Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  When the last were free of the wagons, Demid put his horse to a trot, and at once a challenge rang in the darkness ahead of them. Voices cried out, and Kirdy saw the red embers of the camp fires drawing closer to them. Demid gave no single word of command, but kneed his horse into a gallop; he swerved a little to one side and his saber whistled through the air. From somewhere on the far side of the abandoned tabor came the "Garda-bei!" of the other Cossacks. Kirdy heard Demid's blade thud into something and a man screamed.

  Then the black mass of picketed horses loomed up under their noses and the ataman turned to the left. Bows snapped at their flanks and near at hand the kettledrums of the Moslems clamored.

  Swinging away from the drums, to the right, they raced past a line of black hummocks that proved to be tents. Moslem warriors emerged from them, half clad, and were run down by the horses. Only one foeman appeared on horseback and he made straight at Demid, who rose in his stirrups with a laugh.

  Kirdy reined in, as the two sabers struck sparks in the black void. A second time the blades clashed, and again Demid laughed under his breath.

  "You are brave, my brother!"

  The Moslem toppled from the saddle, and Kirdy, bending far down as he trotted past, saw the thick beard and the white turban set with jewels of Yussuf Ghazi, chief of the Usbeks. The stars shone from a clear sky and now he could make out something of the ground in front of him.

  It rose steadily, and he knew from the gait of the piebald that they were climbing a steep slope. No more arrows whistled past him and he looked back. The group of Cossacks was at his heels, the standard of the white falcon in the hand of the big warrior.

  "Eh, little brother," the man grinned at him, "steel is still in our hands; we are still in the saddles—we have not yielded."

  They scattered a mounted patrol that mistook them for Turkomans, and topped the rise that had held them back. Demid reined in for a moment to listen to the uproar in the Moslem camp. They were through the Turkomans and the Usbeks and the open plain stretched away on three sides.

  With a glance at the stars, the ataman turned sharply and headed north. The standard-bearer lowered the long pole with its horned crest and the warriors bent forward, their heads against the manes of the horses. Kirdy, breathing heavily, counted off a hundred paces, when he saw Demid rise in the stirrups and then settle himself in the saddle.

  The horses snorted as a shadow drifted under their noses from left to right. It was a wolf, and instead of fleeing from them the animal had crossed their path. Kirdy, peering to the left, made out what seemed to be a mass of bushes on the plain. In the half-light of the stars and the pallid scimitar of the moon all objects were vague and unreal—the wolf a shadow, the tamarisks might have been mounted men.

  From the dark mass he heard a rustling as if the wind were sweeping through dry grass, and he bent toward Demid.

  "Yonder are men in the saddle, little father. I think they are Kara Kal-paks, and no patrol but a whole tribe."

  "Aye," said Demid quietly, "ride on!"

  The Cossacks urged on their ponies silently, needing no warning of this new danger, trusting only that the tribesmen were bound for the camp, where the drums still muttered. Kirdy remembered that the Kara Kalpaks had always withdrawn for the night into the hills or the plain, to plunder or carouse.

  And surely the Kara Kalpaks had the eyes of panthers that see in the dark, because presently a long drawn howl went up from the moving mass of them. They started in pursuit and the Cossacks saw at once that the Moslems' horses were both fresh and swift. They drew abreast of Kirdy and arrows began to whistle.

  The piebald stumbled heavily and the boy was nearly thrown. But the pony recovered and sped on, tossing its head, and passing Demid's big bay. Again the ataman rose in the stirrups, and laughed under his breath.

  "It is a race, little brother."

  Wind whipped past Kirdy's ears; the howling of the Black Hats grew fainter. He touched the neck of his pony and found it slippery with hot sweat. At the touch the piebald seemed to gather itself for a plunging rush that ended in another stumble.

  And then Demid reined in with an exclamation. They had drawn a little ahead of the remaining Cossacks, and the Kara Kalpaks had swerved in between the squadron and its leaders. At the first clash of sabers, Demid jerked his bay around and headed back toward his Cossacks. When Kirdy tried to turn the piebald, the sturdy pony staggered and fell, the boy jumping clear. The horse had been struck by an arrow and it did not rise.

