Swords of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  When this was explained to him, Tavka Khan approved of it.

  "We will draw the dogs this way by the bleating of a goat," he assented, "then we will rush upon their backs with a panther's spring."

  "But watch for Ismail," Koum urged Gurka. "He's a magician—full of tricks. Besides, we'd better get hold of his belt and trappings before these fellows see him."

  Gurka, however, was thinking of what the white tent concealed. It must hide something of great value, because Ismail would not mount such a guard over it without reason. Probably he sold or traded this treasure to the Russians. It might be camphor, ginseng, or rare drugs from the East. Evidently Ismail had to conceal it from the Moslems; perhaps he brought it all the way from China. Opium—but that would not fill such a pavilion. Jade—but why would heavy pieces of jade need to be housed in a tent at night?

  What kind of treasure smelled like perfumes, and rode during the day in camel hampers, and was kept at night in a guarded tent? Nothing— and yet there it was. Koum and Tavka did not bother their heads about it. They would see it before long. And the other tribesmen jogged along by him as impassive as armored dwarfs, their wide-brimmed hats hiding their faces.

  Behind them the moon sank lower, while vague shadows moved ahead of them, over the dry grass. Gurka recognized a nest of boulders by a stunted tree and pulled up.

  "Time to take your men," he whispered to the big Cossack.

  With his half dozen, Koum turned off to the left at a foot pace. He would have to give the others time to make the circuit of the Kurgan and he must judge the time nicely because they could not signal to him when they were in place. He had left his long musket with the horde, and had armed himself with a lariat, a heavy, three-foot cudgel and his knife. Also he had his saddle pack.

  With the Tartar khan beside him, Gurka swung off to the right, pointing as he did so to the dim shape of the mound. Tavka Khan grunted assent—probably he knew the place. His men were stringing their bows, whispering among themselves. Swiftly as they covered the ground, little could be heard above the rustle of the grass under the rising wind.

  When he thought he had made a half circle, and the mound of the Kurgan showed dark against the moon, Gurka touched Tavka on the knee and wheeled his horse. To breathe the animals, he reined in to a walk. It was hard to tell how far he might be from the caravan. Nothing seemed to be alive in the steppe ahead of them, and for a moment the Cossack wondered if Ismail had left the place.

  "Hai!" muttered a man beside him.

  Thin and faint in the distance, Gurka heard an unearthly wail. Such a cry as a forlorn vampire wandering in quest of blood might make. The back of his neck grew cold, until he remembered Koum's bagpipe which was audible even if damaged.

  Then a far-off cry caught his ears, followed by a shot. He tightened his knees and sent the white horse forward at a gallop. In silence the Tartars pressed after him, until they entered the dim shadow of the Kurgan.

  And then shouts resounded on the summit of the Kurgan, while men appeared running along the mounds clearly outlined against the glow in the sky. A spit of flame darted toward them and a musket roared. Gurka swore savagely, realizing that he was too far from the Kurgan and that Ismail and his men were aroused and armed. If Koum had only waited five minutes more before sounding his pipe!

  Camels surged around him, and men fled away. He felt his horse rise to the slope of the mounds, and he drew his sword. A half dozen muskets roared above him.

  A rider pushed close to him, and a hand caught his rein.

  "Kosaki bimbashi!" a voice cried plaintively.

  More guns flashed and bellowed as the Cossack turned angrily on the man who had stopped him. The hand clutched his arm and pressed warningly. Gurka bent forward, looking from side to side.

  Ismail's men were thronging upon the line of the mounds. The steppe fox had not been caught asleep. The Tartars had stopped abruptly, but no one seemed to have fallen. Instead they were using their bows swiftly— Gurka heard the incessant snap and hiss of them—and their shafts were striking into the clearly visible Turkomans, not forty paces away.

  Men dropped back from the skyline, screaming as the arrows from the powerful bows tore into their bodies. The musket fire dwindled, as the clumsy pieces were discharged into the shadow. Gurka heard the slugs whine over his head.

  "Ahai!" shouted Tavka Khan.

