Samarkand the Omnibus: Books 1-2

by Graham Diamond

  Zadek’s brows turned downward with skepticism. “What way?”

  “From the eastern market.”

  “We’d never make it,” scoffed the mullah. “From my tower room I saw the market aflame. It will burn for days.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Asif. “But what if we were able to ride our way through it? The eastern gate will take us to the dunes, a place where the Huns could never hope to catch us.”

  “He’s right,” said Sharon. “The desert gives us our best chance.”

  A sour grin parted Zadek’s cracked lips. “A good thought, my friends, and I agree completely. But, to pass the fires, we shall need the best horses we can find, and where are we to get them?” He put his hand on his hips and sighed, looking at his companions like a teacher chastising well-meaning pupils. “We can never make it.”

  “I can find us horses,” announced Asif.

  A huge fireball ripped across the sky, sending off shooting stars to light up the night. Beneath the roar, Zadek said, “You? But how?”

  Like a thief adept at his trade, Asif bounded from his place, leaping high enough to grasp the slanted roof of the nearest building. Then, pulling himself up, he crawled to the top, positioning his legs firmly against the tiles. “Come and see for yourselves,” he called back; and he laughed while the monk and the girl hoisted themselves up and slowly worked their way to his side.

  From this height they had a panoramic view of all that was happening in the Lower City. To the east, as Zadek had said, fires were raging; but off to the north, where the palace walls converged with those of the square, the Hun army had begun to gather its weary horses, hundreds of them, all corralled in makeshift stables, ill-guarded by only a handful of grumbling troops eager to leave their posts and join in the pillaging of their compatriots.

  “What do you say?” said the youth with a wink. “Stun a few of those guards and we can take our pick of their calvary.”

  Zadek leaned forward, shakily balancing himself against the crumbling tiles. It would not be as easy as the boy made it seem, he knew. They would not only have to ride safely away, but also have to elude the rear guard of soldiers billeted on all sides of the eastern quarter. Dodging Hun arrows would be only half the task, for then they would have to ride straight through those flames, ride like demons before they were engulfed. Still, Asif’s idea afforded a chance for breaking out of the walls — a slim one to be sure, but the only chance they had. Staying put was even worse. By day, the starkness of light would make their escape impossible. If they were to risk it, they would have to do so now — ask no questions, shut their eyes, and ride like the wind.

  He looked back over his shoulder at the pensive girl straddling the slanted tiles. “What do you think?”

  To his surprise, Sharon showed no fear. With a tiny smile, the first he had seen, she said, “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sharon’s whole body ached as she stood hidden beside a gutted doorway, waiting for Zadek to give the signal. Smoke, as it had been all night, was rising into the night sky in thick columns. Before her, mere shadows themselves in the darkness, tired horses shook their manes and wheezed. Only a few soldiers could be seen guarding them. As the Huns had little to fear, there was no need to station more than a few; besides, with the sacking of the city still under way and far from complete, there were not many men to spare for such mundane work.

  Zadek crawled on his elbows around the shed, lifting himself inch by inch. His eyes at the level of the low wall, he gazed from one end of the closed-in compound to the other. It was quieter than he’d expected. A few of the soldiers were already in a drunken stupor, snoring on their bellies, fallen to the ground right at their posts. As for the others, they marched back and forth dutifully, hands at the hilts of their swords, tiredly watching the silent streets. Occasional laughter or the ruckus of a brawl was the only sound to break the monotony, and they itched for the moment they would be relieved.

  The sentry closest heard faint sounds when Zadek dashed to the far end of the wall. His slightly slanted eyes narrowed in speculation, and then he smiled when a stray dog appeared from a nearby alley and barked at him. What he did not know was that Asif had positioned himself upon the roof, and when he came leaping down, his bloodied knife in his hand, the unaware Hun did not even have time to whirl around and face his attacker. The blade glinted in the pale light as it cut downward through shirtless flesh. The sentry grunted and fell clumsily to the ground. Asif deftly withdrew the blade and, to make sure his prey was dead, slit his throat in the same manner he had the two who ravished his sister.

