by Harold Lamb
The Muhammadans, accustomed to raids of the hill tribes, took this rush of the Horde for mere defiance and expected the Mongols to draw back as swiftly as they had come. From the rampart rained down taunting shouts—arrows flashed, and javelins flew among the horses.
Wheeling his white charger so abruptly that he almost crashed into Sir Hugh, who rode behind him, the Orluk darted toward the nearest gate, throwing high his right arm.
The Horde, that had followed him as hounds press upon the leader, converged on the gate silently and divided in two. Some three hundred bowmen began to trot back and forth a stone’s throw from the wall, plying their shafts at the parapet on both sides the massive oak portal. The others did not rein in until their ponies were jammed up against the wall.
For a moment the missiles of the Kharesmians wrought havoc among the close-packed warriors. Then the arrows from the mounted archers cleared a space of defenders. The Muhammadan bowmen dropped with shafts through throat and brain—the shields of the spearmen availed them not.
“On the lances!” shouted Subotai, rising in his stirrups. “Cast the lariats! On!”
The warriors nearest the wall stood on their saddles, others dismounted and pushed their lances up to the parapet. The long shafts had been bound together near the head in pairs, and when the butts were planted on the ground, the points caught in the mortar. More lances were brought, and the Mongols who could not get near the wall at the point of attack drew long, pliable ropes from their saddle horns. These ropes, noosed at one end, they were accustomed to cast upon running horses, but now they whirled the loops over the crenels of the battlement and let the ropes hang for the eager hands of their comrades to grasp.
Climbing upon the shoulders of the nearest warriors, swarming up the lances, hauling themselves by the lariats, the Horde ascended the face of the wall—pierced by spears from above, shattered by mace and scimitar, they fell back bleeding.
The shafts of the lances became slippery with blood; horses, mangled and trodden, screamed and reared. Like the surf rushing against high rocks, the tide of men rose and sank, while the deep-throated shout of the Mongol onset rolled forth.
“Hour-ra—hour-ra!”
Subotai had launched his attack without waiting for more Mongols to come up, before the Istarians could recover from their surprise. Half his men lay dead around him, but a score of swordsmen had gained a footing on the wall, and others swarmed after them.
“The gate!” cried the Orluk.
His men on the wall heard, and ran down the steps that led within. They fought their way to the gate, and a dozen of them turned savagely on the Muhammadans while two Mongols lifted down the massive iron bars from the sockets. The dozen had dwindled to five when the gates swung open.
Meanwhile Subotai had called in his bowman, who had suffered little. The Orluk reined his charger against the oak portal, listening to the struggle within, and when the bars were down the weight of a hundred horses forced open the gates.
When his detachment was in the streets, Subotai called a score of riders to him, leaving the others to hold the gate. On the distant shore he had seen the first of the heavy cavalry of the Horde coming up at a gallop.
His eyes glowed with a greenish light as he watched the throngs of disordered Muhammadans, and his thin lips smiled as he gathered up his reins, speaking to Sir Hugh for the first time.
“Hai! The fox is in his hole, and we will dig him out.”
When Arslan had interpreted this, the crusader shook his head.
“Thou wilt not find him.”
Subotai pulled the battle ax from his girdle, and his white teeth ground together. “We found his trail. He is here. Look!” He pointed to a body lying near the forefeet of his charger, a tall Kharesmian with a haggard face and henna-stained beard, an arrow buried deep under his heart. “The jackal lurked by the gate.”
Sir Hugh recognized Omar, the minister of the Throne of Gold.
“Thou wilt not find him,” he said again, “because he will flee in a boat.”
When this was explained to the Mongol he muttered under his breath and struck his horse with the flat of the ax. Lifting his arm, he called to the detachment that had drawn up around him to shield him from the arrows of the Muhammadans.
They galloped through the street that emptied before them, and swept into narrow alleys, crashing over merchants’ stalls, leaping ditches and skirting garden walls until they emerged into an almost deserted alley that led down to the end of the promontory upon which the city stood.
