Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  "I yield you this game and the hundred sequins. Come, double stakes the next time—two hundred gold coins each of us will wager. My word is good for the amount, is it not?"

  He glanced up at the watching Cossacks.

  "It is, bogatyr—indeed, what ant out of a dunghill would question your word?"

  Demid, setting up the men anew, nodded. It was what he wished, for now the value of four hundred sequins lay on the issue of the second game. Word of the large wager spread through the camp and warriors strolled over to watch the progress of the miniature armies on their wooden battlefield. Little did the men of the siech know about the game, but the meaning of a piece lifted from the board and tossed aside was clear to them. That knight or that bishop had been slain.

  Boron played as swiftly as before, but in silence now, his lean face impassive, his eyes glittering. When he picked one of Demid's valuable castles from the board the watchers drew their pipes from their lips and nodded to each other.

  "Hey, this fellow Boron knows what he's about, hide of the-. He

  can match a king with a knight—he has a head like a prince!"

  Quietly, the man from the Don met the ataman's attack with all his skill. The gold pieces that lay beside his knee would ransom Ayub, if he could win the game. And he was holding his own, although he knew now that Boron was the better player, and that the first game had been lost through carelessness.

  Under cover of Boron's main attack, the ataman had advanced a pawn to Demid's last line of squares, where, by the rules of the game, it became a queen. Eagerly the Zaporogian made a move, and cried:

  "Shah ma’at3! Your king dies!"

  Demid looked up quickly, and presently he smiled.

  "The king dies."

  The game was over; he had lost, and he handed over his coat and girdle to Boron, who swept up the gold pieces. But so gravely had he spoken the three words that the bystanders and Boron stared at him searchingly.

  "Well, you won't ransom your comrade, Ayub, after all," remarked the ataman. "Unless you can bring up your Tatar allies who taught you chess and set the siech at war. Then the drum would be beaten, and Ayub would be freed and given a sword, to fight like a Christian instead of dying like a dog."

  And, rolling himself in his sables on the ground, he went to sleep. But Demid remained sitting by the embers of the fire until dawn showed him the scattered chessmen—the kings and warriors lying helpless beside the stage where they had moved in pomp and ceremony a few hours since.

  Then Demid stood up, his scimitar under his arm, and went over to where Ayub half lay, half hung against the stout spear. The prisoner turned a drawn face toward his friend and blinked wearily. Presently, as he noticed that Demid lacked coat and girdle and purse, his beard bristled in a smile.

  "Eh, I see that Boron left you your pantaloons. The good knights who passed by on their way to the barracks spoke of your game."

  "He plays well."

  Demid glanced back at the prone figure under the sables. No one was watching them. He could cut Ayub down and they might escape from the siech, but Ayub would not do this. To flee out of the camp like a stoned dog, and live thereafter in some distant village—no, Ayub would not do that.

  "Hearken, Ayub," said the man from the Don, "I am going from the siech. You have two days more of grace. Before sunrise of the second day I will be back. Look for me then."

  "Nay, Demid, what the —— are you about? Just hear the lad—hasn't been in the siech for breakfast yet, and has done nothing but make an ass of himself at chess! To slink out of sight! That won't help you make friends among the fine knights, at all—"

  But Demid had disappeared already into the thin, morning mist.

  The gray curtain of mist was heavier over the river, and he was able to take out his canoe and thrust it through the reeds without being observed by anyone except a sleepy sentry. Answering the challenge of the guard, he explained that he was setting forth on a hunt.

  As soon as he was clear of the rushes, he headed north. Coming that noon to the cataracts, he left his boat in the keeping of the old fisherman who had wished him luck, and struck inland, through the dense oak forest that lined the western bank of the Dnieper.

  It was toward the end of the third watch, in the second night of Demid's absence, that Ayub was roused from a doze by a sound near at hand.

  The limbs of the big Cossack were stiff, and utter weariness held down his eyelids. He thought at first that day was come, and the cooks of the kurens were starting up the fires. But the stars were still brilliant overhead and no lights showed by the black bulk of the barracks. Even the late revelers had stumbled into their sheepskins.

