Samarkand the Omnibus: Books 1-2

by Graham Diamond

Kabul gulped, the mention of the Samarkand princess sending his brain into a fever.

  “Forget this woman,” pleaded the general. “The Turks —”

  The khan silenced him abruptly with a wave of his hand. Then, to his son: “You really believe you can find her, bring her back to me … alive?”

  Osklath met his father’s stare evenly, his own features alight with the promise of it. “Aye, great khan, into your hands shall I personally deliver the woman, to await your pleasure.”

  The thought of having the palace bitch within his grasp once more made Kabul oblivious to everything around him. Though his officers protested greatly this costly campaign, he heard them not. For him, there was nothing that could mean more than finding her. Though he be claimed king of the world itself, it was her and not the crown that he lusted after more — her and only her.

  “This opportunity I offer should not be missed, Father,” grunted Osklath, baiting him further, gleefully observing his madness. “We can make the Kazirs pay dearly for what they have done. Never again shall you be scorned by other kings. You shall make examples of all these rebels, for every kingdom to see, so that all may shudder at your might. What say you, sire? Shall I gather your armies and march?”

  This would be the decisive battle, Kabul knew. One way or another the Steppes would be rid of this scourge. Frizul had been a boastful fool, he and his Immortals. Ah, but the clever Osklath was another matter entirely. If any of his sons could take this Stronghold, it would be he. Let the boy succeed and his own thirst for revenge could at last be quenched. But … what if even Osklath should fail? Kabul laughed deeply to himself; then his eldest son would no longer be the threat he had become. The Kazirs, an unwitting ally, would rid him of this danger once and for all. How ironic, mused Kabul, seeing that either way he could not lose.

  He clasped Osklath by the shoulders with both hands. “Take as many of my armies as you think you need, my son. Go, burn away this accursed forest we dread, raze every village of these hillmen, crucify their menfolk upon every hill from here to the Persian frontier. Leave no survivors to relate the tale but let the corpses speak for themselves.”

  Osklath smiled broadly, thinking of the hero he would be when all this was finished. Kabul’s other sons and generals would scorn the great khan, without question pledge allegiance to Osklath. Half an empire indeed! Give him victory over the Kazirs and Osklath knew he could have it all — everything.

  “I give you my solemn word, Father: When I am done, the entire world shall cringe at the very mention of the name of the king of the Huns.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Fuliwa had ridden hard to reach the Stronghold, storming past the massive red-trunked giant of a tree, through the sliding walls of rock as the horn signal was given, and to the waiting group gathered at the edge of the fortress. His chieftain, Ami, had instructed him to lose no time in reaching the Stronghold; with no explanation other than that there was a matter of dire urgency, he was to beseech Tariq and the Panther to go to Ami at once. It was a strange request, for Fuliwa land was far from the safety of the Kazir fortress, well across the blazing Steppes, almost at the foothills of Grim Forest itself. Tariq had looked at his friends with trepidation. “Ami would not send for us like this,” he said, “unless the matter was one of the utmost importance.”

  And knowing this, neither he nor Sharon could refuse. Swiftly their horses were brought to them, and following the messenger’s lead, in the small hours after midnight they set off on the journey, companionless save for the Bear, brought as watchful escort. Over the rutted hills and gullies they made haste, until at length the land flattened and only the distant haze of the faraway northern mountains stood starkly before them. Here they broke stride, negotiating the red sands slowly, aware that hidden behind the bluffs, already watching them, were Fuliwa scouts, signaling their arrival.

  “Meet me at the Mound of Meditation,” Ami had asked, referring to a singularly jagged hill that poked its way above the plain like a citadel and from whose heights the Fuliwas for a century had guarded their own mountain passes from the north.

  It was a dark and silent moment when the small band tiredly arrived after sunset, the only stirrings that of wind-driven sand pelting them from the direction of the forest. The Fuliwa messenger, a stout and tight-lipped fellow, spoke not a word as he climbed from his saddle and approached the hill. He hooted softly, like an owl, and while Tariq peered into the night, that hoot was repeated from somewhere up above.

