Swords of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  Borasun's black eyes twinkled while he tried to think which of his numerous misdeeds had come to the notice of the governor.

  "Is it on account of that dog of Cherkasi's I struck down just before sunset?"

  "Not at all, Borasun," replied the lieutenant soothingly. "The dog was a Kirghiz; and he made a pass at you first, I am told. Nay, this is a crime."

  Borasun sighed. Luck was a mischievous jade. Already that day Cher-kasi had thrown dirt on his beard—or at least on the beard of old Bala-bash—and he was helpless to take revenge. Moreover Cherkasi was exhibiting his cherished reindeer. Now Borasun was accused of a crime.

  He rose.

  "What is the charge, Sir Fish—Pish, or whatever your name is?"

  "Thieving."

  At this the ataman's face flushed dark and the other Cossacks looked up. A group of Muscovite merchants motioned for the innkeeper, to settle their score. Because if there is one thing more than another that a Cossack does not like it is to be called a thief. Blaspheming is the worst crime on his calendar, but stealing is a good second.

  A Cossack takes spoil at will; he may fight—preferably with his mates— until the sun is red; he may drink himself staggering, but he will not steal.

  So the revelers at the inn stared at the full wallet in Borasun's hand, the gold with which—contrary to Cossack custom—he would not gamble. His mates from the Ukraine knew that it was borrowed, but others did not.

  "It is the governor's order," repeated the lieutenant uneasily. "Testimony has been given—"

  "What was stolen?"

  "The two reindeer bought by Cherkasi, the merchant, and a woman named Chi-li. You and the merchant were at blows about the reindeer, and you were seen by a score of townspeople to talk with the girl and pass something to her, into the tent. Just after nightfall the three vanished as if by witchcraft. You are known to have a quarrel with Cherkasi. Where have you taken his goods?"

  "Cherkasi! Does he charge that I am a thief?"

  The veins stood out on Borasun's forehead and the whites of his eyes turned red.

  From the center of the group of men-at-arms Cherkasi, the merchant, lifted his voice defiantly.

  "Six hundred—a thousand thalers, I must have out of this Cossack. He swore that I would receive an injury because I kept the reindeer; the girl wore his belt—she has an understanding with him. After nightfall my guard at the serai entrance was bowled over by horned beasts and lashed with a whip. Food, furs were taken from the tent of my slaves—most costly furs, gentlemen, I swear. Who ever heard of a slave girl—"

  "Oh, we've heard all that before," muttered the lieutenant, who had no liking for the merchant. "And the sledge with the girl went away from all the roads, out on the steppe to the east—"

  "This Cossack plotted it, to do me harm. A thousand thalers will not pay for the harm. "

  Colonel Balabash rose from his stool by the hearth; his limbs were not as warm as in his youth, and he liked a fire of nights. "Lieutenant Pish-nivitz," he said, "the ataman Borasun has been by my side since we left the slave sty of Cherkasi. He has had no hand in the escape of the slave. We have been sitting here at the inn since before dusk. Now, sirs," he waved his hand at the Muscovites, "is not this the truth?"

  He folded his arms, and his black beard bristled. All those in the room hastened to say that it was the truth. Pishnivitz scratched his head. He had no wish to cross the path of the old colonel, but there was Cherkasi's charge to be disposed of somehow.

  Seeing his hesitation, Balabash thrust himself through the soldiers until he faced the merchant, who shrank back as far as he was able. Extending the hilt of his saber under the wrinkled nose of Cherkasi, the colonel roared:

  "Smell of that, you jackal—sired spawn of the dung heap. And say whether Balabash lies!"

  Cherkasi clawed at his beard and was silent. Satisfied, Balabash returned to his seat by the fire, calling for hot mead to be brought for the soldiers.

  After drinking his mead, the lieutenant wiped his mustache and came to a conclusion.

  "Good health to you, Colonel. I hope the worthy Cossacks are not angry. I had my duty ——. Now this is what happened. The escape of the woman was the work of magic, of course—"

  "And Chersaki would have sold her to a Turk," muttered Balabash.

  "White magic, assuredly," nodded Pishnivitz.

