Wolf of the Steppes

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Wolf of the Steppes Page 20

by Harold Lamb


  The black object was within a few paces, and he saw that it was something moving on all fours. Carefully he leveled the pistol, taking the best aim he could in the dark.

  And then Khlit let the pistol fall to his side. The odor of musk that came to him so strongly was surely from the windward side. Yet the dark object came toward him from the yurta which was away from the wind. Khlit drew a deep breath and his eyes strained toward the moving form. His heart gave a leap as he recognized it. It was Kerula, moving over the sand on her hands and knees.

  The child had crept from her tent out into the night that she feared. He could hear her labored breathing as she passed him slowly. The scent of musk could not have come from the girl. It had come from the windward side. Khlit turned quickly and searched the darkness with anxious glance.

  On the further side of the gully, some distance in front of the girl, was a larger object, defined against the sand. It moved in the same direction, away from the camp. Khlit heard a hissing sound come from it, and understood why he had smelled the musk. Watching the girl, he had not seen the other thing pass him. He made it out as an animal of powerful build, with horns, that seemed to drag its hind legs.

  Quickly Khlit raised his pistol. Sighting it at the beast's head he pulled the trigger. The weapon clicked dully and he thrust it into his belt with a curse. The sand must have choked its flint and powder.

  With a hasty glance at the moving forms, Khlit rose to his feet. Bending low, he trotted over the sand ridge at his side into the gully that ran beside the one he had been in. For some distance he ran, following the winding of the gully.

  Fearful of losing trace of the girl and the animal, he turned back to the ridge, to find that he was running through an opening into the other gully. His heavy boots made no sound in the sand, and Khlit did not see that he was heading straight for the creeping animal until he heard a sharp hiss, and saw the object rise up before him.

  He caught a brief glimpse of horns and long ears outlined against the sky, and felt a hot breath on his face. His hand leaped to his sword, and the curved blade was pulled from its sheath.

  As Khlit's arm swept upward with the sword, it moved outward.

  The blade struck the beast where it was aimed, under the head. Khlit saw it stagger back and slashed it twice across the head as it fell to the sand. Moving back from the struggling object he called to the girl.

  “Kerula! Here is Khlit, do not be afraid.”

  A moment more and Kerula was beside him, clinging to his coat, her head buried in his sleeve.

  “It was the beast Kotwan,” she cried, “calling me outside my tent. I heard it calling me and I came. Oh, it smelled of musk, and it kept calling. My legs would not hold me up and I crawled— where is the beast Kotwan?”

  “Nay, little Kerula,” laughed Khlit, “the beast Kotwan is a strange beast. But it will not come for you again. See!”

  Drawing the girl after him, the Cossack stepped to the side of the dark object on the sand. He felt of it cautiously. It did not move. And when Khlit drew up his hand it held a beast's hide and horns. The hide seemed to be that of an antelope. The girl had bent over the figure that lay at their feet, fearfully. She tugged at Khlit's arm excitedly.

  “Khlit, lord,” she whispered, “it is the gylong. You have slain the gylong.”

  “Aye,” said Khlit shortly. “The conjuror will conjure no more. I thought it was a strange animal that stood up on two legs when it saw you.”

  He felt in the sand and lifted two objects. One was a pony's hoof, cut off above the fetlock and dried. The other was a long dagger. He showed them to the girl.

  “There is Kotwan's hoof, little Kerula. And the hide stinks of musk.”

  Khlit said nothing to Kerula, but he remembered the words of Fogan Ultai, and he guessed it was not wantonness, but the promise of a reward that had led the conjuror to terrify the girl and lure her into the desert. Also he began to understand why Fogan Ultai had coveted his pistols. Yet much was not clear to Khlit. He knew that Fogan Ultai hated Kerula, because Khlit had made him demean himself in bringing her food. Still, this did not seem a sufficient reason for the girl's death.

  Khlit's detour into the other gullies had confused him as to the direction of the camp. Unwilling to run the risk of going further from the yurta trying to find it, he took the girl a short distance from the dead man and sat down to wait for dawn, sheltering her with his svitza. Kerula, relieved of her fear, soon became sleepy

  “How is it, Kerula,” he asked thoughtfully, “that this fellow Fogan Ultai is so trusted by Mir Turek? Hey, your father fears him—as he feared the gylong.”