  Kirdy began to run back toward the fight. And now the plain seemed to be filled with galloping horses. He peered into the murk, seeking for one with an empty saddle. Demid had vanished, and the night was filled with the clashing of weapons and shouting. Three riders rushed past him—a single Cossack pursued on each flank by a tribesman.

  Hoofs thudded behind the boy and as he turned with upflung blade his skull seemed to split in twain. Instead of the tumult, a roaring filled his ears and the murk of the night became red as flame. The sea of red swept over him and he felt himself fall into its depths.

  Kirdy opened his eyes, and became aware that the sun was shining. He lay on his back in sand and though his limbs felt icy cold, the sand was warm. After a while he tried to turn his head, and thought that it must be held by something because he could not move it.

  Blood had stiffened on his scalp, but when he explored his head slowly with his fingers he found that the bleeding had stopped. By and by he was able to turn his head and the first thing he saw was his hat, one side slashed open. It was clear to him that a weapon had struck his head and that the thick sheepskin hat had saved his life.

  The second thing he saw was a group of Kara Kalpaks moving on foot toward the body of a Cossack a stone's throw away. If the tribesman were dismounted, and the sun above the horizon, the fight must be over. That was all his mind could manage to grasp. He closed his eyes, so that the oncoming men would not see that he was alive.

  He felt no pain, his head seemed to have no weight at all, and he was satisfied that the fighting should be at an end. It seemed to Kirdy that he had been struggling against foemen for many years and he was too weary to think about it any longer.

  When he did not hear the Kara Kalpak's passing after several moments he opened his eyes gradually.

  The tribesmen were occupied in stripping the garments, stained with blood, from the Cossack, who groaned a little at times. They were quarreling about the boots, which were good ones of soft deerskin. One of them pressed his spear point several times into the chest of the wounded man, and the groaning ceased. The Cossack stretched his legs out and lay quiet.

  Then those of the tribesmen who had not secured anything of the dead man glanced at Kirdy and walked toward him, talking. The boy did not see any use in feigning death, because in a moment he would be dead in reality. He did not feel any fear, but thought it would be better to stand up.

  So he raised himself to an elbow and somehow got on his feet, staggering to keep his balance. The plain and the approaching men went around before his eyes in swift circles, and he beheld vultures drawing nearer in the sky. They came slowly as if they had already fed.

  Hands gripped his arms and his white camel's skin svitza was pulled off roughly. Then he was knocked down by the blow of a fist and his red morocco boots were taken from his feet.

  A stab of agony went through his skull and words came to his tongue.

  "It is good that I gave the curved sword to Khlit," he said weakly, "because it is a fine weapon and once belonged to Kaidu."

  Murmurs of surprise greeted this; he had spoken in Tatar which some of the hillmen understood.

  They talked together, but the boy did not know what they said. He was only glad that Khlit had the curved saber and that by no fault of his would the weapon fall into the hands of thieves.

  Presently they took him by the arms and he walked some distance, his head growing warmer and throbbing. His thoughts cleared at the same time, and he saw that he was being l
ed into a large group of warriors, some Turkomans among them. Young Ilbars Sultan the boy recognized by his small white turban with a heron's feather held by an emerald clasp.

  The chieftain was looking at a body, and Kirdy saw that this was Demid.

  It was hard to tell how the ataman of the Donskoi had been slain because he had been slashed in so many places. His chest was cut open and his forehead had been split. Kirdy counted the bodies of five Kara Kal-paks around and beneath Demid. They had all been slashed once on the side of the head or the throat.

  Ilbars Sultan was warning the Kara Kalpaks not to touch the garments of the fallen ataman. He himself had picked up Demid's sword and was looking at it curiously.

  "Eh, brother," said a Cossack voice, "the little father was hard pressed. Look, he used the edge only, and not the point at all. That shows he was hard pressed."

  The speaker was Witless, stripped to his shirt, standing between two Turkomans.

  "Demid might have ridden free," muttered the boy. "Yet he turned back."

  "He turned back!" echoed the thin warrior, and all at once tears began to run out of his eyes. Shaking his head he wept quietly. "May the Father and Son receive him!"