  There was the scent of woodsmoke in the air, from a fire doused no later than the last flicker of sunlight. The messenger, as unseeing as the rest, ushered them upward along a narrow defile between the rocks, hands thrust forward as he felt his way. Sharon stayed close behind him, first among her companions to reach the top. There in the shadows, the white of his eyes keenly showing from the recesses of his hood, stood Ami, alone, in the middle of a cleared dirt circle. He waited for all his visitors to reach the top, and when Roskovitch, the last, came panting into the open, he gestured for them to sit.

  “Were you followed?” he asked, once they had gathered together in a tight circle and the Fuliwa messenger had gone to stand guard in the darkness.

  Tariq shook his head in reply. It was unusual for his friend to greet him in this manner, and it only added to his concern about why they had been called here like this.

  Ami wasted no time. “The Huns are on the march,” he told them soberly. “They are burning everything before them. Women and children have been put to death by the score, country villages abandoned, fields set ablaze.” Protected from the ravages of flying sand by the sheltering rocks all about, he pulled off his hood. It was then that Sharon saw his, face: eyes puffy and red, jowls sunken with fatigue and smeared with grime. He pulled the cap from a goatskin and offered the clear mountain water to his guests. Tariq downed a swallow thirstily, handing it to Roskovitch after Sharon had refused.

  “We have faced their armies before,” said the Bear, returning the skin to its owner and waiting while Ami took a long draught himself.

  “Not like this one we haven’t,” snapped the Fuliwa coldly. “Column after column of horsemen, the khan’s finest cavalry, followed by thousands of foot soldiers fanning out like ants across the hills, marching with all speed. My spies have seen them; they left Samarkand in the dead of night five days ago, turning east”

  “East?” Sharon seemed surprised.

  “We shall muster our forces along the Steppes,” said Tariq with the authority vested in him. “My men shall join your own as soon as we can”

  “There isn’t enough time for that,” Ami broke in, rudely cutting off his friend. “The Huns are not headed for the Steppes” — he stared at his guests one by one — “they move toward the forest.”

  The shocked silence lasted for only a second. “Impossible!” cried Roskovitch. “Why would they even consider such a thing? The wood would only slow them down, encumber them, make them ripe marks for our own forces.”

  “Why indeed,” agreed Tariq, “unless …” He glanced sharply at the Fuliwa chieftain.

  “Unless they know,” he answered.

  Sharon gasped. “Are you saying they’ve discovered the secret route to the Stronghold?”

  Ami’s dark gaze needed no words to reply.

  “I cannot believe it,” said Tariq. “No man knows the secret save our tribesmen, and no Kazir would ever tell.”

  “Yet the Huns do know,” insisted Ami, leaning forward and placing a steady hand upon Tariq’s shoulder.

  “How can you be so positive?” Sharon said, her eyes glaring darkly at her host. “Did your spies hear of it from the khan himself? Whose lips claim this thing?”

  As she spoke, Ami looked at her with a growing sadness that was unmistakable. “The lips of one even you would believe,” he answered after a time. And then he stood, calling softly into the darkness. Tariq and the Panther exchanged puzzled expressions as a tall, lumbering figure appeared out of the black �
� a pained and deathly ill figure of a man who stumbled upon shattered limbs, a stout crutch supporting his weight. The man wore a simple white robe with the stitching not of Kazir women but of those of Samarkand; Sharon recognized the weave instantly. Hollow, vacant eyes stared at her; she was appalled at his drawn features, sorrowful and haggard, like those of a man risen from the very brink of death itself. Around his neck was a deep red line, the scar from where a slave ring had been fixed. The man hunkered over her, eyes pleading for recognition. Sharon stared at him blindly, thinking only of how the poor creature must have suffered, what terrible torments he must have endured.

  “Don’t … don’t you know me?” he croaked in a thick, breaking voice.

  Sharon shook her head. “Have we met before, stranger?”

  The man sunk his head, openly weeping, hands covering his heavily lined face. Ami went to his side, gently led him over to the Bear, and helped him sit. There the stranger dried his eyes and, accepting a sip of water, forced himself to look at the woman again. “You have changed much, Princess,” he said, gazing at her face.

  Sharon stirred uncomfortably. “I had thought you dead,” he went on, “and mourned you as much as I loved you … yes, even as I loved Amrath.”

  Goose bumps crawled over her flesh, and Sharon’s eyes widened. Could it be so? Could it really be …

  She rose slowly, walked to him, and knelt at his feet, tears now streaming down her desert-tanned cheeks.

