Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  "The Mankats and Kara Kalpaks are thieves without honor; they have no tents except wolf skins—do not go to them. The Kirghiz have round felt tents that are sometimes placed on wagons. Go at once into their kibitka, and you will be well treated. But when you have left the limit of their village look carefully on all sides, because when you are no longer their guests they may decide to rob you. Ahatou, youldash—farewell, my comrade."

  "May your trail be open—may your hunting be good!" growled Khlit.

  He watched Shamaki put his packs on the flea-bitten pony and mount the gray stallion. The Tatar was glowing with inward satisfaction; he had run grave risks on Khlit's behalf, but he had been well rewarded. If Khlit had driven a hard bargain with Shamaki the Cossack would have done well to slay the tribesman, or the Tatar might take it into his head to betray them to the Turkomans.

  "I go to the mountains of the eagles," muttered Shamaki, "and you, my friend—your path lies over the sea of the crows. Kai, it is a hard road."

  And Khlit knew that the old man was homesick for the high steppes where he could hunt the herds of wild horses and gather cattle and women about him and sit in the smoke of his own fire. Khlit, too, would have liked to go with Shamaki and winter in the Airak range. He did not relish the thought of returning to Moscow. But there was the treasure and there was Kirdy. The old Cossack had resolved that Kirdy should win honor among Christians, and now he saw how this might be done.

  "Aye, a hard road—in Moscow," he answered and Shamaki clucked understanding, riding off on the splendid stallion with the golden eagle perched on the crupper.

  Then Khlit carried the saddlebags and the articles he had bought down to the place where Ayub had said the skiff was to be found. It was clear to him when he saw it that the fishermen who lived in the hut had run off when the warriors began to come to the edge of the Blue Sea. Fish scales, not altogether dried up, stuck to the sides of the boat, and the rushes in the bottom were still damp.

  It was rudely made—some fifteen feet in length, with a mast as long as a lance lying in it, and a rolled-up felt sail, patched and tattered.

  He filled the goatskin with water and waited until a fresh breeze began to hum in the rushes before waking the boy and the Zaporogian. Kirdy eyed the boat with little enthusiasm, and Khlit knew that he would rather have kept to the saddle, be the chance of safety however slight.

  "Kirdy," he remarked, "the slain brothers have named you Cossack. You have learned many things. But in a boat you have little wisdom. Now we are going on the blue water, and until we set foot on earth again, Ayub is to give orders in all things."

  So the Wolf said, and almost at once he had reason to regret it. But he had seen that Ayub was in a black mood, troubled by sorrow and the devil of illness and it was impossible for the Zaporogian to mount a horse and ride it off. It was better to let him have his way unquestioned in the boat than to dispute among themselves as to what should be done.

  Ayub glanced at the sky and said promptly that they must push the skiff into the water. After two days of watching from the heights he was certain that there were very few vessels at this end of the Blue Sea— only fishing craft like this—and nothing was more certain than that the desert-bred Turkomans would never venture into a boat. Moreover the wind served the purpose he had in mind.

  So they ran the skiff down the salt-streaked strand until, still hemmed in by the mesh of tossing green growth, it floated and Ayub climbed in, to thrust with the oar until they came out into the clear water where a slight swell ran. Here he took up the bar of the standard that he had carried down from the hut and lashed it near the top of the mast with rushes. Then he set the small yard of the sail on the pegs below it, and, assisted by Kirdy, stepped the mast in place.

  The felt sail flapped around them until Ayub showed the boy how, by pulling on the ropes at the corners, the yard could be turned to one side so that the wind filled the square sail. He himself thrust the one oar into a crotch at the stem and steered away from the coast.

  Khlit, who was watching for signs of Turkomans, saw that Ayub did not head out into the sea, but laid a course that would take them just clear of the headland that formed one arm of the bay where Ostap and his men had taken refuge.

  The wind was freshening gradually and white water showed here and there. Still Ayub kept on, until the rocks of the point were hard on their bow. Khlit saw several riders moving out toward them, but these were lost to sight when they rounded the headland and the half-moon of the bay opened out.

