The Harold Lamb Megapack

by Harold Lamb

  Meanwhile Billings kept muttering to himself. The girl at first glanced contemptuously at him, then her eyes widened and she leaned forward, apparently to watch what was going on between the others.

  “Captain Beel-ing,” she whispered in Russian.

  “Alashan is with me,” returned Billings. “How can you leave the wagon and join us?”

  “I can not. The men of Loosang have orders to seize me if I put foot down from the cart of the women.”

  Nadesha smiled, gratified that two men had risked their lives for her. She could not keep her eyes from seeking out Alashan in the shadows.

  “Ai-a!” Her mobile face clouded. “Why did you disobey my word and leave the Horde? I planned for you to show them the right road when Loosang tries to lead them where death waits.”

  “We will all go back together, Nadesha. That is—you and Alashan.”

  Billings broke off to curse a staring Chatagai and thrust the man away. The mountaineer laid hand on knife and eclipsed Billings’ curse with a vitriolic insult. Billings drew his sword and the tribesman edged back, muttering.

  “Harken, Captain Beel-ing,” cried the girl. “I have found out that for which I came hither. Loosang plots with the Kir—”

  “I know. Alashan seeks to learn the place of ambush.”

  “The ford of the river Kara-su. Remember, and go. Rejoin the Horde.”

  “Alashan will not go without you,” said Billings, and repeated, “The Kara-su.”

  “Kai!” The girl’s eyes glowed with pride. “He must go to his clan. Loosang will ride there, too. He must leave me in Sonkor. Tell Alashan that I will escape before long.”

  But Billings knew there was little chance of that. Nadesha, it seemed, had tricked Loosang. To do so, she had thrown her own life into the hazard. He had not realized before how much he liked Nadesha.

  She threw off the hand of the Kirghiz and pretended to turn her shoulder to him.

  “Alashan must ride with the news,” she whispered to Billings. “Then Ubaka in truth will call him a man, and the Horde will know him for a son of the Khan—”

  Breaking off swiftly, she lifted her chin.

  “I am the woman of Loosang, the chutuktu. Go, Cossack, and wallow with your pigs of Christians!”

  Billings had been too intent on her tidings to heed the silence that had fallen about them. Now he saw that Nuralin Khan had drawn back, that the Chatagai was whispering to Loosang, and that all eyes were on his naked sword. Too wise to try to leave the cart, Billings coughed and rolled his head stupidly, aping a drunken son of the steppe. The lama, head thrust forward, surveyed him.

  “You ride far from your steppe, Cossack,” he observed in Russian.

  Billings blinked as if beholding the abbot for the first time.

  “Aye, batko, father—I followed a thieving Baskir and lost my way on the Kangar.”

  He mumbled his words, but Loosang pricked up his ears. Billings’ Russian was far from perfect.

  “A Cossack—lost his way on the steppe! That is a lie!”

  “I kissed the jug once too often, father.”

  “A Cossack—with a Frankish rapier!”

  His long, straight blade had excited the curiosity of the angered Chatagai, who had pointed it out to Loosang. All the Cossack sabers were curved, after the lines of the Moslem simitar. Billings was reluctant to open his mouth again, but there was no help for it.

  “I had it from a merchant in Zaritzan. Devil take you, priest! If you want to sample the blade, set a tribesman against me; come, do!”

  The other tribesmen pressed closer, and Nuralin Khan laid one huge hand on a long pistol stock. He had guessed the meaning of Billings’ words.

  “I will shoot the heart out of the dog,” he proclaimed, lifting the weapon.

  “Peace!” The lama held up his hand. “That sword I have seen before. Ekh—here is the giaour, the Christian prisoner of the Tatars!”

  Nuralin Khan craned forward, interested. A thin smile spread the lips of the lama.

  “Aye, this is the brother of Nadesha, who would make a map from the sun, to guide the Horde.”

  His vindictive delight showed how much Billings’ seizure meant to the priest.

  “Now my way is clear,” he was whispering to Nuralin Khan.

  “Loosang, chutuktu,” broke in Nadesha, “I have kept my promise. I have delivered the giaour to you, in your hands. Now I claim protection of the gods.”