  Then she took his trembling hands, encasing them firmly in her own. “Hezekiah,” she whispered. “Praise be to merciful God, you’re alive!”

  The Hebrew minister, once so strong and tall, now little more than a heap of bone held together by rotting flesh, gravely nodded. “Aye, princess, brought back from the world of the near dead.”

  “My scouts found him alone near the edge of the desert,” said Ami. “He was in a daze, closer to death than even now, a wounded horse at his side.”

  “But … but how?” stammered the girl, more perplexed than ever. “You were in the palace when the city was taken; no one could have escaped!”

  Hezekiah ran his hand through her clipped hair, remembering the long girlish locks he was so fond of, the chestnut color turned to fire in the sunlight. “I did not escape,” he said. “As I lay in my bed, resting from the assassin’s attack, they broke into my quarters like savages, killing my guards and servants. My own fife was worthless even to me, I knew, and I wanted nothing more than to rest in eternal peace with my friend Amrath, when the swords at my throat were suddenly removed. ‘Leave this one alive!’ someone had called, and the Huns obeyed the command. Little did I know then that it was the one called Osklath who had spared me. Aye, he kept breath in my lungs even as he ordered me dragged to the deepest palace dungeon.”

  Sharon’s pity showed in her anguished face. “All this time?” she mumbled. “All this time in the dungeons?”

  The once proud minister nodded. “It would serve no purpose to recount the tortures they put me through. Suffice it to say that never once did I betray my home or my friends. Again and again I was beaten, lashed within a hairbreadth of my life, to tell who the woman was who stole Kabul’s eye.” He shuddered at the memory of the torturers’ skill. Then, strangely, he smiled, putting a, finger beneath Sharon’s chin and forcing her to look up at him. “Little did I dream that the woman might be you, or that the Panther of the Steppes might be the same child I loved.”

  Tariq looked at Ami; the Fuliwa sighed. “I told him,” he admitted. “He had a right to know. In the name of Allah, he deserved at least that.”

  “You did well,” said Tariq, overlooking that his friend had broken the code by telling an outsider. “You have no need to explain.”

  “In the loneliness of my cell,” continued Hezekiah, “where my hands, legs, and neck had been chained as though I were a wild animal, I sought only release from this life. My lips refused the acrid water they brought, the stale bread. But the Huns are a cunning folk, my friends. They forced their sustenance down my throat, making me live day after day, sporting with me, placing on my head a crown of thistles and proclaiming me the last king of Samarkand.”

  Roskovitch gritted his teeth. “The swine,” he growled. “One day payment shall be made for your suffering.”

  Hezekiah held up a hand, pained at the thought of further violence. “No,” he said strongly, “my grief can never be repaid; my fate is to live with it until my last hour. But thank heaven I have come to warn you.”

  It was only then that Sharon recalled what Ami had said: Hezekiah alone knew the truth of Kabul’s evil plan. “Tell us everything,” she pleaded, “all you have learned these many months of your imprisonment.”

  The Hebrew minister sighed deeply and rubbed a hand above his brows, trying to reconstruct the foggy pieces as best he could. “The dungeons are always dark,” he began. “A man has no way of ever knowing what is day and what is night. Time has no meaning. I was sleeping fitfully when the screams woke me — terrible screams of pain and torment. I leaped to my feet and peered between the small bars stitched across my doorway. It was then I saw him: a Kazir warrior, his desert robe smeared with his own blood and excrement. To my shock, when he was stripped and tossed like a rag into the cell opposite, I realized that he was merely a lad, nothing more.”

  Sharon’s hand flew to her mouth. “Asif!” she cried.

  Hezekiah nodded darkly. “Yes,” he said, “it was he — a frightened and badly beaten child, dragged to his prison like a common murderer. Little did I suspect that he was your friend, my princess, your valued comrade-in-arms.” The Hebrew mopped his forehead, meeting Sharon’s baleful gaze. “Day after day they tortured him. He was strapped to the rack, hot coals put to his feet, needles dug into his fingernails, punished well beyond any man’s limits of endurance. Need I tell you how much I grieved for the lad, knowing that his tormentors plied their trade all too well upon him? An ‘outlaw,’ they called him, a ‘renegade of the Steppes,’ and they demanded to learn all that he knew. He was commanded to confess crimes both real and imagined as all the while they sought to learn the identity of the Panther and the location of her fortress. But Asif was a brave boy, the bravest I have ever known.” Tears came to the old man’s eyes, and his shoulders sagged heavily with his grief. “Never did he either admit to the crimes or give them the information they demanded, never — at least not until the very end.”

