El Borak and Other Desert Adventures

by Robert E. Howard

  The man’s teeth glimmered in the tangle of his beard as he grinned. “Mashallah! Am I not a thief, El Shirkuh?” he asked, giving O’Donnell the name by which the American, in his rightful person, was known to the Moslems. “Hast thou forgotten the old days? Even now the British would hang me, if they could catch me. But no matter. I was one of those who watch the paths in the hills.

  “An hour ago I was relieved, and when I returned to the sangar I heard men talking of the Turkomans who camped in the valley outside, and it was said their chief was the Kurd who slew the infidel Kurovitch. So I knew it was El Shirkuh playing with doom again. Art thou mad, sahib? Death spreads his wings above thee and all thy men. Afzal Khan plots that thou seest no other sunrise.”

  “I was suspicious of him,” muttered the American. “In the matter of food —”

  “The hut in the inclosure is full of food. Why waste beef and bread on dead men? Food is scarce enough in these hills — and at dawn you die.”

  “But why? We saved Afzal Khan’s life, and there is no feud —”

  “The Jhelum will flow backward when Afzal Khan spares a man because of gratitude,” muttered Yar Muhammad.

  “But for what reason?”

  “By Allah, sahib, are you blind? Reason? Are not fifty Turkish steeds reason enough? Are not fifty rifles with cartridges reason enough? In these hills firearms and cartridges are worth their weight in silver, and a man will murder his brother for a matchlock. Afzal Khan is a robber, and he covets what you possess.

  “These weapons and these horses would lend him great strength. He is ambitious. He would draw to him many more men, make himself strong enough at last to dispute the rule of these hills with Orkhan Bahadur. Nay, he plots some day to take Shahrazar from the Turkoman as he in his turn took it from the Uzbeks. What is the goal of every bandit in these hills, rich or poor? Mashallah! The treasure of Khuwarezm!”

  O’Donnell was silent, visualizing that accursed hoard as a monstrous loadstone drawing all the evil passions of men from near lands and far. Now it was but an empty shadow men coveted, but they could not know it, and its evil power was as great as ever. He felt an insane desire to laugh.

  The wind moaned in the dark, and Yar Muhammad’s muttering voice merged eerily with it, unintelligible a yard away.

  “Afzal Khan feels no obligation toward you, because you thought it was Ahmed Shah you were aiding. He did not attack you at the Pass because he knew you would slay many of his men, and he feared lest the horses take harm in the battle. Now he has you in a trap as he planned. Sixty men inside the sangar; a hundred more at the head of the valley. A short time before moonrise, the men among the spurs will creep down the valley and take position among these rocks. Then when the moon is well risen, so that a man may aim, they will rake you with rifle fire.

  “Most of the Turkomans will die in their sleep, and such as live and seek to flee in the other direction will be shot by the men in the inclosure. These sleep now, but sentries keep watch. I slipped out over the western side and have been lying here wondering how to approach your camp without being shot for a prowler.

  “Afzal Khan has plotted well. He has you in the perfect trap, with the horses well out of the range of the bullets that will slay their riders.”

  “So,” murmured O’Donnell. “And what is your plan?”

  “Plan? Allah, when did I ever have a plan? Nay, that is for you! I know these hills, and I can shoot straight and strike a good blow.” His yard-long Khyber knife thrummed as he swung it through the air. “But I only follow where wiser men lead. I heard the men talk, and I came to warn you, because once you turned an Afridi blade from my breast, and again you broke the lock on the Peshawar jail where I lay moaning for the hills!”

  O’Donnell did not express his gratitude; that was not necessary. But he was conscious of a warm glow toward the hairy ruffian. Man’s treachery is balanced by man’s loyalty, at least in the barbaric hills where civilized sophistry has not crept in with its cult of time-serving.

  “Can you guide us through the mountains?” asked O’Donnell.

  “Nay, sahib; the horses cannot follow these paths; and these booted Turks would die on foot.”

  “It is nearly two hours yet until moonrise,” O’Donnell muttered. “To saddle horses now would be to betray us. Some of us might get away in the darkness, but —”

  He was thinking of the papers that were the price of his life; but it was not altogether that. Flight in the darkness would mean scattered forces, even though they cut their way out of the valley. Without his guidance the Turkomans would be hopelessly lost; such as were separated from the main command would perish miserably.

