Chapter 63: Smoke on the Horizon
The broken formation still smoked behind them when Nau Nihal Singh called the halt. One hundred and thirty riders, bloodied but unbroken, gathered in the shade of a low ridge. The enemy's strongest answer — their layered, patient masterpiece — lay in pieces. Yet no one cheered.
"They threw their best into that," Jawahar Singh said, wiping his sword. "Everything they learned from the circles, the speed, the traps. All of it."
Nau Nihal stared south, toward the invisible walls of Hyderabad. "And it still wasn't enough. They have nothing left to meet us in the open."
Jawahar grunted. "Then what now? They pull back completely?"
"No." Nau Nihal pulled out the latest Raaz scroll Gurbaaz had risked delivering that morning. "They're doing exactly what we hoped. Calling their mobile forces back to defend the city. Sher Singh and Ventura's main army is two days out. The Amirs inside Hyderabad are already arguing about who takes the blame."
He looked at his men — tired, dusty, but still dangerous. "The open-field war is over. Our job changes tonight."
The warriors straightened. This was the moment they had been waiting for.
That night they moved like shadows.
Raaz intelligence guided them with deadly precision. No more guessing. No more probing the unknown. Gurbaaz's network delivered exact locations, escort sizes, and timings.
First target: a major supply column of seventy wagons crawling along the eastern river track, loaded with grain and powder for the coming siege.
Nau Nihal split his force into three. Jawahar took forty riders and hit the head of the column, creating chaos. Nau Nihal struck the center with the rest. The attack was swift and merciless. Wagons burned. Grain spilled across the dirt and was trampled by panicked animals. Survivors fled with nothing but terror and stories of Sikh ghosts behind the lines.
Fifteen minutes. Then they vanished into the darkness.
Before dawn they struck again.
The fodder depot at Kotri.
Raaz had been right — most of the guards had already been pulled toward Hyderabad, leaving the stores vulnerable. This fight was bloodier. Matchlock fire cracked through the night. Two of Nau Nihal's men took wounds. But fire did the rest. The massive piles of fodder and spare ammunition roared into the sky, lighting the horizon like a second sunrise.
As they withdrew, Jawahar rode up beside Nau Nihal, face streaked with soot. "That smoke will be visible from the main army's position. Sher Singh will know we're doing our part."
"Good," Nau Nihal replied. "Every sack we destroy is another week the city cannot hold. Let the Amirs feel real hunger before Ventura's guns even open fire."
They pushed hard through the remaining darkness, putting miles between themselves and the twin infernos. Only when they reached a hidden ravine near a tributary of the Indus did Nau Nihal allow a brief rest.
While the men tended horses and wounds, another Raaz messenger arrived — this one a fisherman with a small boat. The note was short:
Hyderabad's granaries already strained. Field commanders demanding reinforcements be pulled from the south. Southern tribes hesitant. Amirs divided.
Nau Nihal burned the paper and stared into the small fire.
"We've done what we came for on the open plain," he said quietly to Jawahar. "The big formations are finished. From now on we stay deep in their rear. Hit water channels, bridges, messenger routes. Keep them blind and bleeding while the main army closes the trap."
Jawahar grinned tiredly. "You always said this would be the real work."
"It is." Nau Nihal's eyes hardened. "We are no longer fighting their army. We are fighting their will to resist. When Sher Singh gives the signal, we charge from behind and shatter whatever is left."
The first light of dawn touched the eastern sky. Far to the north, the distant dust of the main Sikh army under Sher Singh and Ventura was probably already visible on the horizon.
The long chase across Sindh was ending.
The siege — and the true shadow war — had begun.