  Like the crack of thunder Zadek bolted up over the wall and charged behind another watchful sentry. The shuffle of the monk’s boots made him turn, and he lowered his hand to his sheath. The blade never made it out. Zadek, with a single motion, jumped to the side off balance, arched his back, and threw his dagger in an underhand motion. The blade thrashed through the air, right on the mark. Startled, the Hun careened and staggered where Asif was already waiting to do the rest. The orphan dragged the body from the path, grinning.

  When Zadek whistled softly in the call of a nightingale, Sharon came running from the doorway. She pushed the gate open wide, grabbed the bridle of the closest horse, and expertly mounted the saddleless steed. The mullah had taken a gray gelding and was leading him to the gate. Asif chose a spotted mare. Then, urging the horses on with quick heel jabs to the flanks, the three fugitives stormed past the gate, releasing all the other horses.

  From every direction, stunned by the breach, guards came running, swarming like ants from their posts. Arrows and axes sailed and quivers were emptied; but, by the time the riders had reached the end of the street, it was too late to stop them. The horses thundered over cobblestone toward the markets and the fires, zigzagging, bounding across mounds of rubble and smashed wagons, dodging the whistling shafts that darted by their heads and slammed fiercely into the stone walls behind.

  A frantic call to arms was issued; responding to the blare of bugles, drunken and dazed Huns mustered to give chase; but their horses were running wildly and freely by now, bounding along the empty streets in every which way.

  Toward the billowing clouds the fugitives rode, right through the searing flames, leaping over burned barricades, charging with heads low in the direction of the eastern gate and the dunes beyond.

  Amid the havoc the panicked horses tried to break free; only the sure and steady hands of the riders kept them from rearing or bolting, even as the heat intensified and the animals could barely breathe.

  Asif led the way, his mare pushing on wildly while licking fingers of flame tore at her flanks. Only paces behind came Sharon, the young princess whipping her stallion with the reins. Last came Zadek. The priest kicked out and sent a charging Hun tumbling over, his face crashing onto the rough cobblestone. A line of Hun archers were kneeling ahead taking aim. Behind an overturned wagon, they held their bows taut. Just as Asif’s horse scaled the wagon, their arrows sang through the air. Sharon plummeted ahead, bravely facing the onslaught. She could see nothing before her save the shifting flames dancing over the roofs. Hoofbeats clattered in her ears; she was dimly aware of shouting as enemy soldiers turned to run and give chase.

  Then through the wreckage of the gate Asif passed, beneath the ornate arch and out beyond the thick city wall. Sand swirled everywhere, blinding him as, glancing backward, he tried to see if the others had made it as well. A terrible commotion arose from behind; Huns upon the parapet of the crumbling wall let loose a torrent of snubbed darts. Hundreds littered the sky at once, all sinking deep into desert sands well away from their mark. The sky was growing clearer; Asif could see the stars. The fires were more distant now. He slowed his exhausted horse to a canter, and when he looked around again, he smiled: Two more horses were tearing across the dunes, passing the smoldering hulks of burnt and smashed war machines, catapults forbiddingly still with throwing arms still in place, the cool night sands running red with blood f
rom fallen barbarians scattered everywhere. The two black silhouettes rose and fell with the mounds as the riders evaded arrows flying from the walls, and soon they were out of range, like Asif, well away from the terror that was Samarkand, with nothing but open desert before them for as far as they could see.

  A shade of blue dawn greeted them by the time they reached the waiting Asif, and with not a word passed between them they pressed on, Zadek in the lead, horse tracks quickly disappearing as the wind of the desert blew.

  They followed the old caravan route for a time; then, as the sun rose high and the heat of day began, they shifted their course to the north. From the heights of the dunes they could look back and see the city hazily in the distance. A thin pall of dark smoke cast an ugly shadow across the perfect blue sky; the shattered walls and towers stood like skeletons against the horizon, and Sharon bit her lip to stifle more tears at the sight of her home — the home to which she could never return.