  “I do not know, Khlit, lord,” Kerula responded sleepily. “Mir Turek will not give orders to Fogan Ultai. When the master of the slaves came to Samarkand he showed Mir Turek a gold disk he wore. They thought I was sleeping but I looked out at them, and the gold disk was made like a sun, with rays, with writing in the center. That was not long ago—and soon Mir Turek began to speak of the tomb of Genghis Khan to himself when he read the books.”

  The voice of the girl trailed off and she was soon sleeping. Khlit waited patiently for dawn. The stars had begun to fade and the fresh wind sprang up.

  Khlit's thoughts were busy and he was not aware that he slept. Surely, he felt the wind on his face and heard the girl's calm breathing. They were sitting near the top of one of the ridges, and he could make out the nearest waves of sand.

  The moon was high above him, and there was a faint line of scarlet to the east. No, Khlit could not have been asleep. He did not remember dozing, nor did he waken. And yet, as a mist comes from the mountains, the mystery of the desert of Gobi came from the dark wastes of sand and gathered around the Cossack, the girl, and the still figure that had been the gylong.

  It came without warning, and gradually. Khlit thought at first that the camels were stirring. He listened and he heard the wave of sound come from the east and close around him. This time he did not feel the fear that had gripped him for a space when he saw the strange beast in the dark.

  Awe came upon Khlit as he listened. He strained his eyes, yet he could see nothing. With the wind the sounds swelled, and swept over him. Khlit marveled, as he listened, not moving. And something deep in him stirred at the sounds. He felt a swift exultation that rose with the sounds and left him when they had gone.

  Out of the desert came the murmur of many horses' feet in the sand—the feet of thousands of horses that galloped with a clashing of harness. Surely, there were riders on the horses, for a chant rose from the sands, from thousands of throats, a low, wild chant that gripped Khlit's heart.

  Came the creak of laden carts from the darkness. Carts that were drawn by oxen laboring under the kang. With them sounded the pad-pad of camels' feet. The chant of the riders died and swelled. When it swelled, it drowned the other sounds.

  With it echoed the clash of arms, myriad of scabbards beating against the sides of horses. Another sound that Khlit knew was the flapping of standards came to his ears. In the darkness beside him a cavalcade was passing. No cavalcade, a host of mounted warriors. The chant was the song of the warriors and Khlit's throat trembled to answer it.

  Mingling with the chant came a heavy tread that was strange to Khlit. The sands trembled under the tread. The sound neared Khlit and passed, not by him but over him. This was no tread of horses.

  Khlit peered into the darkness, but the sand ridges were desolate. The stars were not obscured, and the line of crimson grew in the east. Louder swelled the chant of the horsemen, and the heavy tread of giant feet.

  The clash of cymbals echoed faintly and with it the sound of distant trumpets. Then came the sound of a mighty trumpeting, not of horns, but of animals. The trumpeting drowned the chant of the riders. It ceased and silence descended suddenly on the desert.

  Kerula stirred in his arms, and Khlit stood up to look ever the sand ocean.

  “Nay, Khlit, lord,” the girl whispered, “you will not see them. I am not asleep. I
am awake, and I heard it also. The passing of the tumans, with their standards of yaks' tails. I heard the wagons, and their oxen. And the creaking of the leather castles and the Bearers of Wealth. It was just as Mir Turek told me it would be. The chant of the mounted men was loudest of all, until the Bearers of Wealth gave the greeting of Dawn to the Master of the Earth.”

  Khlit rubbed his hand across his forehead and gazed at the dead gylong.

  “I heard some sounds as of horsemen passing...” he began doubtfully.

  “Aye, Khlit, lord. It was the army of Genghis Khan crossing the desert.”

  Then Khlit wondered if he had truly slept. The chant of the riders was still in his ears. But the rising sun showed the sands empty, and the camp at a little distance.

  “Nay, little Kerula,” he said finally, “you have dreamed another dream.”

