After they'd opened the gate, Valentinian and Ajatasutra would return below to help in the defense, while Anastasius went upstairs and smashed the gate mechanism.
The mechanism was heavy, and very sturdy. But the maul was iron-headed, and very big. And Anastasius was Anastasius. Even if the soldiers could force their way up the tower, past one of the world's handful of great swordsmen and India's second-best assassin, it would take hours to repair the machinery and close the gates.
They would not have those hours. They would not even have very many minutes. Rajiv's father had only a few miles to come.
He came, at an easy canter that the horses could maintain for some time without tiring. As eager and impatient as he was to reach the gate, the Rajput king was far too experienced a horseman to do otherwise. He would save the energy of a gallop for the very end.
Twenty minutes, he thought it would take.
He was eager, and impatient, but not worried. Rana Sanga had fought the Mongoose for hours, once. He did not think for a moment that, in narrow quarters, garrison troops could defeat him.
Not in twenty minutes. Probably not in twenty hours. Not without cannons, anyway.
Within five minutes, the warning was brought to the officer in command of the quarter's garrison. He was an exceptionally capable officer. Realizing immediately the implications, he ordered his soldiers to bring the four field guns they had. A six-pounder and three four-pounders.
They were an exceptionally well-trained unit, too. Five hundred men, no fewer. The commander was sure he could retake the gate once he reached it.
In. . perhaps fifteen minutes. More likely, twenty. His soldiers were already awake, since he'd ordered them aroused the moment he heard of the rocket, but they were still mostly in the barracks. The gate was a third of a mile away, and the streets were very narrow.
Twenty minutes should still be quick enough. The rebel army was concentrating its attack on the north, according to the reports he'd been given, where the signal rocket had been fired by spies. Probably that gate was being seized by traitors also. The commanding officer was quite experienced. Most sieges were broken by treachery, not guns.
The emperor, he thought sourly, would have done far better to have ordered his soldiers to search for spies, instead of hidden refugees. Who cared what a great lady and her children did, huddling in a cellar somewhere?
The soldiers already at the gate were driven back within less than a minute. The sheer violence of the defense was not something they'd ever encountered. There was a huge ogre accompanying the traitors, whoever they were. A monstrous creature, that crushed the life out of men with its great mace, sometimes felling two soldiers with one blow. The ogre had fierce Ye-tai with it, too.
They reeled back, frightened. Their spears had been useless. Their swords, even more so.
"Bring bows!" shouted their commander. He was lacing on his armor, and having trouble with the task. He'd been sound asleep when the alarm was sounded, and was still feeling confused.
"Bring bows!" he shrieked again.
His men hurried to obey. The bows were kept in the barracks. And the ogre was not in the barracks.
Their commander gaped at the little flood of soldiers pouring back into the barracks.
"Not all of you! You-you-"
He collapsed to the ground. Even if he'd had his armor on properly, the arrow protruding from his chest would have punched right through it.
The few soldiers who hadn't returned to the barracks stared at the sight. Then, at the traitors positioned behind the wagon across the gatehouse entrance.
"The ogre has a bow!" screamed one of them. "Ogre has a bow!"
All but one of them made it back into the barracks. The sluggard remained pinned to the doorway, by another arrow that struck. .
Exactly the way you'd expect an ogre's arrow to strike. Went all the way through him and would have passed on completely except it hit the door post.
"Great big thing, too," muttered one of the soldiers, peeking out of a barracks window. "Way bigger than ours."
"Which gate?" shrieked Skandagupta. "Which gate? Speak plainly, damn you!"
The emperor was still muddle-headed with sleep. Dangerous at any time, he was positively venomous at times like this.
The general commanding the city's garrison wasn't sure of the answer himself. But what he said, very firmly and confidently, was: "Both gates, Your Majesty. The main attack seems to be coming at the north gate, however. Damodara himself is said to be leading the charge there."
That was true enough. Well. Probably. From the battlements, using telescopes, sentries had seen the rebel would-be emperor's pavilion being struck, and a surge of his soldiers toward the northern gate. A contingent of Ye-tai was leading the way, probably led by Toramana himself.
A slow surge, to be sure, except for the Ye-tai vanguard. Nothing like the charge being made by the Rajputs toward the southern gate. But that latter could be a feint.
"Then get yourself to the northern gate!" shrilled the emperor. "At once! Or I'll have your head for my collection! You coward! You stinking-"
"I obey, Your Majesty!" The general could safely take that shrieking imprecation for a royal dismissal. He was out of the audience chamber before the emperor had stopped cursing him.
He'd never felt such relief heading for a desperate battle in his life.
By the time the lieutenant who succeeded to command in the barracks could chivvy his soldiers out into the small square facing the gatehouse, another sound could be heard. Like a distant thunder, approaching. The sound of horses, and men shouting.
Rajiv understood the words before anyone else did.
Rajputana. And, also, the name of his father, chanted like a battle cry.
Rana Sanga.
His father was coming. Would be here within a minute or two. He and his warriors would come through that gate like an avalanche of steel.
His bow in hand and an arrow notched, Rajiv stared at the soldiers assembling fearfully in the square. In a minute, perhaps two, they would be swept from existence. Men he knew. Men whose wives and children he knew.
"It is not honorable," he murmured.
"What was that, boy?" asked Anastasius.
"It is not bearable," he added, still murmuring.
"Speak up, if you've got something to say!"
Rajiv removed the arrow from the bowstring. Still holding the bow, he sprang onto the wagon before the entrance. Then, with two steps and a sure-footed leap, he sprang off the wagon onto the hard-packed dirt of the square beyond.
"What the hell are you doing?" Anastasius bellowed.
Rajiv ignored him. He advanced toward the soldiers some forty yards away. The bow was still in his left hand, positioned as it should be. But he was now holding up the arrow as if it were a sword.
"Stop!" he cried. "I am Rajiv, a prince of Rajputana! Son of Rana Sanga!"
One of the soldiers in the front rank squinted at him. Abhay, that was. He had a son Rajiv's age, and a very pretty daughter about a year older. She'd been the source of new thoughts for Rajiv, in fact. New and rather unsettling ones.
"Rajiv? Rajiv?"
"Yes, Abhay! It is Rajiv!"
Still walking toward them, he pointed back at the opening gate with the arrow. "My father is coming! Listen, and you can hear!"
All the soldiers stopped moving, and froze.
Sure enough. Coming louder and louder:
Rana Sanga! Rajputana!