  The riders paused along the ridge of the tallest dune, each staring glumly at the city, each lost within his own thoughts and memories. Still no one spoke; there was no need for words. Into a long and bitter exile they had been thrown, with no shelter or safe destination. For a hundred leagues in every direction the Huns would claim the land, and the fugitives knew full well that Kabul would never rest until the princess who had maimed him was caught. They must flee and hide, seeking refuge wherever it might be found, always with uneasy minds and eyes forced forever to look behind.

  Ahead stretched nothing but desert, majestic in its quiet beauty of ever-shifting golden sand. Far off to the west, they could almost make out the line of the smoky hills and the vast shadow of the feared Grim Forest.

  Sharon sighed. She shifted her gaze from the city of Samarkand for what she believed to be the final time and bravely turned to the thoughtful mullah sitting silently upon his weary horse. “Where are we to go from here, teacher?” she asked softly.

  Zadek lifted the hood of his aba over his head and shaded his eyes from the glare of the sun. Northward, sweeping away across the length of the horizon, stood the range of low mountains, red in the morning light — rugged, harsh lands, but the only territory of the conquered empire still free of barbarian rule. His eyes were glassy as he stared long and hard at the range. It would be a long and most difficult journey to reach it, he knew. They would have to cross many leagues of parched, waterless lands, carrying no food or water save for the small waterskin, half empty, that dangled from his belt, and with no guarantee that even should they cross the desert successfully, they would find the shelter they sought. Quite the contrary was true. Still, there was nowhere else to go.

  “We must travel to the north,” he said at length.

  Sharon’s brows rose. “To the Steppes?”

  “Aye,” replied Zadek with a somber nod. “It is the only place we can go, the only chance we have of never being found — north to the Steppes, to the home of my mother’s people, to the mountain fortress of the Kazirs.”

  Chapter Ten

  Above the rise they could see the vultures, hundreds of them, circling high over the sand dunes, squawking, diving below to feed.

  The riders stopped their horses and stared. It was a grim sight. The birds, the terrible stench of death carried on the wind — both contributed to the uneasiness of the fugitives. Zadek dismounted and handed the reins of his steed to Asif. With the back of his hand he wiped away a thin layer of sand from his mouth and, exhausted, began to climb to the zenith of the rise to peer down below. “Wait for me,” he told his companions. Then he walked off slowly, stumbling at times, until he became a tiny figure at the top of the mound. He stood there for a long time, and Sharon shared an anxious glance with Asif.

  “I’m going, too,” she said, and before the youth could reply or try to stop her, she had eased herself off her horse and begun the uphill trek. Knee-deep in sand, she negotiated the hill and came silently to the mullah’s side. Together they stared below. Sharon stifled a gasp: Hundreds of bodies — men, animals — lay littered in a gully, grisly vultures feeding on the carcasses.

  “The merchant caravan,” mumbled Zadek with a scowl.

  Sharon recalled it well, thinking of that day, just before the battle, when the foreign merchants had fled Samarkand in hopes of reaching Persian territory before the Huns came. Their corpses proved that they never made it.

  Zadek glanced from one end of the gully to the other. Tents, torn and shredded, flapped noisily in the wind. There were campfires scattered about, dried camel dung heaped in piles within them. Servants and masters lay side by side; hundreds of barbarian arrows stuck out of the ground in every direction.

  “The Huns must have attacked by night,” said Zadek with a frown. “See; the caravan was bedded down.”

  “They never had a chance,” whispered the girl, as she pictured what must have happened — the cooking fires barely lit when, like locusts, the barbarians came sweeping over the dunes. No one, nothing was left to live to tell the tale, only the despised carrion joyously feeding from the massacre, and now them — three forlorn fugitives desperately trying to cross the desert, who had come upon this foul battlefield by accident.

  “I’m going down there,” said Zadek. “Perhaps we’ll find something, something we can use.”

