by Barry Sadler
Casca, former Baron of Chin, used his saddlebags for a pillow. The fortune in gems, given to him by the Emperor Tzin as a parting gift, gave him small comfort. At that moment he would have traded them all for a full goatskin of rancid swamp water. Moving, he tried to find a more comfortable position as his purse dug into his groin. The irritating object inside the leather pouch was his seal of office. The Chu hou Wang of a noble of the court of the Son of Heaven; a solid gold seal, with a rounded knob of tortoise shell. This seal was what he had needed to gain horses, food, and lodging while in the lands of Chin. But here it was just as useless as the gems in his saddlebags.
The short double edged sword close to his hand was infinitely more valuable than either the gems or the seal, at least until he reached lands civilized enough to appreciate the value of the small collection of rainbows that rested under his brown shaggy haired head.
Several times he would wake for a few heat drugged moments, then drop back off into his uneasy slumber. Not until the sun began its decline did he finally stir himself to rising. Taking a double handful of dried mare's milk curds, he mixed them with enough water to soften them and give the illusion of wetness. He ate one handful and fed the rest to his horse as he watched the heat waves dance and shimmer over the floor of the desert.
That night, as he led his horse over the sands, he looked to the skies and the twinkling, distant stars. It was said in Chin that the astronomers there had charted the courses of over eleven thousand of the sparkling lights. To what purpose, he really didn't understand, but those distant lights were as important to them as were their gods. It was said that they could tell the future from them. But if they could, he couldn't see how man could keep screwing things up especially if he knew beforehand what was going to happen.
As the constellation known as The Hunter passed overhead, he came across the mummified remains of a camel and its rider, lying side by side on the trail. The skin of the man was drawn tight in a perpetual leathery sneer, the lips pulled back from the teeth. Here, not even the vultures ventured to clean up. The packs on the camel had already been opened and picked over so Casca didn't bother. Others had come this way since the unknown traveler had died. It could have been a month or even several years ago. It didn't matter to him and certainly not to the dessicated husk lying there.
The warriors of Kushan had reached the water hole as Casca passed the dead man and the camel. They were lying now, drinking, face down in the murky waters of the spring fed refuge. From a nearby hill, a lone horseman watched them. The Hun disappeared back into the darkness to rejoin his gnomish comrades.
There was not room for both groups at the oasis and the Huns were not known for sharing anything, even if the Kushanites would have been so inclined, which was not likely.
A hundred times since passing through the Jade Gate, Casca had cursed himself for leaving behind him the silken pavilions and comforts of Chin. He could have waited a little longer before leaving, but smartass that he was, he had to try a crossing at this time. Before dawn he made camp once more, this time in a cluster of boulders. The ground had become rougher, but at least he knew that he was leaving the sands behind him. From his map he knew that the waterhole was not far ahead. He would rest a little while in the shade of the rocks and then move on and try to reach it before the next nightfall. He didn't want to take a chance on passing it in the dark.
The Huns had moved in closer to the waterhole and were preparing for the slaughter. They took strips of leather to cover their horses' hooves, to muffle even more the slight sounds made by their unshod hooves as they crossed over the rocky ground leading to the oasis in the rocks.
Half their number had dismounted and now moved on twisted legs to vantage points in the rocks, where they would take easy shots with their bows at the targets below them.
Exhausted, the Kushanites slept. The four sentries on watch at the entrance to the spring also fell into a deep, deep sleep, heads nodding. It was to be a sleep from which they would never wake. The young leader of the Kushanites would have had their heads if he had known of their dereliction. He was of the tribe of the Yuen Chih and had more of the blood of Asia in his veins. But this night he slept deeply, wrapped in his horse blanket and unaware of the death that was slowly approaching.
The Hunnish bowmen waited until the two Kushanite sentries were taken out, their throats slit with skinning knives, then they drew back the strings and targeted the sleeping bodies below. Their targets were easy to mark in the glow of the campfire by the dark waters of the spring.
