Riders of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  The boyarishna was sitting on a cushioned bench, near the fire, one hand on the neck of the wolfhound, her eyes on the face of the young warrior. He went to the hearth and gazed about the room, the blood warming his cheeks as he realized that it was Ivga's sleeping chamber, and that he was standing in his boots on a small silk prayer rug of Bokhara.

  "This night," he said, "I sought for speech with Erlik Khan, and now the moment has come."

  From under lowered lids she studied the lean face of the warrior, the thin nostrils, the wide, firm lips, and the level brows, now darkened with anger. Kirdy was standing with his cap at his hip and his hand on his sword hilt as if facing an enemy.

  And Ivga felt in her heart that she loved the Cossack, even while she told herself she hated him.

  "Aye," she said, in her clear young voice, "they named you well, White Falcon. Truly you have the eyes of a falcon. I did ride the white stallion last night, and wear the cape and helmet—but how did you know?"

  "Boyarishna, your voice is not like another's."

  "Still, you were not sure until you talked with—the dwarf. Riding so, in the night, the men-at-arms knew me not. If they thought a woman led them, they would not obey."

  "Not so—they worship you, my lady."

  She looked up at him quickly.

  "They may think so of Ivga, the captive-wife of Erlik Khan. But would they be loyal to Ivga, the rider of the white horse, the mistress of Tor?"

  When Kirdy remained silent, she stared upon the fire musingly for a space and then tossed back the dark tangle of her hair as if casting off thongs that bound her.

  "It's true, bratik—my brother. Your Cossacks would not follow a woman to battle. They think we are all witches."

  A little smile touched her dark lips, though her eyes were somber.

  "Harken, White Falcon—once I tricked you and lied to you. There is no Erlik Khan. In other years my father, journeying from Persia, was slain by a few bold robbers on this trail that leads from the Volga to the Don. All our servants except two were cut to pieces. I was brought to this ousadba, then a small hold. One of the two servants, Ibrahim, was able to put the white dust—bhang—into the flagon of wine the dog-souls, the robbers, were drinking from that night. Their senses were dulled and some of them Ibrahim slew with his knife. He freed me, and I put on the mail and small helmet that I found in the plunder gathered by the outlaws. Those who survived were savage men without wit, and they thought that the dwarf, Erlik, had got the better of them because he was a koldun, a wizard."

  Kirdy nodded understanding. In appearance Erlik was awesome enough.

  "Who was there to tell me what to do—I, a maiden untaught? Ibrahim would have gone back to the towns of Islam. But we were no more than three, with my father's goods and the gold and weapons the robbers had got together in Tor. In Muscovy I had no friends. So we strengthened Tor, and in time other outlaws took refuge here. Knights, passing along the road between the rivers, chose to stay and serve me and to them I said that the dwarf was truly a koldun and that I was his wife."

  Her slender fingers caught in the shaggy coat of the wolfhound and she laughed, a chiming bell-note that caused the dog to lift its head to her knee.

  "Ai-a! At times the knights fought among themselves on my account, and a few prayed me to flee with them into the steppe. Why should I? There is a legend related of this place that once a pagan duke lived here with all his court. So did I set up my kingdom, and even the Tatars came to abide at my house, for dread of the koldun, Erlik Khan. I sent them here and there into the world, and they brought me tidings swiftly—so that men thought I had eyes and ears to perceive what came to pass in the steppe and the forest. Because I rode from the ousadba usually at night, they said that I could see in the dark, like a vampire."

  "The prophecy," said Kirdy thoughtfully, "you related to me in the sta-ble—whence did it come?"

  Ivga shook her dark head.

  "My lord Cossack, it was from the lips of Erlik, the dwarf. He has a whim of strange sayings. 'When they ride forth from Tor,' he proclaimed, 'the wolves will come from the forest and the vultures from the sky.'"

  "Ekh-ma, that may well be a true saying, if Skal comes against Tor. Tell me this, boyarishna: We have made a bargain, that I was to have command over your men. I will release you from the bargain, if that is your desire—"

  "And why, Sir Cossack?"

  "Because if I command at Tor, all things must be in my hands. The Volga men are not hedgehogs—we cannot play with them."

