by Chris Paton
“Again. I will get it this time.” Hari leaned further over the ledge. A volley of incoming fire thwacked into the rocks, the lead balls embedding in the walls of the pass. Jamie jumped again, slipping the rifle from his grasp. Hari reached for it, grasped the stock and slipped, his body tumbling sideways. Hanging from the ledge by his right hand, Hari held the rifle in his left.
“Hari?” Jamie ducked as a musket ball split the air above his head.
“I am all right, British,” Hari shouted. “I am thinking of joining the circus.”
“What?” Jamie reached for his backpack and dragged it across the rocks to his side. Unfastening the canvas lid, he pulled out a pistol. “Hari, I think you should drop down to me.” Jamie primed the pistol and loaded it.
“No,” Hari called out. “I think I can get up again.”
Splintering the boulders and rocks on the ledge above Hari, a volley of fire blew grit, dust and sand into the mystic’s face. Hari’s grip failed, his fingers bloodied and torn by the splinters of rock showering the trail. He fell.
Chapter 3
The Cabool River
Afghanistan
December, 1850
The snow teased Lev Bryullov’s view of the two horses trudging alongside the Cabool River in front of him. Bryullov chewed on a plug of tobacco, a habit he had picked up from a Yankee spy he had caught in Saint Petersburg the previous spring. The interrogation, he recalled, had been interesting but revealed nothing of the American’s interest in Central Asia. Bryullov had kept the man’s supply of tobacco. He could not recall what had become of the man. Slavery most likely, Bryullov mused.
Bryullov urged his horse forward with a sharp jab of his heel. “Najma,” he grabbed the reins of the warlord daughter’s horse as he drew close. “This is not the way to the pass. Look there, girl,” he pointed to the west. “There is the gap and the way into the mountains.”
“Yes,” Najma slapped Bryullov’s hands from her reins. “If you want to die, it is a good place to enter the mountains.” She waited for Bryullov to respond. “The Pathaan hold the gap to the Khyber Pass. They tax all travellers entering the mountains, and then they kill them.”
“But we are very exposed here,” Bryullov glanced at the mountains on both sides.
“Yes,” Najma turned in her saddle. “But it is faster to travel along the river. There is no need to enter the pass.”
Bryullov released his grip on the reins of Najma’s horse. “You could have taken me there, and have been done with me. Why didn’t you?”
“I thought about it,” Najma stared at the Russian. “My father is friends with the Pathaan.”
“So why didn’t you?”
Najma grinned. “I don’t often get to travel alone, without my brother, father or my uncles. It would be boring if we had to stop so soon.”
“I see,” Bryullov chuckled. “And where do you think we are going?”
“Adina Pur,” Najma shrugged. “You told my father.”
“And you were listening.”
“Yes,” Najma urged her horse forward with a click of her tongue.
Bryullov waited until Najma and the two horses had pulled ahead. Twisting in the saddle and leaning over the horse’s back, Bryullov opened the flap of one of the saddle bags and slipped his hand inside. He patted the lid of a wooden box, the feel of the smooth wood creasing his mouth into a reassuring smile. Bryullov tightened the straps of the saddle bag, spit tobacco juice onto the dusting of snow covering the ground. Lifting his heels to encourage his horse into a trot, Bryullov paused and squinted into the distance along the rocky plain they had travelled from Farshad’s camp. A hawk hovered in the air above a patch of barren rock. The Russian rubbed a hand over his beard and stared at the hawk until it stilled its wings and glided down to the ground and out of Bryullov’s sight. He kicked his heels and pulled the horse’s head around with the reins and followed Najma and the packhorse trailing behind her.
҉
Jamie breathed the cool air of the Khyber Pass. Breathing through his mouth, he imagined the air travelling the length of the barrel of his Baker rifle and into his lungs. He closed his eyes. He breathed out. Fidgeting the stock of the rifle into his shoulder, Jamie opened his eyes, searching for targets.
“Are you ready, British?” Hari waved Jamie’s pistol in front of him. “First you snore, then you nuzzle that barrel like it was a pillow.” The mystic shook his head. “All that and you will kill just one man if we are lucky.”
“One man?”
