For an instant there was stark fear in Yury’s eyes, for he was powerless to prevent a thrust, and I was in position. However, the fight would have been over, and it was time I was battling for. Contemptuously, I lowered my blade. “You shall not die so easily,” I said to him, and circled my horse.
There was a cheer from the crowd, who misunderstood my gesture, and then he was upon me again. We fought desperately, thrusting, parrying, circling. Once, Ayesha almost fell, his heavier horse pushed against her, and I reined her swiftly away. Seeing his advantage, Yury charged me, and only Ayesha’s swift turn prevented our being run down.
Our blades clashed, and disengaging, I thrust suddenly. I felt my point tear cloth, and then his blade struck me on the skull, and my helmet rang with the force of the blow. Rushing his horse into me, he struck viciously. Off-balance, I fell from my horse.
As my body struck the dust, a tremendous shout went up, and he wheeled his horse to ride me down. However, rolling free, I sprang to my feet, and as he leaned to strike me, I threw myself against the side of the charging horse and under his sword arm.
It was such a feat as I had practiced many times with the acrobats and bareback riders who would mount and dismount from running horses. Catching the pommel and Yury himself, I swung to his horse’s back behind him. With one arm across his throat, I brought my sword up, but his horse wheeled suddenly, and we were both thrown to the ground.
Thanks to my acrobatic training I was instantly up, but badly shaken, and there was blood on my face from somewhere. Yury got up, but he had several steps to recover his sword, and the wild Petchenegs yelled angrily for me to kill him. This time I did not delay because of gallantry or an attempt to prolong the battle, I simply lacked the strength to go after him and needed to catch my wind.
He caught up his sword and came for me, all the fire and fury gone now. He was cold and deadly, meaning to kill me now with no further nonsense.
How long had the fight lasted? Only seconds, perhaps, certainly no more than a few minutes, but I no longer dared think of simply delaying. To survive at all, I must fight only to win.
He came at me, feinted and lunged. Springing away, I moved in again quickly and went for his face, narrowly missing. We circled, our blades touching, almost caressing, then mine leaped past his thrust hard. The point took him in the chest but at the end of my lunge. I felt his chain mail give before that lovely Toledo steel, and recovering, I saw a spot of blood on his chest only inches to the right of his heart.
We circled, and then he drove at me fiercely, demanding all my skill to ward off his attack. My blade lowered, and he drew his blade back for one tremendous swing, and there flashed into my mind how my father had once saved his life in a battle aboard ship. Dropping to one knee, as his weight came forward over his right leg and his blade started down, I thrust upward into his throat.
At the last it was more his doing than mine, for his descending blade and the force of his swing were enough to send my blade through his throat and into his skull.
He gave a choking scream, and his sword fell, banging on my helm. His body twisted as he fell, pulling the blade from my grip, but springing up, and with a tremendous jerk, I wrenched it free.
The old Khan rode out to me as I stood gasping for breath, holding my bloody sword.
“It was well fought.”
“I owe him an apology,” I said. “He was a brave fighter and a strong man. I but spoke to gain time.”
“You are honest.”
“You gave me opportunity; I give you truth.”
Abaka Khan had ridden up beside the old warrior. “This is my son,” the Khan said. “He was long from my side.”
“A strong son makes a father proud.”
There was a wineskin on the saddle of Abaka Khan. I indicated it.
“Abaka Khan, I once gave you a drink. I would have one now.”
He took the wineskin from his saddle, and I held it high, before drinking. “Yol bolsun!” I shouted. “May there be a road!”
“Yol bolsun!” The shout went up from a thousand throats, and holding the wineskin high, I squirted the wine into my throat, parched from battle.
Handing the skin back to him, I said, “It was a good drink. Remind me that I owe you one.”
The old Khan pointed. “There is your horse. Ride to your company and tell them we come with the rising sun, and what they have we will take.”
Stepping into the saddle, I faced them, the short, powerful old man and his tall, slender son.
“I shall tell them, and we shall meet you, but many of your men will die.”
“Where there is gold”—he shrugged his heavy shoulders—“there is blood.”
Turning my horse, I lifted my blade in salute, for they were good men and strong, but before this hour came again many would lie with their throats choked on the dryness of death.
“Yol bolsun!” I shouted, and the hills rang with their reply.
“Yol bolsun!”
40
THE LOW SHORE that is the north shore of the Black Sea between the mouths of the Dnieper and the Dniester is cut far inland by a number of drowned valleys that form inlets in the flood plains of the coast. There are no forests there, only clumps of willow, black poplar, and European alder with some mixture of filbert, maple, pear, and apple. Wild grape vines climb into the highest branches of the trees.
The drowned valleys form long narrow bays or estuaries into which the rivers empty. Into one of these emptied the Bug, the river that had been our companion on our trek to the sea.
Between two of these estuaries we prepared to meet the attack of the Petchenegs, forerunners of the great Mongol tribes that even now were stirring restlessly on the far-off steppes of Asia.
Behind us were the waters of the Black Sea, on either side of us a fork of an estuary. The Hansgraf directed preparations for defense, and each of us knew it would be a fight to the death. There could be no retreat, and no escape unless the boats arrived. The forces arrayed against us outnumbered us by ten to one, at least.
