by Harold Lamb
“Harken, Shaman,” he whispered, “you came to find a raven and you found a man who has no love for you or your kind. You are afraid of me now. Presently you shall fear more. Watch.”
Gurd crouched beside his prisoner. Placing his hands to his mouth he uttered a shrill wail. He repeated the call and waited.
Lhon Otai watched him as well as he could by the flickering lights in the sky. Then Lhon Otai grunted with terror.
A pair of green eyes gleamed from the darkness in front of him. The eyes stared at him, unblinkingly. He heard the reindeer scuffling in fright. Gurd laughed.
“That is my cousin, the lynx, Lhon Otai,” he whispered. “He has learned to come to me for meat. He would find rare picking in your fat carcass.”
The shaman shivered, and strained against his bonds. But Gurd laughed softly and tossed a piece of meat from his bags toward the eyes. There was a soft pad-pad of feet in the darkness and the lynx disappeared.
“You are crafty, Lhon Otai,” cautioned the hunter, “but loosen not your cords. Or my cousin yonder will be upon your back.” The shaman needed no further warning to remain passive, even after Gurd had vanished in the shadows. He did not doubt that Gurd held power over the beasts of the tundras. He had heard tales of the hunter of the Dead World, who rode upon reindeer. He cursed the drunkenness of his men, and Khlit, who had sent him on this quest.
It was near daybreak when Gurd returned. Lhon Otai heard the trampling of a large beast accompanying the hunter and he shivered anew. But Gurd's speech relieved him.
“Here is a horse for you to ride, Shaman,” he grunted. “You would break the back of my reindeer. I will tie you to the saddle. Hey, if you try to flee I will bury the feathers of an arrow in your kidneys. Come!”
When the shaman was mounted and the hunter had loosened his reindeer the two set off in the half-light of dawn through the forest. Lhon Otai cast a vengeful glance in the direction of the Tatar encampment.
“Your fellows will not follow us, Shaman,” laughed Gurd, who had caught the glance. “For their horses are well on the way to the Lena, and they cannot catch us afoot. I have seen to it.”
Lhon Otai smothered a curse. Truly this hunter was in league with the evil spirits of the forest, if not with Meik himself. For, single-handed and armed only with a bow and knife, he had outwitted a score of horsemen of the khans.
V
“And now, Lhon Otai—if that be your name—you can tell me whence you and your men come, and why you follow me into the Dead World.”
As Gurd spoke, his clear black eyes scanned the shaman thoughtfully. They were camped for the night well beyond reach of the dismounted Tatars, in a grotto by a small stream in the waste country. Around them reared a nest of rocky hillocks, barren even of firs. The cold wind of the North searched the ravine where they were and fanned the fire Gurd had lighted. The hunter, however, seemed to know his way. He had led them without hesitation to the grotto. Lhon Otai bethought him swiftly.
“We came, I and my men,” he explained, “from the khans of the Jun-gar. Khlit, the Kha Khan, ordered that you be brought to him. He has heard tales of your hunting.”
Gurd, busy toasting meat on a wooden spit, made no response. “I did as the Kha Khan bade me,” went on Lhon Otai. “We learned the course you had taken from the hamlet of Irkutsk. Then hunters told us you had been seen heading for the Lena. Before long my men found the trail of your reindeer.”
Still Gurd was silent.
“We heard you had left Changa Nor,” the shaman said uneasily. “But we meant not to harm you.”
Gurd bared his teeth, but he did not laugh.
“My cousin the lynx, O Shaman,” he said softly, “has followed us, unseen by you. He is near by, in the rocks, sniffing at the roasting meat. Shall I call him? Or will you tell me truth instead of lies? In a month I would return to Irkutsk with ivory. The Kha Khan could have found me then. Why did he send after me to the North? What were you doing near Changa Nor?”
The shaman threw a fearful look at the rocks behind him. “What do I know of the will of the khans?” he whined. “Did I come willingly to the North? Nay, Khlit has a mind to Changa Nor and what it hides. He has been there with his horsemen—” A change came over the impassive face of the hunter. His eyes narrowed in anger, and his heavy hand clutched the spit.
