Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  Lali's whole thought was to get Sidi Ahmad away before his suspicions were aroused, and yet he continued to watch her as if taking delight in her distress. If, she reasoned swiftly, there had been a door leading from the tomb into a passage, he would have observed it before now.

  Her pulse quickened, at a dull sound close by—a grating, rumbling noise, as if a heavy stone were being rolled about.

  Sidi Ahmad heard it, too, and his black eyes darted into the shadows of the tomb. Nothing there. But suspicion like a flame, rising in dry tinder seized upon him. His powerful hand caught her slender arm, and his lips drew back from his teeth.

  "Ohai, I can read your soul, singing girl. Allah fashioned you to be a dove, but you would fly like a falcon. You came to Aleppo, and you have spied into what is hidden. You know my name, and the place of my treasure, and now your eyes search for a way hence. Did Mustapha set you to slay me?"

  His free hand sought fruitlessly for a weapon on the girl, who stood passive in his grasp. His face pressed close to hers.

  "Were you sent by the sultan, to do away with Sidi Ahmad? The truth, or you will not sing again! Ah!"

  Lali's dark eyes blazed into his.

  "I came of my own will, and my thought was to cast you down—who slew my father and hunted my people like beasts."

  The words came softly, for his ear alone, yet without pretense of deception. Lali had given utterance to what was in her heart, knowing that her next act would make her defenseless before the rage of the pasha. Her voice, full and clear as a clarion, echoed in the tomb.

  "Away Demid! Nine are here with weapons. Away, while there is time!"

  The scar on Sidi Ahmad's check grew livid and his hand groped for his sword hilt. And then he crouched as if struck. Something thudded against the wall across the chamber. Dust and fragments of brick flew out. The bricks of the wall moved and fell inward under a series of shocks. A black opening appeared where they had been.

  Another blow and a large boulder rolled out over the marble floor. The tall figure of an Arab emerged from the hole.

  Although he had looked to see something of the kind, Sidi Ahmad felt a twinge of superstitious fear—fear that the dust and bones of the inmate of the tomb had taken human form. But this passed as he made out the dark countenance of the Cossack, blinking in the glare of the lamp.

  Demid strode forward out of the cloud of dust from the shattered bricks that had walled up the passage, and stumbled against the massive rock that—fetched from the hillside—he had used to break down the barrier.

  "Go back!" cried Lali, beside herself with anxiety. "Swordsmen wait on the—"

  Her lips closed on the last word and a moan rose in her throat. Sidi Ahmad had drawn his dagger and thrust it into her side. The steel blade, slender as the tip of a palm frond, passed through the girl's silk vest without a sound, and the Moslem made no effort to draw it out.

  Lali's hands flew to the ivory hilt of the dagger, and her eyes opened very wide, fastening on the livid face of the man as if bewildered. His voice shrilled in a shout:

  "Ho, Moslems! To me—"

  His scimitar flashed out in time to parry the first cut of the Cossack who had crossed the tomb in a stride and a leap. The lamp flickered in a draught from the stair and gleamed red on the whirling steel. The swords hung for an instant as if suspended in the air.

  Then the Moslem tore loose his blade and hacked at the Cossack, snarling as he felt his weapon turned aside. The scar on his face made it seem as if be were laughing. Demid was smiling, yet his face was dark and the veins on his forehead stood out.

  "O pasha—O captain-pasha," he said softly, "you, who would take the life from a girl, remember the sword trick that I taught you! So, it went, and so—then your sword in the air again, and then—this!"

  Demid's blade whirled around the Moslem's scimitar and passed through his body. Sidi Ahmad coughed and fell heavily, first his knees striking the marble floor, then his head. His followers rushed into the tomb in time to see him stretched out motionless, upon the great cross.

  The eight men stared from the body of their master to the strange Arab standing before them sword in hand. Swords slithered from scabbards, but before they could recover from their astonishment the voice of Lali halted them!

  "The order is fulfilled, O men of the tower. Lo, I was sent hither by command of Mustapha, the Sultan, upon whom be peace. And the order was that Sidi Ahmad, who would have betrayed his master, should die."