  Here, on the upper sands, hundreds of the Turkomans were camped. At first they paid no attention to the boat. But when Ayub swung on the oar and the skiff pointed in to the beach they began to shout and run down to the water's edge, having seen the white falcon and the streaming buffalo tails at the masthead.

  Still Ayub steered toward the sands, and Kirdy glanced at Khlit. Surely, the boy thought, the Zaporogian was out of his head with the fever and the gnawing of grief. Ayub's full face was flushed and his teeth gleamed through his heavy mustache.

  Alert and restless, Khlit studied his comrade's face, glanced at the shore and the figures of the Moslem warriors that were growing larger each minute.

  "Let be!" he growled at Kirdy, and sat back, tugging at his mustache. It was clear to the boy that Khlit did not know what Ayub meant to do, but was not willing to interfere with his plan.

  The boat began to turn a little more, and presently they could see even the eyes of the tribesmen and the steel points of the shafts they were fitting to their bows. Then Ayub ordered Kirdy to drop the rope. The skiff veered, and Ayub thrust the oar around until the bow came into the wind.

  Seizing the two heavy saddlebags that Khlit had placed under the stern seat, he held them up, and called to Kirdy over his shoulder.

  "Tell the sons of jackals what these be!"

  Kirdy stood up, laughing, and steadied himself against the mast.

  "Look well, O dogs of Urgench. Here is treasure of thy master, O slaves!"

  Not content with this, Ayub fished in a bag until be felt a long rope of pearls and lifted it in his two hands for all the shore to see. A shout of rage proved that the tribesmen had grasped his meaning, and fifty bows were loosed. Some of the arrows hissed into the water near them, and two struck in the skiff. These Kirdy afterward cut out with care and added to their scanty stock. By then Ayub was willing to adjust the sail and head off on a long tack that took them clear of the headlands.

  Khlit made no comment except to fill and light his pipe, and by this token the boy knew that he rather approved of Ayub's reckless venture. At least the mocking of the Turkomans seemed to physic Ayub's sickness, because his fever mended that night, although it was many days before the swelling in his arm went down and many more before the bone was sound.

  During that night, while he lay on his back looking up at the glittering firmament of the stars, Kirdy fell to wondering how they would fare if the wind should cease for several days. They were out of sight of land and the skiff was moving sluggishly over the swell—or so it seemed to Kirdy, who did not know that with the wind over the stern the little vessel was making good speed. He put the question to Ayub, who answered that it was the equinox, the season of storms.

  In fact the wind did not fail them, though it proved both fitful and treacherous. Ayub showed Kirdy how to tie the ropes that trimmed the sail, and how to steer at night by the stars, picking out the eye of the Great Bear—as Khlit had so often done at night on the steppe.

  The breath of the wind became colder, and Ayub roused himself on the third night to make Kirdy take his svitza for covering when he felt the boy shivering at the steering oar.

  "God made me like a medvied, a mountain bear," he argued. "There is so much fat on my bones that even a saber cannot cut to my vitals. Take the coat because I have no need of it. Ai-a, many's the time I put it over Demid, the bogatyr, when he was asleep in the snow. In shape and in voice you are like him, and you are a master of the sword as he was."
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br />   Kirdy sometimes wished that Khlit and Ayub would unpack the saddlebags and show him the precious stones of the treasure, but they never seemed to think of the bags. Once Ayub put his foot on them and began to sigh.

  "What is the good of such things, Kirdy? They are not weapons, they are not food. The tsar will give the best to his women or put them on his collar or girdle. Then he will shine, it is true. But that will bring him no glory. God alone knows what is the good of a treasure."

  "It is in my mind," observed Khlit, who had been listening, "that the Tsar Boris seeks to gain more than a treasure from our venture."

  "How, more?" demanded Ayub, but the old Cossack would not say.

  On the next day the wind bore them close to a clump of islands—gray and ridged with rock and without vegetation of any kind. Multitudes of birds clouded the rocks and rose with clamorous discord when they drew near.

