Sent to the Deccan
Akbar's confidant and chronicler was trusted with military as well as literary duties in the emperor's later years: "In the 43rd year he was dispatched to the Deccan to bring away Prince Murad. The order to him was that if the officers who had been appointed there to guard the country were doing their duty, he was to return with the prince. Otherwise he was to send off the prince, and to conduct the administration with the assistance of Mirza Shahrukh." (vol. I, p. 119) He effectively administered the province through the last years of Akbar's reign, fighting Raju Deccani and the Nizam Shahi forces in the field.
Ambushed on the road home
Recalled from the Deccan when Akbar quarrelled with Prince Salim, Abu'l-Fazl was warned that Bir Singh Deo Bundela lay in wait for him on the road at Salim's instigation, and urged to take a longer, safer route by way of Malwa. He refused, and near Narwar was surrounded. The page records the end plainly: "The Shaikh did not approve of incurring the disgrace of flight and manfully played away the coin of life." (vol. I, p. 123) Akbar, the text adds, was more grieved at the news than he had been for the deaths of his own sons.