The Harold Lamb Megapack

by Harold Lamb

  When the litter of the sultan passed, attended by torches and mounted grandees, Rudolfo and Gian knelt. Bayezid halted. He examined the ring and his brows went up. It was the signet of one of his spies.

  “Where is the wazir?” he demanded of the Greeks in his retinue who could converse with Rudolfo. The wazir who was the sultan’s man had not been able to leave his post in the Horde without discovery and he had sent the ring by Rudolfo, who was prepared to seek reward from Bayezid for information given.

  “’Tis small gain I seek from the Thunderbolt,” he assured the Greeks. “Some gold and goods of mine taken from me by Tamerlane, who is a foul fiend. Lists have been prepared of the stuff and when the sultan overwhelms the camp of the Horde I will point it out. For this small gear I have tidings for the ear of the sultan.”

  Meanwhile up from the river-front came the clash of steel and the shouting of men. Bayezid, never impatient, scanned Rudolfo’s face and observed that the man did not meet his eye. “More like,” he whispered to the Sheik of Rum, “that this Frank has had the slaying of my spy and has come to beguile me with words of Tamerlane’s. Promise him his gold and get his news.”

  Rudolfo’s message caused a stir throughout the grandees.

  Tamerlane, he said, had left the camp across the river at dusk with the bulk of his cavalry, which meant the bulk of his army. The demonstration at the ford was being made by old men and boys—slaves, and horse-herders. The array of fires that winked at Angora from the other shore had been lighted to deceive the sultan into thinking that the mass of the Horde was still there.

  As he spoke the tumult seemed to dwindle, and for a second doubt was written on the hard face of the Thunderbolt.

  “If the Tatar has tricked me—” He thought of his preparations to defend Angora on the river side and the men he had thrown into ships and trenches on the shore.

  “But there are no bridges and no fords,” his councilors pointed out. “Where else could Tamerlane cross the Khabur? Perhaps he was fleeing with his army.”

  Bayezid had never met defeat. Astrologers had assured him that the greatest event of his destiny was to come to pass. He felt sure of his plan and of himself. Had not his hunters’ falcons struck down a carrier-pigeon that day with news of Tamerlane’s purpose to attack?

  So Bayezid laughed and questioned Rudolfo lightly as to which way the Tatar riders had passed from the camp. When Rudolfo replied that they had headed down the river, the sultan gave orders that a detachment of Mamelukes should ride down the Angora side of the Khabur and report if they sighted any Tatars. Meanwhile the two Franks were to be kept in attendance on him, for they would be useful.

  The scouts never returned. Quiet settled upon the Khabur.

  Some hours after dawn a Turkish war galley was sent down the river to reconnoiter. So it was after midday that the vessel arrived at a point a dozen miles down the river and learned that here during the night the Horde had crossed the Khabur to the Angora side—the Tatars swimming their horses and the foot-soldiers holding to the beasts’ tails.

  Tamerlane, in fact, was now drawn up on the Angora plain with all his strength.

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE CONQUEROR

  Bembo had secured for himself one of those animals of the Kallmark Tatars, a beast that was neither horse nor mule nor ass. This steed he had caparisoned gaily. Thus mounted, he trotted at Michael’s side, discoursing cheerfully.

  “A fair day, my cousin, and a goodly steed between my knees—albeit it savors not of bull-stag or cameleopard. Alack, my wooden sword is broken; yet I have got me another weapon which is a favorite among these barbarians.”

  Michael, clad in a mail shirt with a Tatar helmet on his head and mace and sword at his belt, glanced down inquiringly. He did not see that Bembo carried any weapon.

  “Nay, it is invisible, good my cousin,” chattered the jester. “I learned its use in the Venetian fields and it likes me well because it avails best at a distance from my foe—ha! Are devils loosed on the plain yonder?”

  A distant clamor of horns and drums came to their ears. Michael had taken his position among a regiment of Chatagai horse commanded by Mirza Rurtem, the grandson of Tamer-lane—a strong-bodied youth in rich armor. Directly behind them the standard of the Genghis family was raised, the yak-tail standard of the Mongols.

  “The Ottoman attacks,” explained Michael, rising in his short stirrups. “Bayezid has been maneuvering throughout the morning, and now his front ranks advance upon the Horde.”