  "That's it!" roared Borasun, who had been thinking. "I remember now. Chi-li is the child of Chilogir, the Tatar magician. He is calling his reindeer and his daughter to him, a thousand miles away. Cherkasi, the merchant, picketed the reindeer under the nose of the girl who has been their mistress for ten years—"

  The Cossacks laughed and piled from the inn to watch Cherkasi, almost beside himself with rage, calling on his servants and armed men to get horses and take up the pursuit of the reindeer somewhere out in the dark steppe.

  "They will never overtake reindeer," growled Balabash, whose good humor was restored at sight of Cherkasi's vain search for six hundred thalers.

  "I remember, too," assented Borasun, "that Chilogir said misfortune would come upon one who mistreated his reindeer."

  "It is true," nodded Pishnivitz sagely. "That was good mead."

  "Undoubtedly true," assented Balabash. "Let us have some more of

  it."

  So they departed, singing—

  When the war begins, brave chap, when the war begins,

  You will find, brave fellow,

  That princes give you gold,

  And the priest says, “Benedicte. ”

  Beyond the Altai, Chilogir, the Tungusi sangar, waited in his tent, until the reindeer he had marked with his mark and sent with the warrior bearing his belt to the place where he knew his daughter would be—waited patiently until his reindeer should return. He knew that they would do so.

  Because it is a peculiarity of reindeer that they will not stay with the master who beats them.

  The Vampire of Kohr

  Snow covered the steppe. Old snow that banked high around the scattered trees and blanketed everything except the dark line of the trail. It formed white caps on the haystacks and on the steep thatched roofs of Gorod town.

  Only in the streets of Gorod—a trading town close upon the tsar's eastern frontier—was there smoke and bustle and the chiming of horse bells.

  Demid rode into Gorod at noon with a horse between his knees, an empty purse and the ache of hunger beneath his belt. Women who looked twice into his dark face nudged each other and whispered that here was a Cossack coming back from the wars. Tradesmen, glancing at the ragged coat and the shaggy horse, shook their heads, saying that a Cossack was good for nothing except brawling.

  But Demid rode on, to the log barracks of the governor's guard, to the smell of hot soup and corn brandy. He dismounted and entered, to stand by the long table where forty men were feeding.

  "Eh," he said, "salaam to you. Have you a bowl for a rider from the snow road?"

  They grunted and no one made room. They were uncurried devils, those guardsmen of Gorod, who served a hard master, the starosta. Aye, they were shifty, masterless men—slant-eyed Kalmuks and bearded Russians who looked out for their own gain—and they had no words for a far-wandering man, a Cossack as wild as a Gypsy or Volga river bandit. Now that snow was deep on the roads, few travelers went from town to town here at the edge of the open steppe. If the Cossack sought food service let him look to himself.

  "Go to the tavern," grumbled a pockmarked giant.

  Demid had no money. He looked once more at the crowded table, and was turning on his heel when the door opened and a stout sergeant entered.

  "Look here, little pigeons," the essaul said, "one of you will have to ride to Khor this afternoon. Which is the one?"

  For a moment forty heads bent in silence over the kasha bowls. Then the tall, pocked man looked up. "Well, Father Ostap, I'll go."

  The sergeant shook his head and spat. "Will you, Gritchka? You'd go as far as the tavern, and come back fit to
kiss the pig, and say you'd been to Khor. Come now, it's his Excellency's order. One of you to ride to Khor, patrol the wood for an hour, and come back. I'll stand a glass of corn brandy."

  The men at the table said nothing.

  "I won't hold back for any man," grumbled Gritchka, "but I won't go after devils."

  "Two glasses."

  "Make it a jug," suggested Demid, "and I'll go."

  The sergeant stared at him. "What manner of man are you?" But he had served his time in the tsar's army, Ostap had. He knew these Don Cossacks who followed the wars, and threw their gold from women to fiddlers, afterward. And then came back licking their wounds to the great steppe that was their home—these steppe-born lads who knew cattle and Tartars and night riding. Good riders and swordsmen—forked lightning on the back of a horse. This Demid was young; he could not know the secret of Khor, and so he might be fool enough to go there, as he offered. Ostap would not have gone for a fistful of ducats, and it was evident that his guardsmen had no mind to go. "Well," he said, rubbing his shaven head, "I'm willing. You'll have to talk to our master. Come along."