  “Come with me,” he said at last, and hurried back to the men who lay about the charring embers.

  At his whisper they rose like ghouls out of the blackness and clustered about him, muttering like suspicious dogs at the Waziri. O’Donnell could scarcely make out the hawklike faces that pressed close about him. All the stars were hidden by dank clouds. The fortalice was but a shapeless bulk in the darkness, and the flanking mountains were masses of solid blackness. The whining wind drowned voices a few yards away.

  “Hearken and speak not,” O’Donnell ordered. “This is Yar Muhammad, a friend and a true man. We are betrayed. Afzal Khan is a dog, who will slay us for our horses. Nay, listen! In the sangar there is a thatched hut. I am going into the inclosure and fire that thatch. When you see the blaze, and hear my pistol speak, rush the wall. Some of you will die, but the surprise will be on our side. We must take the sangar and hold it against the men who will come down the valley at moonrise. It is a desperate plan, but the best that offers itself.”

  “Bismillah!” they murmured softly, and he heard the rasp of blades clearing their scabbards.

  “This is work indeed for cold steel,” he said. “You must rush the wall and swarm it while the Pathans are dazed with surprise. Send one man for the warriors at the horse pen. Be of good heart; the rest is on Allah’s lap.”

  As he crept away in the darkness, with Yar Muhammad following him like a bent shadow, O’Donnell was aware that the attitude of the Turkomans had changed; they had wakened out of their fatalistic lethargy into fierce tension.

  “If I fall,” O’Donnell murmured, “will you guide these men back to Shahrazar? Orkhan Bahadur will reward you.”

  “Shaitan eat Orkhan Bahadur,” answered Yar Muhammad. “What care I for these Turki dogs? It is you, not they, for whom I risk my skin.”

  O’Donnell had given the Waziri his rifle. They swung around the south side of the inclosure, almost crawling on their bellies. No sound came from the breastwork, no light showed. O’Donnell knew that they were invisible to whatever eyes were straining into the darkness along the wall. Circling wide, they approached the unguarded western wall.

  “Afzal Khan sleeps in the tower,” muttered Yar Muhammad, his lips close to O’Donnell’s ear. “Sleeps or pretends to sleep. The men slumber beneath the eastern wall. All the sentries lurk on that side, trying to watch the Turkomans. They have allowed the fires to die, to lull suspicion.”

  “Over the wall, then,” whispered O’Donnell, rising and gripping the coping. He glided over with no more noise than the wind in the dry tamarisk, and Yar Muhammad followed him as silently. He stood in the thicker shadow of the wall, placing everything in his mind before he moved.

  The hut was before him, a blob of blackness. It looked eastward and was closer to the west wall than to the other. Near it a cluster of dying coals glowed redly. There was no light in the tower, in the northwest angle of the wall.

  Bidding Yar Muhammad remain near the wall, O’Donnell stole toward the embers. When he reached them he could make out the forms of the men sleeping between the hut and the east wall. It was like these hardened killers to sleep at such a time. Why not? At the word of their master they would rise and slay. Until the time came it was good to sleep. O’Donnell himself had slept, and eaten, too, among the corpses of a battlefield.

 
Dim figures along the wall were sentinels. They did not turn; motionless as statues they leaned on the wall staring into the darkness out of which, in the hills, anything might come.

  There was a half-burned fagot lying in the embers, one end a charring stump which glowed redly. O’Donnell reached out and secured it. Yar Muhammad, watching from the wall, shivered though he knew what it was. It was as if a detached hand had appeared for an instant in the dim glow and then disappeared, and then a red point moved toward him.

  “Allah!” swore the Waziri. “This blackness is that of Jehannum!”

  “Softly!” O’Donnell whispered at him from the pit darkness. “Be ready; now is the beginning of happenings.”

  The ember glowed and smoked as he blew cautiously upon it. A tiny tongue of flame grew, licking at the wood.

  “Commend thyself to Allah!” said O’Donnell, and whirling the brand in a flaming wheel about his head, he cast it into the thatch of the hut.