  The plateau of Angora was nearly flat. The field favored neither Tatar nor Turk, except that Tamerlane had his left upon the river. Michael could see the masses of Moslem spearmen that had acted as beaters the day before, and other brilliant groups of irregulars—archers on either flank. Behind these, almost concealed in the dust that floated up from the hard clay, were Mamelukes, closely packed, and beside them the glint of lances of the Sipahis.

  Bayezid, taken in flank by the swift move of the Tatar horde, had been compelled to realign his troops that morning and draw out of Angora, away from his galleys and trenches, to give battle. He had no other course open to him except to retire since Tamerlane refused to advance from the river.

  There was no outcry from the Tatars. They waited as they stood. They flooded the yellow plain like bees clustered upon a board. And like an army of locusts was the advancing host of the sultan, fatigued by continuous marching, and tormented by thirst, but high-spirited and conscious of a hundred victories.

  Michael’s dark face was grave as he scanned their ranks—a hundred thousand souls, hitherto invincible, moving forward in the shape of a half-moon to the sound of their horns, Seljuk shouting to Ottoman, Turkoman to Mameluke. He knew the fighting ability of these veterans and was more than a little surprised at the calm alertness of the Tatars, not knowing that every Mongol shared the reckless spirit of Tamerlane and would rather fight than eat.

  “A thirsty sight,” murmured Bembo, quaffing heartily of one of his skins of water. The day before, Tamerlane had ordered that each man be supplied with two such skins of water.

  Emptying the goat’s hide, Bembo dismounted to pluck stones from the ground, surveying each with care and throwing away all that were not round and of a certain size.

  Michael looked up as arrows began to fly in dense clouds from the sultan’s skirmishers. The front ranks of the Tatars took this punishment without cry or movement. By now the Turkish regiments of mailed horsemen could be plainly seen, moving forward at a trot.

  Then the sun glinted on ten thousand arrows loosed at the same moment by the Mongol archers who shot three times while one shaft was in the air. The clamor among the Turks shrilled with shouts of pain and anger. Horses broke from the front lines, and the curtain of dust swelled so that it covered the scene of the battle from view from the rear where Michael and the Chatagais stood with picked regiments of Iran and the Tatar steppe.

  The roar of voices merged with a pandemonium of clashing steel and thud of horses’ hoofs. The tumult swelled until they could no longer hear their own voices.

  Stationary at first, the brunt of the battle began to move onward toward the waiting masses of Tamerlane’s horse, under Mahmoud Khan and the Lame Conqueror himself—the center of the army that was between the foot-soldiers and the cavalry in reserve, where Michael was.

  “Bayezid’s mongrel skirmishers have been killed off,” he mused, “and his Sipahis are at work.”

  Even Bembo looked a trifle downcast. He glanced at the glittering figure of Mirza Rustem seated on a black stallion near them. The grandson of Tamerlane was chewing dates.

  Plucking up his spirits at this sight, the jester took some fruit from his girdle and tried to follow the mirza’s example. But he gagged and coughed up the food, thereby raising a laugh from Michael and the nearest Tatars.

  A hot wind tossed the dust clouds high overhead and the glare of the sun pierced sullenly through the murk.

  “Hai-Allah-hai!” the deep shout of the Jan
issaries came to them.

  Mirza Rustem finished his dates and began to eat dried meat that he pulled from under his saddle where the heat and the chafing of the leather had softened the stiffened meat. Bembo, watching in fascination, found the sight too much for his stomach and turned to look at the masses of Tatars before them.

  Tamerlane, his standard and Mahmoud Khan were no longer to be seen.

  The red ball of the sun, high overhead when the conflict began, was lowering to the west.

  A leaping, furtive form passed the jester’s vision, like an incarnation of evil. One of Tamerlane’s hunting-leopards had escaped from its cage. No one paid heed to it.

  Bembo began to tremble, and found that the perspiration that soaked his garments was cold. The hideous din in front of him had dwindled for a space and now swelled again until it seemed to embrace the horizon.

  He looked for captives to be led back, but none came. Surely, he thought, there would be wounded Tatars running from the front, and others not wounded who had escaped the eye of their leaders. That had been a familiar sight in the orderly battles of Europe.