  Yet when Khlit and Kerula returned to the yurta, they found only Mir Turek and Fogan Ultai with three camels. The Turkomans had gone, late in the night with the greater number of camels and most of the food. Fogan Ultai said that he had not been able to stop them, for they had heard sounds in the desert, and they were afraid.

  VI

  If a man despoils the tomb of a wise and just ruler he loses his virtue. Evil follows him and his sons. He is like a sal tree with a creeper o’ergrown.

  Yen Lui Kiang, chronicler of Hang-Hi

  It was the beginning of Winter when Mir Turek and his companions left the desert of Gobi and reached a small village of mud huts to the north in the Tatar country of Karakorum, near the mountains of Khantai Khan.

  The desert had taken its toll from the travelers. The Turkomans had not been seen after their departure. The gylong lay where he had fallen, covered by the shifting sands. Mir Turek believed the conjuror had gone with the attendants. Fogan Ultai said nothing, and Khlit wondered what the master of the slaves knew of the death of the gylong. Fogan Ultai had an uncanny way of getting information for himself. Before the party reached the village, the master of the slaves joined them with the tidings that all the surrounding country had been vacated by the Tatars.

  From a herdsman, he said, he had learned that the Tatars were gathered within the walls of Altur Haiten where they had been besieged by the Chinese for a year. Altur Haiten was one of the strongholds of Tatary, to which the retreating hordes had been driven by Hang-Hi, the general of Wan Li, Emperor of China.

  Thus Mir Turek's prophecy that they would find the way to the mountains of Khantai Khan clear, was verified. Yet Khlit, wearied by the months of hardship in the desert, saw that if the way was clear, it was also barren of food and the supplies they needed.

  They had come from the desert on the two surviving camels. Kerula and the remaining stock of grain and dates had been placed on the stronger of the beasts, and the three men took turns in riding the other. Khlit saw to it that Mir Turek and Fogan Ultai never rode on the other camel together. Since the affair of the gylong he had been wary of the two. Yet he had noticed two things.

  One—Mir Turek feared Fogan Ultai more than at the start of the expedition. Two—Mir Turek was unwilling to part with Khlit, owing for some reason to his ownership of the curved sword. This, Kerula had told him, and Khlit had asked the girl if she could read the lettering on the sword. She could not do so, as the inscription was neither Chinese nor Usbek Tatar.

  The girl had borne the journey bravely, yet she was very weak when they came to the village of mud huts. She was disappointed, too, because she had imagined that when they neared Karakorum they would find the Tatar country alive and flourishing as it had been in the days of Genghis Khan. Truly, thought Khlit, this was strange; for Kerula had learned of the old Tatars from Mir Turek, and she believed she lived in the land of the Master of the Earth. Khlit placed her in one of the mud huts of the empty village, and gave her fruit and water that he found near by.

  He would not have left the girl if it had not been for Mir Turek. The merchant had been in a fever of excitement since he saw the summits of Khantai Khan. His fat figure was wasted by hardships, and his frame was hot with fever. He would not rest until he had left the girl with Fogan Ultai and set out with Khlit and the two camels for the mountains.

  “The girl will be safe, Khlit,” he declared, “for Fogan Ultai cannot leave the village without the camels. Come, we will go to the Kukulon gate, and the tomb of Genghis Khan while the way is open.”

  Khlit went reluctantly. He did not like to leave the girl with Fogan Ultai in the village. He liked even less the deserted appearance of the country. He knew what Mir Turek chose to forget, that they were at the end of their supplies, and must have food.

  Yet he was not less eager than Mir Turek to go to the tomb of Genghis Khan. They were near a treasure which Mir Turek said was without equal in the world. Khlit had seen the treasure of the Turks, but he knew this would be greater, for the Tatars had despoiled the cities of the Turks. Lust of the gold gripped him.

  The two set out at daybreak in the absence of Fogan Ultai and rode toward the mountains at the best pace of the camels. And as the slopes of Khantai Khan rose above them, Mir Turek's fever grew on him. He fastened his slant eyes greedily on the hills, and when they came in sight of a blue sheet of water, he gave a hoarse cry of triumph.

  “The Lake Kukulon,” he whispered. “The books told the truth. A river runs to the lake from the mountains. Aye, here we will find the Kukulon gate where my ancestor saw the Onon Muren.”