  Ayub knew that the siech slept, but not the full, deep sleep of a man who has eaten well and drunk his share of wine. The Cossacks had been quarreling; they were restless, under the long spell of idleness; most of the men were in debt to the Jews and Armenians; money was a forgotten thing.

  That day a Cossack had killed another man, and had been buried alive under the coffin of his victim. What would you? The Zaporogians loved not idleness.

  The sound caught Ayub's attention again, and he made out the form of a man stooping to enter the hut where the drummer slept near the great drum of the camp. For a while he listened, hearing only a distant, heavy breathing. Probably the drummer was going to sleep, he thought.

  Before long he saw the form of the man again. This time it went away from the hut, still stooping. Ayub nodded drowsily, and half heard something sliding over the hard earth behind the nocturnal visitor. It seemed to him to be a sack of meal or corn. The man and his burden vanished in the darkness, going toward the stables.

  Ayub gritted his teeth against the cramping pain in his limbs and looked toward the east. By the feel of the air he knew that dawn was not far away.

  Boom-boom!

  Almost at Ayub's ear the drum—a bull's hide stretched over a wooden frame—resounded to powerful blows.

  Ayub twisted around in his bonds and stared vainly into the shadows. The drum roared on. He wondered why the drummer was without a light and why the Koshevoi Ataman had not been aroused before the alarm was sounded.

  Lights flickered in the windows of the barracks. Boots thudded on the ground, but no longer in the hopak and trepak of the dance. The fire by the chief's hut blazed up and Ayub saw the koshevoi stride out, buckling on his belt, his baton in hand. Around Ayub masses of Cossacks gathered, and in the cleared space by the drum the leader and the captains of the kurens assembled.

  A voice cursed sleepily.

  "Who beats the muster at this hour?"

  Demid was standing by the drum, pounding it with the flat of his drawn sword.

  Torches and lanthorns were brought and the chief looked at the young Cossack inquiringly.

  "Where is the drummer with his sticks? What does this mean?"

  Still keeping his sword in hand, Demid bowed to the chief of the Cossacks and glanced around the ring of faces that peered at him angrily.

  "It is time, good sir, that the council of the siech was assembled."

  He pointed at Ayub.

  "Too long has that man been strung up like a drawn ox."

  The clamor of astonishment and fury that started up in the growing masses of Cossacks at hearing that a young warrior had ventured to call together a general council was stifled when Demid poured out on the drum, from a cloak that he carried under his left arm, a collection of glittering objects—gold goblets, jeweled buckles, strings of pearls and inlaid incense boxes.

  "Here," he said, "is the value of more than four hundred sequins and the limit of time for payment of Ayub's debt is not yet passed."

  A mutter, as of wind stirring dried leaves on the earth, drifted in from the outskirts of the gathering. The Cossacks who could not hear or see what was going on were asking their comrades who stood nearer what it was all about. The mutter dissolved into impatient shouts.

  "What dog has called the council to see a debt paid? Demid—who
/>
  the-is Demid? Put a halter around him—string him up by the heels.

  Where are the cooks with their kasha? To purgatory with the cooks, we'll raid the dram-shops!"

  This proposal drew forth a roar of approval. The warriors were hungry, their tempers frayed by the revelry of a few hours ago. Their hands sought their weapons, as several of the nearest strode toward Demid.

  But when Boron, the bogatyr, stepped to the drum and began examining the spoil laid down by Ayub's comrade, the Cossacks paused respectfully.

  "By all the saints," shouted Boron, flushing, "these things are mine! The vagabond from the Don has gone to my tower and stolen them."

  Again the mutter as of wind brushing through the forests—men whispered to those far out in the crowd what had been said. Then silence.

  "Aye, they were yours," said Demid.

  Thrusting his left hand into the long pocket of his breeches he pulled forth shimmering strings of pearls, necklaces and bracelets, and finally a double handful of stones torn from their settings—rubies and emeralds that flashed as they bounced around on the drumhead. An emperor's ransom lay before the men of the siech. No one had dreamed that Boron had so great a store of riches.

