by Harold Lamb
“Do men truly call you Wolf, Khlit, or are you a jackal that whimpers at danger?”
“Nay, Mir Turek,” said Khlit angrily, “you are a fool not to know fear from wisdom. Come!”
With this the Cossack jumped waist-deep into the pool. His heavy boots slipping and sliding over the skulls on the rocks, he crouched low and made his way along the rock at the rear of the waterfall. The force of the current carried the stream a yard out from the rock and Khlit was able to advance under the fall. Keeping his footing, with difficulty he pressed forward in the semidarkness of the place.
He was wet through with the spray which rose from the rocks. Feeling the rock's surface carefully, he found that at a point it gave way. He could see a dark fissure where the rocks divided to the height of a man. Planting his feet cautiously he turned into the opening. For several yards he made his way forward until free of the spray from the waterfall.
“We are in the caverns now,” the voice of Mir Turek echoed in his ear excitedly. “The books said that those who built the tomb changed the course of the Kukulon to cover the gate.”
The gate of Kukulon! Beyond it lay the treasure of Genghis Khan. Mir Turek had spoken truly, Khlit thought as he sniffed the damp air of the cavern. And as he did so Khlit smelled danger as a hound smells a fox. A thin, strong odor came to him, not from the river but from the cavern. Was it dust from the gray earth?
“See,” repeated Mir Turek, “there is the place where the sun comes in. The cavern leads to there. Come.”
As Mir Turek ran stumbling ahead Khlit saw for the first time a circle of gray light, at some distance. Toward this the other headed, as fast as his weakened legs could carry him. The footing seemed smooth, as though prepared by men. As the gray light grew stronger Khlit saw that the cavern was littered with rusted arms and Tatar helmets. Here and there the skulls of the Onon Muren lay. Strange, thought Khlit, that the Tatars had been slain at the threshold of the tomb of Genghis Khan.
When he caught up with Mir Turek the other was standing at the end of the cavern, looking down into a chasm. Khlit glanced up and saw that the illumination was daylight, coming from an opening in the roof of the chasm. The opening was round, and as far as he could see, the chasm was round, descending straight into the heart of the mountain.
They stood at the entrance of the tunnel. The path, however, did not end here. A bridge of rock stretched across to the further side of the chasm. It was narrow and rose slightly, like a bent bow. Surely, thought Khlit, the hands of men had made this. He smelled the strange odor more strongly.
He saw also why the light was dimmed. Up from the chasm thin streams of vapor rose, twining around the rock bridge. These streams of vapor did not eddy, as there was no wind. They wound upward in dense columns through which the further side of the gorge could be seen.
Mir Turek caught his arm and pointed to the further side.
“The Bearers of Wealth!” he screamed. “See, the Bearers of Wealth, and their burden. The tomb of Genghis Khan. We have found the tomb of Genghis Khan!”
The shout echoed wildly up the cavern, and Khlit thought that he heard a rumbling in the depths of the cavern in answer. He looked where Mir Turek pointed. At first he saw only the veil of smoke. Then he made out a plateau of rock jutting out from the further side. On this plateau, abreast of them, and at the other end of the rock bridge gigantic shapes loomed through the vapor. Twin forms of mammoth size reared themselves, and Khlit thought that they moved, with the movement of the vapor. These forms were not men but beasts that stood side by side. Between them they supported a square object which hung as if suspended in the air.
As he looked he saw that the twin shapes did not move— that it was the smoke which had deceived him. They faced him, tranquil and monstrous, and Khlit's heart quivered at the sight. He had seen similar beasts once before. His mind leaped back to the bazaars of Samarkand. Of giant size, the twin forms across the chasm were like the two elephants he had sought to buy from Mir Turek.
“The Bearers of Wealth!” chanted the merchant, stretching out both hands. “The golden elephants. All the treasure of Genghis Khan is melted into the Bearers of Wealth. So the books said and they did not lie. Akh, the star Ortu is truly a blessed omen. The followers of the dead Genghis Khan brought the treasure into the caverns of Khantai Khan. There they molded it into the elephant-forms and hung the casket of Genghis Khan between them. Yet none left the mountain alive.”
Khlit stared across the chasm in wonder. If the forms of the Bearers of Wealth were gold, there must be tons of it. Even if jewels were not melted in the gold, the wealth was beyond measure. Lust of the gold surged over him, and at the same time another feeling.
