Free Abney Park's The Wrath Of Fate by Robert Brown Page A

that time. We made plans that night, and preparations for two days, and during this time the camp was filled with hustling craftsmen.
    As the morning sun of the third dawn stained the city a peach-gold color, Robert Clive’s soldiers saw a puzzling site. Over the city walls appeared the sails of a ship, surrounding a massive canvas balloon. As the hull of our ship appeared, the soldiers sounded alarms, and ran with rifles to the walls.
    On the city towers, cannons fired their shots, but our height was greater than they were used to firing on and they narrowly missed our airship. Their shots fell back into the city amongst the troops now swarming the walls. Ophelia’s cannons erupted in an angry retort – dozens of shots causing the soldiers in the southern tower to leap into the moat, while the Ophelia’s cannon turned the northeast tower to dust.
    Now the Ophelia was high above the southwest wall of the city, and under it hung a huge platform, nearly as big as Ophelia’s hull. Her bow dipped as the ship and platform slipped down toward the city’s main open square.
    A company of one hundred British soldiers marched orderly into the square. They were regimented, and well groomed in their blue-gray uniforms – freshly laundered by the women of Arcot – and tall black boots – polished nightly by orphaned children of the city. They acted unimpressed by our flying ship, and raised their rifles toward the platform we carried, awaiting the Indian soldiers they expected to run out. But more than one eyebrow was raised at what they actually saw.
    As the massive timbers of the platform kicked the courtyard’s dust in the air, up stood a half-dozen armored elephants. On their brass-plated backs were turbaned soldiers armed with pachyderm-mounted swivel cannons (borrowed from Ophelia), and even a couple full-sized cannons. The massive beasts thundered forward into the British soldiers, scattering their ranks as the swivel guns pounded and crumbled the perches of the snipers on the walls around them.
    After the elephants left the platform, a dozen ropes dropped from the belly of Ophelia, and down slid our pirates and myself; pistols tucked in belts, swords strapped to our backs. At this point, our crew had had many months of fighting together, and this kind of attack was old hat to us.
    As soon as the courtyard defenses were disburse, we turned the largest elephants toward the gates. These massive gates stood under a huge stone bridge, and faced the outside world with six inch thick iron plates. But from the inside, our target was simply one large wooden beam that horizontally braced the doors, two foot by three feet thick.
    Three or four British soldiers were stationed behind the doors, and each dared no more then a single hurried shot toward the charging, armored elephants before fleeing to small, side passage ways.
    To protect the elephants’ ears from the sound of the cannon, each had been packed that morning with clay and cloth. This kept the beasts from rearing up as the massive ten pounders shot through the wooden beam, splitters and smoke filled the air as they ran on. The ear-packs also kept the beasts from hearing their master’s commands to “Thehar Jaana!” and the gates smashed open as the stunned elephants tripped on the wooden splitters and rolled, crushing their riders and armor.
    Clive’s soldiers stood on the dusty bricks in the doorway, rifles at their shoulders. As the first of the Indians rushed in the doors, British guns went off. Bullets found their mark in the massive shoulders of Chandra’s front guard but that hardly slowed their pace. Their objective was to push back the British guard enough to allow the rest of the army to enter the city.
    I saw this from the center of the square, and gestured to the elephants’ riders to come in from behind them. The ground then erupted in front of me, and a group of five gray coated infantry men ran in firing at me.
    I leaped toward a small arched tunnel in