  “The Mongols fight each man for himself,” grunted Michael impatiently. “They do not keep lines as we do; that is why Bayezid has not broken their center yet. Tamerlane’s cavalry met the charge of the Janissaries—”

  He rose in his stirrups, looking eagerly over the field. He could make out that the two armies were engaged from wing to wing. The Turkish half-moon was no longer clearly drawn and the bodies of reserve cavalry behind the half-moon had been brought up into the line of battle.

  Unconsciously Michael had edged his horse up abreast of the stocky pony of Mirza Rustem. Now he felt an iron hand seize his bridle and draw it back.

  Looking into the eyes of Tamerlane’s grandson, he found them cold and spiritless. The Breton was flushed and impatient as a hunting-dog held in leash. But there was no fire in the glance of Mirza Rustem who gazed upon the death of thirty thousand men with utter indifference.

  “Do you fight for your God?” asked the Tatar.

  “As you for your khan.”

  Mirza Rustem turned to glance fleetingly at where he could make out the yak-tail standard in the black mass of the Tatar center.

  “Aye,” he said slowly, “yet your God is gold, no more. A wazir spy of the sultan confessed before we beheaded him this day that a Christian had gone over to the enemy for gold. That is the word that is ever in the mouths of your breed.”

  Michael stiffened, knowing that Rudolfo must have tried to betray the plans of Tamerlane. He thought, too, of the mercenary Comneni, of the grasping emperor and the Venetians who had sent to plunder the khan.

  Then there came to his mind the vision of the chivalry of France who had thrown away their lives with reckless bravery in the crusade against Bayezid. And he thought of the Christian graves that marked the cities of Palestine where the knights of the cross had struggled vainly with the conquering Saracen.

  This he did not try to explain to the Tatar, knowing that it was useless.

  “See,” said the young Tatar again; “the standard advances. The wolf has shaken the dogs from his flanks.”

  Michael saw that the masses of Tatars that had been stationary were moving forward now. It was almost imperceptible at first, this hive-like movement of men waiting grimly to slay.

  Tamerlane’s center had stood fast for three hours. Bayezid’s last attack had been broken.

  What the chivalry of Europe could not do, the Lame Conqueror and his Horde had done. To Michael this was a strange thing. Where was then the power of God?

  Hunger and the nervous suspense of the last hours had made his mind clear and unnaturally alert. He found that he was dwelling upon some words of a woman who had taught him wisdom before he became a man.

  “The ways of God are past our knowing,” his mother had said.

  He wondered if she were reading from the Book wherein she had found these words, and smiling as she did, alone in her room in the tower of the seacoast. She had smiled like that when his father’s ships brought in word of new conquests of the Moslems on the borders of Europe.

  It did not seem to Michael to be a strange thing that the strongest faith should be in the hearts of women, who knew nothing of warfare.

  This had passed through his thoughts almost subconsciously while he watched the battle. Now the dust curtain thickened, cutting off his view. There was a pounding of hoofs and shapes that looked like birds crossed in front of Mirza Rustem and a man shouted something. Then they were gone, wheeling toward the Mongol right. Michael spoke to a Tatar squatted upon the ground sharpening his sword.

  “Beduins—our men,” he announced to Bembo, a new note of eagerness in his voice. “Be of good cheer, cousin esquire. Five regiments of Sipahis have been surrounded and are doomed in yonder melee. The Janissaries are reforming. Presently will we, God willing, bear our hand to the fray.”

  “I am well content here,” rejoined Bembo sincerely. “San Marco—”

  Almost at his ear a hideous clamor of kettle-drums and cymbals broke out. The jester clapped his hands to his head, only to see the standard of Mirza Rustem raised and the masses of Tatar horsemen move forward at a walk.

  Michael touched spurs to his pony and Bembo sighed deeply. He looked longingly toward the rear where the leopard had fled, only to see lines of broad grim faces advancing and shaggy horses swarming together like bees.

  The sound of the Tatar nacárs throbbed over the plain of Angora, summoning the Mongols to attack.