  Rousing from his stupor, Kirdy turned to Ilbars Sultan and said in fluent Turki: "Do not strip this body. He is the chieftain and by the same sword Yussuf Ghazi fell."

  The young Turkoman uttered an exclamation, and when he had looked at Kirdy, said to those around him: "Take these two warriors to the khan, my father. He will question them and after that they can be tortured."

  A half dozen of the Kara Kalpaks moved off with the two captives and Kirdy stepped to the side of the stupid Cossack.

  "Did any of the Cossacks break through?" he asked.

  Witless gazed around at the Moslems who were plundering the dead, and at the vultures in the sky.

  "How could any escape, little brother," he said plaintively, "when they all lie here on the plain? It would be better for us if we had not escaped."

  And Kirdy thought that this was the truth.

  Chapter 13 The Leather Chest

  Two days passed before Kirdy and Witless were led into the presence of Arap Muhammad Khan. During that time the position of the Turkoman camp had not changed, and the Cossacks gleaned some hope from the fact that most of the tribesmen were absent from the camp. On the third day the warriors who guarded them bound their wrists in front of them.

  They were taken past the deserted tabor to a knoll where the Moslem emirs were gathering around the black tent of the khan. And the first thing they saw was the head of Goloto, with the nose and the ears cut away, fastened on the point of a spear. Only by the familiar scar did the two Cossacks recognize the head of the kuren ataman, on this spear that held up the outer edge of the canopy under which the khan sat, on a silk rug.

  By the side of Arap Muhammad Khan was the slender form of Nur-ed-din, veiled to the eyes, and by a flicker of the brows and a flash of the brown eyes Kirdy saw that she recognized him. Before the knees of the Turkoman chief rested the leather chest, evidently locked, because two warriors were prying open the lid with spear points.

  "Aye, Kirdy," said the thin Cossack when they were struck down to their knees beside the chest, "the sir brothers did not yield. They took many of the infidels with them out of the world."

  In fact the eyes of Arap Muhammad Khan were moody as they surveyed the chest and a small pile of weapons cast down near it. His riders had brought back little spoil and hundreds of them had not come back to the camp. Many riderless horses, it is true, were gathered in the tabor— but these had belonged to his own tribesmen or to the men of Urgench. All at once his hands gripped his knees and he leaned forward with an exclamation.

  The lid of the chest had come off and he could look into it and see plainly that it contained a generous amount of sand and pebbles.

  "Y’Allah!" he breathed, and the tribesmen who had brought in the chest fell back in dismay.

  A tall man was Arap Muhammad Khan, and he seemed taller than he was by reason of the voluminous striped khalat wrapped around his broad shoulders; his head, too small for his body, was dwarfed by a high turban of green silk, loosely knotted over his left ear. But his black eyes, set close to the beak of a nose, flamed with rage as he looked from his men to the Cossack prisoners.

  Then, fingering the tuft of beard—both sides of his jaw were shaven— he turned to Nur-ed-din.

  "From thy lips, O Light of the World, I learned that the precious stones, the amber, the pearl strings and the emeralds were placed within this chest by the dogs of Urusses."

  The beautiful Persian bent her head. "By the Kaaba I swear that this is true, O lord of my life—O conqueror"—submissively she spread out both hands. "My servants watched the little house by the kurgan gate, whither the Nazarene unbelievers took the wealth of thy dwelling. The bulkier part was loaded into wagons and this chest was carried out with care and bound into place and guarded straitly. All has been found save this alone."

  "Aye, by the beard and the teeth of Ali—all but this!" He glowered at her and flung a command at the anxious warriors. "Torture the Franks with fire and stay not until they tell of the hiding of the treasure!"

  "Yet," cried the woman, "leave me the young warrior. I will try him with words," she whispered eagerly, "and by favor of the All-Wise may I prevail with him."

  Some of the talk Kirdy had caught, and he put his hand on the shoulder of Witless. "They will torture you, sir brother. If I live, they will remember your death."