  The Tartars dashed forward again, slashing with their short sabers at the men on the mounds, thrusting down with their lances. Cries and snarls and the thudding of horses' hoofs sounded around the Cossack who was striking silently with his saber.

  He turned toward the flash of a musket and saw the Turkoman lift the weapon to parry his slash. Checking his arm, Gurka leaned forward and thrust, the point of his blade piercing the man's beard and throat. The Cossack freed his sword and turned warily in time to ward off the slash of a long knife.

  His horse swerved, and he saw two men rolling on the ground, locked together in a death struggle. Horses swept by him and a shrill voice chanted "Yah Allah—yah All—"

  Out of the murk a long robed figure staggered, reeled against his horse and vanished. Seeing a Turkoman climbing upon a pony, Gurka wheeled toward him and struck him from the saddle before his feet were in the stirrups. Over the tumult shrilled the lament of the bagpipe, and, hearing it, Gurka remembered to look for Ismail.

  The tomb was deserted, the rug bare. But Gurka thought that he recognized the thin figure mounted on a horse, moving away toward the moon. A Tartar appeared riding at it, and the figure lifted an arm that flashed and roared. The Tartar dropped from his pony, landing on his feet. As Ismail trotted past, peering into the murk, the Tartar swung his arm around his head. The next second Ismail was jerked from the saddle as if an invisible hand had pulled him to earth.

  Gurka rode over to him and saw that, although wounded, the Tartar had managed to cast his lariat and pull down the chieftain. Now he was winding his rope about his struggling prisoner.

  "Hi, Gurka! The dogs are running. Come to the tent."

  Before the white felt pavilion Koum was beckoning him. A glance showed Gurka that all the horsemen had swept from the mounds, leaving only the huddled bodies of the dead and the injured dragging themselves to shelter. Tavka Khan appeared on foot, panting and exclaiming, and laid his hand on the entrance flap of the tent, now deserted by its guards.

  In a second Koum was out of the saddle, jostling stout Tavka, to be first to enter. Both became aware of a light within, and of quiet sounds made by living beings. They hesitated, gripping their weapons, until Tavka raised a corner of the flap and peered in. Grunting, he flung the flap wide open and strode in.

  "Women," Koum cried. "Ismail had wives!"

  The floor of the pavilion was covered with soft rugs and cushions. Candles fastened to the heavy pole shed a flickering light upon a group of slender women crouched at the far end. Tavka and the two Cossacks went over to them and stared, amazed. What need had Ismail of nine wives, all young, all clad in damask and silk, all wearing ornaments of heavy silver and giltwork? Their fingers were henna stained, their eyes touched with kohl, and they smelled of attar and musk and aloes.

  "Not wives," Tavka muttered. "Girls."

  Bending down, he pulled off a few veils, revealing fair, painted faces— thin Persian cheeks and slanting Chinese eyes. Swiftly he turned over the bundles of clothing and trinkets with his foot. Then he looked at Koum moodily.

  "There is no treasure here, he said. "Only these slaves."

  Slaves! Koum bethought him of how Ismail guarded his living treasure in screened camel hampers and pavilions and how he carried his stock-in-trade to the Russian market and did not bring it back again. True, the Moslems frowned upon the slave traffic, but it was carried on more or less openly, and Ismail would not need to take such precautions to hide his human goods unless—

  "Look, Gurka," he exclaimed. "Ismail sold these dancing girls to the high, well-born Russians. That is why he hid them like jewels. Aye, they a
re more than gold. What a fox he is!"

  Koum scratched his head, and remembered that if Ismail had no wealth in the white tent, the trader must have it all on his own person.

  "Where is the dog?" he shouted. "Hi, Tav—"

  But the fat Tartar had come to the same conclusion a moment before Koum and had vanished from the tent.

  Strangely enough, Ismail also had disappeared. Koum searched the Kurgan and asked questions in vain. Not until broad daylight did Tavka Khan admit that he had the Bey among the prisoners with the horse herd, and by then the scowling Ismail had been stripped of belt and wallet, rings and embroidered vest—although Tavka denied any knowledge of jewels or gold found on his captive.