  Kneeling, one hand to her side, she fought for breath.

  "Look, in the pasha's girdle—a letter there, asking that his head be sent to the court. Harm not the aga, who was sent with me—El Khadr—"

  She was silent and the janissaries glanced at one another questioningly. Their eyes fell on the treasure chests, and they fingered their weapons, knowing not what to believe. Lali's wit served her even when her strength was failing, and for the last time she acted a part, hoping to gain respite for Demid.

  One of the janissaries called out that they should go for Jal-ud-deen, another that search should be made for the letter, another besought Demid— fruitlessly—to cast down his sword.

  Instead the Cossack threw back the hood of his garment, and they saw the black scalp lock that fell to his shoulder. The pent up anger of many days of brooding blazed in his eyes, and those who beheld him thought that he was stricken with madness. The iron restraint of the long journey to Aleppo fell from him when he saw Sidi Ahmad strike Lali, and the blood was leaping in his veins as he watched his foes.

  "Come, dogs," he laughed, "slaves of a slave, come and take me or you will taste the stake and fire. Do you hear? I am the Cossack who rode over you this morning."

  Remembrance of how he had dealt with their comrades made the guards hesitate, but they were no cowards. Spreading out, they advanced on him, and he struck the first one down. Then, turning in his tracks, he sprang at those nearest the wall, warding their cuts and slashing back, hewing to the shoulder bone the slowest of them.

  One of the Moslems stumbled over Lali, as they raised a shout of rage, and the point of the Cossack's sword raked him under the eyes before Demid stepped back to the wall in the nearest corner.

  The gleam of steel was before his eyes, and in a second he was cut across the arm and chest. Two men were pressing him close when the others heard the thud of footsteps drawing nearer, and the war cry of the Cossacks.

  "U-ha!" It was Ayub's bull voice. "Cut, slash, Demid! Where are you?"

  The giant ataman thrust his head through the hole in the wall and displaced a goodly quantity of bricks in getting his body through. Whipping out his broadsword, he made at the five surviving Moslems, and Michael hurried after him. Other heads appeared, and swords gleamed as the Don men came after their leaders.

  Far below the halls of the Wolf's Ear, the Cossacks worked busily to remove the pick of the treasure of Sidi Ahmad, taking first the jewels, which were thrust into saddlebags; then the gold ornaments. Ayub, having stationed two warriors on the stair, and satisfied himself that Demid was not seriously hurt, fell to rooting out the best of the carved ivory and the silver fittings. This he did deftly enough, shaking his head with admiration at the hoard Sidi Ahmad had gathered together.

  "We must not fail to take off the value of ten thousand sequins," Demid observed.

  He was leaning on his sword while Michael bound up the deep cuts about his shoulders.

  "Aye, the ransom of Rurik," nodded Ayub, intent on his task. "May I never taste mead again, if we fail. Sidi Ahmad had a tight fist, though little good it did him in the end."

  The noise of the fight had been muffled by the depth of the secret stair and the music in the courtyard. Over their heads the Moslems sat at ease, and the astrologer still studied his chart.

  But presently a young warrior ran into the vault.

  "Father, the brothers at the horses have sent word that people have seen them, and many are crying out—"

  "To horse!" barked Demid. "Here with
that torch!"

  Taking the burning brand, he hurled it among the wooden boxes, and tore down the curtains, tossing them near the flames. Glancing around at the bodies of the slain, he stooped and picked up Lali.

  "If you must bear hence the witch," grumbled Ayub, "give her to me. Your wounds will bleed overmuch."

  The eyes of the girl opened, and the mask of pain lifted from her drawn face when Demid's arms raised her. Her lips moved.

  "To Ibnol Hammamgi—ride to my people!" she whispered. "Ai-a, we have kept faith, you and I. We have ridden far with— a free rein, and have

  I not— kept faith?"

  "Aye," said Demid, pausing and bending his head to catch the almost soundless words.

  "Then set me down. I—am not a witch and I do not fear—"

  Her hands reached up to touch his face, but closed convulsively on his cloak as a spasm of pain seized her. Demid moved into the passage, ahead of Ayub.