A half dozen arrows found their way into the backs and stomachs of the sleeping warriors before one managed a scream of agony. The rest leapt to their feet, weapons at the ready, only to be trod down under the muffled hooves of the Huns' war horses. Heads fell to the ground to lie grinning obscenely by the rocks, as the bodies they had just recently been so attached to jerked and twitched, heels drumming against the hard earth.
The young warrior of the Yuen Chih managed to sink his sword into the chest of one Hun's horse, sending it and its rider crashing to the ground, where he dispatched the seared face of the barbarian with a well-aimed stroke of his yatagai. His victory yell was short lived as a thrown ax struck with the flat of its blade, sending him back into the darkness he had so recently come out of. The rest of his band died where they stood, no survivors. Prisoners were a luxury the Huns could ill afford at this time. They had been ordered to make all haste to the felt yurts of the tribes gathering far to the east, where there was to be a great killing. They had been driven far from the Great Wall by the armies of Chin, but now they were coming back in greater numbers than ever before and the wall would not long stand between them and riches of Chin.
Their only survivor was spared for the moment. The Hun leader wished to question him as to the reason warriors of Kushan were so far from their borders. But until the young warrior regained consciousness, he was of little use. Meanwhile, his captors helped themselves to whatever they liked from the packs and bodies of the dead. They slit the throat of one of the Kushan horse and soon had the rich red flesh sizzling over hot coals.
Casca raised his face and sniffed the wind. Meat, freshly cooking meat! His mouth tried to salivate and failed; there was too little moisture in his system to waste for such luxuries. Tying his animal's reins to a bush, he readied himself to see just who it was that was having a hot meal. In this region, it was not probable that he would be made welcome. Loosening his blade in its scabbard, he then strung his bow, grunting from the effort to bend it down to where he could slip the gut string on. it. The bow was a gift from Sung Ti the Baron of Chung Wei, made years ago when they had fought the Mongols and Huns together in the service of the Son of Heaven. Less than four feet long when strung, the bow, made in Hunnish manner, could drive an arrow through the side of a horse and still have enough power to kill a man on the other side.
Making his way cautiously through the boulders and scrub brush, he came upon the signs left by the Huns. There were at least ten of them, maybe more. Snaking his way closer to the smell of roasting meat, he crested a small rise and looked down on the spring.
Whistling between his teeth, he counted them. Eleven Huns lay about the hole in various states of stupor. They had gorged themselves on red meat and fermented mare's milk. The bodies of the Kushanites had been dragged off to the side and piled in a heap. There, they served to keep the flies off the Huns and on the dead, where even now the insects clustered in black, moving clots on the still draining bodies.
Casca started to move back and away, content to leave them the waterhole until they finished and moved on. The odds were they wouldn't stay there very long. As he started to crawl back on his belly, a movement in the pile of bodies caught his attention. One wasn't dead. He watched as the figure twisted and tried to sit up, arms and feet bound with strips of rawhide. Something about the man stopped him from retreating. The way he held his head, the set of the jaw, something? Then it came to him. Jugotai! Jugotai, the you
ngster who had been his guide when he first came to the east from across the mountains. From this distance it was hard to be certain but it damned sure looked like him, and those were Kushanite dead stacked up down there. It bothered him, because the young man down there could not be old enough to have been his guide. That had been nearly thirty years ago. Sighing deeply, he grunted. "Well, if that's the way of it, I might as well get started."
He laid his quiver of arrows beside him and looked over the situation again. Not so good; there were still a lot of Huns down there, and while he might get three or four before the rest got up and moving, it was still risky.
