Lahore, capital of the Punjab, heart of the Sikh Empire.
Within the opulent Palace of Mirrors, the air was colder than Siberian ice.
Regent Queen **Jindan Kaur**, draped in a resplendent sari heavy with jewels, paced the great hall like a caged tigress. The face that once ruled through charm and ambition was now twisted by terror and disbelief.
Barely half a day earlier, a courier riding a horse to death had delivered a battlefield report so catastrophic it had nearly struck her senseless.
**Mudki.**
The main force of the Khalsa Army—long hailed as the most formidable military power in South Asia—had been shattered.
Not broken. Not defeated.
*Erased.*
Enemy artillery had annihilated them from miles away, weapons firing from beyond sight, beyond retaliation, beyond comprehension. The soldiers had died without ever glimpsing the faces of the English who slaughtered them.
And Lal Singh—the so-called *Invincible General* who only yesterday had sworn to march into Delhi within three days—had been the first to flee. Alone. Leaving his men to die like abandoned curs.
"Useless!" Jindan Kaur shrieked. "A kennel of worthless dogs!"
She seized a porcelain vase crafted by artisans of the Qing court and hurled it to the marble floor. It shattered with a scream of splintered elegance.
"Did you not swear the English were soft?" she demanded, her voice cracking through the hall. "Did you not say their queen was little more than a decorative crown, and her husband a pretty poet who knew nothing of war?!"
Silence.
Ministers and generals knelt with their foreheads pressed to the stone, too stunned even to beg.
"Speak!" she commanded. Her finger snapped toward Lal Singh. "You. You told me their cannons could not reach us!"
"Majesty—mercy!" Lal Singh sobbed, bowing until his brow bled. "That was no cannon. It was sorcery! Heavenly thunder! Fire falling from the sky! One strike carved craters into the earth itself—we could not fight it!"
"Heavenly thunder?"
Jindan Kaur swayed, her vision blurring.
From the shadows, a rough voice spoke—calm, accented, unmistakably European.
"Majesty. This is no magic."
Colonel **Jean‑François Allois**, French artillery advisor and veteran of Napoleon's wars, rose slowly. His expression held the despair of a defeated soldier—and the horrified awe of a man witnessing superior science.
"The British are using a newly developed weapon," he said gravely. "A rifled, breech‑loading cannon. Its range and precision surpass smoothbore artillery by an order of magnitude."
"And the shells," he continued, "are high‑explosive. Experimental. Designed under the patronage of the Prince Consort himself."
He met the queen's gaze.
"In plain terms, Your Majesty—we are fighting an enemy an entire era ahead of us."
Jindan Kaur laughed bitterly.
"An era?" she echoed. "You are generous, Colonel."
She collapsed onto the throne, dread settling into her bones.
Force would not save them.
Surrender?
Never.
The ruthlessness of both mother and monarch ignited behind her eyes.
"To yield," she whispered, "is to lose everything. Power. Wealth. My son's crown."
She rose sharply.
"I am Jindan Kaur," she declared. "Wife of Ranjit Singh—the Lion of the Punjab. My son is king by blood and by right."
"We will not kneel."
She turned, voice sharp as steel.
"We still have a hundred thousand soldiers. We still have **Lahore**."
"If the English excel only in artillery," she continued, "then we will deny them the battlefield."
Her commands followed, cold and decisive:
"Send envoys to the Qing Empire and to Afghanistan. Tell them the British are a common enemy. Offer land. Offer gold."
"Withdraw all forces into Lahore. Strengthen the walls. Stockpile provisions for three years."
She clenched her fist.
"I refuse to believe their guns can erase a city."
"We will endure. One year. Two. Let the English bleed themselves dry on distance and supply. Hunger will destroy them before steel ever could."
It was her final wager.
A war of attrition.
---
South of the Sutlej River, within the temporary headquarters of the British Army.
Governor‑General **Sir Henry Hardinge** and Commander‑in‑Chief **Sir Hugh Gough** read the battle report with open satisfaction.
"Mudki," Gough laughed. "Nearly thirty thousand routed—with fewer than a hundred losses. The finest victory in our history."
Hardinge exhaled slowly. "The Prince Consort's weapons… and his 'kite‑flight' tactics. Terrifyingly effective."
An intelligence officer entered, carrying a sealed letter.
"From His Highness," he announced.
Hardinge opened it at once.
The handwriting was elegant. Controlled. Almost playful in its confidence.
> *Victory tempts arrogance. Resist it.*
>
> *Queen Jindan Kaur is sharper than she appears. She will retreat and attempt to drown us in a war of endurance.*
>
> *Do not rush Lahore.*
>
> *Siege it—and wait.*
Gough frowned. "Wait for what?"
Hardinge smiled thinly. He understood.
"We do nothing," he said.
"We seal the city. No grain. No water."
He paused, amusement flickering.
"We feast outside the walls. Roast meat. Ale. Perhaps a game of football beneath their battlements."
His voice softened—not with mercy, but inevitability.
"We wait while hundreds of thousands starve."
"Until fear devours them from within."
"Until they open the gates themselves and beg us to 'save' them."
Gough stared toward Lahore.
Only now did he truly understand why **Arthur Lionheart**, Prince Consort of Britain, was whispered about with awe—and dread.
This was not brutality of steel.
It was cruelty of the mind.