  There was a tense instant in which a tongue of flame flickered and crackled, and then in one hungry combustion the dry stuff leaped ablaze, and the figures of men started out of blank blackness with startling clarity. The guards wheeled, their stupid astonishment etched in the glare, and men sat up in their cloaks on the ground, gaping bewilderedly.

  And O’Donnell yelled like a hungry wolf and began jerking the trigger of his pistol.

  A sentinel spun on his heel and crumpled, discharging his rifle wildly in the air. Others were howling and staggering like drunken men, reeling and falling in the lurid glare. Yar Muhammad was blazing away with O’Donnell’s rifle, shooting down his former companions as cheerfully as if they were ancient enemies.

  A matter of seconds elapsed between the time the blaze sprang up and the time when the men were scurrying about wildly, etched in the merciless light and unable to see the two men who crouched in the shadow of the far wall, raining them with lead. But in that scant instant there came another sound — a swift thudding of feet, the daunting sound of men rushing through the darkness in desperate haste and desperate silence.

  Some of the Pathans heard it and turned to glare into the night. The fire behind them rendered the outer darkness more impenetrable. They could not see the death that was racing fleetly toward them, until the charge reached the wall.

  Then a yell of terror went up as the men along the wall caught a glimpse of glittering eyes and flickering steel rushing out of the blackness. They fired one wild, ragged volley, and then the Turkomans surged up over the wall in an irresistible wave and were slashing and hacking like madmen among the defenders.

  Scarcely wakened, demoralized by the surprise, and by the bullets that cut them down from behind, the Pathans were beaten almost before the fight began. Some of them fled over the wall without any attempt at defense, but some fought, snarling and stabbing like wolves. The blazing thatch etched the scene in a lurid glare. Kalpaks mingled with turbans, and steel flickered over the seething mob. Yataghans grated against tulwars, and blood spurted.

  His pistol empty, O’Donnell ran toward the tower. He had momentarily expected Afzal Khan to appear. But in such moments it is impossible to retain a proper estimate of time. A minute may seem like an hour, an hour like a minute. In reality, the Afghan chief came storming out of the tower just as the Turkomans came surging over the wall. Perhaps he had really been asleep, or perhaps caution kept him from rushing out sooner. Gunfire might mean rebellion against his authority.

  At any rate he came roaring like a wounded bull, a rifle in his hands. O’Donnell rushed toward him, but the Afghan glared beyond him to where his swordsmen were falling like wheat under the blades of the maddened Turkomans. He saw the fight was already lost, as far as the men in the inclosure were concerned, and he sprang for the nearest wall.

  O’Donnell raced to pull him down, but Afzal Khan, wheeling, fired from the hip. The American felt a heavy blow in his belly, and then he was down on the ground, with all the breath gone from him. Afzal Khan yelled in triumph, brandished his rifle, and was gone over the wall, heedless of the vengeful bullet Yar Muhammad sped after him.

  The Waziri had followed O’Donnell across the inclosure and now he knelt beside him, yammering as he fumbled to find the American’s wound.

  “Aie!” he bawled. “He is slain! My friend and brother! Where will his like be found again? Slain by the bullet of a hillman! Aie! Aie! Aie!”

  “Cease thy bellowing, thou great ox,” gasped O’Donnell, sitting up and shaking off the frantic hands. “I am unhurt.”

  Yar Muhammad yelled with surprise and relief. “But the bullet, brother? He fired at point-blank range!”

  “It hit my belt buckle,” grunted O’Donnell, feeling the heavy gold buckle, which was bent and dented. “By Allah, the slug drove it into my belly. It was like being hit with a sledge hammer. Where is Afzal Khan?”

  “Fled away in the darkness.”

  O’Donnell rose and turned his attention to the fighting. It was practically over. The remnants of the Pathans were fleeing over the wall, harried by the triumphant Turkomans, who in victory were no more merciful than the average Oriental. The sangar looked like a shambles.

  The hut still blazed brightly, and O’Donnell knew that the contents had been ignited. What had been an advantage was now a danger, for the men at the head of the valley would be coming at full run, and in the light of the fire they could pick off the Turkomans from the darkness. He ran forward shouting orders, and setting an example of action.