  Looking closely at Demid they saw now that a cut ran across the back of one hand, that his shirt was torn open, that his forehead was bruised. When he forced his way into the tower of Boron, he had found it well guarded by slaves, and among the slaves had been fair women of Cher-kessia. Remembering this, he delved into the other pocket, using his left hand again. Upon the drum rolled anklets of inlaid ivory, tiny veils, sewn with pearls, pendants scented with musk, and toe-rings afire with diamonds. The head of the great drum was almost covered.

  "Were these taken from your tower?" he asked gravely.

  "As God is my witness," responded Boron incredulously, "they were, and—"

  "This?"

  Demid held out in the palm of his hand a signet ring, wherein glowed a single topaz, inlaid with the crest of one of the high officers of the Imperial City.

  "Aye, and that. 'Twas taken from the hand of a Turkish vizier who fell to my sword at our last sally along the Black Sea."

  "Aye, bogatyr, when half the men of your regiment laid down their Cossack lives."

  Demid handed the signet ring to the koshevoi.

  "Father," he said quickly to the chief, "I say that Boron lied when he accused Ayub. See, here, before you, is his wealth. He is not of the mas-terless ones, for he serves a master. And that is greed."

  Hereat, the leader of the Cossacks stepped between the two men, looking first at Boron, then at Demid.

  "Hard words! Demid, say all that is in your mind. Ataman, stay your hand until he has done. The time for the shedding of blood will come soon enough."

  Boron, quivering with rage, dropped his hands to his sides and glanced at the sky in the east where the first streaks of dull red were showing.

  "Ayub," said Demid slowly, "also spoke hard words against Boron. They were true words, as you see. Boron revenged himself by saying falsely that Ayub took his gold. While the old Cossack slept, the bogatyr put the six sequins in his pocket. The rest he carried around himself—for he lacked not of gold pieces when he played at chess with me. So it is clear to me that Boron, having this"—he pointed to the drumhead—"sought the life of Ayub not because of a few sequins, but in revenge."

  "And I say," added Boron calmly, "that one of us will sprinkle his blood in the earth before the day is here."

  "Aye," assented Demid, "I claim the right of trial by combat."

  He turned to the watching throng.

  "Is it not fair, good sirs, that our swords should decide which of us is in the right?"

  He had judged the temper of the Cossacks correctly. A shout of assent went up from the crowd: the koshevoi, who never had real authority except in time of war when his word was law, stepped back into the gathering, and a circle was cleared around the two swordsmen.

  Ayub, forgetting his aches, tried to pull himself up higher on the spear to see the better, until his neighbors good-naturedly seized him and hoisted him to their shoulders.

  For a moment after casting off the long leather coat that he had won from Demid, the bogatyr stood silent, the point of his scimitar resting on the ground by his foot. It seemed as if he were listening for some sound other than the heavy breathing of men. At the end of the interval, he raised his weapon, saluted, and repeated quietly the customary phrase—

  "To one of us life, to the other, death."

  The violence of his anger had fallen from Boron; his eyes were bright and steady, the shadow of a smile on his lips. Demid had taken upon himself Ayub's quarrel; if the man from the Don should be cut down in the duel, Ayub's guilt would stand as before. Should Demid, by some chance, be the victor, his comrade would be free of all blame.

  Such was the trial by combat in the siech. Boron saw now how the stranger had planned for this, and in his salute there was a fleeting tribute to the courage of the man from the Don.

  They stepped toward each other, and Boron began to attack at once, cutting swiftly at Demid's waist. He parried his adversary's answering stroke with a bare turn of his blade, forcing Demid to give ground.

  The scimitars clashed and parted, the fine steel humming in the air; the boots of the swordsmen hardly made a sound, so swiftly did they shift position, wheeling around each other and darting in—two men who knew their weapons. They fought in the reckless style of the Moslems—both attacking at once, and leaping apart. Once their curved blades struck against flesh and bone, one or the other would be maimed. And yet Boron could not resist a tour d’esprit, to show off his brilliancy.