“Who brought the khans to Changa Nor?” he cried. “Come, speak—”
“They attacked the castle, Gurd,” ventured Lhon Otai shrewdly, “and because of the accursed fires that drove them away, Khlit set a price on your head. Aye, and he bade me seek you, thinking that I might die thereby.”
“The fires,” quoth Gurd with a laugh, “guard well Changa castle and what is within. Truly then, this Khlit loves you not, Lhon Otai?”
The shaman's thick lips twisted in a snarl. Memory of the long feud between himself and the Cossack rankled. In his anger he spoke what he had long kept secret. Yet he spoke not unknowingly, for he was shrewd and Gurd might serve him.
“Aye,” he responded, “the Kha Khan is my foe. Once I saw the gold cross he carried on a chain about his neck. The khans know it not, but he is a caphar, a Christian. He is hated of the god Natagai whose priest I am.”
“A Christian?” Gurd surveyed his companion thoughtfully. “You know it?”
“Aye. But so great is Khlit's skill in war that the blind fools of the Jun-gar hold him in awe.”
Gurd turned his spit slowly, while Lhon Otai watched.
“Men have told me, Lhon Otai, that Khlit is a paladin among warriors. Yet he did not come to Changa Nor to sport with fire. Why, therefore?”
The shaman leaned closer.
“Khlit has wind of the treasure of Changa Nor, Gurd—such a treasure as Tatary knows not. He has heard the old tale of the Gur-Khan. I, too, have heard the tale, through my priests. Harken, hunter. You know what truth there is in the story. Tell me what you know. I can reward you.”
Gurd's level brow darkened, and he ceased turning the spit.
“Open the door of Changa castle to me,” pursued Lhon Otai, “when I come with my friends, and you will not lack for jewels, hunter. It is better that I should have the treasure than the caphar, Khlit.”
“So you have friends, Lhon Otai?” Gurd asked softly. “Berang and Chepe Buga? The khan of the dark face is second to Khlit in power.”
“Nay, Chepe Buga's wit lies in his sword. He is an honest dolt—”
The shaman broke off. Gurd had shown no liking for his words. He strove in vain to read the expressionless face of the hunter. But Gurd kept silence while they ate. Afterward, he bound Lhon Otai.
“Tomorrow, Lhon Otai,” the hunter said, “you will see a hunt in the Dead World.”
Again, Lhon Otai wondered. What manner of hunt was this, in the waste of tundras? He slept little that night. When he looked beyond the circle of fire he saw green eyes staring at him unblinkingly and remembered that Gurd's cousin had had no meat that night.
Gurd set out early the next day afoot, leading the three pack-reindeer. Lhon Otai followed him curiously. The hunter had his bow slung over his back, and he walked carelessly, looking about him as if seeking for landmarks. Never had Lhon Otai seen a hunt begin as this one.
The place, too, was barren of game. A keen-eyed falcon could not have spied a rabbit or wild mountain sheep. It was desolate of vegetation, save for stunted larches and the dry moss that the reindeer fed upon. Lhon Otai panted as he stumbled over the rocks, but Gurd walked swiftly ahead, casting anxious glances at the overcast sky which foretold snowfall.
As they advanced Lhon Otai became aware of a peculiar odor. Dry and stringent, it resembled the smell of dead things. Gurd paid no heed to it, but pressed on. The odor grew, and Lhon Otai shivered, for he liked it not.
At the side of a nest of rocks Gurd paused and tied the reindeer. He pointed beyond the rocks.
“Here is the hunting-ground of the Dead World, Lhon Otai,” he said grimly. “And the game of ten thousand moons.”
Before him stretched a plain. It was void of vegetation. But in the ground were heaps of white bones. And the bones were gigantic. He made out skulls measuring the height of a man in width.
The strange odor assailed him more strongly. It went up his nostrils to his brain, and Lhon Otai shivered. For the bones he saw were not those of ordinary animals. They were many times the size of a horse. A single jawbone at his feet was too heavy for him to lift. Tusks projected from the half-buried skulls to twice the height of a man.
“The bones of elephants!” he cried to Gurd, who was watching him.
The hunter shook his head.
“Nay, saw you elephants with tusks like those? These beasts belong to another time. I heard the story in Irkutsk of giant tusks along the frozen rivers and years ago I found this spot. Here is ivory without end. It is yellow with age. But it is choice, and more valuable than that of the Asia elephants. See.”