Far below him the rumbling sounded in the mountain, and brought a fleeting thought of the rumbling he had heard on the desert of Gobi—the tread of the Bearers of Wealth. For the second time a sense of coming danger gripped him. Nothing moved in the chasm, and the rumbling might well be stones dropping in the depths. Khlit peered down and could not see the bottom. “Aye,” he said grimly, “it is the tomb of a hero.”
As he spoke he caught the scent of the vapors and staggered back. “The wealth of Genghis Khan,” screamed Mir Turek, trembling. “I have found it and it is mine. Blessings to the Teneri and the great Buddha!”
With that he started across the rock bridge. Khlit ran after him. The rumblings echoed in the depths below them, and the vapors twined around the form of Mir Turek. Khlit felt them close around him, with a warm touch. Mir Turek stumbled and threw up his arms with a choking cry.
“Akh! Akh! The Onon Muren—at my throat—”
Khlit leaped forward, dizzy with the stifling vapors. He caught Mir Turek as the merchant was falling to the rock bridge. For an instant both were poised over the side of the bridge, halfway across to the tomb of Genghis Khan.
With all the force of his powerful muscles, Khlit dragged Mir Turek back, and hauled the senseless form of the other to safety in the cavern where they had stood a moment before. His head was swimming and his throat burned with the touch of the vapors. He sat down on a rock near the suffering Mir Turek and tore open the fastenings of his coat, at the throat. It was many moments before his head cleared and he was able to see the gray forms of the Wealth Bearers across the chasm.
Truly, thought Khlit, the Onon Muren watched over the tomb of Genghis Khan. And those who invaded the tomb must have earned the wrath of the Onon Muren.
As soon as his strength had returned, Khlit lifted the form of the merchant to his shoulder and made his way back to the Kukulon gate, under the waterfall, to the hills of Khantai Khan.
VIII
Mir Turek had partly recovered when the two reached the village that night, but he was weak, and badly shaken by the experience in the chasm of the Wealth-Bearers. They found however, that food was running low, and Khlit was anxious that Kerula should have medicines, for the girl was still suffering from her trip across the desert. She greeted Khlit joyfully, however, as he descended stiffly from his camel.
“Fogan Ultai has returned, Khlit, lord,” she said, “and he has a plan. He has been to the edge of the Chinese camp around Altur Haiten, and he says that we can get to the city at night. The Tatars come through the Chinese lines. Then we can see the great Tatar warriors who are fighting there, and we can get plenty of food in the city.”
Khlit considered this.
“Aye,” he said, “it might be done. Yet you had better stay here with Mir Turek, Kerula.”
“Nay, I would be frightened!” she exclaimed quickly. “Fogan Ultai says we can all go. And I do not want to be away from you, my lord, with the curved sword that every one fears. I dreamed last night that the two-headed snake you met and buried was not really buried, but it pursued me.”
So it happened that when Mir Turek had recovered strength sufficiently, the four went with the camels to the outskirts of the Chinese camp, waiting there until darkness permitted a passage to the city. Khlit had agreed to this, after talking
with Fogan Ultai. He did not trust the master of the slaves, who was sullen because Khlit and Mir Turek had gone to the mountains of Khantai Khan without him, yet he calculated that where his own safety was at stake, Fogan Ultai would act with them. The country around was stripped of provisions by the cavalry of the Chinese, and Fogan Ultai had promised that he knew a way to the city.
Mir Turek was eager to gain Altur Haiten, being shaken by his trip to the tomb of Genghis Khan. The merchant remained feverish, talking to himself often and startled by the slightest sound. While the party were waiting for darkness at the edge of a wood within sight of the tents and pavilions of the Chinese camp and the brown walls of the besieged city, Mir Turek laid a cloth on the ground and prayed earnestly. Kerula was in high spirits.
“Now we shall see the men of Genghis Khan,” she sang, “the men of the Golden Horde. They will welcome us because Mir Turek is a man of wisdom and Khlit, lord, is a chieftain.”
So Khlit went to the Chinese camp, not suspecting. With Kerula's hand in his he followed Fogan Ultai. In the darkness they followed ravines, keeping clear of the campfires. Seldom had Khlit, the Wolf, been trapped. Yet how should he suspect?