Here was neither wall nor harbor. A stone watch tower rose from a huddle of fishing huts. And here, at the end of a wooden jetty, a sailing skiff was moving out from the shore.
Three or four men were in the skiff—one hauling up the stone that had served as anchor, another making fast the sheets of the square sail. Crouched in the belly of the boat was Muhammad.
The Mongols, urging their weary horses toward the jetty, saw him—saw that two of his companions wore armor and the khalats of nobles. Then a puff of wind caught the boat, the sail filled, and it began to move more swiftly, rising in the swells.
The wind was offshore, and the skiff heeled over as a Kharesmian took the steering oar and headed out to sea. The first Mongols reached the jetty and reined in, reaching for their bows and sending arrows flashing toward the fishing craft.
Some of the shafts struck the skiff, but in a moment more it was out of range. Subotai turned and spoke a single word to his warriors.
One after another the Mongols leaped their ponies into the water. Slipping from the saddles, they clutched the horses’ tails, striking at the heads of the animals that tried to turn back to shore.
Horses and men moved steadily after the skiff that was drawing off slowly under the light breeze. Sir Hugh, breathing deeply, could not take his eyes from them.
“One has gone!” he muttered to himself after a moment.
And he wondered whether the followers of Muhammad would have jumped into the sea at the command of their lord. Knowing that the beasts must be tired, he waited for them to turn back.
After a while he knew they would not come back. Only five or six were visible, on the breast of the swell, following the skiff. They seemed to be closer to it.
“Akh!” cried Arslan, pointing.
One horse and the head of a warrior were still to be seen, and the watchers on the jetty strained their eyes into the twilight. Subotai lifted his head, and drew breath between clenched teeth.
“Ahatou!”
He raised his hand and let it fall.
The solitary rider had disappeared under the swell, and only the skiff was visible, moving sluggishly into the gathering mists. For a while the Orluk was sunk in meditation, paying no heed to the tumult in the streets behind him where the Horde was seeking him earnestly.
For an entire summer he had ridden in the track of the Shah, without rest. He had fought times without number; he had stormed cities and galloped through unknown kingdoms to hunt down the lord of Islam, and now he was confronted by the sea. It was the first time this nomad of the Gobi had beheld the sea and the boats that went forth upon it.
He turned back from the jetty and went to look at the few fishing craft drawn up on the beach.
“Will these go over the water like that yonder?” he asked Sir Hugh, and Arslan interpreted.
“Nay,” the crusader pointed out, “the bottoms have been stove in. They would sink.”
Subotai looked up. Muhammad’s skiff had changed its course and was lost to sight.
“It leaves no trail. How can it be followed?”
“Along the shore,” the crusader suggested, “there must be other boats. The wind is dying, and Muhammad is still near.”
The Mongol turned on him swiftly.
“Canst make a boat follow, on the water?”
“Ay.”
“Take a chambul of bowmen. Go, and seek!”
Wheeling his charger, the Orluk galloped back to the fighting, and pr
esently Arslan, who had accompanied him, reappeared with some thirty warriors, saying that they were under the orders of the crusader.
It was utterly dark on the shore of the Sea of the Ravens. Only on the promontory of Istar did lights gleam, and from the quiet that prevailed Sir Hugh judged that Subotai was master of the town.
He had sought through the dusk for fishing villages, and had found only abandoned huts in the forest of rushes. Arslan he had sent back for lanterns, and the Mongols he had divided, to search the shore in both directions. They had gone off like hunting dogs, questing in the shadows and—though he reined in and listened—he could no longer hear them splashing in the mud near him. His pony was played out, and he dismounted, to sit and wait for lights.
Muhammad had escaped, that was certain. But Sir Hugh wanted a boat for his own use. If he could get food and water from the Mongols at Istar he meant to embark on this sea—
Raising his head, he listened, thinking that the archers were coming back. A slight sound came over the water, a bird rising from the rushes, or the whisper of the swell.
Then he heard a creaking of wood and a murmur of voices. Men splashed through the shallows on foot, making as little noise as possible. The crusader sat where he was until the shore was quiet, and then rose to investigate. Somewhere the faint creaking and slapping persisted, and presently he made out a vague shape against the stars—a shape that moved to and fro and changed as he watched.