  "Nay, little falcon," he said, almost tenderly, "the end of the road is not yet, and surely you will go with me."

  They were in their saddles, and put the ponies to a gallop before the pasha's guards could close in on them. Through the deserted alleys of the Jews' quarter they passed like the first gust of a storm. From balconies and housetops turbaned heads peered at them, but saw no more than gigantic black forms bending over steeds that spurned up a cloud of dust and were gone.

  "They ride like the djinn folk!" voices cried from housetop to balcony.

  The colored lamps of a pleasure garden touched bearded faces and naked steel, shining through the dust. Here a patrol of mounted mamelukes drew up, in startled haste, in their path. The pistols of the Cossacks flashed and bellowed, and several of the Moslems dropped while their horses reared and plunged, throwing the rest into disorder.

  Headed by Ayub, who wielded his two-handed sword like the father of all the djinn, the Cossacks bunched, and, standing in their stirrups to strike the better, broke through the mamelukes and strung out toward the Bab el Nasr, while behind them the Moslems rallied, and the pursuit gathered headway. The shrill roll of kettledrums sounded near at hand and behind them from the dark tower of the dead Sidi Ahmad blared the trumpets giving the signal to guard the city gates.

  A shot barked somewhere near the wall and Ayub began to ply his whip.

  "That is the essaul. The dogs are biting him and his men. U-ha! Brothers, warriors, is your Cossack strength spent—are your horses hobbled? Faster, then!"

  Emerging into the cleared space by the gate Michael saw Broad Breeches standing pistol in hand by the iron portal, while one of his men lay stretched on the earth. The other was engaging a trio of Moslems, who drew back as Demid and his men galloped up.

  The essaul plucked the key from his belt and twisted it in the lock. Then he tugged open the barred gate, thrusting it back, to allow the riders to pass through without slackening pace.

  "After us!" Demid called over his shoulder.

  The warrior who had been fending off the swords of the Moslems whirled his horse and spurred through the gate. The old sergeant whistled up his pony, but, beholding the mass of pursuers drawing near from the mouths of the alleys, he changed his purpose.

  "Once my mother bore me," he muttered, and lifted his hoarse voice in a shout as he perceived that Demid and Michael had reined in to wait for him to come up. "Speed on, ataman. Tell the bandura players my name—"

  With that he closed the gate hastily, turned the key in the lock, and tossed it far into the darkness on the outer side of the gate. Spitting on his hands, he drew his sword and placed his back against the inside of the iron barrier. He was the oldest of the Cossacks, the essaul, and many Winters had whitened his hair; his eyes were growing dim and his aged heart glowed with satisfaction because the minstrels would now hear of his name and perhaps put it into their songs. Besides, Michael had given him an order to keep the gate closed.

  So he drew his sword and his gray mustache bristled fiercely as the Moslems spurred their horses in on him.

  The locked gate and the lost key delayed their pursuit for a precious half hour while they rode to another opening in the wall and circled back to take up the trail of the Cossacks.

  Michael had spent his strength. He stumbled down from his saddle when Demid called a halt at midnight, and another warrior changed the saddle for him to a fresh horse. Vaguely he was aware that Demid still carried the body of the young girl and that the flood of her black hair fell down over the ataman's knee like a silken cloak. She had died before the ride began.

  He was too tired to feel the ache in his limbs, or the salty dryness of his throat. With his hands gripping the pommel, he let the pony have its head, and, looking back after a while, he puzzled over a red glow that rose above the black line of the wall of Aleppo. The palace of Sidi Ahmad was burning to the ground, but Michael was past caring.

  Dry dust of sand was in the air, stinging his eyes; the wind brushed the damp hair from his forehead; the glimmer of the stars through the haze over the desert grew to a flare of torches, and Michael pulled himself awake by a sheer effort of will, to see that the Cossacks had halted and were lighting flares to search for tracks in the sand to show the path they should follow.

  "Why do you talk," he muttered drowsily, "when there is a debt to be paid?"

  A shaggy head loomed over him and a voice rumbled in his ear.