  His master, the starosta of Gorod, was a hard man. So Ostap said as they trudged over the snow, Demid leading his horse. A hard man newly come from Moscow, a man of business, with a hard hand, and new to the steppe. Aye, he clapped a tax on every head and horn and hut, and bade Ostap's lads collect the coins. The starosta took in more kopecks than he paid out.

  "What is this Khor?" Demid asked. "Where the devils are?"

  A farm, said the sergeant, a castle-farm, a few versts out of Gorod along the highway. Long ago when Gorod was a small village, the people of Khor were rich and lordly; now there was only one girl on the place and few souls ever saw hair or hide of her. A stone tower in a wood, graves near a deserted chapel, a Tartar village, and a girl mistress of all that. Such was Khor.

  "Before last Michaelmas," Ostap added, "we found a trader with his toes turned up in the highroad where it runs through Khor wood. Then we found Togrul, one of my little pigeons. He was a crafty son of a dog, Togrul was; but there he lay by the graves with a hole in his throat and half his blood in the snow. Horse tracks all around, and his sword in its sheath, his pistols primed and charged—untouched." Ostap shook his head moodily. "What manner of thing could come out of the wood and strike down a hard-fighting lad like Togrul as if he were a babe at suck?"

  "A lance," said Demid idly, thinking of the horse tracks. He was hungry.

  "Would a lance make a hole no larger than a tooth in the vein of his throat?" grumbled the sergeant. "Would Togrul sit there as if saying his prayers while a rider came up and pricked the life out of him? Nay, lad, there are devils in Khor," he admitted honestly. "Think a bit before you ride patrol down there."

  "I'll ride through Satan's kitchen," the Cossack answered, "for a dinner of beef and bread."

  Ostap spat and crossed himself. "Fear God. Don't jest—it's unlucky."

  The starosta had more to say. Mikhail, starosta of Gorod, was sole lord of the empty land as far as a man could travel in a day, except for the land of Khor. He saw to it that his word was law. Sitting in his high seat by the fire of his hall, his square-cut beard jutting over his collar, he looked from Ostap to the Cossack, noticing Demid's shagreen riding boots and white lambskin papakh. Although both the sergeant and the Cossack stood silent, hat in hand, Demid bore himself as if he was at home in a lord's hall, and Mikhail noticed this. But, since the table had been cleared away, he did not bid Demid to sit down to meat and wine.

  "You're a likely lad for my service," he said. "Have you any kin in Gorod? No—I see you're a wandering Cossack. Well, times are hard, lad— I can't take another sword into my service. But I'll pay you well to patrol an outlying farm. Eh, what do you say?"

  "What is the pay?"

  The starosta considered. "I confess my own men shirk going to the place. It has a bad name. They say a vurdalak, a vampire, roosts there."

  Ostap started to spit, and crossed himself covertly instead.

  "They have tales to tell," Mikhail resumed, "of this vampire, which seems to change its shape, being sometimes a young woman, sometimes a shining white rider that vanishes into the snow. Old wives' tales—"

  "Nay, lord," Ostap broke in stubbornly. "Haven't you ever heard hungry vampires howling in the twilight? They have pallid blue faces and their eyes shine like candles in the dusk when they are hungry. They whine and whine, and if you take them up on the saddle they bite behind the ear or into the throat vein. Once they taste blood—"

  "Enough!" Mikhail glanced about slowly, as if ridding himself of some fear. Demid observed that the walls of the hall were hung with a strange variety of weapons, ranging from curious muskets to daggers, not far from the starosta's hand. The muskets looked as if they were charged. "I don't say that vampires and werewolves can't be found. Only, they are human beings that have been turned into beasts. Now the people of Khor are like savages; for generations they have lived with the Tartars and wild herds. No priest is in the chapel there."

  "Nay," Ostap assented. "When I rode last to that deserted chapel I was followed by tall shadows that slipped between the trees. As God lives, when I was standing by the graves I heard a woman cry out, like a bird of prey."

  "Yes," nodded the starosta grimly, "and doings like that frighten my guards away."