Toward it he made his way, going knee-deep into water, and parting the rushes that rose over his head. His hand, outthrust, touched solid wood, and he knew that the thing that had come between him and the stars was a sail. He could feel it now and see the outline of the mast. A reek of foul water and rotten fish was in his nostrils, and a man rose up beside him from the bottom of the boat.
“Wallahi!” The man had stooped to peer at Sir Hugh, and the crusader gripped his arm. “Who art thou?”
“Death,” whispered the knight, “unless thou keep silence.”
As his eyes searched the boat he made out, in the starlight, another figure outstretched. Still gripping his captive, he bent down and drew in his breath sharply. From a bloodless countenance the dark and sightless eyes of Muhammad seemed in that illusory light to seek his.
“Ay,” said the man he held, “that was the Shah. It was written that he should not go upon the sea.”
Sir Hugh touched the head of the prone figure. It was cold, and the hands and feet moved idly with the swinging of the skiff. And yet the garments were not disordered, nor could he make out any wound.
“What befell the Shah?” he asked.
The solitary occupant of the boat sighed and answered with the resignation of his race.
“It was the hour appointed. No Mongol arrow touched him. A fever was in him, and perhaps fear weighed upon his spirit. When he watched the horsemen jump into the sea after him he said no word. After the hour of the namaz gar he died. Who art thou?”
When Sir Hugh remained silent, the Muhammadan went on sadly.
“This also was to come upon our head. Why should we go to the island? He lacked even a shroud for burial. We came back—to dig his grave in his own land.”
Beside the body of the Shah Sir Hugh had seen half a dozen chests, and the one nearest the servant of the Shah was open. Even in the starlight the gleam of precious stones and the white shape of pearls were unmistakable. And the cover of the open chest had been split and pried oft with an ax.
He looked around and thought he saw the ax near the slippered feet of the Muhammadan who had remained to guard the body and the treasure when his comrades went to the shore—who had been taken unaware by the quiet approach of the crusader.
“Not in his own land,” Sir Hugh made answer, “for the Mongols have taken Istar.”
“We did not know.”
The lean arm of Muhammad’s follower grew tense under his grasp, and the knight reflected that these men had found themselves masters of the wealth in the chests. They had put back to shore perhaps to bury Muhammad, but undoubtedly to seek for horses. They had left a man to watch the boat, hidden in the darkness and the rushes. Sir Hugh had heard the others go past him after the boat reached the shore.
“Who art thou?” the man asked for the third time.
“The foe of thy shah!”
Pulling the Muhammadan toward him, Sir Hugh caught the man in his arms and cast him among the rushes. Then he thrust the skiff out into deeper water, wading beside it until it drifted clear of the rushes. With a final shove he hauled himself in over the bow and went to the steering oar.
Working this oar back and forth, he turned the bow of the skiff to breast the swell. There was a little air stirring, and he sought for the sheets, making them fast to the thwarts. Then he sat down with the steering oar in his hand, to think.
Of all those who had gathered at the caravan serai in the salt desert nearly a month ago, he alone had lived to reach the Sea of the Ravens. Omar had been struck down by a Mongol arrow, and the Shah had perished from exhaustion and fear.
The head of Muhammad, rocking with the motion of the skiff, rested between his feet. The precious stones of the Shah were at his side, but Muhammad was beyond need of them.
Sir Hugh counted the chests. There were seven, and if all held such jewels, the treasure of an empire was in this skiff—reeking of fish, on the shore of an unknown sea.
That he himself was still alive he owed to the Mongols. And he thought of his companions of the caravan track, of the reckless Khalil, the wise Kutsai, and the Eagle. He thought about Subotai, the Eagle, for a long time.
He had his boat at last—he was beyond the Muhammadan frontier—but he had pledged allegiance to the Mongol lords. After he had considered all these things, Sir Hugh took up the oar and headed the skiff toward the lights of Istar.