  By then the fighting had ceased. The Turkomans had left a dozen men killed and badly hurt about the Kurgan, with most of the muskets. The survivors, who had managed to get a number of horses and stray camels, had scattered like wild dogs among the dunes and hollows of the steppe. The Tartars, having pursued them out of sight, gave up the dangerous task of trailing them and rode back to count the spoils. They had lost only two men killed, with as many badly wounded, and they had rounded up all the camels.

  They were delighted with events. Not only had they thrashed the hated raiders and avenged their slain clansmen, but they had gained rare weapons, powder and ponies, besides the camel freight and the Chinese cam-elmen, who remained by their beasts, little moved at this abrupt change of masters. Moreover Tavka Khan had extracted a small treasure from the Bey's garments, and meant to ransom Ismail for a stiff price in Bokhara.

  Koum guessed at this, and demanded what Tavka had left to the Cossacks.

  "Now," responded the fat chieftain, "thou hast again by our aid thy kibitka."

  He meant the Cossacks' tent, and when Koum cursed him roundly for a thief without honor, he ruminated. Tavka was honest enough in his way, but he could not bring himself to hand over horses or jewels.

  "You are brave, my brothers," he observed. "Aye, Gurka is like forked lightning, striking down all who come against him. I love you more than fat sheep, more than fat, swift-paced ponies. Thus, I will give to you all the girls."

  Although some of his men, who had been inspecting the slaves, wanted them, Tavka did not think they would be of service in the horde. Plainly, they were not strong women who could endure in the steppe. And to sell them in the distant cities would be a difficult and somewhat hazardous matter for the Tartars.

  "Those dancing girls?" Koum stared. "What would we do with them?"

  "They are young, moon faced—good for many things. Now, I have given them to thee."

  And, argue as the Cossack would, Tavka refused to change his mind. He had satisfied his conscience and rid himself of a source of possible trouble, and he was content. Being weary with his exertions he went to sleep presently, and Koum strode off to find Gurka.

  "The khan," he said, "has given us for our share all the girls in the tent."

  "May the devil take him! Refuse the slaves—ask for horses. We can sell them in the town."

  "No use. He won't give up even a pony, only the girls."

  "Then we have nothing."

  "Nay, Gurka, we have the girls."

  "How? You did not accept them?"

  Koum shoved his kalpak to one side and scratched his shaven head.

  "You don't understand. Tavka has given them to us—they are his gift. He will not take back his gift, so now the nine bayadere are in our hands. We must do something with them."

  "What? Rope them out, to graze? Give them swords and drill them for recruits?" Gurka laughed.

  But Koum was thinking. These singing and dancing girls—choice ones, from remote lands—had been meant for the Russians. Had not Tavka assured him that Ismail sold one or more on each trip through Sarachikof? Unlike the Cossacks, the Russians had secluded their women until a very few generations ago—Koum himself had seen the ladies of the nobility traveling like the khanims of Asia in closed carriages. The officers looked twice at young Asiatic girls, and in remote posts like Sarachikof, personable women brought good prices. The traffic was secret, of course; but the Cossacks knew about it, as they knew everything that went on in the steppe. Girls like these in the tent would bring six hundred silver rubles each.

  "Look here," he observed, "they are worth more than fast horses. The high, well born generals in Sarachikof have been buying them from that dog Ismail."

  Gurka's gray eyes flashed angrily, at the thought that officers would buy Moslem slaves.

  "I might take one or two," Koum ventured, "into the town at night and sell them to Lermontoff and the other stall-fed cows."

  To his surprise the Hungarian became even more angry, his lips tightening in a half smile that had no mirth in it.

  "I'm a Cossack, and a vagabond now," he said quietly, "but not yet a woman seller."

  "What's the harm? You trade horses, Gurka, and why not—"

  "Shut your teeth!"

  For a while Koum mused upon his comrade's nature, and gave it up.

  "Eh," he suggested at last, "then tell me what's to be done with them."

  "Take them back to the river—turn them over to the Russians to look after."

  It was Koum's turn to be angry. Snatching off his kalpak, he snorted, pounding the grass with his clenched fist.