  Moslem spearmen jerked the tall warrior to his feet, and Witless lifted his head to look at them with dignity. "I thank you, kunak," he said slowly, "and even if I am not so wise as other knights, I shall not yield to them—they will learn that a Cossack does not fear torment." He sighed, clasping his hands. "If you would ask them to give me a cup of wine. I am very thirsty and Dog-Face drank up the last skin we had between us four nights since."

  In the best Turki he could muster Kirdy made the request, and the tribesmen mocked at him, one of them taking the trouble to spit into Witless' face. Then Kirdy's companion was led away, sighing, but with head high and shoulders squared.

  Before his guards could prevent, Kirdy sprang to his feet and cried out, to Arap Muhammad Khan. "That is ill done, O lord of the Turkomans. Yah ahmak—the man is afflicted in the brain and by the law of your prophet such are spared pain."

  "Hai—he can tell us of the hiding of the treasure."

  "Not he!"

  A slow smile stirred the thin lips of the khan, as he studied the boy's tense face. "If not he, then thou."

  Kirdy kept silent. Khlit had arranged the packing of the spoil in Urgench, and the boy remembered that he had seen the old warrior place the finest emeralds and precious stones in the millet that he carried in his saddlebags. The leather chest had been no more than a blind—a safeguard against thieves who might steal into the Cossack camp. Even Ayub had not known that the chest he watched over so carefully held no more than sand and stones.

  It was like the Wolf to hide away his spoil where no one would look for it, and where it would be under his eye. Khlit, too, had appropriated the three best Kabarda stallions of the khan's stables. It was possible that he had won clear of the Turkomans, for many of the bands were still absent from the camp.

  Kirdy was nerving himself to face the torture when Nur-ed-din slipped to her feet and came to him.

  "Oh, chief's son," she whispered, "I have begged a boon of the khan and that boon is thy life. Aforetime thou didst spare me when command was given to slay and we of Islam remember more than our wrongs."

  Many of the emirs and warriors in attendance had left to watch the fate of Witless and at a sign from Arap Muhammad Khan the others went away from the knoll, except the spearman who stood behind the boy and the sword-bearer of the chieftain. Even when she is veiled a devout Moslem does not care for his sons and officers to gaze at one of his women when she steps from his tent.

  The voice of Nur-ed-di
n was soft and swift as running water, and her full, dark eyes were innocent of guile. "One price the khan must have for thy life. He must know where the jewels of Urgench lie hid."

  "I know not."

  For a second she hesitated, her glance full on him. Perhaps she could read more than a little of his thoughts, but surely she could read his face, and she knew that there was more he could tell.

  "Thou art brave, my warrior! Think! Alone of the Urusses"—she paused to glance fleetingly up the hillside where the scattered bodies still lay unburied, but attended by kites and a multitude of jackals—"thou art living. None can hear thy words. What reason, then, to play the fool? Arms, a horse and honor await thee in the brotherhood of true believers. And what is faith—save the mumbling of priests, and the saying of prayer?"

  "This," said the boy sturdily, "is our faith. We gave pledge to the Muscovite khan that we would bring him the jewels of Urgench. These others have kept faith. Shall I betray them?"

  He spoke out of a full heart, but the shrewd Persian took his words to mean that he had some knowledge of the khan's treasure.

  "Think!" she whispered again. "What avails it, to keep silence now? The emeralds will never leave the Turkoman land."

  To this he nodded assent, but when he said nothing more she frowned.

  "There are tidings I can give thee. Consider this, O youth of the Urusses. My eyes are quick, my memory is long. In the courtyard of Urgench I saw thee ride away with an old man. Today I have seen that same warrior."

  "Nay," Kirdy laughed, "that is surely a lie."

  "I knew him by the Kabarda he was leading—a favorite of my lord. Aye, swift as the black storm wind and sure of foot is the gray stallion. The old man no longer had his coat, and a Kirghiz shawl was wrapped over his shoulders, one corner upon his head—he looked like a Kurd who had been plundering in the upper valleys. At first I did not think he was a Cossack, but now I remember him."

  "And now?"

  "Now he will be searched out and cut down like a jackal unless we find the treasure. And as for thee"—she smiled, pointing to a dense crowd of Turkomans. From within the throng rose slender wisps of smoke. Yet Kirdy heard no outcry from the place where Witless was being tortured by fire.