When he came within hail of the jetty, the crusader loosed the sheets and drifted in to the shore where some Mongol warriors stood guard with blazing torches. Seeing the skiff, they came to the water’s edge and looked at him silently as he poled the fishing craft in.
“Subotai Bahadur!” he called to them, and one departed at a run.
Meanwhile the crusader beached his boat and stepped out on the sand. The warriors were talking among themselves, watching him, until horses appeared in the nearest street, and the Orluk, with his officers and the courier Arslan, came down to the water. Subotai pulled in his charger at the bow of the skiff and observed the body within. He bent down in the saddle and studied it, then spoke curtly to Arslan.
“What man is this, O Nazarene?” asked the courier.
“Muhammad Shah.”
Subotai’s blue eyes glowed, and he raised his right hand, his great fist clenched.
“Proof!”
Sir Hugh lifted the Kharesmian’s arm, already growing rigid, and pointed to the signet ring. Then he picked up the opened chest and dumped out on the sand a glittering flood of precious stones. Subotai swung down from the stirrup, glanced casually at the jewels of the Throne of Gold and put his hand on the face of the dead man.
“Life is gone from him.” He struck the hilt of his saber with an open palm, as if sheathing the weapon. “Hat—the hunt is at an end.”
The warriors who pressed about him murmured assent, their dark faces triumphant, and from a group of Istarians who had drawn near there rose a low wail of lamentation.
“His treasure availed him not,” growled the Mongol leader. “He died without a weapon in his hand, and in a boat. Better for him if he had never gone upon the sea.” Abruptly he turned to Sir High. “And thou—what dost thou ask of me?”
“My horse Khutb. He will come up with the caravans.”
“And what more?”
“Freedom, to choose my road. I go to seek an enemy in the Western world.”
Subotai folded his arms on his broad chest and fell silent. When he spoke it was to the nearest officer, who dismounted swiftly and stood by the stirrup of his mount, a black mare. Then the Orluk
asked a question of the crusader.
“Why didst thou come back from the sea?”
“My life I owed to the Horde, and now I have paid the debt.”
When Arslan had interpreted this, Subotai made response in his slow drawl.
“Hat, thou art mighty in battle. Thou hast kept the saddle with a rider of the yamkh, untiring as a hawk. Thou art without fear, since thou hast gone alone upon the sea. Come, then, to my house as a guest.”
Swinging himself into the saddle of the officer’s mare, the Mongol conqueror motioned to Sir Hugh to mount his own charger.
“Hai, the command of the great Khan was that I should go into the Western world when Muhammad was slain. Come thou with me and we will open up a path for our horses.”
Sir Hugh picked up his rein, and made his decision without hesitation.
“Ay, so.”
Before turning back to the city the leader of the Horde glanced a last time at the body in the skiff that grated against the stones of the beach. Something like a smile touched his hard lips.
“Kutsai would have kept thee, to make marks on his map; but I shall take thee, to shape a new world.”
CHAPTER XVII - RABBAN SIMEON
THAT winter Subotai went into camp. He had need to rest his men and replenish his horse herds. He had only some twenty thousand Mongols with him. And Genghis Khan had given him command to march on, after the death of Muhammad Shah. To go round the Sea of the Ravens into the west, and to conquer a place called Europe where the Christians lived. Genghis Khan and the Horde had broken the power of the Moslems, and now they would overthrow the Christians who lived in that far corner of the world.
So Subotai, the Eagle of Genghis Khan, went into winter quarters upon a plain on the west shore of the Sea of the Ravens. Here he had grasslands, to graze his herds, and a wide river to water them, and timber enough for the fires. His men set up their domed yurts of leather and felt, that looked like beehives scattered over the brown plain.
With the coming of snow and the cold that would freeze the watercourses and harden the snow crust, Subotai meant to begin his march again—the long march of ninety degrees of longitude, from the great wall of Cathay into Europe. He knew that the first thing to be done was to make a passage through the mountain barrier that he could see to the west of his camp. Already the peaks of this range were white with heavy snow. Some men called the range the Khaukesh, or Caucasus. Others called it the Gate. There was a road through the mountains that would bring him out upon the level plains again, far to the north and the west.