“Yes, British. Just one man. Him maybe.” Hari pointed at the Pathaan raider drawing a long knife from the red sash around his waist. “His friends will kill us in the thirty seconds it takes you to reload,” Hari tutted. “The British are supposed to possess wonderful technology. But not you. You have that.”
“Fifteen,” Jamie tracked the raider with his rifle. “And we won’t die, Hari.”
“Because you can reload in half the time?” Hari rolled his eyes.
“No, Hari.” Increasing pressure on the trigger with his finger, Jamie breathed out. The musket ball punched out of the Baker rifle. The taste of blackpowder bit at Jamie’s tongue. The raider dropped onto his knees as the shirt covering his chest blossomed red. The man fell and was still, the snow staunched the flood of the man’s lifeblood in a ring of ice crystals crimsoning about the raider’s torso. “Technology can fail, Hari. Your turn,” Jamie ducked down behind the ring of boulders to the right of the path. Pulling a square patch of leather from his shirt pocket, Jamie pressed it inside the lip of the barrel. Fiddling a musket ball out of his belt pouch, he nestled the ball inside the leather and rammed the ball and patch down the length of the barrel with the rod. Jamie turned as Hari fired the flintlock pistol and the thick powder cloud mixed with the flurries of snow.
“Be quick, British,” Hari reached inside his cloak and drew a curved blade the length of his forearm.
“What the hell is that?” Jamie primed his rifle.
“Truly,” Hari leaped up onto the boulder and swung the heavy blade into the shoulder of the raider sent ahead to try their position. The man screamed as Hari kicked him in the chest to free his blade. “You have never served with the Indian Gurkhas.” Hari ducked down behind the boulder and began reloading the pistol. Jamie stood, tracked a raider moving into position along the pass. He fired. The raider ducked down into cover, levelling the long jezail he carried upon a smooth rock. Jamie grabbed Hari by the shoulder and pulled him to the ground.
“Jezail,” Jamie nodded. A second later, the crack of the raider’s rifle split the snow-filled air, the lead ball embedding itself in the rock wall above their heads. “Not too accurate.”
“The jezail?”
“No,” Jamie grinned as he rammed another musket ball into the rifle, “the raider. Ready?”
Hari pulled back the hammer on the pistol. “Ready, British,” he smiled. One hand on Jamie’s shoulder, Hari crouched behind the boulder, the pistol raised before him, the barrel tracking targets as the raiders leapfrogged in and out of cover. “Look there. They are trying to get to higher ground.”
“Yes,” Jamie raised the rifle, pointing at a raider with a goatskin tunic climbing the steep wall of the pass. He stared at the man, not much older than himself, sandals scrabbling on the rocks. The raider stopped climbing and turned his head to face Jamie. Their eyes met. Jamie shook his head. The raider grinned, slipped his hands free of the rock and slid back down the wall.
“Good, British. At least he gets to live another day,” Hari cursed under his breath.
“Shoot the ones making mischief,” Jamie shifted to his right and fired. “Maybe their friends will run away?” A raider wielding a scimitar in one hand, a long knife in the other, dropped to the ground just twenty feet from where Hari and Jamie intended to make their last stand. Jamie pulled another patch of leather and a ball of lead from his pocket and proceeded to reload his rifle.
Leaping over the boulder, Hari fired the pistol at one man, slashing the k
ukri at another. “British,” Hari called out as he collapsed to the floor under the weight of a heavyset raider. Jamie raised his rifle butt and charged, clubbing at the jumble of men writhing at his feet.
“Him,” Hari wheezed. “Not me, British.”
Jamie kicked at the raider until he released his grip on the mystic’s back. Hari rolled onto his side and raised the kukri. Leaning forward he dropped the kukri on the rocks as Jamie tumbled on top of him, the crack of a jezail buzzing up the pass like an angry lead hornet.
“Stay down.” Pushing himself onto his elbow, Jamie reached for the Baker rifle.
“Hah,” Hari’s attacker tugged the rifle by the barrel, pulling it out of Jamie’s reach and into his own hands. Standing on a boulder above Jamie and Hari, the raider spun the rifle within his grip, pointed the rifle downward and fired. The flintlock clicked on an empty pan.
“Get him, Hari,” Jamie rolled over onto his side.