  Her brown eyes flashed warningly at Billings, as if to tell him that she would yet find a way out. But the maker of maps was eyeing Nuralin Khan’s pistol. Words, he knew, could not help matters now. A few sword strokes and it would be all over, one way or the other. He set his back against the cart and waited. Loosang bent toward the girl.

  “Harlot!” he said. “The spy has spoken with you.”

  And he struck Nadesha on the lips. As he did so a figure in a soiled khalat and loose turban slipped between the Chatagai and Nuralin Khan.

  Alashan decided matters in his own way. With the dagger clutched in his left hand he stabbed Loosang, the knife striking into the ribs of the lama. A squeal of pain came from the tall man’s teeth.

  A flurry in the throng, a general cry of rage. Alashan leaped to the cart as men rushed at him. He threw the dagger into their faces, caught Nadesha up in both arms, sprang off the opposite side of the wagon. Here, in comparative darkness, there were no bystanders.

  “To the river!” shouted Billings.

  He parried the stroke the Chatagai aimed at his head, thrust the man through the throat. Freeing his blade, he slashed wide at another face, and jumped to the cart.

  Nuralin Khan’s pistol blazed; and the powder blast stung his hand. Billings turned and ran after Alashan and Nadesha. The boy had set Nadesha on her feet, and the twain were running swiftly away from the torches, between the tents. A lane opened up ahead of them, and at the end of it gleamed the surface of the Chu.

  The thudding of feet behind him told Billings that pursuit was close. He halted and swung about, crouching. A spear whistled over his shoulder, and his blade clashed against the simitar of a Kirghiz. The man staggered from a thrust in the stomach, and another who followed at his heels drew back before the glitter of steel.

  Billings turned and dashed off, looking about for a horse. Instead he saw a group of armed men at the end of the tents, and Alashan and Nadesha struggling furiously against overpowering force.

  “Captain Billings!” shouted the boy, his voice breaking. “Leave us. Ride to the Horde—warn my father—”

  There was a sharp snap as his sword broke. Nadesha was still making play with her dagger. But Billings saw at once that they were as good as captives. Indeed, as he changed his course and darted between two tents he heard Alashan singing his death chant defiantly.

  After all, Alashan had taken his own way in dealing with Loosang. For once luck favored Billings and he found himself among a nest of felt tents—the quarters of some noble. Tripping over the ropes, he dodged about, catching glimpses of running men and turning away from the glare of torches.

  In front of him he sighted the river, a dense thicket of reeds lining its bank. This however was the goal toward which his pursuers were headed. A group of them were plunging close behind him, but momentarily he was in shadow, and they had lost the scent.

  Billings halted, looked about, and flung himself on the ground, crawling under the side of a pavilion. Small chance, he thought, for him on the water, so bright was the moon. As he expected the large tent was vacant, the occupants—if there had been any within just then—having run out at the noise of the pursuit.

  It was a large tent, belonging to a person of importance, and a filigreed, bronze lamp hung from the top of the pole. Garments, skins, weapons were scattered about. Billings tore off his Cossack coat and cap, selected the first fur-edged khalat his hand touched and donned a huge, black lambskin hat that came down over his ears.

  Only a moment remained before the lamas would begin investigat
ing the tents. Billings ducked out as he had come, and began to walk quickly back toward the temple.

  “They’ll be harrying the river and the outskirts of the blessed encampment,” he reasoned. “It won’t do to leave for a while.”

  Suddenly perceiving that his sword was still bare in his hand, the blade smirched with blood, he thrust it under the khalat and swaggered on slowly, pausing when lights went past and avoiding the camp fires.

  “This won’t do, either,” he reflected. “The Kirghiz will be looking for a Cossack, to be sure, but the eyes of those devils of lamas—I can’t chance that.”

  As a matter of fact the tribesmen he passed paid no attention to him. He saw nothing more of Alashan or Nadesha. The tumult had quieted down, but he noticed that the number of torches flickering among the reeds had increased and that armed and mounted lamas were patrolling every main avenue of the camp. It would be only a matter of time before they recognized him if he remained where he was.