He heard Mir Turek murmuring prayers behind him, and turned to curse the merchant, with Kerula's hand still in his. For an instant the strange words of the other caused him suspicion. What language was the merchant speaking? Why had Mir Turek been so curious about his sword? And why had he given up thought of the treasure of Genghis Khan? The suspicion came too late.
They were threading a ravine within bowshot of the Chinese sentinels. Suddenly Khlit heard a quick cry from Kerula. His hand went to his sword. But the same instant a heavy blow fell across the back of his neck.
Khlit sank to his knees. Before he could rise, hands closed on him. The darkness seemed to give birth to forms that sprang at him. His arms were pinned, and bound to his sides. A cloth was thrown over his head, and he was picked up bodily by many men and borne off.
IX
One evening, early in the Winter which marked the first year of the siege of Altur Haiten, as related by Yen Kui Kiang, chronicler of Hang-Hi, the general of the imperial forces sat in the Hall of Judgment in his pavilion. The pavilion was distant from the walls of Altur Haiten, but the sound of the cannon and the roar of flame could be heard distinctly.
Hang-Hi, mandarin of a high order, master of literature and favorite general of Wan Li, Son of Heaven, had been listening to Yen Kui Kiang, in company with his councilors and mandarins of the tribunal of ceremonies, as the chronicler read from the books of Confucius. Always, said Yen Kui Kiang, in his chronicles, Hang-Hi listened to words of the great Confucius before undertaking to judge cases that came to him for trial, in order that his mind might be open and just.
The man who commanded a Chinese army to the number of two hundred thousand was tall, with a portly figure, imposing in his robe of blue and gold silk embroidered with a miniature dragon and the likeness of Kwan-Ti, god of war. His eyes were dark and brilliant, and his arms crossed on his breast were the arms of a wrestler.
The ebony and lacquer Hall of Judgment was occupied only by Hang-Hi's advisors and lieutenants, seated in order of rank on each side of the carpet that ran up the center of the hall to the dais on which the viceroy of the Son of Heaven sat.
At Hang-Hi's side sat Chan Kieh Shi, old and wizened, a veteran of a hundred battles, who had no equal at chess play. It was Chan Kieh Shi who had brought the heavy cannon from Persia that were battering down the walls of Altur Haiten, and who had sworn an oath on his ancestral tablets to bury the last of the Khans of Tatary, the hereditary enemies of the Son of Heaven, before he died.
This evening, Yen Kui Kiang relates, only one case was brought to judgment. That was the case of a stranger, Khlit, called the Wolf, and Mir Turek, a resident of Samarkand whose greatgrandfather had been a mandarin.
When the attendant of the Hall of Judgment brought in the two prisoners, the eyes of the Chinese council surveyed them impassively. Behind the slant eyes lurked the cruelty of a conquering race and the craft of the wisest men in Asia. Not once during the startling events of the evening did the slant eyes open wide or the breath come faster in the thin lips.
They noted silently that while one prisoner, the man called Mir Turek, prostrated himself before the dais, the other, called Khlit, stood erect with folded arms, although heavily chained. Especially did Chan Kieh Shi watch Khlit, while the Chinaman's fan moved slowly before his face. The fan was inscribed with the battles he had won.
When the attendant had brought a curved sword to the dais and laid it at Hang-Hi's feet, Yen Kui Kiang bowed before Hang-Hi.
“Gracious Excellency,” the secretary said softly, “the man at your feet is one called Mir Turek, although he has a Chinese name. He was found in Samarkand by one of our agents. Many times he has sworn that he would aid the cause of the Son of Heaven and remain true to the faith of his ancestors. The man called Mir Turek says that he has news for you, such news as will earn him absolution from his neglect. He swears that he has been working for Wan Li, and that he is ready to show the fruits of his work.”
“And the other, Yen Kui Kiang,” put in Chan Kieh Shi abruptly, “who is he?”
“I do not know, Excellency,” the secretary said, “he was taken a few nights ago with Mir Turek, and he has twice tried to break free.”
“Oh, gracious Excellency,” said Mir Turek, eagerly, “give your servant leave to speak his news, and you shall know of this man.” Receiving a nod of assent from the general, the merchant hurried on, his voice trembling.