He advanced to a nearby skeleton. With the heavy hatchet he carried he cut at the socket of one of the tusks. A few moments' wielding of the ax loosened the tusk, and Gurd brought it back to the shaman. It was seared with age, but of massive ivory, and weighty.
“These are the mamuts, Lhon Otai,” said Gurd gravely. “The beasts that lived before the time of Genghis Khan, or the Christian prophets. A herd of them must have died here, perhaps frozen to death in the ice.”
Lhon Otai touched the tusk gingerly, muttering a charm as he did so against evil spirits. He knew now where Gurd got his ivory that he sold at Irkutsk. But his fear of the hunter was not diminished. Here was a man who entered unafraid the burial-place of the past and held communion with beasts of the forest. Surely he must be guided by evil spirits, or he would be afraid.
Gurd wasted no more time in talk. By hard work he had enough of the tusks to load the three pack-reindeer by noon. A cold wind had sprung up and scattering flakes of snow were falling. Knowing the danger of being caught in these regions by the Autumn snow, Lhon Otai helped the hunter break camp and take up the journey to the south. More than once, however, he cast uneasy glances at the giant tusks which he held to be things of ill omen and hateful to Meik, the deity of the forests.
The next day they were well on their way back to the Lena's bank. The first snowfall had whitened the ground, but the day was clear. So clear that Lhon Otai made out a score of dark figures crossing a plain in front of them, heading not toward the south, but west. These, he knew, were his late companions, now seeking their way homeward afoot.
Gurd halted his reindeer when he sighted them.
“They have lost their way,” cried Lhon Otai, with a swift glance at Gurd. “If they follow their course they will go further into the Dead World and perish at the hands of the Cheooki gods. Warn them to turn south.”
“How may that be done?” Gurd's black eyes held no sympathy. “They would send an arrow through my jerkin if I came near enough to speak to them. And the sun will guide them.”
“Nay, Gurd,” objected Lhon Otai, “the sun is veiled by the clouds. The cold grows daily. The wolf packs will begin to hunt soon. They will die if you do not warn them to go back and follow the river south.”
Gurd hesitated.
“You will be safe on the reindeer,” urged the shaman. “And they will not dare to shoot at you for fear of hitting me.”
Gurd set the reindeer in motion toward the men reluctantly. The Tatars had seen them, and halted.
Tatar song.
Unnoticed by Gurd the shaman drew his horse behind the mount of the hunter. The men were coming toward them eagerly. Gurd could see their faces, drawn with hunger. He halted a good distance away.
“This will do,” he said. “Do you call to them, and waste no breath.”
The shaman waved his hand to attract the attention of the men, whom Gurd was watching keenly for signs of an arrow fitted to bow. Apparently without intent the shaman urged his horse beside the hunter.
Then, seizing a moment when Gurd was not watching him, Lhon Otai flung his great bulk from his horse upon Gurd. The weight of the shaman and Gurd's sudden twist in the saddle as he turned too late to avoid the other sent the reindeer stumbling to its knees. Hunter and shaman rolled to the snow.
A shout went up from the Tatars, who broke into a run when they saw what had happened. They were still some two hundred paces away, but Gurd was helpless under the weight of his foe. His bow had slipped from his back in the fall, and he was unable to reach his knife.
Abruptly, Lhon Otai felt Gurd go limp in his grasp. A shrill wail echoed from the hunter's lips. Lhon Otai had heard such a call before and in sudden alarm he glanced over his shoulder.
From some rocks a few feet away bounded the gray form of a lean lynx. Gurd's friend of the tundras had heard the call which meant food to him, and he had not eaten for three days. Lhon Otai shivered with terror, for the Tatars were still too far away to aid him. Loosening his grip of the hunter he sprang to his feet, grasping at the stirrup of his horse, which was dancing in terror.
At once Gurd was on his feet. A swift glance at the approaching men warned him of his peril. He leaped into the saddle of the reindeer which had recovered its balance while the two men were on the ground.
“That was an ill deed, Lhon Otai,” he growled, “and I will not forget.”
Wheeling his mount he bent low to avoid the arrows which the Tatars sped after him. The reindeer trotted swiftly out of range, but the pack animals, which tried to follow, fell under the arrows. The gray lynx hesitated, snarling. Then it bounded after Gurd, and in a moment hunter, reindeer and lynx were lost to sight in the firs.