  He sprang forward with a shout, locked his hilt against Demid's, and forced the right arm of the young Cossack high into the air. For a second the two stood, rigid until Boron disengaged and stepped back swiftly, smiling as he did so. Demid's teeth gleamed under his mustache.

  "Well done, bogatyr!" he cried, in acknowledgment.

  Ayub noticed that after this Demid no longer gave ground. Pressing Boron back, until the scimitars flashed in the torchlight too swiftly for the eyes of the watchers to follow, he tried for the other's throat with his point. But Boron got home beneath Demid's sword.

  And Ayub groaned, seeing that Demid was down on one knee, the muscles on the front of his right thigh severed by the sliding edge of the Zaporogian's weapon.

  "Boron! Well struck, Boron!"

  The Cossacks in the throng shouted and tossed up their caps, and some glanced regretfully at Ayub, whose life hung on the bogatyr's next stroke. Demid was crippled.

  Boron was not the man to forego an advantage. With a shout of triumph he sprang in, slashing with a full swing of the arm. But in the same instant Demid staggered erect, on his good leg. His scimitar darted forward and Boron never struck the blow he aimed, because his right shoulder was slashed half through the bone.

  Stifling a groan, the tall Zaporogian recovered his weapon with his left hand and set his teeth. Blood soaked the sleeve of his injured arm and splashed the earth. Demid, poised on one foot, waited for his next move. "Come, bogatyr—I cannot advance on you."

  There was no middle course. The fight was to a finish and Boron, weighing the chances, saw that his best move was to knock Demid off his balance. For the last time, he feinted and rushed against his foe. Demid went down.

  But before he fell the young Cossack had got home with his point, and his scimitar was thrust through the heart of his adversary. The eyes of the bogatyr opened very wide and his hands fumbled at the hilt that projected from his ribs. His feet, planted firmly, still upheld his body.

  Now the koshevoi stepped forward, saying that the fight was at an end, and, putting his arm about Boron, laid the dying man on the ground.

  "Hai, sir brother," he observed, "your days with us are over; may your Cossack soul find the glory that you earned on earth. Surely the bandura players will sing your name!"

  A little sadly he handed Demid
the scimitar that he drew from the body of the first swordsman and most reckless warrior of the camp. A commotion that had been going on for some time attracted his attention. Into the ring from between the legs of the warriors crawled a thin Cossack, his wrists bound together, and his knees tightly secured by a sash. Two long sticks were thrust in the belt of the newcomer, who was gagged as well as bound.

  Absorbed in the sword play, the Cossacks in the crowd had paid him little heed.

  "The drummer!"

  Someone in the crowd began to laugh, and others, who were nearest him looked at Demid curiously.

  "Hide of the ——! Demid has bound him with his jeweled girdle, so that he could use the drum himself."

  But the koshevoi frowned and took one of the torches in his hand to examine the trussed Cossack.

  "Demid did not do this!"

  "How not, Father?"

  "Boron won this girdle from him three nights ago and has worn it since."

  He ripped the gag from between the man's teeth.

  "Who tied you up, you son of a pig?"

  "Boron it was, Father. He fell on me in my sleep and lugged me to the stable. I have been an hour crawling here."

  While the warriors stared, puzzled, the koshevoi turned the body of Boron over with his foot, looking from the drawn face of the dead man to the signet ring that he still held in his hand, and from that to the disgruntled drummer. Then he glanced at the sunrise, flooding the sky behind the trees. He held up his baton for silence, and listened, as Boron had done, for a sound other than the breathing of men.

  A shrewd man the koshevoi and no stranger to the wiles of his enemies. Only a month ago, good fortune alone had saved the camp from being surprised by the Turks. This was the hour in which an attack might well be made on the siech, and in this hour the drummer whose duty it was to beat the alarm had been made helpless by the man who owned a signet ring of the Turks.

  It was the habit of the koshevoi to act promptly. He put on his hat and drew himself up, and his shout was heard over the square.

  "Form the regiments under the colonels! See that each man has powder in his flask, and that his pistols are loaded! Send patrols out toward the river on every side."