  Heading back to where he and Alashan had passed among the herds, he came to a fire, a mere bed of embers, over which a caldron smoked with an appetizing odor. Several sleepy horse guards were lying about. These Billings joined. One muttered.

  “Temou chu! Dwell in peace.”

  “Ahatou—brother,” responded the map maker, dipping his hand into the caldron. He was aware, all at once, that he was giddy from hunger. There were still portions of mutton in the pot, and of these he ate ravenously. From time to time Kirghiz came to the horse lines, saddled animals and rode off.

  “A very wizard of a giaour is afoot. We must take him,” one said in reply to a lazy question from the men around the fire. “No doubt he was drowned in the river. May the black plague take the lamas.”

  Another who sauntered up from the direction of the temple did not even seek out a horse, but squatted down to light his pipe from the embers.

  “They have the Tatar buck and his fiend of a girl up at the temple,” he observed, yawning.

  “Have they been tortured yet?” some one asked.

  “Nay; Loosang has sworn that the princeling and the woman shall be taken by the lamas to our ambush on the Kara-Su, so that their eyes shall see the death of their clan.”

  The moon, by now, was low to the west, and Billings judged by the mist over the river and the feel of chill in the air that the night was well advanced. His companions, all but one who smoked and spat into the fire at regular intervals, were snoring. The camp, was dark, except for the towers of Sonkor upon which the moon still struck, over the trees.

  It was time for Billings to move. Leisurely he rose, went to the pile from which he had seen Kirghiz taking saddles, selected one and moved toward the line of horses, From the corners of his eyes he watched the dark bulk that was the wakeful horse guard. The man’s pipe glowed on tranquilly.

  Evidently Billings’ stay at the fire had disarmed any suspicion. Nevertheless he was uneasy until he had secured what he sought from the piles of gear by the cordon—saddle bags, with a fair quantity of rice, dates and dried meat. Then he flung the saddle on a large pony, praying that his choice might be a good one, adjusted the halter and mounted.

  “Peace be with you, brother,” muttered the guard.

  Guiding himself by the loom of the cliff on his left, he threaded his way through the camp. Once he passed a patrol coming in. Quickening his pace, he hastened to be out of sight of the camp before dawn should come.

  His luck held good that night. A heavy mist rolled up from the river, and although Billings heard sentries calling more than once, he was not stopped. The memory of the fox-like faces of the lamas made him use his spurs.

  “With daybreak,” he reasoned, “they will follow any single track out of the camp. But I could swim my horse across the Chu, strike down south toward Tashkent and be out of their reach in a few hours.”

  The river beckoned him to safety. Once in the caravan routes to Turkestan he would be on his way back to Astrakan. This was what he had planned—except that Alashan and Nadesha were prisoners of Loosang instead of free. On the other hand, north of him was the Kangar, and he was in poor shape to cross the desert again. True, it would be skirting the eastern edge of it this time, but the country was strange to him and without Alashan he would be at a disadvantage. And soon the warrior monks doubtless would hit upon his track.

  Alashan and Nadesha were dead, or as good as dead, he ruminated. Even if he should carry the word of the ambush to the Horde, it would not help them a whit. In fact if he reached the Horde he was not at all sure he would be believed.

  He was very tired after the exertions of the night. The pleading eyes of Nadesha would not be dismissed from his mind. What was it the girl had said—when two are brothers neither abandons the other?

  “Plague take it!” muttered Captain Billings. He jerked his horse’s head to the left and trotted into the gullies that led up the slope to the north, toward the Kangar.

  “We’ll have a return match with Loosang, and it will be a good one.”

  As if to echo his words, from behind and below him came the blast of the morning trumpet call of Sonkor.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Ambush

  The prudent man crosses the river at the ford; the shrewd merchant when his path leads into the mountains turns aside and seeks a valley.

  The foolish one swims his horse across the river, and spurs from peak to peak.

  Yet when death comes to the twain, it often happens that the wise man lies in a grave forgotten in the valley while over his head on the mountain summit stands the gold-adorned tomb of him who was unwise.