  Ivga smiled suddenly and clapped her hands. Before she could summon him again the outer door opened and Ibrahim appeared, very much surprised at beholding the young warrior in the room of his mistress.

  "Tell me, O kayia, what word has been brought by our riders." Ibrahim made answer in Persian.

  "Ak Begum—Flower Princess—the Tatars know that Skal is no more than two days' march distant."

  Ivga dismissed the chief of the slaves as if well satisfied with what she heard.

  "White Falcon, the Tatars also brought to me tales of your daring. When we met on the steppe, they pointed you out to me, and I thought that God had sent to me a sword to strike down the outlaw Skal. My thought is not otherwise now—I bid you take command of my men."

  "Has Giovanni told you that I will lead them into the forest?"

  "A bold stroke. It likes me well."

  "Then we mount before dawn, and I ask you to remain at Tor."

  Ivga stretched out lithe arms to the fire and threw back her head, her eyes half closed.

  "Nay, Sir Warrior—I will ride with you."

  "It will not be a falcon hunt, this. When a hundred rush upon four hundred in the deep snow only God knows where the victory will lie, my lady. Abide at Tor and if we are beaten you may still escape alive."

  "What is life?" Ivga rose and placed a hand upon his shoulder. "Who knows what lies at the end of the road? I will ride with you, my lord, and if we find death, then surely the tale of it will be on the lips of men and minstrels for the ages of ages."

  Looking down into the beautiful eyes, sensing the impetuous spirit of the divchina, Kirdy felt the spell that had been laid upon the men of Tor, who loved Ivga.

  "Eh, you are brave, my lady." Glancing at the stained glass of the window, he added, "Sleep now, if you can. It is near cock-crow."

  Ivga laughed.

  "On such a night, who could sleep?" And, when she had searched his face with a swift glance, "Send Ibrahim to me, if you will, with my sword and armor."

  In the guest room of Tor, Khlit, the Wolf, had been sleeping soundly in spite of the clatter of cups and the hum of voices from the revelers in the hall, until a song in the high voice of the Frenchman, Jean, awakened him and he noticed Kirdy sitting on a bench by the candle that Ayub had lighted as a protection against further visits of the apparition with the white eyes. The young Cossack was gripping his head with both hands and groaning.

  After watching him for a moment Khlit growled, "Have you been hunting devils?"

  "Fire burns me, little grandfather! I have seen treachery and evil! Where now is Cossack honor? It is dark, the road."

  Khlit did not go to sleep again. Aware by some sixth sense that the dawn was at hand, he yawned, scratched his head and felt for his boots. "She is a beautiful witch—devil take her," he said to himself. But to Kirdy he said nothing, only watched his grandson with troubled eyes.

  IV

  In open country, do not try to bar your enemy’s way; on dangerous ground, press ahead quickly; on desperate ground—fight.

  Maxim of Sun Tsu

  Both Khlit and Ayub eyed Kirdy expectantly when he rode out in front of the Tor men, an hour later. Ivga's warriors had spent the night over the wine cup and many of them had heated their brains with bhang. They were loud-tongued and quarrelsome—a few singing, others savagely silent. Giovanni, morose at the selection of the young Cossack as leader, was not inclined to give Kirdy any help.

  It was a wild and orderless
array, each man armed to his own choice; but armed they were, and the veteran Cossacks saw that the horses were good ones.

  "These sons of dogs will give a good account of themselves if cornered," Ayub remarked to Khlit, "but it remains to be seen what they will do in the open field!"

  They quieted down the moment Ivga appeared on her white horse. Every man noticed that the supposed koldun did not wear the eagle's wings, and this was taken as a portent of something unusual. Ivga had worn the wings the better to disguise her figure and to increase the awe in which the men held the rider of the white horse. Perhaps now she felt they would be in the way, or she discarded them on a whim.

  In fact, everything that Ivga did sprang from a whim; for two years she had been absolute lord of slaves, captives, and men-at-arms, and she had become a little satiated with the taste of power, in ruling Tor. She longed for new fields, for greater homage. In the wilderness of the border, she saw herself a queen riding to conquest—with Kirdy at her side.

