Sher Shah groaned in pain. Sure, the hakims were trying their best, but Sher Shah knew he didn't have much time left. He was scorched all over, and he felt the icy jaws of death closing in on his burnt body. With a feeble voice, he pronounced what he knew would be his last order to his soldiers: Come hell or high water, they were to seize the fort of Kalinjar before their Sultan breathed his last.

The dying king's exhortation had a dramatic effect on the troops — a contemporary writer, Badayuni, says that on hearing Sher Shah's words, "the Afghan amirs worked harder and behaved with the utmost gallantry, and coming to close quarters with the garrison, brought matters to a fight with knife and dagger and did full justice to the demands of endeavour and manliness." Straining every nerve, the Afghans pulled off a miracle: Kalinjar was stormed in only a few hours.

The glad tidings were immediately rushed to Sher Shah. A thin smile broke out on his tired face, and a cry of satisfaction escaped his lips. "Alhamdulillah!" he said. "This was my very desire."

Sher Shah never spoke again. The man who was wont to make history with every move had passed into the realm of history. The Afghan sun had set. Sher Shah Suri was dead.

Writes Neelesh Chatterjee

(Reference: Makhzan-i Afghani, by Khwaja Niamatullah)