  —Proverb.

  Fortune, Captain Minard Billings was fond of saying, was very much like a wild horse; it would never wait when you came after it with a halter. But for all that, luck had served him well in many a tight place. And this, perhaps, was because he never waited for fortune to knock at his door.

  So it was at the Kara-su, the Black River. This was the stream that marked the boundary between the hills of the Kirghiz and the clay waste of the Kangar. Before it reached the water his pony died. By his calculation he was yet a long day’s ride from the Torguts, who, he judged, were moving eastward across the Kangar.

  The trail he had been following north and east led down through the foot-hills to a ford—the river at that season in Spring was in flood—and here he fell in with some Tajiks fleeing down the stream. They told him that they had seen the dust of the Horde moving toward the Kara-su from the steppe.

  Billings drank his fill, washed, crossed the river and walked briskly toward the steppe. A little more than a mile out, where the familiar gullies began, a camel rider appeared followed by a party of horsemen.

  Without more than a curious glance at Billings they pressed ahead; their sweat darkened beasts had scented the river. Then the sun glimmered on the points of lances and the long barrels of flintlocks. Through the dust, ahorse and afoot, threading the gullies came the Red Camel clan—red, in truth, with the baked dust that coated them. Invisible on either hand, Billings heard the hoa-hoa of men driving animals, the scuffle of hoofs, and once the eager cry of a child.

  The Horde had sighted the river. Yet the cracked faces of the marchers showed no animation; their eyes were half-closed in a ceaseless squint; some slept in the saddle. They moved steadily on, and the loads they carried were the same with which they had entered the Kangar, a hundred and fifty miles back, four days ago. Billings was enveloped in a sea of moving things.

  In order to stop the Horde he must find Norbo. Scrambling up a hillock, he caught sight of Zebek Dortshi in the center of the clan, brilliant in his crimson and velvet.

  Billings knew that the Horde was far out of its true course—far to the south. (He suspected that the fact Zebek Dortshi was leading accounted for this.) And on the other side of the river death was lying in wait.

  The quick-eyed chieftain noticed Billings’ Cossack dress and urged his horse over toward the hillock. Behind Zebek Dortshi came a group of riders, Uba
ka in the center. The Khan seemed weary; dried blood caked the corners of his mouth, and his woolen coat was thrown back exposing his knotted, bare chest. Norbo was not to be seen, among the riders who were all noyons of the council.

  Billings, although Zebek Dortshi was the last man he wished to meet, hastened down toward them and raised his hand. His message could wait no longer.

  “I have word for the Khan,” he shouted in Russian.

  Zebek Dortshi’s brown eyes flickered as he recognized Billings, and he spurred his horse to keep between the map-maker and the other Torguts.

  “What is your message?” he asked.

  But Billings moved aside and caught the eye of Ubaka. The Khan reined in with a frown.

  “Where is my son?” he demanded.

  The other khans pressed up close to Billings, staring at him and talking together in guttural whispers. They were restless, and he suspected that there had been dissension in the council. He wondered how much Norbo had confessed to Ubaka. Lifting his hand to his forehead in greeting, he spoke.

  “May the way be open before you, Ubaka Khan. I have a message from Alashan, from Sonkor.”

  They were silent at this, all eyes intent. Zebek Dortshi gnawed his mustache and moved his horse nearer to the Englishman, who was now surrounded by a solid ring of riders.

  “Hai! You have gone far and fast. Where is your horse?”

  The chief of the Red Camel clan hooked around at the others as if to warn them that he discredited Billings.

  “Dead, on the other side of the Kara-su.”

  “The Kara-su! Is that near?”

  It was Ubaka Khan who spoke, his deep voice ringing with amazement. Billings reflected that Zebek Dortshi seemed to know where they were, while the Khan did not.

  “A mile behind me. Those hills—” Billings turned and pointed to the wooded heights two miles away—“are on the farther bank. I passed through them yesterday. Some shepherds on the river told me the Horde was coming this way. So I waited to give you the word of Alashan.”

  “Where is my son, that he will not face his father?”