On our right, beginning close along the shore of the inlet was a dense thicket of brush, its millions of branches tightly interwoven and overgrown by grape vines. This barrier, which the Hansgraf immediately elected to use, was several hundred yards in width and extended almost a quarter of a mile across the neck of land we had chosen to defend.
For horsemen this was an impenetrable barrier and a trap for all who might attempt it. There was a narrow stretch of sandy beach between the thicket and the water, and there we piled driftwood to make a barrier. Beyond this we sowed some hundreds of caltrops. These were made of metal or hardened wood so devised that one of their four points always stood up, a deadly defense against cavalry charges.
The remaining area we must defend was protected in part by a thick wood, a tangle of willow, poplar, and grape vines, along with some thorny brush whose name I did not know. Branches were cut from trees and wedged between other trees to make a continuous fence. Inside of this and outside as well were set up sharp-pointed sticks of all sizes, their ends thrust into the ground on an angle that faced a charge.
In the opening that existed somewhat east of center across the neck of land we built a hasty wall, and before this we scattered more caltrops.
Upon receipt of warning from Lolyngton and Johannes, the Hansgraf acted swiftly. Disembarking his people from the carts and loading all upon pack animals, he sent the carts on along the river while he scattered his riders and pack animals in fifty directions to meet at a definite point.
What he hoped, and what did in fact happen as planned, was for the Petchenegs to follow after the empty carts only to find them empty and abandoned except for rocks placed in them for added weight. By the time the Petchenegs discovered their mistake and scouted the many trails the company had reassembled, chosen its position, and was well along with fort
ification.
The men and women unable to work otherwise because of wounds or other disabilities were put to making more caltrops, a supply of which was always carried in the wagons, as the attacks most feared by the merchants were those from horsemen.
Many caltrops were carried out some distance into the grass to break the force of any charge against the defenses. When that position seemed relatively secure, the Hansgraf drew back a hundred yards or so and proceeded to build several islands of defense, small forts behind earthworks and brush that could break the force of any mass attack, divide the enemy, and subject them to cross fire. Into one of these secondary forts the women were taken, and such of the wounded that required care. Food supplies were divided among the forts. Within the one where the women and wounded would be, there was a spring.
The labor to prepare this defense was done with incredible swiftness. This was due to a well-thought-out plan by the Hansgraf, who had long since worked out a series of defenses covering almost every situation a caravan might encounter.
In the main our defense was against horsemen, and this was true wherever we might be attacked. Our bowmen were of the best, but we also had many who were adept with the sling, and a part of the shore near us was a pebbled beach, providing the best of ammunition.
By the time I reached the point of rendezvous these preparations were far advanced.
The Hansgraf knew it was the custom of steppe horsemen to charge a wall or hedge, and leap their horses over it, but the sharp stakes driven into the ground and pointed in the direction from which any charge must come, as well as the caltrops, rendered such a charge impossible. Many of the caltrops were invisible in the knee-high grass.
Sometime since, he had sent a messenger to Constantinople to hasten the boats that were to meet us and transport our cargo, but it was doubtful if they would arrive in time.
By daylight on the third day after my return, they found us. It had taken them that time to catch up as well as to work out the maze of trails we left.
Several thousand of the Petchenegs started for our fort at a fast trot only to pull up or turn sharply away when they saw the plain before our wall. Knowing the skill of their horsemen, I knew that some of them, weaving between the clusters of sticks and caltrops, would get through.
From a distance I could recognize the Khan sitting his horse and occasionally standing in his stirrups to study our defenses. How long would it be before he realized we were vulnerable to attack from the sea or the estuaries? A fact in our favor was that the Petchenegs, a steppe people, rarely knew how to swim and feared the water.
Suzanne awaited me at the outer wall of one of the islands of defense. Her face was pale. “Mathurin? How will it be?”
What reply could I make to such a question? Our defenses could be no better, considering the time we had and the situation, yet I was sorely afraid. Nor need she ask, for her experience was no doubt as great as mine in such cases. Her Castle of Saône had often been attacked when she was younger.
Yet it was I who had looked into the Khan’s grim old eyes, only I who had seen his men up close, those savage, ill-smelling tigers of the steppe. They lived for war, knew little else.
Nor was I one to shield a woman from truth. Women are neither weaklings nor fools, and they, too, must plan for what is to come. He who does not prepare his woman for disaster is a fool.
“We may win, Suzanne, and we may not. If you are taken, demand to see Abaka Khan. He is a prince, a son of the Khan, and we know each other. Ask to see him; tell him your story. But if you can, escape. I shall try to prepare a way for you.”
“And you?”
“Do not think of me. There lies the sea, beyond it is Constantinople where you have friends. Go there, by all means.”
“Do you believe they will defeat us?”
“Suzanne, a wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat.”
She put her hand on my arm. “Mathurin, I do not want to lose you.”
“Nor I, you.”
We stood together enjoying the morning sun and looking toward the dark line of Petcheneg horsemen, a cloud on our horizon.