No, he'd have to do something really dirty to get the boy free. Allright, first off I have to reduce the odds a bit, he thought. From where he was perched, there was only one exit for the Huns to take on horseback. All the horses were tied in a line near some dry brush they had been feeding on. There's only one thing that Huns really hate to do, and that is to walk. There were sixteen horses, counting those of the Kushanites. Casca doubted that he would have time to kill them and handle the Huns too! Besides, he wasn't an expert marksman. He could hit the broad side of the target usually, but nothing fancy. The Huns were heavy into sleep. When they awoke, they would have some bad heads from the fermented mare's milk. He knew from personal experience the aftereffects of a night of drinking Kvass. Taking a thatch of dry grass, he pulled some threads from his tunic, tied the grass around the shafts of two arrows, and then laid out the rest of the shafts on the ground, close at hand. The horses were only about one hundred feet away so he wouldn't have any trouble hitting the brush beside them, and, as dry as it was, it should catch on fire pretty fast and still leave him enough time to shoot down at least a couple from the back while they were still sleeping. He struck off a spark from his flint and tinder, blowing it into a small smokeless flame, and touched off the fire arrows. Quickly he sighted, rose to his knees, and drew the cord almost to his ear, letting fly first one, then the other. The twanging of the bow wasn't loud enough to be heard.
The arrows smoked their way into the brush where the horses were tied. As he expected, it didn't take but a few seconds before the brush burst into a rapidly burning flame. The horses shied away from the licking flames and Casca picked new targets. A snoring, sleeping Hun. This time he drew the string all the way back to his ear and the arrow pinned the sleeping man to the earth. He got off two more shots before the whinnying of the horses, combined with the screaming of one of the Huns he had shot, roused the rest of the sleepers. They stumbled to their feet, red eyed and hung over, reaching for their weapons in confusion. He shot another in the groin, the flat bladed arrow taking off one testicle.
"Shit," he cursed. He had been aiming at the man's stomach. The horses broke and began to shy away from the flames, but they weren't running. So he took the time to send a couple of shafts into the nearest of the animals' rear ends. This served to give the rest of them the needed impetus to break and run, as did the Huns on their twisted legs, looking for cover and trying to locate their enemy. Casca took one more out with a lucky shot that hit the man squarely between the shoulder blades and exited at hands length out the front of his chest. By then, he'd had to dodge a couple of arrows himself. He had the advantage of being on the high ground or they probably would have nailed him right off. They were, he admitted, all damned better bowmen than he was.
Yelling down to them, he spoke in the language of Chin. One called back to him, "What is it that you want and who are you that hides from us like a pariah dog? Come down and fight."
Casca grinned, his eyes never leaving the Huns in the rocks. "I'm glad to see at least one of you has the ability to speak in more than grunts, grunts that are the natural tongue of your tribes. What I want is to make a deal."
The Hun leader yelled back. "I'm listening."
"Unless you bowlegged little bastards would be fond of walking out of this place and across the desert, I would suggest that you give my offer careful consideration."
“Why should we listen to you? We have you outnumbered and it would be just a matter of time before you're laid out to be properly butchered."
"Normally, that would be true, you ugly little bastard, but not right now. If you won't deal with me, then I'm going to leave you here, take my horse, and go after yours and kill them all. That will guarantee that you will leave your bones on the trail with no one to sing your death song except the flies."
The Huns below realized that what he said was true. He would have the advantage and from what he had just done, there was no doubt that he would do exactly as he said. And it was a long way to the felt yurts of their tribes.
"What is your offer?"
"Let the captive go. Give him a full skin of water and another of good food from his own supplies. Once he is in the clear, we'll leave. Your horses will return before long. They have to come back to drink sometime so you'll just have to wait a little while for them. By then I'll be long gone and you can continue your journey with more horses then you started with. Is that fair enough?"
The Hun below thought about it for a moment. He really had no other choice. "So be it. We'll let you have the Yueh Chih pup and the water and food. But no weapons for him. That would increase your advantage too much."
"I agree," called back Casca. "Send him on up."