  "Togrul went into the wood, my lord. Aye, we found his body just where I had been standing."

  "I think that more travelers have been slain." The starosta turned to Demid. "But their bodies were hidden away—put under the ice somewhere. I think we can uncover a nest of blood-letting thieves in that wood, who have been doing away with solitary travelers. From the top of Khor tower the highway can be seen afar. Those Tartars in the village there must have a hand in it. Togrul saw something evil and so they made crow's meat of him. Now, Cossack, I'll pay you forty silver ducats if you find evidence of thievery and murder—twenty ducats if you find any black magic going on there. Anything, that is, to show there is a witch or human vampire alive there."

  "What if I find nothing?"

  "Then you will be paid nothing."

  "A hard bargain, starosta."

  Mikhail sat back with a shrug, but he watched the young Cossack. "You are free to do as you like. As for me, too many of my men have sworn they rode through Khor, when they turned back at the windmill. I've seen them do it. If you are man enough to turn the thieves out of their nest, you will have a heavy price paid. What do you say?"

  "I will take the patrol. But I must have food."

  "When you come back."

  Demid smiled, and turned on his heel. When the door had closed behind them Ostap put his wolf skin cap on the back of his shaven bead and grunted. "Forty ducats! Why, you can frolic with a princess for that! I've never heard his Excellency say anything more than pennies before. Still, it's a bad place. Are you going, lad?"

  Demid swung into the saddle and gathered up the rein. "Which way does Khor lie?"

  "Down that street, past the haystacks and the tavern. There's only the one road." Ostap came closer to whisper: "Just the same, if you see a woman or child hungry-looking, jump down quickly and plunge your sword into the ground. The vampire will run up and take hold of the hilt. Then—'In the name of the Father and Son,' you say. She'll slide down the blade and vanish into the ground. Make two cuts, like a cross, over the spot and she can't come up again."

  A smile lit up the Cossack's dark face. "Listen, sergeant," he whispered, "I'm brother to the vampires, and I used to train werewolves to bring my supper." He galloped off, turning in the saddle to shout back: "My boots to you, sergeant."

  The good people of Gorod hastened to get out of the way of the speeding black horse. Ostap stared after it as if he had seen a ghost rise from the ground.

  Khor wood was a dense oak growth surrounding a single hill. On the summit of this hill rose a gray stone tower and the roofs of a manor house. The narrow strip of highroad ran through one edge of the wood, t
he bare branches almost touching overhead—a good place for an ambush, the Cossack decided.

  Along another side of the wood wound a stream, now frozen and hemmed in by alders. Here stood a Tartar village of huts and gray felt tents fenced in with thorn bush. Demid saw several men in wolf skin shubas carrying fishing spears. The open steppe around the wood had once been a cattle range, judging by the wrecks of hayricks and barns. A ruined windmill raised skeleton arms against the gray sky. But there were no signs of living cattle—only a few sheep behind fences.

  In the wood Demid found a crisscross of trails made by animals and horses. One of these led to a small stone chapel, now boarded up. Beside the chapel the snow rose in short mounds, each one marked by a cross of wood.

  The Cossack had dismounted to examine them, when a cold wind swept through the wood, setting the dry snow whirling and dancing around the graves. It struck through his sheepskin svitza with an icy touch. At the same time his horse flung up its head, whinnying. Demid looked about him slowly, searching between the trees, until he made out what had caught the attention of his horse.

  "Hi, brother—come out!" he called.

  A stone's throw from him in a cluster of oak trunks stood a horse and rider, motionless, watching him. The horse was light gray and the rider wore a long, white coat that was almost invisible against the snow. The instant Demid shouted the two wheeled away through the wood.

  But the Cossack was not to be left behind. He was in his saddle at once, the big black horse plunging toward the spot where the other had vanished. He saw tracks—caught a glimpse of a gray shape flitting away— and galloped in pursuit.

  The gray horse turned and twisted among the thickets. The Cossack, who had chased wolves before now, perceived that it was circling to get past him up the hill. Heading across its track, he leaped a fallen log and came down within lance length of the gray horse's tail. For a moment the white rider tried to shake him off by twisting among the trees at a smashing gallop.