A dark and terrible line, they stretched from one side of the neck of land to the other, looking across the plain from the ancient dunes where they waited.
With the immediate rush of work on the defenses past, we rested, gathered our strength, ate, talked, and awaited the attack.
Remembering what I had seen, those dark-faced men with their cold jaws and narrow eyes, I shuddered for those about me. The steppe riders hated all places that did not grow grass, cities were an abomination to them. They lived on mare’s milk, curds, and blood from the veins of living horses, eating barley and meat when it could be had. Killing was for them a way of life.
“Even if we win,” I said, “it will be an end of this, and it is a pity that every beginning should also be an end. I shall miss the walking drum, Suzanne, miss it indeed.
“That drum has been our pulse, and often have I wondered what it is that starts the drum of a man’s life to beating? For each of us walks to the beat of our own drum, an unheard rhythm to all our movements and thought.
“Was it my father’s disappearance that started me? Or did it begin in some Druid forest long ago when the mistletoe was cut from an oak tree with a golden sickle? Or perhaps it began when the blood of my mother and father joined?”
The Hansgraf came over to us. “A small boat has been found, and it will carry a half-dozen people. There are oars, and there is a sail, and it will not be long before the boats from Constantinople come.” He turned his eyes to Suzanne. “The women of our company will go in that boat, and there must be one man.” He looked at me. “You are not one of us. You will go.”
“I shall remain. Khatib will go.”
He did not protest, and I knew he wanted me with him. “Across the estuary is a forest of reeds. Khatib can take you to the boat. You should push off at once. No doubt you will meet the boats upon the sea.”
He glanced at Suzanne. “Do you have friends there?”
“And in Antioch.”
“Very well, then.”
He walked away from us, a commanding presence; he moved with ease and grace despite his great size, yet for the first time I detected a shadow of something that frightened me. He who had seemed invulnerable was no longer sure.
How could he be? How could anybody be?
“Mat…?”
They had started…a long dark line of riders coming at a fast walk.
Quickly, I kissed her. “Inside,” I said, “until you leave with Khatib. Remember, he is an old reprobate, but you can trust him. If I live, I shall come to you at Saône.”
How easily, at such a time, are promises made! And how vain the promises when destiny hangs in the balance!
My blade came easily from the scabbard, and I strode forward. My hand touched the shoulder of Khatib. “Go to Madame, thou evil-smelling one! Thou pirate! Thou thief! Go to her, and guard her well for me. See her into the boat that is waiting, then to Constantinople and Saône! See to her, Khatib, for she holds my heart in her hand!”
“A boat, O Mighty One! There is a boat, and you hold a sword? What madness! What folly! A beautiful woman, a wide sea, and a boat? And you choose a sword?”
“I have my honor, O Father of Lice! I have my honor, and I am a warrior!”
His evil old eyes twinkled. “Praise be to Allah that I am but a thief and a philosopher! I choose the boat!”
He paused, his eyes suddenly grave as he looked at me over his scrawny shoulder. “Do not forget this, Mighty One. He is a wise man who can choose the moment. It is not necessary to die to prove you are brave.
“Think well of the enemy, and of your brothers in arms, but when your moment comes, remember your horse! Remember Ayesha, that slim-legged beauty with
her flower of a nose! When it is futile to blood thy sword more, mount and ride!”
Lolyngton walked to join me. His smile held grave amusement. “I am afraid, my friend, that in this play my part will not carry over to the last act. What a role for a mountebank!”
“And a soldier.”
“Think you so? I have been called many things, but…a soldier? It has a sound to it, Kerbouchard.”
They were coming now, trotting their horses, sitting high in their saddles, a black line of death riding. Then they charged!
They reached the caltrops; a horse reared and screamed in pain, another swung away, and our archers unleashed a flight of arrows. Horses reared and plunged; men fell, and arrows dropped among us, too.
We waited; our time was not yet.
“What are you glad for, Kerbouchard?” Lolyngton asked. “You have lived…what have you loved?”
“What is it that has made me happy? A deck beneath my feet, a horse between my knees, a sword in my hand, or a girl in my arms! These I have loved, and the horizon yonder, beyond which there is the unknown.
“What else have I loved? The mist of morning, the rose of evening, a wet breeze upon my cheek, and my father’s hand upon my shoulder.
“And as for women? I have loved, in their own time, Aziza, Sharasa, Valaba, and Suzanne. For the moment I loved them, and for the moment, no doubt, they loved me, and who can say how long such moments can last? I drink the wine and put aside the glass, but the taste lingers, Lolyngton, the taste lingers!
“Who can forget a horse ridden, a boat sailed, a far coast seen in the morning’s first light, a battle fought, or a woman loved? He who can forget any one of them is no man at all.
“Come, Lolyngton, they near the outer wall. Let us see what the future holds.”
We walked together to the outer wall, and shoulder to shoulder we waited. We could see their faces now, waiting in line again, just out of bowshot, and they were going to charge, weaving through the sharpened sticks, weaving in their fine arabesques among the teeth of death. Oh, it was a fine sight! The sunlight on their sharpened blades!
The Walking Drum (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 31