  Until the White Falcon had come to Tor, the maiden Ivga had not known the meaning of love, and perhaps her heart went out to Kirdy because in no way would he submit to her. Until Skal and his horde moved against her, she had met no worthy rival.

  Now, in the bleak hour before dawn, in the glow of spluttering torches, facing lines of armed men, Ivga was thoroughly happy.

  Twenty warriors—and Kirdy selected those who carried arquebuses— were told off to garrison Tor under Ibrahim's orders, and then the Cossack rode down the ranks, searching every man for pistols, and giving all that he found to Ibrahim, taking no heed of the barbed oaths of the owners.

  Then he kneed his pony up to Ivga without taking off his kalpak.

  "Boyarishna, there is yet time to gather your treasure on pack horses and escape to the Don country."

  "Go, White Falcon mine—go, if you fear! You have my leave to fly!"

  And a little laugh fluttered in her throat as she watched his face. He drew the rein against the pony's neck and turned away.

  "Shagom marsh!" he called out in Muscovite speech. "Forward, slowly."

  But when he passed the dark group of Tatar riders at the gate, his lips parted in explosive gutturals: "Ahatou ashanga, yarou! Yaubou boumbi!"

  And the men of Tatary, the Tcheremisse and the Kitans, drew in their breath sibilantly, and every gnomelike head turned toward Kirdy expectantly. He had addressed them in their own speech, in pure Mongol, which these inveterate wanderers had not heard for many Winters. Their homeland was the Gobi and there Kirdy had been born and weaned. He spoke as a Mongol khan, with authority and understanding: "Brothers of the winged rider, take heed! Show the road without haste."

  They closed around him and Ivga, astonished and silent, waiting patiently for daylight so that they could look more closely at Kirdy. Ivga's curiosity took fire at once.

  "What did you say to them?"

  "They are your best men." He did not answer her question. "It is well that you have thirty such and that you wore the eagle's wings formerly when you took to the saddle."

  "And why, my Cossack?"

  Among the Mongol tribes a chieftain wears an eagle's feather, white or black, and the term ashanga—winged rider—was an expression of highest praise. The matter-of-fact Tatars held Ivga in awe, the more so as she was quite fearless. Their eyes, keen to see in the darkness, had made out that she was a woman. Believing implicitly in magicians, they assured themselves that she was a shaytan epereke—a particularly potent forest goblin, appearing sometimes as an old man, sometimes as a young maiden. The shaytan epereke was known to spring up behind a rider and drive the horse over a precipice. All this Kirdy, whose thoughts were otherwise occupied, did not see fit to confide in Ivga.

  In fact, he became utterly silent and would not reply to her questions, and the Tatars, who missed nothing of all this, remarked that the White Falcon had no fear of the magician.

  Two abreast, the horsemen filed into the trail behind the Tatars, Khlit and Ayub bringing up the rear. They had barely passed the gate when Khlit looked back. A pony was galloping after them, bearing a rider who wore no sword, carried no spear.

  "It's the Jew," Khlit muttered and moved on again.

  Shmel had no sooner drawn abreast of them than he began to wag his tongue, his head, and his legs all at once.

  "Hi, noble lords, I will tend your horses; I have some fine gorilka in my flask, and anything you tell me to do, I will obey faithfully. Only let me stay near your horses' tails and do not drive me away."

  The Cossacks, who looked after their own mounts and did not drink on the road, paid no attention to him, until Ayub grunted: "It is a wonderful thing that you are not lying on your Jew's quilt at Tor, where there is gold and silver and a fire. Why do you take the snow road this night?"

  "Because it is safer by the swords of such kingly warriors than in Tor."

  "How, safer?"

  "Because the boyarishna and her knights are less to be feared than the dwarf and that pagan with the dark face—Abraham, as they call him, blasphemously."

  Ayub yawned, drew the collar of his svitza tighter, and regarded Shmel without favor.

  "You have lapped up too much gorilka. The lady is sleeping at Tor and Erlik Khan rides at the head of the column."

  "If the noble lord will forgive me, it is otherwise."

  Bending down from his high saddle, the big Zaporogian stared into the thin face of the merchant until he could see the flickering and restless eyes.

  "Do you desire to feed the kites, that you say a Cossack is drunk on the march?"