  "The little Frank is past his strength. I will see to it, but he has a true thought. We cannot bear the money to our brothers if we talk about the road, with Satan's hunting pack at our heels."

  Demid took the lead and they went on at hazard. Once more the saddles creaked, and the cold wind stirred about them. Michael swayed and went into a deep sleep but Ayub's arm steadied him until the streak of dawn on their right hand showed them the first ridge and the valley through which the northern trail ran, full ahead.

  Here they breathed the horses and let them roll, until dust began to show on the desert floor behind them and they mounted the freshest beasts, going through the pass and striking out for the river Jihan, two miles in advance of the nearest Moslem.

  It was not yet dusk when they reached the river and forced the sweating horses across. Their animals were done by now, but the leading pursuers were on camels that balked at crossing the river, and by the time that the horsemen came up, Demid was able to turn aside from the trail and hide his tracks in a rocky ravine. Safe for a few hours, they walked their horses, sleeping in the saddles.

  Before dawn they dismounted to eat a little and drink from the water bags they had filled at the river. With the first light Demid sent men to the nearest heights to try to place the detachments of janissaries that must be well up with them by now.

  Michael found that one of his saddlebags was filled with heavy bits of gold. He took some up in his hand, wondering whether the treasure would serve them in the end. But Demid would not hear of abandoning it.

  Late that afternoon they entered the first fringe of timber, on the higher slopes of the mountains, and over their heads loomed the white peaks of the Caucasus. It was here that a youth in sheepskins came leaping down toward them, crying eagerly that Ibnol Hammamgi was awaiting them in the nearest pass with fresh horses, and that fighting was in progress between the Turks and the Sivas tribe that had waited here to cover their retreat if they came back.

  Michael, in fact, soon heard the flicker of arrows in the brush and the neighing of horses. Not until then had he known how close the pursuit had drawn about them. But Demid greeted the chief of the mountain folk without comment and bade him draw his men back with them, for the Turks were in force at their rear.

  "I have brought back Lali, daughter of Macari," he added, "do you bear her to the patriarch, that he may perform the rites due to the child of a chieftain."

  XIII

  Where the road ends the warriors dismount, and when all have come up they talk together of the paths each one has followed; but of those who set out in the beginning upon the road, not all have com
e to the end. Aye, many have followed another path, and of these the warriors talk, saying over the names of those who will not take the saddle again.

  The sun grew warmer on the Cossack steppe, and the snow dwindled to gray patches; then grass came and the whole steppe was like a swamp, over which no army could move. Spring passed, and crops were sown and still no Moslem banners were seen crossing the frontier.

  When the wheat and oats were ripening, minstrels and Gypsies drifted in to the camps of the Zaporogian Cossacks, where a nucleus of warriors were guarding the frontier. These wanderers from the sea brought word of Demid.

  They told how the tower of Sidi Ahmad had been fired, and how the Don Cossacks, or what remained of them, had reached the Armenian mountains and had been conducted by the shrewd hillmen to the east, along hidden valley trails used by the Armenians. Gypsies told, furthermore, that the Cossacks had been seen off Trebizond, coasting by the shore in two open boats, and that a rabble of Greeks, Syrians and whatnot had put out from that port to intercept them, hearing that they had gold.

  After that no word came of Demid and his followers, and the Cossacks of the siech shook their heads mournfully, and settled down to their watch on the Dnieper. Yet still the Turks hung back from the expected invasion.

  There was a reason for this. The burning of the tower of Aleppo and the loss of the treasure had spread suspicion throughout the Turks of Asia Minor. Sidi Ahmad no longer ruled their counsels; some whispered that the sultan had slain the pasha. The mamelukes, who had not been paid, marched back to Egypt and took their reward in plunder from the cities in their path. Always intriguing, the shah of Persia held back his forces to use for his own advantage.

  Meanwhile Jal-ud-deen met the fate that so long he had feared—an assassin from the court ended his life, and in Aleppo, fighting and thieving again quite naturally, the janissaries banded against the townspeople and the Arabs, well content, against both. So Mustapha mustered his army slowly in Europe, hoping for word of the treasure of Sidi Ahmad that had vanished from the ken of men.