  "So that's all the plan you can think of, with all your education? May your hide be salted down! So we're to take in these bayadere, the nine of them, and bow down to Lermontoff and his crowd and say, 'Please, your Illustriousness, here's a few girls for your Excellencies to take care of, and all for nothing at all, not a kopeck do we ask. We fought the Turkomans, just to bring them to your Excellencies!'" Picking up his hat, he stamped away, muttering, "They'll be taken care of just the same. What difference if they're sold or given away?"

  To relieve his feelings he went down and watched the young men of the Black Hats burying the headless bodies of the Turkomans in a distant gully. The heads were to be dried and set up on stakes on the scene of the massacre to the east. Their own dead the Tartars were burying on the slope of the Kurgan facing toward Mecca, in order to benefit by the sanctity of the tomb.

  Koum wandered off to inspect the captive Ismail, and it cheered him a bit to find the raider in the sun with his ankles bound and roped to a stake. Deprived of his padded garments, he seemed to have shrunk, and his eyes stared up malevolently. All the wealth had been torn from him, literally; even his breeches had been ripped, and the grisly necklace of teeth and human ears had vanished.

  "How is thy health, Ismail Bey?" Koum asked. "Is it good? Then bethink thee that we, who rode over thy camp last night, will take thy fair slaves to Sarachikof to sell for gold."

  But the pleasure of mocking Ismail was dimmed by a calculation of how much Tavka must have taken out of the garments of the trader, and Koum became moody. He went off to his own tent and found little to comfort him in the disorder evident at the hands of the Turkomans. Even his kit had been rifled and he had no hope of recovering any of the missing articles. He took up his bagpipe and remembered that it had been spoiled by the bullet. Putting it away in his saddlebag, he drew out his clay pipe and rooted in his pouch for tobacco.

  When he lighted it, the pipe tasted bad, and he swore fervently as he threw it down in the sand. If he only had a single mug of brandy or vodka!

  "He shies like a horse whenever I speak of girls," he meditated. "He made a fine plan to capture the Kurgan, and he went through the Turkomans as a scythe-man goes through wheat, but now he won't make a plan to get gold out of the girls."

  The big Cossack yawned and rapped his fist against his head.

  "God gave me bone here—nothing to think with. Why is it Ismail had to hide his slaves? Well, there are priests in Sarachikof, who would make an outcry if they saw them. And Lermontoff has a wife, an old wife. That's it—the officers are afraid of their little mothers."

  Beyond that point Koum's thoughts did not carry him, and he fell to musing upon the old and better days
when Cossacks were able to do things in proper fashion—when hogsheads of brandy would be broken in after a victory, and the earth itself would resound to the high silver heels of the warriors beating out the trepak, and no one would dream of turning over nine girls to Russian officers.

  Gurka, who had gone to sleep in the heat of the afternoon, woke up at sunset. The air had grown cool, and the ruddy glow in the western sky reflected upon the dome of the tomb, as if it held the embers of a fire. But the sound that had roused the Cossack came from beyond the mounds-- a subdued wailing and chanting, accompanied by a rhythmic tinkling and chiming of tiny bells. Turning his head, Gurka saw no living thing near him, and he sat up, frowning.

  All the summit of the Kurgan had been cleared, even the debris of the fighting bad been picked up and the white tent had vanished. For an instant Gurka wondered if the spirits of the place had put in appearance at last and driven off the men. Then he heard a hoarse, familiar voice raised in song—

  Oh, Brother Eagle,

  I am far from my home—

  Rising, Gurka saw that the Tartars had moved everything beyond the line of the grave mounds, and he remembered that they feared the Kurgan after sunset. They had pitched the white tent again on a level place and were kneeling round it, listening with satisfaction to the strange sounds that came from within. Tavka Khan, installed on Ismail's carpet, snuff box in hand, looked up, smiling, as Gurka approached. Not one of them would approach the tent.

  Lifting the entrance flap, Gurka stepped inside. The candles had been lighted and one of the slaves was circling slowly on the carpet in front of Koum, who rested comfortably among the pillows, a smoking pipe in his hand. Other girls were accompanying the dancer, with flutes and silver staffs set with tinkling bells.

  "One—two—" Koum waved his pipe, "Round and round—Hi, Gurka!"