“This man, called Khlit, the Wolf, a Russian Cossack, came to my house in Samarkand. I was curious, for he speaks as one having high authority, yet he had no rank or wealth. When he showed me his sword I saw the answer. Knowing how valuable the man's secret would be to your Excellency, I hastened to bring him, unknowing, to the army before Altur Haiten. Truly, Khlit's secret is written on his sword. He cannot read. And he cannot understand what we are saying.”
As one, the eyes of the council turned to Khlit. The Cossack stood erect without noticing them, gazing moodily at his curved sword which lay at the feet of Hang-Hi. It had been taken from him the night of his capture, and for the first time since he had received it from his father other hands had held the blade. And, Kerula, in spite of her prayers to be allowed to share his prison tent had been taken away, he knew not where.
Khlit had made two efforts to escape, without result other than the heavy chains he wore on wrists and ankles. He had shared his tent with Mir Turek. Fogan Ultai had disappeared. Khlit had not been slow to lay his seizure on Fogan Ultai and he had sworn an oath that the other should repent it. Now he waited proudly for what was to come.
“Gracious Excellency,” Mir Turek went on, bowing, “I saw that the man's face resembled a Russian Tatar, and the message of the sword showed that I was right. Lo, I am a student of learned books, a humble follower in the path of Hang-Hi and his men of wisdom. The sword, Khlit said, had been handed down from father to son for many generations, and in truth the inscription is ancient.
“It says on the sword,” Mir Turek pointed to the blade, “that it was the sword of Kaidu, great khan of the Kallmark Tatars and descendant of Genghis Khan. Khlit, although he does not know it, is one of the few who are of the royal blood of the grand khans of Tatary.”
The fan of Chan Kieh Shi paused for a second and resumed its sweep. Hang-Hi glanced impassively from Khlit to Mir Turek and bent over the sword, studying the inscription. It was the first time he had had a sword of the grand khans at his feet.
“Wherefore, Excellency,” hastened Mir Turek, “I brought Khlit, called the Wolf, to the mountains of Khantai Khan on a pretense of finding treasure, hoping to yield him prisoner to your Graciousness, and atone for my absence from the empire, and perhaps earn a place among your men of wisdom.”
Mir Turek bowed anxiously and stepped back at a sign from the attendant His face was bathed in sweat but his eyes w
ere gleaming with a feverish hope.
“Is this all you have to tell?” asked Hang-Hi.
“That is all, Excellency,” responded Mir Turek.
But his eyes fell. For he thought of the mountains of Khantai Khan and the tomb of untold riches.
“Call the agent from Samarkand, who has taken the name of Fogan Ultai,” said Hang-Hi.
Mir Turek's eyes swept the assembly, in sudden fear. He had known of the mission of Fogan Ultai, but he had hoped he would not be confronted with the secret agent of all-powerful Wan Li. Fogan Ultai was very crafty.
Khlit stirred for the first time when he saw Fogan Ultai enter the tribunal. The erstwhile master of the slaves was dressed in the silken robe of a mandarin of caste. Around his neck was suspended a gold disk wrought in the likeness of a sun. The councilors who were of lesser rank than Fogan Ultai rose and bowed. The agent advanced to the dais, bowing low three times, and touched his forehead. Khlit's arms strained at the chains, then dropped to his side. The attendant was beside him with drawn sword, and he waited.
“Tell the one called Khlit,” suggested Chan Kieh Shi softly, “the truth of his descent. Then he will suffer more greatly under our punishment.”
Thus it was that Khlit, the Cossack named the Wolf, came to know in the tribunal of Hang-Hi that he was descended from the grand khans, hereditary rulers of Tatary and enemies of China. No name was hated by the Chinese like the name of Tatar.
He listened to Fogan Ultai's words without change of countenance. His people had been of the same race as the Tatars. And he had won the respect of Tal Taulai Khan, his brother in blood, and of the Kallmarks. Khlit's only allegiance in life had been to his sword. He exulted in the knowledge that he had come of a royal line. It did not surprise him that the fact had not been known before. In the bloody warfare of Cossack and Tatar the man was lucky who could name his race beyond his grandfather. At the same time he was aware of the danger he stood from the Chinese.
“Ask him,” said Hang-Hi curiously, “what he would say to us, now that he is our prisoner?”