either been despatched or had retreated back up the ridge. Several bodies were strewn on the ground. Nearby, spreadeagled on hisback, was a tall, saffron-robed man with a grizzled beard. A lance protruded bloodily from his belly. Jahangir recognised Tuhin Singh, one of his most loyal bodyguards – a Rajput from his mother’s homeland of Amber. The man had guarded him for nearly a quarter of a century and now had given his life in battle for him. Only a few yards away, a slighter figure was twisting and writhing convulsively in the red dust, kicking his heels and clutching at his abdomen from which a skein of blue-red intestines was escaping. He was screaming in his agony for his mother. With a sharp intake of breath, Jahangir recognised the contorted beardless face as that of Imran, an even younger brother of Aziz Koka. He could be no more than thirteen years old and would surely never see another dawn.
    Fury at Khusrau, Aziz Koka and their fellow conspirators for causing so many deaths in their reckless hunger for power before their due time overwhelmed Jahangir. With a shout to Suleiman Beg and his bodyguard to follow, Jahangir kicked the chestnut up the slope. Soon he was smashing into the fray, hacking and cutting around him. A spray of warm blood from the neck of a rider he had struck with the full impact of his sword Alamgir caught him in the face and temporarily blinded him again. Quickly wiping away the blood with the sleeve of his tunic, he charged further into the heaving melee, surrounded by shouts and screams and the clash of weapon on weapon.
    The acrid smell of sweat and gunpowder smoke filled his nostrils and red dust in the air stung his eyes so that he could scarcely distinguish friend from foe. But he pushed onward with his bodyguard and Suleiman Beg in close attendance. With a final stroke of Alamgir, which caught oneof Khusrau’s men full on the kneecap, cutting deep into cartilage and sinew and almost jolting the sword from his hand once more, Jahangir was through the first line of battle. Looking up he saw that Khusrau’s tents were now only four hundred yards away on the crest. However, as he watched, a large body of riders left them and disappeared down the other side of the ridge. As they went he saw – or thought he saw – Khusrau at their centre.
    ‘After them. The cowards are fleeing,’ he shouted to Suleiman Beg and his bodyguard, kicking the flanks of his chestnut mount as he did so. However, the animal was already blowing hard, nostrils flaring from its exertions in the previous fight, and unlike the fine white horse it had replaced it was not of the highest quality and stamina. By the time he reached the crest, Jahangir found that the fleeing group were already crashing into a line of his men stationed at the base of the ridge. After only a few moments, they burst through, losing only a single rider whose mount galloped on, reins dangling, after the rest who, still in close formation, were heading north across the plain.
    Kicking the chestnut on again, Jahangir set off in what in his heart he now thought would be a futile pursuit. His son was going to escape. Why hadn’t he allocated more of his reserve to forestall any break-out? Then to his intense relief he saw another band of horsemen with green Moghul banners – not the purple Khusrau claimed as his emblem – appear from the west on an interception