VI
What is the measure of a warrior?
Is it the strong sword, with finely jeweled hilt; or the well-balanced spear with gleaming point that can shear through silvered mail? Is it the war horse that spurns the earth and pants in eagerness for battle?
Is it the chased armor, spoils from slain enemies, renowned in minstrel’s song? Or the crafty brain, quick to devise stratagems of war?
Nay, it is the heart beneath the mail!
Tartar song
Khlit, the Kha Khan, surnamed the Wolf, followed far the chase over the snow-covered ground. A pair of leopards with dragging leash sped before him, their black noses close over the tracks of a deer. Khlit had left the other horsemen behind and galloped close after the leopards, through the pine forest of Khantai Khan, near Changa Nor.
But the eyes of the Cossack were not on the trained leopards. The reins hung loose on the neck of his horse, which followed the beasts from habit. He paid no heed to an unhooded falcon which clutched the glove on his wrist and flapped encouragement to the leopards.
Khlit's mind was heavy with care. Nearly two months had passed since he had left Changa Nor after the unsuccessful assault. His envoy had returned from the invading Kallmarks with the reply he expected—an insolent refusal to leave the lands of the Jun-gar.
Chepe Buga and Berang had been exerting every effort to gather the fighting men of the hordes together. But they had been strangely unsuccessful. The warriors told them that the Winter season was at hand, when their flocks and herds must be guarded against the wandering wolf packs that came south in the track of the reindeer herds. The men of the Ordus and Chakars seemed to have lost heart for fighting. Khlit had never known them to hold back before when a battle was in the wind. Vainly his shrewd mind sought for the cause.
The encampment at Lake Baikal numbered fewer fighting men than in the Summer. And the Kallmarks were advancing, driving their herds and taking possession of the stores of hay and grain the Jun-gar Tatars had laid up for the Winter.
The shamans who held great power among the Tatars were loath to help Khlit assemble his regiments because he had sent Lhon Otai to the North, whence the leader of the conjurers had not yet returned.
Although the ice was forming over Changa Lake, Khlit had not dared to venture the
assault of the castle until he had more men under his command. The few who had been held together by Chepe Buga, Berang, and the mighty Chagan had been filled with stories of the treasure they were to seize at Changa Nor. Khlit dared not fail of taking the castle. He dreaded to think that it might not hold the wealth they suspected. Yet evidence had been flowing in from all quarters of the treasure. Fishermen on Changa Lake had heard of it. Old men had seen caskets carried there.
Khlit was aroused from his reverie by a whimper of eagerness from the leopards. The lithe beasts had swung into a fast run that pressed his horse to keep up. Khlit, searching the tracks they were following, thought that he noticed a difference in them. The next moment he reined in his horse sharply.
From behind the trunks of two giant trees in front of him, a rider had stepped out. Khlit saw a tall man, closely wrapped in a malitza of lynx skin, with the hood drawn over his head. The face was veiled by the hood, but Khlit saw a firm mouth and a pair of steady, dark eyes. He noted that the man carried no weapon save a large hunting knife, and that he appeared careless of the leopards which had drawn back, snarling when they scented the man.
The stranger was mounted on a reindeer, and Khlit guessed swiftly that the leopards had been following the latter, having changed from the tracks of the deer to fresher scent. He uttered a sharp word of command to the crouching beasts, and walked his horse forward slowly, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
The brown-faced man raised a mittened hand, the fringe of his glove ornamented with reindeer ears. Khlit waited.
“My name is Gurd, the hunter,” the stranger spoke in a deep voice.
“I am Khlit, called by my enemies the Wolf,” answered the Kha Khan at once.
“Aye,” said Gurd, “I saw you lead the hunt and crossed the tracks of your quarry, for you were alone.”
Khlit's shrewd glance swept the near-forest for signs of a possible ambush and rested, reassured, on the hunter. The two men measured each other with frank curiosity. Gurd marked the rich sable cloak of the Kha Khan, the copper and silver chasing of his saddle, and his deep-set eyes under tufted brows. He appreciated the ease with which the old Cossack sat his horse, the smooth play of his broad shoulders.