  Ayub took this to be an unfavorable omen and would not try to land on the islands, saying that they would find no water there.

  "Yet," Kirdy reminded him, "the omen is not bad. Ravens do not venture far from the land."

  "If you are so wise," retorted the Zaporogian, "tell me where the mainland is."

  "It lies over there," Khlit said promptly, pointing to the northwest, and Ayub, who did not know that the old warrior had been told of this by Sha-maki, grunted in surprise.

  And, as Khlit maintained, the line of a high, rocky coast rose out of the sea. They landed that day on a narrow beach under a sheer cliff, and ran the skiff into a nest of boulders. Removing the mast, they covered the boat as well as they could with stones and the rushes taken from it so that

  wandering tribesmen would not see it from the heights.

  Before this they had removed the millet from the saddlebags and bound up the jewels in two smaller sacks that were nevertheless as heavy as two long muskets. Their dwindling stock of food and the goatskin made a third bundle that Khlit took on his shoulders. Kirdy carried the bow and went ahead, seeking a path up the cliff, his feet bound in strips torn from the felt

  sail. He had made himself a cloak out of the felt, and the remaining portions Khlit put in his pack—for which they had reason to be thankful.

  The standard Ayub took on his shoulder and though he complained of many things before they came out of the dry lands, he would not let the others relieve him of its weight.

  "In time, little brother," he laughed at Kirdy, "they will make you a buntchauk ataman and you will ride under a standard like this, but that time is not yet."

  But once on shore he was content to have Kirdy take the lead. From what Shamaki had told them they thought they had come to the extreme north of the Blue Sea, and so must be several hundred leagues to the east of the route they had taken to Urgench. It was a gray land, under a gray sky, and already the Autumn frost was in the ground. Far to the northwest a range of peaks was visible, with snow on the caps, and they decided to strike toward these mountains where they might expect to find some of the Kirghiz nomads taking shelter with their herds in the valleys.

  It was Kirdy who led them to water on the second day, and who waited by the well until he had stalked and brought down with an arrow a strange-looking beast, fat and fleet of foot with long ears and the vestige of stripes on its skin. Ayub had never seen such a thing before, but Kirdy assured him it was a kulan, a wild ass. They passed many herds of shaggy horses with bloodshot eyes—too timid to be approached within arrow shot. These were the wild horses of the steppe, and Ayub lamented greatly that he must needs walk on his feet with hundreds of ponies keeping him company.

  They found at first no trace of men, and this vast plain rising to the snow range, so different from his own fertile steppe, filled him with uneasiness, that did not diminish when Khlit remarked that the roof of the world was not far away on their right hand.

  For two weeks they moved over the plain toward the range that seemed to recede before them, and at the end of that time they came upon human beings who had never heard of Muscovite, Cossack or Turkoman.

  1

  Urusses—Russians. The Central Asia tribes until now had met only the Cossacks and believed them to be the same as the Muscovites.

  Chapter 15 The White World

  The Cossacks had seen no animals—not so much as a marmot diving into its hole—for a whole day, and the leaden sky concealed the nearby mountain range when they climbed a ridge and beheld a line of men and beasts moving on the far slope. They lay down at once on their bellies and watched.

  Gray as the cloud wrack were these new people of the waste land— long gray skirts flapping against their boots, high black hats with turned-up brims bent against the gusts of wind. It was hard to tell men from women—except that the women carried both babies and loads while the men stalked ahead, spears over their arms, leading laden ponies.

  "No Kirghiz these," growled Khlit. "Nay, they be shamanists, devil worshipers from under the roof of the world. They bow down to fire and the blood that feeds their bodies."

  "Well," rumbled Ayub, "they are looking for a place to camp. We can go to them and ask for a place at their fire. A dog would not be turned away at such a time on the steppe."

  "This is not the steppe," Khlit answered him and shook his head. "The devil people have pointed teeth, like the wolf's. And you are fat as a mountain bear."

  "They know that snow is coming," said Kirdy, who had been sniffing the cold air. "Wait!"