  Whereupon every warrior of Tamerlane who could hold himself upon his feet ran or galloped forward. Some, who could not stand unaided, grasped the stirrups of the riders and struck out with their free arms.

  And it was upon the checked and disheartened array of the Janissaries, ordered to charge a second time, that the Horde advanced. Defeated on both flanks, half his men slaughtered, and half of the rest staggering from wounds or thirst, the Thunderbolt ordered the flower of his veteran host to drive again at Tamerlane’s center—only to be met by the picked horsemen of the Mongols, held in reserve until then under Mirza Rustem.

  The Janissaries, shouting their war-cry, met the oncoming tide, wavered and broke up into scattered squares that melted away into mounds of dying and dead.

  Michael, fighting beside the Chatagais, glimpsed the body of Gutchluk outstretched on the earth beside a mangled horse. The long hair of the Tatar was matted with blood and his black eyes stared up blindly at the passing riders.

  Then through the dust Michael made out the noyan who had been called a prince of Eblis by Bembo. The armor of the noble was cut and hacked away and one hand held together his nearly severed abdomen. He was seated on a heap of sprawling Sipahis, and he was smiling. The dead lay thick about him, for the Sheik of Rum had penetrated here into the center of Tamerlane’s host.

  The Chatagais were galloping now, enveloping and sweeping over detachments of white-capped Janissaries. The remnants of a regiment of Turkomans, kin to the Tatars, threw down their arms and were spared.

  “Bayezid is in flight to Angora with his grandees,” cried Mirza Rustem. “We must not return without him.”

  The grandson of Tamerlane staggered in his saddle as an arrow embedded itself in his mailed chest. He dropped his shield to break off the end of the shaft. Michael slew the archer who had sent the arrow, and presently found himself riding alone through the dust clouds.

  There he turned aside to follow a horseman who had entered a rocky defile at a headlong pace. The aspect of the man was familiar.

  “Rudolfo!” he cried.

  He had known some hours before that the condottiere had escaped from the guard of Tatar boys, slaying one in his flight to the river. But Michael had not thought until informed by Mirza Rustem that Rudolfo had sought protection and reward from the sultan.

  Rudolfo, in fact, had been kept beside the retinue of Bayezid until there were no longer any to guard him. Then with Gian he had circled the remnants of the T
urkish regiments to seek safety in flight.

  He knew that his life was forfeited to the Tatars. It seemed incomprehensible to him that Bayezid should be routed. It was part of the ill fortune that had dogged him since the Gate of Shadows.

  So panic—the panic that had seized him at Nicopolis—claimed him, and he turned into the first ravine that offered shelter.

  Michael’s shout caused him to glance back swiftly.

  He saw that the Breton rode alone. In the fear that beset him, Rudolfo felt that his only chance of life lay in slaying Michael. The issue between the two had been long in coming to a head. Now, Rudolfo thought, it was at hand.

  The condottiere checked his horse and flung his javelin deftly. The spear missed the Breton but struck his mount, causing the beast to rear and plunge. Michael jumped to earth and hurled his mace.

  It crashed against Rudolfo’s round shield of rhinoceros hide, and the man winced as he dropped the crushed target from an injured arm.

  He reached for his sword, but Michael was on him, had grasped him about the waist and hauled him from his saddle.

  “Now may we settle the issue of our duel,” muttered Michael, stepping back and drawing his weapon.

  They had, in fact, strange weapons. Both had been deprived of the swords they had brought from Venice. The curved scimitars felt strange in their hands. Rudolfo hung back, shaking the sweat from his eyes and gazing sidelong at the rocky defile in which they stood.

  “Gian!” he cried. “To me!”

  Michael waited for no more but leaped forward, slashing at the other’s head. Rudolfo parried skillfully, calling again for his follower.

  Out of the corner of his eye Michael saw the tall figure of the man-at-arms on a panting horse. Gian had been following them.

  At this Michael set his back to a rock, warding off the counter-thrust of Rudolfo, who pressed the attack, certain now of the presence of his ally. Gian plucked forth a long knife and held it by the tip, reining his horse nearer for an opportunity to cast his favorite weapon.

  Michael heard rapid hoof-beats approaching down the ravine. He caught the flash of the dagger as it flew toward him, only to rattle harmlessly off the rock at his back.