  “Go on,” Sharon said breathlessly.

  “Asif became wracked with fever; it happens to many down in the dungeons. His tormentors became wary of beating him again, but the one called Osklath grew angry and chided them; he threatened them with their own heads if Asif died before talking. So again the boy was tortured, more brutally than before, until, perhaps, blissfully, he fell into his delirium, not recognizing the grim world into which he had been thrown. The torturers themselves secretly displayed pity for him, but not Osklath. Daily he would return, examining Asif carefully before having them continue.

  “I woke again from a restless sleep, fear in my heart, and saw the brazen son of Kabul, his head swimming with wine, slip quietly into Asif’s cell. The boy’s wracked brain could not distinguish reality or recognize the face of his enemy. He cried out the name ‘Tariq,’ and Osklath cunningly responded.” Hezekiah now turned his face toward the chieftain of the Stronghold, explaining how by deceit Osklath had tricked the lad into betraying his friends at last. “Asif died in his arms,” Hezekiah went on, “and I saw Osklath rise and march triumphantly from the dungeon. I shall never forget the glint of menace in his eye when he’d finally learned the Kazir secret. Even a fool couldn’t have failed to recognize the lust and hate written into his features. He now had the power to break Kazir strength, and he was ready and able to use it. Lucky for us all that the cursed son of Kabul did not suspect that I alone had heard everything that had transpired; otherwise none of us would be sitting here now.”

  The wind whistled eerily above their heads, gusting down from the h
eights of the Mound. “Then what happened?” asked Tariq, pulling his robe more tightly about him as he shivered.

  “An old man was forced to learn new tricks,” replied the Hebrew mysteriously. “As I’ve said, my own life was no longer important to me; but I knew that for the sake of all peoples everywhere the Huns must be stopped. ’Tis no lie that in all my years I have never been considered a friend to the Kazirs. Yet the menace of Kabul was greater. I knew that only by reaching word to you here could the terrible events already begun possibly be reversed.

  “So, my plan was set. Hours later I rose from my straw mat, screaming like a madman when the guards came to question me. ‘Bring me Osklath,’ I said, cowering, pretending to fear the pain of their blows. The eldest son was sent for, and when he came, impatient with me after these many, many months of futile tortures, he was prepared to put me to the sword. ‘Wait,’ I pleaded, ‘spare me! Let me live and I’ll show you the way through the forest!’ I groveled at his boots like a dog, whimpering and whining. Osklath lifted me harshly to my feet, saying, ‘You know the path through Grim Forest?’ I nodded eagerly, like a schoolboy. ‘I do, my lord. Years ago I learned of it from one of the emir’s prisoners while yet I served Samarkand. Free me now, end my torture, and I shall guide you and your army.’

  “He was most skeptical, as you might imagine, for why should I speak now, after so long a time? Still, the offer was hardly one he could refuse, as a man familiar with these lands was a rare commodity in the khan’s court. My life was nothing to him; yet, if my word was good, I might still be put to use. ‘Do you lie to me, old man?’ he demanded, his fingers pressing at my larynx. I shook my head violently, gasping for breath. ‘No, no!’ I cried. ‘Let me prove it.’

  “And so Osklath had me removed from the dungeons and brought into the light of day for the first time in more than a year. My wounds were tended, my shackles removed. Constantly guarded, I waited until the army was set to move and then, placed in the vanguard, close to the detachment of riders led by the youngest son, Frizul, I bided my time. Late the first night, while the camp slept, I found my horse and broke from the army. Arrows sailed past my head as I rode low in the saddle, drawing energy and courage only from the urgency of my task. Somehow I managed to elude them, but some leagues from then camp, my steed stumbled and fell, and I, weary and heartbroken, could only lie upon the sand, waiting for their patrols to finally catch me. It was not the Huns who came upon me that morning, though; no, it was the Kazirs, outriders of the Fuliwas. They brought me safely from the desert to their tents, fed me, cared for me, and sent for their chieftain. The rest you know.”