Keeping a wary eye on the rocks, one of the Huns slid and waddled over to the Yueh Chih warrior and freed him from his bonds. The young man had heard all that had transpired between the Huns and his hidden ally in the rocks above. He wasted no time in getting a skin of water and a sack of food from the pile of looted goods. He looked longingly at his personal weapons but made no move towards them. Throwing his load on his shoulders, he rapidly began to climb up to his protector's perch. A scarred hand reached out to help and pulled him up to safety. A strong shove and he was clear of the ledge.
Casca gave a curt, "Get your ass to the back and down the ridge. I have a horse there. Give him some water and we'll get our butts out of here while we have the chance." He called back to the Huns, "Now, you girls just be patient. If I see just one inch of your scabby hides away from the waterhole, I'll kill the horses."
He backed away, still careful not to give the Huns a bow shot. By the time he'd made his way back to his horse the young warrior had allowed the animal to sip a large measure of their water supply, and the fluid already had imparted a little life to his lackluster eyes. But it still lacked the strength to carry a double load, so they moved out on foot. Casca leading, they half walked, half trotted away from the hole, following the tracks of the panicked horses. After about an hour, and another dose of water followed with a handful of grain from the food sack, Casca's horse was ready to be ridden, but still only by one. The youngster held onto the tail and they were still moving in this manner when they came on the first of the horses resting in the shade of some boulders. The Yuen Chih warrior gave a low whistle and the beast stayed put until the young man gained its reins. It was his own horse. As the youngster swung up into his saddle, Casca asked him, "What is your name? It wouldn't be Jugotai by any chance?"
The youngster whipped his head around, the scalplock flying. "No, I am Shuvar, son of Jugotai. Do you know my father?"
Casca laughed a deep chuckle. "Aye, boy, I knew him when he was no older than you, many years ago."
The two rode together, rounding up all the horses they could find. Two mounts evaded them but they moved on, herding the horses before them. Shuvar questioned Casca, "Aren't you going to leave them for the Huns as you promised?"
Casca shook his shaggy head. "No way. We missed two and I hate to leave them behind. One thing you learn in life, if you live as long as I have, and that is to never give a barbarian an even break. If we let them get back their mounts they would come after us, or go and kill someone else. Besides, they still have a chance to survive."
When they made camp that night, Shuvar responded to Casca's questions about his reasons for being so far from Kushan's borders. Shu
var told him he was to deliver a message to Chin that they had word the Huns were on the march again. The hordes were gathering together with new allies, including the Mongol tribes, for an all out assault on Chin. For a while Casca thought about returning with Shuvar, but decided to go on his way. There would be little he could do now and the wheel of time had turned too far for him to go back. With the dawn he bid farewell to Shuvar, gave him his bow and his remaining arrows, three of the horses, and most of the supplies. He would be closer to a place to replenish them than would be the dashing young warrior, who would be crossing the hell that Casca had just traversed.
The youngster wheeled his animals around for the long journey to the first imperial outposts at Ho Tien. Before the youngster left he cried out, "I forgot to ask your name, to tell my father who it was that saved his son."
The scar faced man smiled broadly. "Tell him it was the Roman, Casca, who still lives and walks the earth."
Shuvar's mouth dropped in astonishment. "Hail, Roman! My father told me of your journeys together. But I thought you would surely be a much older man."
The Roman laughed again. "I am young, Shuvar, I am young."
"Ride fast and ride well."
Casca waved his sword arm in salute and turned to herd his share of the horses on down the trail leading to Sogdiania and Parthia.
CHAPTER TWO
A week after leaving Shuvar he crossed the Jaxartes river, still keeping to the north of Sogdiana's boundaries. Not until he reached the Oxus did he encounter patrols of armored men. These he gave a wide berth to, staying to himself.
From an occasional caravan he'd heard of the state of the world as they knew it. The Sassanids, he learned, had risen to new heights of power. Since they had replaced the Parthian Kings, their empire had made almost a complete return to a pure Persian influence, though they still made use of the Cataphracti and the heavy infantry of their predecessors.