  Men began filling vessels — cooking pots, gourds, even kalpaks from the well and casting the water on the fire. O’Donnell burst in the door and began to drag out the contents of the huts, foods mostly, some of it brightly ablaze, to be doused.

  Working as only men in danger of death can work, they extinguished the flame and darkness fell again over the fortress. But over the eastern crags a faint glow announced the rising of the moon through the breaking clouds.

  Then followed a tense period of waiting, in which the Turkomans hugged their rifles and crouched along the wall, staring into the darkness as the Pathans had done only a short time before. Seven of them had been killed in the fighting and lay with the wounded beside the well. The bodies of the slain Pathans had been unceremoniously heaved over the wall.

  The men at the valley head could not have been on their way down the valley when the fighting broke out, and they must have hesitated before starting, uncertain as to what the racket meant. But they were on their way at last, and Afzal Khan was trying to establish a contact with them.

  The wind brought snatches of shouts down the valley, and a rattle of shots that hinted at hysteria. These were followed by a furious bellowing which indicated that Afzal Khan’s demoralized warriors had nearly shot their chief in the dark. The moon broke through the clouds and disclosed a straggling mob of men gesticulating wildly this side of the rocks to the east.

  O’Donnell even made out Afzal Khan’s bulk and, snatching a rifle from a warrior’s hand, tried a long shot. He missed in the uncertain light, but his warriors poured a blast of lead into the thick of their enemies which accounted for a man or so and sent the others leaping for cover. From the reeflike rocks they began firing at the wall, knocking off chips of stone but otherwise doing no damage.

  With his enemies definitely located, O’Donnell felt more at ease. Taking a torch he went to the tower, with Yar Muhammad hanging at his heels like a faithful ghoul. In the tower were heaped odds and ends of plunder — saddles, bridles, garments, blankets, food, weapons — but O’Donnell did not find what he sought, though he tore the place to pieces. Yar Muhammad squatted in the doorway, with his rifle across his knees, and watched him, it never occurring to the Waziri to inquire what his friend was searching for.

  At length O’Donnell paused, sweating from the vigor of his efforts — for he had concentrated much exertion in a few minutes — and swore.

  “Where does the dog keep those papers?”

  “The papers he took from Ahmed Shah?” inquir
ed Yar Muhammad. “Those he always carries in his girdle. He cannot read them, but he believes they are valuable. Men say Ahmed Shah had them from a Feringi who died.”

  IV

  Dawn was lifting over the valley of Khuruk. The sun that was not yet visible above the rim of the hills turned the white peaks to pulsing fire. But down in the valley there was none who found time to wonder at the changeless miracle of the mountain dawn. The cliffs rang with the flat echoes of rifle shots, and wisps of smoke drifted bluely into the air. Lead spanged on stone and whined venomously off into space, or thudded sickeningly into quivering flesh. Men howled blasphemously and fouled the morning with their frantic curses.

  O’Donnell crouched at a loophole, staring at the rocks whence came puffs of white smoke and singing harbingers of death. His rifle barrel was hot to his hand, and a dozen yards from the wall lay a huddle of white-clad figures.

  Since the first hint of light the wolves of Afzal Khan had poured lead into the fortalice from the reeflike ledge that broke the valley floor. Three times they had broken cover and charged, only to fall back beneath the merciless fire that raked them. Hopelessly outnumbered, the advantage of weapons and position counted heavily for the Turkomans.

  O’Donnell had stationed five of the best marksmen in the tower and the rest held the walls. To reach the inclosure meant charging across several hundred yards of open space, devoid of cover. All the outlaws were still among the rocks east of the sangar, where, indeed, the broken ledge offered the only cover within rifle range of the redoubt.

  The Pathans had suffered savagely in the charges, and they had had the worst of the long-range exchanges, both their marksmanship and their weapons being inferior to the Turkomans’. But some of their bullets did find their way through the loopholes. A few yards from O’Donnell a kaftaned rider lay in a grotesque huddle, his feet turned so the growing light glinted on his silver boot heels, his head a smear of blood and brains.