Scrabbling after the kukri blade, Hari grasped it with his fingers and rushed at the raider. Surprised at the dry shot, the raider dropped Jamie’s rifle and turned to run. Hari stamped on the man’s trailing shirttails and slid the kukri through the man’s shirt and into his back. He ducked at the sound of another crack of a jezail as the raider slumped onto a patch of snow between the rocks dragging Hari’s kukri out of his hands. Hari watched as a raider picked his way toward him, his jezail held high and pointing at Hari’s head.
“Drop, Hari. Get down,” Jamie pushed the mystic aside and shot before the raider before could pull the trigger of his own long rifle. The man crumpled to his knees, gasping, the ornate stock of his jezail clattering to the ground.
“Are you all right, British?” Hari picked himself off the ground. He stared at the bloody tear in the cloth of Jamie’s trousers as it flicked back and forth in the wind.
“I am fine,” Jamie lifted his rifle and tossed it to the ground. “But I caught one in the thigh while you were wrestling with the big fellow.” Jamie pointed at the line of raiders stalking toward them along the pass. “We are all out of luck, Hari.” The image of French sailors cornering Jamie on the bloody quarterdeck of HMS Magnificent flit through Jamie’s mind. Sharpshooters in the rigging had saved him that day. Jamie cast a quick glance up and along both sides of the pass. The high ground was empty, but for the wind and snow. Jamie gripped Hari’s arm and lowered himself to the ground.
“Are we giving up?” Hari shot a look at the raiders. Jezails resting in the crooks of their arms, the five men slowed to a stop and waited.
“I am, Hari,” Jamie winced as he prodded his thigh.
“Because of that?” Hari pointed.
“Yes, that,” Jamie ran a grubby hand over his short beard. “With one rifle and a pistol,” he waved his arm toward the line of Pathaan, “we can’t take them all.”
“A poor excuse, British.” Hari stamped a foot on the dead raider lying on the ground. Grasping the handle of his kukri, he tugged it free. “Truly, I am disappointed.” He wiped the blade clean on the raider’s sleeve. “Perhaps it is true. The Queen’s navy really is beaten.” Hari spat. “I will have to handle these men myself.”
“Hari?” Jamie called as the mystic sheathed the kukri in the scabbard hidden in the folds of his cloak. Hari took a step forward.
“I am Hari Singh,” he unbuttoned his shirt and opened the front to reveal a tattoo of azure blue spiralling in a clockwise direction on his chest. “I pray for my one god,” he took another step, “and I pray for the god of all men.” The Pathaan raiders shifted on their feet. “But I do not pray,” Hari turned to shout at Jamie, “for the men who have lost their faith in God, nor the God’s who have no faith in men.”
“What are you doing, Hari?” Jamie pushed himself onto his feet. Taking slow, measured steps, Jamie followed behind Hari as he stalked toward the raiders.
“But not all men are faithful,” Hari shook his fist at the raiders. Jamie watched as the men started to tremble. Shaking their long jezails into firing positions, the raiders took aim.
“They’re aiming too high,” Jamie stopped at the sound of rocks slipping on the ledge above him. The scratch and grate of metal, the clicking of cogs and whirring of gears followed in the wake of the deadfalls of rocks tumbling off the ledge and into the holes between the boulders below.
“Men with no faith can still fear the faith of men with more faith than fear,” Hari chorused toward the raiders. Flinching at the first musket fired above his head, Hari collected himself and continued to berate the men retreating before him.
Leaning against a boulder Jamie stared as a tall chassis on spindly legs leaned out over the ledge. The pilot controlling the metal arachnid winked at Jamie from behind oversized dusty goggles as he levered the machine over the ledge to land just behind Jamie. Jamie held his breath as the arachnid crunched past him toward the raiders.
“Behold,” Hari waved his arms, ushering the arachnid along with graceful windmills. “Men of faith can conjure fear.” The emissary stomped toward the raiders. Hari ducked as a raider turned and fired a ball of lead at the arachnid’s armoured cockpit. The bullet ricocheted off the armoured plates and split the air just above the mystic’s head. The remaining raiders scattered to the walls and fled down the path to their horses. “See, British,” Hari laughed as he regained his balance. “A little faith is all one needs.”
“You’d seen him, hadn’t you?” Jamie limped over the rocks to lean against the rock wall beside Hari.
“Who?”
“Him,” Jamie pointed at the back of the arachnid as it pursued the raiders.
“And what if I did, British?”