  But Khlit looked beyond the lake, and saw that where a river made its way down the slopes, the earth was a yellow and grayish color. He saw for the first time the forest of Khantai Khan. The trees, instead of the green verdure of pine and the brown foliage of oak, were bare of leaves. The forest of Khantai Khan was a dead forest. And Khlit's forebodings grew on him as he urged his camel after Mir Turek.

  VII

  Mir Turek skirted the edge of the lake, which was small, and followed an invisible path through the foothills, evidently finding his way by the instructions he had received from the man who had been there before. He headed toward a ravine that formed the valley between two crests of Khantai Khan. In this valley he could catch glimpses of the River Kukulon.

  The merchant was gripped by the fever of gold. But Khlit kept his presence of mind, and watched carefully where they went. The Cossack was not superstitious; still, what he saw gave him misgivings. The ground they passed over was a dull gray in color, and the trees seemed withered as if by flames. The camels went ahead unwillingly. If he had been alone, Khlit might have gone no further. It was not fear of the mythical Onon Muren that oppressed him, or the fate of the others who had preceded them. A warning instinct, bred of the dead forests, held him back.

  At the edge of the River Kukulon they dismounted from the camels, fastening the beasts to a blasted tree trunk, and went forward on foot, Mir Turek keeping to the bank of the stream which now descended from the gorge in the valley. Mir Turek went more slowly, scanning his surroundings, especially the river. The din of the waters drowned conversation, but the merchant signified by a gesture that he was sure of the way. Above them the gorge changed to a rocky ravine, down which the Kukulon boiled, a succession of waterfalls and pools.

  The sun was at its highest point when Khlit saw the first sign of what had struck the attention of their predecessors. He halted above a large pool and caught Mir Turek's shoulder, pointing down into the blue water. The sun struck through to the bottom of the pool.

  Among the rocks which formed the bottom Khlit had made out a series of white objects. Round, and white, polished by the water and gravel, he saw dozens of human skulls, and the tracework of skeletons.

  “Hey, Mir Turek,” he shouted grimly, “here are the Onon Muren come to greet us. Did your ancestor say we would see them?”

  The merchant gazed down into the pool, and stared at the skulls with watery eyes.

  “Aye, Khlit,” he cried, “these are the Onon Muren. Did not the books say that twenty thousand had been slain at the tomb? It is proof we a
re on the right path.”

  “That may be, Mir Turek,” replied Khlit without stirring, “yet the books said the Onon Muren guarded the tomb. Are they not a warning to go back?”

  Mir Turek laughed eagerly, but his hand was shaking as he pointed up the gorge.

  “There is the Kukulon gate,” he cried. “You and I are wise, Khlit. We do not fear the bones of dead men. The star Ortu is again high in its orbit, and you, Cossack, have the curved sword of—”

  He broke off, and stumbled forward, raising a gray cloud of dust that choked Khlit. The latter followed, muttering. The curved sword, he grumbled, would not cut the throats of spirits. Why did Mir Turek remind him so often of his sword? Khlit wondered why there were no bones visible on the ground. He thought that they had been covered by the gray dust. In that, Khlit was right. Yet with all his wise knowledge, he did not guess the name of the gray dust. If he had done so, he would not have followed Mir Turek further.

  Khlit saw no gate, yet when they reached a pool larger than the others, at the bottom of a waterfall that fell between two pinnacles of rock, Mir Turek declared that they had come to the Kukulon gate.

  Here Khlit made his last protest, as Mir Turek informed him that the gate was not to be seen. It lay, the merchant said, behind the waterfall, under the column of water. Khlit pointed to the skulls which gleamed at them again from the pool.

  “In Samarkand,” he said, “I swore that I would go with you, Mir Turek, to the tomb of Genghis Khan. If you go, I will go also. Yet I heard strange things in the desert of Gobi. The forest of Khantai Khan is not to my liking. I have a foreboding, Mir Turek. Men call me Wolf not because I have the courage of a fool. It would be well to turn back here.”

  Mir Turek thrust his lined face close to Khlit, and his smooth lips curled in a snarl, as of an animal that finds itself at bay.

 

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