  "As God lives, worthy colonel, I did not say that. I swear by all that's holy, yesterday morning I tried to warn the young ataman that the lady Ivga was the one who took you prisoner—"

  "Death to you! We yielded to no one! The lady Ivga is a gentlewoman, though married to a dog-souled magician."

  Seeing Ayub reach over his shoulder, toward the projecting hilt of the broadsword, Shmel groaned.

  "Harken only one little moment, illustrious lord, and then do as you like with me. That night on the steppe when you dealt such a blow with the sword—I swear never was such a blow seen before—I was so near the winged rider that the horse snuffled on my neck. My soul sat on my shoulders from fear but I looked around and through the bars of the helmet I saw that the eyes of the rider were dark. Close at hand I heard her voice—a woman's voice. The captain Giovanni knows this secret, though he keeps his own counsel—"

  "The Jew speaks the truth," growled Khlit suddenly, because Shmel was raising his voice and the nearest men-at-arms were looking around.

  Ayub stared at his friend and scratched his ear.

  "What do you know of this, old wolf?"

  "Last night Kirdy said he was going to speak with Erlik Khan, but at cockcrow his Cossack soul was troubled and he knew not what to do. A woman had talked to him."

  Forgetting Shmel, Ayub pondered and presently gathered up his reins.

  "Where are you going?" Khlit asked quickly.

  "To warn Kirdy."

  "Of what?"

  "Of the rider on the white horse. If the dwarf is not a koldun, then she is a witch or vampire. If Kirdy's spirit is dark, I'll eat grass but she has laid a spell on him. He will not speak to us. At the first cliff she may jump up behind him and drive his horse over to death."

  "She may do worse," muttered Khlit, who kept his hand on the Zapor-ogian's reins. "Nay, do not go. Are you his friend?"

  "In all things."

  "Then wait. He has taken the bit in his teeth; he has chosen the path he will follow."

  Ayub considered this for a moment.

  "Ay-a tak. It is in my mind, old wolf, that you are testing Kirdy."

  "Nay," said Khlit grimly. "He is making a trial of himself."

  "Well, brother, it is true that every warrior finds himself someday in the arms of a beautiful woman who would put a spell on him. And it is also true that we have agreed to help the people of Tor. And yet—"

  Tugging at th
e ends of his long mustache with both fists, he frowned heavily, glancing now and then at the impassive Khlit. Shmel, well satisfied to be ignored, followed out of reach but within earshot, venturing from time to time a remark that if the Cossack colonels took rich spoil from the Volga men they would find no one ready to give them half the value that he would give.

  "Allah!" said the Zaporogian at length, half to himself, "the horses are snorting—that means either a vampire is near, or a good omen. The —— only knows which it is. But to send our falcon against Skal and his horde with only a hundred of such tavern sweepings! And with a beautiful witch whispering in his ear. May the dogs bite you, Khlit! It is all very well to make a test of a youngster, but a hare does not jump over a wolf to test its legs."

  And he reached up to make certain that his sword was loose in the scabbard.

  Throughout the day Kirdy led them without a halt except to breathe the horses, and the Tatars twisted and turned so often that the men of Tor had no very good idea where they were when they dismounted at sunset in a mass of immense firs. They only knew that they had climbed from the scattered groves around the ousadba to a higher region where the forest was unbroken, and the tree trunks rose far above their spear tips before branches began to spread out into the network that made the forest bed a labyrinth of darkness. Here the snow was only a few inches deep, and they could make out a multitude of tracks left by men on horses and sleds. And here Kirdy dismounted, bidding the men eat what was in their saddlebags, and sending off the ponies in charge of five Tatars armed with bows. Only Ivga kept her white stallion, and this seemed natural enough to the men of Tor, who had never seen Erlik Khan out of the saddle. They were too hungry to wonder much, and when they had finished eating Kirdy had disappeared in the darkness with his guides.

  Their bellies filled, they began to gather in groups and speculate in a dozen languages as to what was going to happen. They could light no fire—Kirdy had forbidden that—and they began to be cold and to complain. They had neither brandy nor vodka nor any understanding of what was going on and their mood was like the maw of the forest. Then the moon rose somewhere and its rays filtering through the mesh of firs outlined patches of snow.