  For a while the Cossacks followed the gray caravan, keeping out of sight behind the ridge, and when the tribesmen halted in a blind gully to make a fire Khlit took out the piece of felt that was left from the sail and gave it to Kirdy. Then he sat down with his back to the wind. When the first hailstones rattled around them, Ayub missed Kirdy and the length of gray felt—which he could have used very well just then. As the boy had said, it grew darker and the air became bitterly cold and the hail ceased. Flakes of snow swirled down, at first a flurry and then a driving mass that hid their surroundings from view.

  "It is wet and heavy," Khlit pointed out, "and the storm will not last."

  Ayub was too uncomfortable to consider this, until a hideous clamor broke out in the direction of the camp, and resolved itself into shouting that came nearer and wandered off into the storm. Hoofs pounded on the frozen earth and a pony trotted up without bridle or bit, ridden by a man who was a shapeless bulk of gray and headless.

  With his mind on devils, Ayub lifted the hilt of his saber, presenting the cross on the pommel to the strange rider and was greatly relieved to see Kirdy's brown face appear when the felt cloth was tossed from his shoulders. The boy had driven up two other ponies and these Khlit had gone to catch.

  Kirdy wasted no breath in explanation but Ayub knew that he had stolen up on the tethered horses of the tribesmen in the storm and had set loose others than the three he brought back with him.

  And he had made a discovery. The shamanists were following an old trail that led toward the mountains—a trail made by people with camels, who carried their packs on long poles trailing behind the animals. These, Khlit said, would be Kirghiz, seeking shelter in the upper valleys.

  After making halters out of the leather cords Kirdy had brought back with him, the Cossacks mounted the short-legged, shaggy ponies and set out into the driving snow, resolved to put as much distance between themselves and the devil worshipers as possible. Only for a short way were they able to follow the trail left by the Kirghiz, but the next day was clear and they found themselves fairly at the entrance of a wide basin through which a river wound, under the fir-clad shoulders of the heights that rose in successive ridges to the black granite slopes and the glittering snow-caps above the timber line. Here they met animal life again—deer drifting along the river's edge, and hares scurrying through the underbrush.

  By the river they came on the yurta of the Kirghiz—round-faced, smiling people as plump as the fat-tailed sheep that crowded the fold in the center of the dome-like felt tents.

  As a matter
of course the Kirghiz killed a sheep in honor of the wanderers. They were grateful for the warning that shamanists were not far away on their trail, but were in no great hurry to forsake their comfortable quarters. For days the Cossacks slept by the yurta fires, keeping the saddlebags under their heads and the splendid curved saber out of sight.

  "Those yonder were jackals," Kirdy explained to Ayub, "and these be sheep that wander where the pastures lie."

  He questioned the atabeg of the tribe as to the mountain range, and learned no more than that the highest peak—the one that had guided them for the past week—was Airuk, the Mountain of the Eagles. The Kirghiz merely shook their heads at mention of the Jaick and Volga and Muscovy. God had made many rivers flow from these heights, they said, and if such a plain as the Cossack steppe existed, it must be at the end of a long journey from their place.

  Kirdy thought that they must keep due west, under the setting sun, and pass through the heart of the mountains. Ayub, who was amazed at the longhaired Bactrians of the tribesmen, and at the size of the towering firs and silver birch that sheltered the valley, believed that they had come out in another quarter of the earth and would never find their way back.

  But Khlit merely grinned and went about bargaining with the Kirghiz. He had stripped Ayub of everything of value—a leather girdle ornamented with pearls and scroll-work of gold, a red silk neckcloth that the Zaporogian prized greatly, and a few silver images of fantastic beasts—unicorns, sea cows and dog-headed snakes—that he wore about his throat. To these things Khlit added a handful of silver coins he had brought from Moscow, and the three ponies.

  He and the atabeg negotiated for three days, and when Khlit found that the wife and daughter of the chief coveted the string of silver beasts, he made a good trade. The Cossacks were given three stronger ponies with small quilts for saddles, and three enormous sheepskin khalats that reached from chin to ankle and covered the tips of their fingers. Two quivers of arrows were added and enough cheese and barley to last for a long time.