“Well, that would explain why...”
“You gave up and I didn’t?” Hari raised his eyebrows.
The arachnid walker paused, turned, and lowered its weapons. The three Tesla tubes hanging on jointed limbs either side of the cockpit ticked as they cooled and powered down.
“Ah, I think it is time we introduced ourselves,” Hari’s teeth flashed in the growing gloom.
The arachnid pilot steered the eight spindly legs of his machine back up the path. Stopping in front of Jamie and Hari, the pilot bent the walker’s legs at the joints and lowered the cockpit to the ground. He opened the armoured roll cage of the cockpit and stepped out onto the path.
“Courtney,” Hari walked forward and gripped the pilot’s hand. “Wonderful timing. Truly.”
“Glad to be of service,” Courtney shook Hari’s hand and nodded at Jamie. “Who’s the whelp?”
“This,” Hari led Courtney to where Jamie was sitting, “is Lieutenant Jamie Hanover of the Royal Navy.”
“Royal Navy?” Courtney shook Jamie’s hand. “You’re a long way from the ocean, sailor.”
“I am,” Jamie released the pilot’s hand. “Who are you?”
“Corporal Courtney Mint of the Queen’s Arachnid Scouts,” he pointed to the walker behind him. “That there is a scout.”
“And what are you doing out here?” Jamie repositioned his leg.
“Scouting,” Courtney grinned. “Lucky I was, eh?”
“Truly,” Hari clapped his hand on the corporal’s shoulder. “I do believe the lieutenant was about to discuss terms.”
“Terms? With those buggers?” Courtney laughed. “They would have you on a stick.”
“Really?” Jamie held his breath as he stood. “On a stick? Tell me, corporal, where were you scouting?”
“All over the pass and back,” Courtney straightened. “We’re patrolling all the way from Peshawar to Cabool. That’s our area of operations. Nothing gets past us.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing,” Courtney leaned forward and stabbed his finger into Jamie’s chest. “Unlike you navy swabs, the army doesn’t lose battles.”
“Gentlemen,” Hari bobbed between the two men.
“You might want to take your spider back down the pass, corporal. I think you might have missed something.”
“What are you blather
ing about, sailor?” Courtney took a step back as Hari squeezed between him and Jamie.
“Something you missed,” Jamie stared around Hari’s head. “One of your own. I buried him at the head of the pass.”
“What?”
“It is true, my friend. I found the lieutenant burying a most unfortunate soldier. We can show you where he is buried.”
“I can find him,” Courtney scowled and turned toward the arachnid walker.
“Before you go,” Hari took Courtney’s arm. “Perhaps you have seen the emissary?”
“No, no emissary,” Courtney glared at Jamie as he spoke, “but there are rumours of a strange rabble of men and metal coming up the river. You want to be careful, Hari. There’s a lot of activity in these hills just now. Most unnatural. Someone,” he nodded in Jamie’s direction, “could get hurt.”
“Thank you,” Hari shook Courtney’s hand. “We are grateful for your help.”
“You’ve helped us before, Hari. Just returning the favour.”
“Of course.”
Courtney walked away and climbed into the cockpit of the arachnid. He lowered the roll cage and levered the walker up to its full height. A hiss of steam filled the air as the corporal powered up the scout. Looking down at the men beneath him, Courtney called out. “I don’t know if it has anything to do with your emissary, but some robot thing walked into a Pakistani town and sat down in the middle of the market square.” The arachnid whined as Courtney powered up the Tesla tubes. “Seems it spouted a load of gibberish for a few hours and then exploded,” Courtney nodded. “The blast took out the whole market. Blood and bodies everywhere.”
“When was this,” Hari tugged at his beard.
“A week ago,” Courtney turned the arachnid and stretched the walker’s limbs. “Look after yourself, Hari.” Courtney waved as he manoeuvred the walker down the path and out of sight.
҉
Najma pulled the last saddlebag from the back of the packhorse before tethering it together with the others. Leaning the bag against the other packs, she opened the flap and pulled out a small bag of rice. The wind tugged at the long grasses of the plains before the town of Lalpura. Najma watched as the stems bent down to the ground only to bounce back as the wind gusted out of reach. The stars pricked at the black blanket above the mountains flanking the valley. Najma carried the sack of rice to the fire.