  The people of Samarkand were a superstitious folk, and Sharon was shocked to hear the mullah so dryly speak of walking among the dead. Many would have called it desecration, the work of nightthings or heathens. Yet, she also knew he was right. Perhaps there was something of value to them — food, water, weapons — something that could aid them in their dangerous journey. It was taking from the dead so that they might live. And so it was much to Zadek’s surprise that the princess said, “I’m coming with you.”

  The vultures flapped their wings and soared into the sky at the sight of the intruders, leaving the desolate merchant camp once again in total silence. The wind seemed to whistle like a demon as they crossed the camp, handkerchiefs held over their faces to blot out the stench, and slowly began to rummage through the scattered litter.

  Most waterskins had been pierced by arrows or ripped by knives, their precious liquid long since evaporated into the sand, but Zadek did find a small one hidden beneath a fallen beast of burden. He took it in his hands and sighingly thanked Allah for at least this much. He almost didn’t hear when Sharon shouted to him from the opposite end of the site.

  “Teacher, look!” she was calling, almost gleefully.

  Zadek, hurrying to her side, almost had to laugh when he saw the two camels feeding from debris behind a dune that had kept them out of sight. They chewed slowly at their meal, hardly blinking as the mad monk grabbed their bridles and pulled them back to the gully. “We have been blessed,” he said to Sharon with true humility. “With these desert creatures to carry us, our journey shall be completed.”

  The saddlebags on the beasts were packed with food, blankets, and a handful of small tools. The waterskin one carried was nearly full, in itself almost enough for the entire trek to the Steppes. The mullah lifted his gaze to the heavens and said a silent prayer. Fate had played a strange trick, he realized; it was more than mere chance that had brought them here this day. Their safety had been all but ensured by divine will; that there was no other explanation he was certain, only why he and Sharon had been bestowed with these gifts, he was unsure. But there was a purpose, even if he did not know it — a reason why they alone were spared and all others had perished.

  They gathered together all they could find and, leaving the exhausted horses behind, left the camp and continued on, Zadek and Asif upon one camel, Sharon upon the other. When they were well away, and the bitter-cold desert night had finally replaced the day, they finally stopped, for the first time in nearly two days. Beneath the panorama of ten thousand glittering stars in the velvet sky they ate and rested, talking sparingly, contemplating what the future might hold. And then they fell into a restless sleep, mindful of the hardships that still wai
ted.

  *

  The sun was scorching, the heat intolerable. Faces covered, they pressed on, and with each passing hour the stark red mountains of the feared Steppes came that much closer. The camels worked their way up and down the difficult terrain, taking them unhaltingly over routes rarely traveled. They crossed wide open valleys where the land beneath their feet was rocky and parched, land where rain was seen less than a handful of days every year. During the afternoon hours, when the sun was at its hottest, they rested again, rubbing at aching muscles, napping, making themselves comfortable as best they could. Then, as the day began to wane, they started the journey once again, traveling in the cooler hours of evening and long past sunset. During the entire time, they had not once caught sight of a Hun patrol — good news, perhaps, but they held no illusions that Kabul’s men were far behind. It was Zadek’s only hope that they could reach the Stronghold of the Kazirs before the enemy did.

  It was well before noon of the next day that Asif first noticed the peculiar darkness obliterating the sky — not clouds, he soon saw, but dust, thick, swirling, carried by forceful gusts of sultry wind. A desert storm was heading straight in their direction. Within minutes the wind was scourging like rain, lashing at them like whips, blinding them, drenching them with billions upon billions of tiny particles of powdery, rough-grained sand. The dark fury of the storm grew only more fierce; they could see nothing at all of the terrain that surrounded them. Going on was futile; they knew they must stop. Quickly they dismounted, holding the reins of their camels firmly, huddling together between the lumbering beasts as best they could. The sky above became lost, and by dusk they could see neither the moon nor a single star. Shouting above the din of the wind, Zadek called for them to stay perfectly still, knowing that to step merely a pace away from one another could separate them forever.